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Why Dan Shipper is Wrong about Goals

by IceCreamYou on 9/11/12, 3:52 AM with 31 comments

• by rfugger on 9/11/12, 5:41 AM

  Hmmm... I'm not so sure about this. Looking at the studies he links to, the goals are assigned to the subjects by the researchers, not self-set. When you're doing something for someone else, you don't have the problem of wondering if it's the right thing for you -- you just do it to please/impress the authority figure, something we've all been trained to do from a very young age. The subjects have already decided that whatever token reward they get for participation is worth their time, so they're not worried about whether the task will contribute to their personal growth. They get to feel altruistic for contributing to science.

  But when there is no authority figure telling you what to do, it's a whole different game. You wonder whether the pain of growing in a certain direction is worth the future uncertain reward. That's what Dan Shipper's article is about -- not letting those thoughts paralyze you and taking small steps in the right direction without putting too much pressure on yourself. Overly-specific goals in this case can be self-defeating because they can often be set without enough knowledge of the territory you're going into. Trusting yourself to explore and learn before getting into specific goals can be important. Big life goals like personal contentment and peace of mind often can't be made very specific anyway. Who knows what is going to make you happy?

• by msie on 9/11/12, 4:53 AM

  I was setting goals for myself, failing miserably. Then I thought Dan was onto something. Oh no! Now I'm going to reevaluate my goal setting now. Maybe the best thing is to not read HN so frequently!

• by dasil003 on 9/11/12, 8:38 AM

  Goals are a red herring. Whether spoken or not, goals always exist for every productive thing that happens in the short-term. The high-level nebulous goals aren't goals that make things happen directly, they're more like a vision that allows you to set more focused goals, which is why they don't do much by themselves.

  The real issue at hand is motivation. If you are consistently motivated to do something to better yourself, then chances are it will lead you somewhere. High levels of motivation for non-essential self-development is not the human norm, so if you can find a way to harness and apply it I think you stand a good chance of being above average. As a computer geek I think there's a very obvious answer for me and a lot of people here, but I wouldn't describe it as the route to success because there are probably as many ways to find focused motivation as there are successful people.

• by cbhl on 9/11/12, 5:29 AM

  OP: How do you suggest that people go about setting specific, challenging, and achievable goals? While you've described flaws in Dan Shipper's arguments, you haven't provided concrete advice about what the right thing to do is.

  I found Jamie Wong's post on negative social incentives[0] to be helpful in motivating oneself once a specific goal has been set, but I still find myself having trouble figuring out what goals to set in the first place.

  [0] http://jamie-wong.com/2011/12/30/immersion-and-schadenfreude...

• by adrianhoward on 9/11/12, 7:35 AM

  Just to repeat something I mentioned in the comments on Dan Shipper's, there is actually evidence that self-set public goals can make it less likely you complete the goal.

  (the theory being roughly that just stating it publicly feels like making progress, so you're less likely to actually make progress.)

  See http://sivers.org/zipit for some background info.

  There's been more research but I don't have the references to hand ATM.

• by phildeschaine on 9/11/12, 5:22 AM

  I think you're missing the point of Dan's article. For me, the takeaway from that was "giving yourself too concrete of goals too fast will often lead to abandonment of the entire process to preserve your ego". While I do agree solid goals are important eventually, I agree with Dan's overall point.

  It's just the idea of getting comfortable with the grip and texture of the rungs at the bottom of the ladder before trying to climb it.

• by javajosh on 9/11/12, 7:44 AM

  Does anyone else see the tautology here? Consider this quote:

  >specific and challenging goals led to higher performance than easy goals, "do your best" goals, or no goals.

  Note the word "performance". If performance is defined as "achieved certain goals", then this statement reduces to a tautology. Or rather, I'd say that the study (subtly) assumes it's conclusion.

  I realize that the author intended the sense of these two words to be different. Perhaps a more careful replacement for the word goal would be "training exercise", and then "performance" would be some sort of standardized test. But even so, the statement still devolves into something that while not a tautology is hardly earth-shattering: "if you practice doing something you'll get better at it."

  (As I understand it, Dan's original point is simply that it's easy to get frustrated if you bite off more than you can chew - so content yourself with learning simpler things at first. I agree with that and I'll defend it.)

• by wamatt on 9/11/12, 4:46 AM

  Not sure if I agree or not, but reckon the mantra 'Always Be Shipping' works out pretty well for him :p

• by zsherm on 9/11/12, 6:03 AM

  Do anyone else's eyes hurt after reading that post?

• by meritt on 9/11/12, 5:03 AM

  This entire post could be summarized as: 'Vague goals don't work, make them SMART instead'

  [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria

• by dmd149 on 9/11/12, 11:59 AM

  Borrowing from Stoic principles, you must acknowledge that a) there are some things you can control, b) some things you can't, and c) some things you control somewhat.

  A professional golfer can't control whether he wins a match, but he can control how well he practices.

  Don't get too emotional or attached to outcomes you can't control.

  Do focus on "doing your best" at things you can actually control.

  This is the point Dan makes, and I think you can make decent progress with this line of thinking and preserve your mental tranquility at the same time.

• by pitkali on 9/11/12, 12:44 PM

  I think the OP misread the article he's referring to. The point is not to avoid setting goals, but that if you want to actually get good at anything, you should first learn to create habits, and then just start doing it. Once you're already doing it, it'll be a lot easier to improve, and then go ahead and follow the usual advice on setting goals.

  After all, what's the point of setting specific and challenging goals, if you're unable to stick to them?

• by hakaaak on 9/11/12, 4:26 AM

  Agree with the OP. I also think that competition and negative or positive reinforcement is critical to goal execution. Then once you have goals you can try to have habits, but many times goals work and habits you thought you developed don't stick. If habits worked for everyone, there would be no Weight Watchers. That company survives off of people continuing to think it works, when it only works temporarily for most.

• by xianshou on 9/11/12, 4:43 AM

  Also: Losers have "goals," winners have systems.

• by EricDeb on 9/11/12, 4:45 AM

  I agree completely. I learn far better when I need to learn new tools in order to complete some project. In fact, that's how I've learned all the languages I know thus far: either for school or personal projects

• by pfortuny on 9/11/12, 2:32 PM

  Whenever I hear "science" applied to applied psychology etc. I get the creeps. Stopped reading at the first quotation.

• by the_cat_kittles on 9/11/12, 6:13 AM

  Lets not forget that people are heterogenous, and that their response to goals may also be.

• by tessr on 9/11/12, 5:18 AM

  DRAMA. Also, nice post!