Research Notes (RN) are a collection of articles aimed at summarizing my thoughts and findings over the years.
The "you" is always aimed at me (Sam), not "you" the reader. Because my audience for these articles is primarily myself. YMMV
Problem with Goals
The thesis that I have had for a long time is that goals are making me miserable. The idea that there is a set of conditions that if they happen I will unleash some sort of new happiness level does not really make sense.
Since the old quote "life is how you spend your days" rings true to me, the idea of goals seems fundamentally flawed. The book Atomic Habits, Deep Work, and many others touch on this. I will be paraphrasing and extrapolating from their work.
Goals are not in-themselves bad, it is more that to use them to gauge your overall progress in life is not helpful. If it is "about the journey and not the destination", you still need a destination to have a journey. Be wealthy, have a happy family, speak Japanese well. These are all nebulous goals. But I found myself setting intermediate goals that are based on achievements vs actions.
Achievement goals come in the flavor of "Make $10k this month", "Pass N1 exam", "Reach 100k subscribers". These aren't wholly out of my control. If I push hard I can get more clients and make more money this month. If I buckle down I can study and pass this test. If I post more, then I can get more subscribers, etc, etc. The problem is all of these goals are just based on putting in a lot of effort until you get this goal, and then presto done!
Once I pass the test, I stop studying. Once I get $10k I stop doing outreach. None of these goals have worked to build me a sustainable system. I am not a better person, I honestly haven't really achieved anything except a superficial barrier -- and maybe a little burnout.
On the other hand, if I get pleasure solely from completing an action -- something that is deeply in my control, then I can continue to reward myself day over day. The point is to keep going up a level, not try and jump over a hurtle by jumping really high every once in a while.
Making Action the Goal
Pure action with no direction is equally as useless. I don't need to play chess everyday, because being a great chess player is not something I see for myself. This comes back to what James Clear says about having everything radiate out from identity. Who am I or who do I want to be?
Personally, I want to be a constant learner, a researcher and practitioner, a builder of things, but also a teacher. Being an expert in the fields that I am interested in, and also learning about fields I don't know about. Being a native-level Japanese speaker is also important to me due to where I live and my wife's family. Finally, I can't do all of those things without a healthy brain and body -- so health and fitness are of upmost importance.
Now comes the difficult part, how do I create action goals/habits to fulfill this identity. If I wanted to be an expert learner, I would study everyday. This covers not only my desire for learning Japanese but also Computer Science, Biology, anything that interests me.
Let's break it down even more -- what is studying? The most effective way of studying is reading, and then summarizing your findings in your own words (hence the point of these research notes). And if you have read Atomic Habits, you know it needs to be broken down even further. Something simple you can do easily everyday. I started with 5 minutes of reading, and a once sentence summary of what I have read.
Reward
Taking each of these items and breaking them down into the simplest possible action or habit is one step. Then the reward comes from achieving your goals everyday. Your goal is the habit, your reward is doing it. The goal isn't do the habit everyday for 6 months. It's reduced solely to doing the habit today. One day, one step, one level.
It's so easy to get lost in the future. "If I do this then in 6 months I'll become a millionaire." All of that is useless. If you do become a millionaire what then? Your identity is just that you have a million dollars? I would rather live with feeling my accomplishments everyday, and living my life truly aligned with the identity that fits me best. When I do that, I feel not only in control of my own destiny, but also a deep sense of inner peace.