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jackDespite intermediate goals often being a tool to reach a final goal, I was recently noticing a lot of different cases in life when the reverse was true.
Exercise
This is the one that got me thinking. I realised that I used to really often have a problem that if I was running or something, and try to "run fast for a bit", I'd almost immediately run out of motivation to continue, not from immediate discomfort, but from feeling like "I won't be able to keep this up long enough to matter, it's not worth it". When I started exercising regularly, I started with something like Couch to 5k, and really really relied on having a set target for the session, which I did everything I could to meet. I didn't think of that as a "thing", just that exercise was hard to maintain. (And I DID experience positive feelings in my body, unlike some people!)
Since I've been treated for adhd and a bit less stressed out by doing something that feels important that I used to be bad at, I feel like I am more able to say things like "lets see if I can maintain this pace for another 2 minutes" or "lets adjust the target" according to what feels like it will be useful and follow through on them, without falling into reinforcing "I MUST hit my original target, I MUST" or falling into "oh it feels hard, I'll reduce the target"
But if anything, those intermediate targets that "feel right" are probably pushing myself the right amount better than setting a target in advance -- which may be what most people manage to do (when aiming for practice, not aiming for an improved overall time).
Fun, including board games
And then my brain leapt to this metaphor to something completely different. Often when you're playing a board game or something, what's fun is experimenting, seeing what works and what doesn't, seeing the payoff of things you did earlier all working out. Often that's more fun than winning the game overall. But most people find it hard to get into the experimentation without SOME overall goal to give them an initial direction, even if they develop their own voluntary intermediate goals along the way like "I bought X and Y which should go well together, oh they do, yay!"
But some people have more need or enjoyment in an overall goal than an intermediate goal, and some people more naturally enjoy the intermediate goals.
Which is fun also depends (unrelated to my points here) how well you know the game: often games "zoom out" from learning how to take turns and play the pieces, to learning how to make good choices, to how to play effectively, to learning how to choose the best overall strategy -- and some games are more fun to start with and less so once you've "solved" the fun bits and the overall strategy is boring, and other games are tedious until you've learned enough to see the overall strategies.
I think the same applies to other kinds of fun. Children love playing "lets pretend", adults have often exhausted all of the enjoyment they expect to get from playing pretend at random and to do it would need some sort of overall structure of a reason to get into a particular role and what to aim for -- but they often love the same sort of playing around with a role that children do once they have.
It's notable that a lot of board games and even more so roleplaying games, often go out of their way to give the players small goals, something to lead them on into the game until they learn more about it. Both explicit ones like a starting card that gives you a small bonus, and implicit ones like "oh, no-one's tried that move yet, what do I need to try it out". That's all a good introduction. But can be valuable in its own right, in that often pursuing the small goals and succeeding at passing hurdles encountered among the way can usually be the most enjoyable and memorable experience, but you wouldn't have gone there if you didn't have a notional overall goal. In board games, and even more so in roleplaying games where the memorable occasions are usually hilarious things that the characters experience, and nobody actually really reaches level infinity.
I think I always used to be drawn to clear goals because I was nervous about uncertainty and more confident with something I could clearly understand and aim for. And that's still a thing I like, but I do really often like exploring intermediate goals without regard to the main goals when it does happen, I just didn't used to do it as naturally.
Other examples
Now I look I can see a lot of examples. When you're learning it's often effective to give yourself an arbitrary goal to give yourself direction, make sure you're progressing towards it, and then choose a new goal when you realise the old goal has got you started and is not the most useful goal before you reach it. Often the same in life or business, where a goal to get you moving in SOME direction is often necessary, when you don't have enough information to know where you should go.
Exercise
This is the one that got me thinking. I realised that I used to really often have a problem that if I was running or something, and try to "run fast for a bit", I'd almost immediately run out of motivation to continue, not from immediate discomfort, but from feeling like "I won't be able to keep this up long enough to matter, it's not worth it". When I started exercising regularly, I started with something like Couch to 5k, and really really relied on having a set target for the session, which I did everything I could to meet. I didn't think of that as a "thing", just that exercise was hard to maintain. (And I DID experience positive feelings in my body, unlike some people!)
Since I've been treated for adhd and a bit less stressed out by doing something that feels important that I used to be bad at, I feel like I am more able to say things like "lets see if I can maintain this pace for another 2 minutes" or "lets adjust the target" according to what feels like it will be useful and follow through on them, without falling into reinforcing "I MUST hit my original target, I MUST" or falling into "oh it feels hard, I'll reduce the target"
But if anything, those intermediate targets that "feel right" are probably pushing myself the right amount better than setting a target in advance -- which may be what most people manage to do (when aiming for practice, not aiming for an improved overall time).
Fun, including board games
And then my brain leapt to this metaphor to something completely different. Often when you're playing a board game or something, what's fun is experimenting, seeing what works and what doesn't, seeing the payoff of things you did earlier all working out. Often that's more fun than winning the game overall. But most people find it hard to get into the experimentation without SOME overall goal to give them an initial direction, even if they develop their own voluntary intermediate goals along the way like "I bought X and Y which should go well together, oh they do, yay!"
But some people have more need or enjoyment in an overall goal than an intermediate goal, and some people more naturally enjoy the intermediate goals.
Which is fun also depends (unrelated to my points here) how well you know the game: often games "zoom out" from learning how to take turns and play the pieces, to learning how to make good choices, to how to play effectively, to learning how to choose the best overall strategy -- and some games are more fun to start with and less so once you've "solved" the fun bits and the overall strategy is boring, and other games are tedious until you've learned enough to see the overall strategies.
I think the same applies to other kinds of fun. Children love playing "lets pretend", adults have often exhausted all of the enjoyment they expect to get from playing pretend at random and to do it would need some sort of overall structure of a reason to get into a particular role and what to aim for -- but they often love the same sort of playing around with a role that children do once they have.
It's notable that a lot of board games and even more so roleplaying games, often go out of their way to give the players small goals, something to lead them on into the game until they learn more about it. Both explicit ones like a starting card that gives you a small bonus, and implicit ones like "oh, no-one's tried that move yet, what do I need to try it out". That's all a good introduction. But can be valuable in its own right, in that often pursuing the small goals and succeeding at passing hurdles encountered among the way can usually be the most enjoyable and memorable experience, but you wouldn't have gone there if you didn't have a notional overall goal. In board games, and even more so in roleplaying games where the memorable occasions are usually hilarious things that the characters experience, and nobody actually really reaches level infinity.
I think I always used to be drawn to clear goals because I was nervous about uncertainty and more confident with something I could clearly understand and aim for. And that's still a thing I like, but I do really often like exploring intermediate goals without regard to the main goals when it does happen, I just didn't used to do it as naturally.
Other examples
Now I look I can see a lot of examples. When you're learning it's often effective to give yourself an arbitrary goal to give yourself direction, make sure you're progressing towards it, and then choose a new goal when you realise the old goal has got you started and is not the most useful goal before you reach it. Often the same in life or business, where a goal to get you moving in SOME direction is often necessary, when you don't have enough information to know where you should go.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-07 08:31 am (UTC)It occurs to me also that you might find Goals are Lighthouses interesting -- I don't think the dude entirely understands what lighthouses are actually for but I do think that he's gesturing vaguely at something in this general vicinity, and the problem is the metaphor needing workshopping rather than the ideas it's a metaphor for being misguided...
no subject
Date: 2023-02-07 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-07 10:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-07 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-07 11:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-02-07 05:54 pm (UTC)Having some goal in mind is a great idea to get going, although sometimes in life, I have trouble formulating a "for now" goal out of worry that it'll close off something I really will want.