Be Careful With These Two Types of Goals
As I was reading through the archives of Seth Godin’s blog today I came across a post of him breaking down two types of goals. This post is a classic example of why Godin is my favorite daily blogger. His insights are always very concise and this post of these two types of goals is a perfect example.
Godin writes that there are “give up” goals and “go up” goals.
- Give up goals are those goals that require you to give up something. For example giving up eating red meat or giving up drinking soda.
- Go up goals are those goals that require you to go up to the next level. For example getting a promotion or getting a better house or car.
I personally love this concept of breaking goals into these two categories. What’s more, looking deeper give up goals are those goals under your control or intrinsic goals. While go up goals are those goals dependent on external factors not under your control or extrinsic goals.
These Two Types of Goals Relate to Happiness
This is important because of the relationship between goals and happiness. Researchers from the University of Rochester found that those who attain intrinsic goals are happier than those who only attain extrinsic goals. With this in mind, one could conclude that achieving a give up goal would make you happier than achieving a go up goal.
While this conclusion is somewhat of a stretch, I do know one thing for sure. Focusing only on extrinsic goals alone is a recipe for unhappiness because they’re not under your control. You could do all of the right things and still not attain an extrinsic goal. This is why I always recommend the following when it comes to goals setting:
For every extrinsic goal you set, make sure it maps directly to a related intrinsic goal. Then focus on the intrinsic goal as the priority and let the extrinsic goal be the by-product.