While most agree that goal setting is a positive step, which focuses the mind, there are some that think that you should not set goals.

“To have a goal, not just in zazen(meditation), but in everyday living, to want to get something or grab something , is a sickness of the mind. You don’t need a goal, if here and now, you are concentrating on what you’re doing:

On your work and when you’re working, on your food when you’re eating… here and how, if you are concentrated, your concentration will follow you to your death and illuminate you unfailingly: but that is not having a goal. On the other hand, you must have an ideal( objective). But an ideal and a goal are completely different.” Questions to a Zen master by Taizsen Deshimaru.

Unlike the thinking of most success gurus out there who ask you to first dream and think of what you want, and then take steps to achieve it, Vincent Roazzi in his book The Spirituality of Success devotes an entire chapter to the Goal Myth. He argues that most of us are driven by ego and fear based thinking. If we are left on our own to set goals, it would not ultimately achieve what we truly want. Merely to get what you want is doomed for a negative failure program in an unexamined mind. It feeds into the untamed ego, and the ego will overtake us and drive us through fear- of loss of the object, and the ego.

Interestingly, Roazzi goes on to say that the famous Yale study so often quoted by success gurus, never existed. In this study, 1953 Yale graduating class was surveyed was to whether or not they had specific goals, and if they did, did they write them down? A certain percentage said they had goals but only 3% of the entire graduating class had goals that were written down somewhere. After twenty years, they contacted these graduates and found some amazing results. The percentage who had goals, had done decidedly better financially than those who didn’t. More shocking was the 3% who wrote down their goals were worth more financially than the other 97% combined. However amazing this study seems, he says it never happened. (Source- Fast Company Magazine, Dec/Jan 1997). He says Yale University had no record of any such study having been done, and when the researchers were asked to validate their source, they could not.

Rather he suggests that instead of having goals, examine your objectives, your why. Rather than letting fear or ego be at the forefront in the unexamined goal setting process, he suggests examining the self and the objective. Rather than setting goals, solve problems. Being mindful of what you do is the key.

Whether you are a proponent of goal setting or not, certain things cannot be denied. Goals get you on track, whether you are mindful of how you are living or not. But it is a means to an end. And if the foundations are not set, goal setting is merely a means to get you to achieve something you may not truly want or be satisfied with.The key is to constantly review your goals and objectives and get rid of the ego-driven goals that superficially can seem fantastic but in the end can enslave.