Goal Drift

I had some ambitious goals set for 2020 revolving around three themes: mind, body, and soul. Each theme was composed of three. For mind, I had read a book per month, write an article per month, and self-improvement. For body, I had run a marathon, mindfulness, and minimize screen time. And for soul, I had philanthropy, gratitude, and work towards a North Star. In order to make progress towards each goal I blocked off dedicated time during the week that would directly contribute to each. On Sundays I would block off time to review what worked, what didn't, and planned for the week ahead. I was a machine for about three months and then the wheels began to wobble. In short, COVID was a major distraction, and not just in the day-to-day. The personal aspirations I had at the beginning of the year began to make way for life demands. The focus shifted towards setting up a quarantine plan, leaving the City, and setting up rain dates for key life events we had scheduled. The distractions mostly subsided by September. I sat down on another Sunday that month to review what is salvageable of my year's goals. There was no way some of them were happening. And the pile of unread books was getting bigger. That was the reality but not the lesson. The lesson was that the goals that I had set out in the beginning changed materially along the way. And while I wasn't explicitly progressing towards idealistic goals, I was actually meeting new ones. I call this goal drift.

So what happened in that stretch between April and September? A lot. I got married, switched jobs, and bought a house. The last two were unplanned. All three took up a lot of hours (probably days), and sleepless nights (COVID couples I am sure you can relate). Putting things in perspective, my situation was hectic but there are others that had it far worse. I am fortunate and I am definitely not complaining. At the same time, there's no rest for the weary. It's in the human spirit to overcome and I was determined to have my goal stack not turn into a pile of crumbled resolutions. So how did I do? What worked and what didn't? Are there other lessons in all of this? Plenty. Here is what I learned about setting ambitious goals and trying to meet them in a freakish year.

Don't copy goals. Looking back, half of the goals I had set for myself were adaptations of what I saw worked for others. For self-improvement, I liked the idea of taking online courses and learning about things that I thought were my blind spots. That sounded good, but a little unrealistic when you are spending most of your days doing the exact opposite: bettering your craft. The goal becomes near impossible to achieve when you don't explicitly carve out time for it. And why didn't I carve out time? Because the goal was never my own; it was a product of someone else's experiences and priorities. Why would I make any progress towards goals that weren't really mine?

Distill and prioritize. I had come up with a cookie-cutter, three pronged goal stack with three sub-goals each. I was taking on nine things with only mornings, evenings, and weekends to achieve them. It became very easy to get stretched thin, especially when taking on adversity. Focusing on a smaller set of ideas is not only a more realistic way of setting goals, but it's also the one that will move the needle if you are trying to work towards something bigger, beyond just the current year. While my initial intention was to create a set of goals that would reflect well-roundedness, in practice, I was creating distractions.

You meet your goals in unexpected ways. I wasn't expecting or trying to change jobs, and yet that's what happened. I implicitly worked towards my North Star. I moved from fintech to healthtech, and while only a precursory step, it was one that recalibrated my compass. I bought a house and took a deep dive in real estate along the way, self-improving through a real-life lesson.

Visualize your path there in advance. People give Elon Musk a lot of stick for living in the future. But having some form of foresight is an absolutely necessary quality in order to have an impact. For some of my goals, there was a clear path I knew I could take and all I had to do was execute. For others it was far more hazy. Executing for the goals that have a visible path is far easier. For the hazy ones, you have to pull forward the goal to a place where you can actually see the next step. Ideally you can iterate and meet your goal that way. In the adverse scenario, you don't meet your goal perhaps because you were distracted or you were following someone else's path.

My hunch

Goals will drift throughout the year. The above aren't excuses. They are realities and the human response is to adapt. Next year, instead of having breadth, my goals will have a single theme: focus. I will be turning down the noise by cutting back on social media and mindless habits. I will be even more protective of my time, staying vigilant of my return on hours spent. I will be making faster decisions. I will be less deliberate and rigid.

One hack is to start drafting your goals now so that you are ready to go come January 1st (and keeping notes for new ones throughout the year). Unquestionably there will be drift. Re-write a goal if you are treading water. Keep chiseling if there's slow but steady progress. Keep running if you see your destination.