The practice of Linear goal setting we’ve all grown up with is fundamentally broken because it fails to accommodate uncertainty. The definition of a plan is that we will move from the start to the end.1
I’ve always found goal setting on anything but the immediate short term (often less than a day) can be futile. Ask me what my “5-year plan” is and I’ll just laugh at you for holding such an unrealistic view of the world.
Linear goals can be:
- Discouraging and fear inducing when the distance between the current and future states is too much
- Causes of competition and isolation in workplaces where climbing the corporate ladder is the only reason to work.
- Encouragers of toxic productivity used as justifications to keep people busy “in pursuit of the goal at any cost.” Toxic productivity cannot live where there is Humanity in the workplace