[0:00] Goal setting is important for professional success. There's no doubt about it. But how can you ensure that you've set the right goals for yourself both personally and professionally to build the kind of life that you want? In this week's episode of The Happy Leader, I'm going to explore some of the common pitfalls that we as high achievers fall into as we go to set our goals, what you can do to ensure that you don't fall into these pitfalls, and how to set goals that are really going to set you up for success. Welcome to The Happy Leader. I'm Amy Sanchez, executive coach to some of the most innovative leaders and teams in Silicon Valley. I'll share stories and tips to help you navigate the most common leadership challenges so you can amplify what matters most, happiness. Happiness.
[0:44] Music.
[0:49] Setting goals is an important ingredient in any success story. However, there is a delicate balance between wanting something you don't yet have and recognizing all the good that already exists in your life. One of my favorite songwriters put it best when he said, what I want is what I've not got. And what I need is all around me.
[1:14] Sometimes as high achievers, when we set goals, we can become so focused and obsessed with achieving them that we neglect to recognize all the good that already exists around us. I'll admit I can fall into this trap too. And when I'm able to pull myself out of it, that's when the real goal attainment progress happens.
[1:36] Plus, I just feel better. This obsession that us high achievers can fall into can sound like I can't be happy until I get that promotion. I can't be relaxed until I find a job. I can't find any mental reprieve until I finalize that next round of fundraising. raising. This can also sound like you can't enjoy life until you lose that 10 pounds, or you can't enjoy single life because you want to find a partner so badly. I know I fell into that trap before I was married. These are all common pitfalls for any high achiever when all of our happiness becomes solely dependent on achieving this one thing that represents a sliver of our entire higher lives. I call this the myopic goal-setting trap. Now, setting goals is a really good thing. I want to emphasize that. It's entirely important for us to attain success, to break it down into goals. It helps you focus on what's important. And when done right, you can define steps and timelines to make your vision a reality. This is a step I take all of my clients through as we begin our coaching work together. However, somewhere between that goal setting.
[2:53] And the journey to obtain the prize, several people have reached out to me for coaching, feeling trapped, frustrated, and at an all-time low in their confidence level.
[3:04] Focus has turned into obsession, and want has morphed into a life-ending need. To help you avoid the myopic goal-setting trap, or to help you get out of it, I will share the most common downfalls to goal-setting and how to avoid them. A story from the Silicon Valley archives about a client who had fallen deep into the myopic goal-setting trap and how it impacted her. And finally, the best ways to set goals so they work for you, not against you. There are three most common pitfalls in goal-setting. If you recognize any of these in your methodology or that of someone that you really care about, creating the awareness is the first step to overcome these pitfalls. The three pitfalls in goal setting include number one, your self-worth is tied to achieving your goal. You can't feel good about you or your contributions until you hit said goal.
[4:02] Super dangerous trap, especially if it's tied to extrinsic motivation or extrinsic positive reinforcement. Number two, the goal you define isn't realistic or it's unattainable. Number three, the goal that you are striving for is the opposite of what will really make you happy. Now, sometimes we don't realize this until it's too late, but there is an opportunity to take a a close look at your goal and make sure that it's really, really defined to set you up for success and happiness. Now, how can you recognize when you've fallen into one of the above three traps? When people reach out to me for coaching, I have them fill out two forms, an intake form, as well as an energy leadership assessment. The tie between these two is really interesting and revealing. The intake form gives me insight into my client's hopes and dreams and establishes our goals for coaching. The energy leadership assessment gives me insight into how deeply this goal defines their worth and if the goal they've defined is one that is actually going to lead to peace and happiness, which is the ultimate human destination. There have been a handful of times when there has been a mismatch between the goals identified and my client's leadership energy results.
[5:23] That's when I know that our work must pivot from helping them pursue this goal
[5:27] that is tied to their happiness or helping them reclaim their self-worth. Let me give you an example. I had one client reach out to me because she was frustrated that she hadn't been able to secure the promotion that she so desperately wanted. Let's call her Ashini. Ashini had been a high achiever from a young age. She was used to getting straight A's. She went to top schools for undergrad and grad and had worked for companies who were known for recruiting top talent. She had an impressive resume. She had noticed a trend lately. She was heavily recruited and promised the world. Then when she got into her new role, all the meaty work went to her counterparts parts and she was left with the transactional non-strategic work, which left her extremely unhappy and questioning why. She left one company for another, thinking this pattern was company-specific just to have history repeat itself at her new company.
[6:31] When she hired me, she was frustrated to say the least, and she looked to me to help her secure that elusive promotion. As I prepped for our first session, I noticed just how deep this unhappiness had become. To the question, what brings you the most joy in life right now, that I have every client answer before we start working together, she had replied with one word, nothing. On a scale from 1 to 10, how happy are you in work? Her answer was a 1. Her energy leadership assessment also revealed that she was stuck in the two lowest levels of energy, both in times of stress and in normal times, which are the two areas that this assessment measures. These two lowest levels of energy are characterized by apathy and victim thinking and anger. Her everyday outlook on life had been dominated by how miserable her situation felt. I knew after seeing these two inputs that the first step of our work together would be to help her reclaim a sense of control and confidence. She couldn't change the events around her without first recognizing her power and influence and reclaiming her confidence.
[7:44] She needed to see the path forward to enable her to step into the role that she really wanted. You see, Ashini had developed a dangerous mindset early in life. She had become so used to external praise and recognition at school through grades and at work through performance reviews that she had tied her intrinsic worth to these events. In the absence of them, she felt incompetent, unworthy, and unsuccessful as a person, not just as an employee. Our work started with untangling her worth from the opinions of her superiors at work. We had to find a new anchor for her happiness, and we took another look at her goals to ensure they were capturing areas where she was succeeding, like being a great wife, a great mom, a great friend, a great sibling.
[8:34] This helped to restore her self-worth and help her redefine her relationship with work to a much more healthy one. Giving herself credit for things outside of work where she invested so much time and energy was paying off and it would help her regain her confidence. That in turn would change the way that she showed up at work. Instead of eluding a tone of anger and resentment, she would show up as engaged and happy. Coupled with delivering high quality work, showing up the right way sets the a deck for a positive career trajectory. Ashini had been so focused on one small sliver of her entire life for so long that the lack of progression on this goal had become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It made her miserable and therefore she showed up at work carrying that chip on her shoulder.
[9:24] Being angry and defensive at work nearly never leads to promotion, but it's so hard to see ourselves in this hole. We set to work redefining her goals to see the bigger picture and through that work, set her up to finally achieve the goal that she'd been obsessing over. But by then, the goalpost moves, allowing her to measure her success through a much healthier lens where her self-worth was intact, regardless of her goal
[9:54] attainment and external validation. If you can relate to any of this, or if you've seen this in somebody that you're really close to who you want to help, here are some things that you can look into to help ensure that you are setting yourself up for success as you set up your goals. Try this.
[10:11] Think about the goals that you've identified to date, both in life and at work. Write them down and take a close look at them. This exercise could take you no more than 30 minutes. As you look at your goals, ask yourself three questions. Number one, is achieving this goal tied to my self-worth? Number two, are my goals holistic or are they only focused on one element of my life? For example, only work focused, but not inclusive of health, family, friends, community, etc. You want to make sure that your goals cover the gamut of your life so that as you attain them naturally through your day-to-day where you're choosing to devote time and energy, you're giving yourself credit for that.
[10:55] And number three, are my goals realistic and achievable given the current landscape of my life? Depending on how you answer these, they will help you determine where to spend more time and energy in tweaking your goals. As you know, no matter how good your strategy is, if you're focused on the wrong goal, you are not setting yourself up for success. Taking 30 minutes out of your life to take a good look at your personal goals and business goals will help ensure that all the time and effort that you're expending on a daily basis is focused on the right area and that you're giving yourself credit.
[11:35] For a job well done across all areas of your life. A great tool to reference to help you with this is the energy leadership assessment that I talked to you about earlier. We'll call this the ELI for short. In the ELI, there are seven levels of energy and identifying which one shows up most often for you in life can serve as an important input to help you determine if you're bringing the right filter or lens to your life to help you achieve your goals. I'm going to drop a link in the show notes with these seven energy levels so that you can take a closer look at them. If you want to take the ELI, just contact me through my website, swim-against.com, and we'll set up time to read through your energy leadership results and use them to explore what goals would most serve you at this junction in your professional career. In the meantime, time. Don't forget to give yourself credit for all the things you're doing in life, not just in the areas that you're measuring. Thanks for listening to The Happy Leader. If you would like more information about me, Amy Sanchez, and our executive coaching and team leadership services at Swim Against the Current, visit swim-against.com. And if you liked this podcast, help others who could use the support find it by giving us a rating. Until next time, life is short, stay happy.
