All this new year goal setting hoopla for what?

Maybe we've gotta rethink how we set goals and what we work towards at the start of every new year.

It seems last week’s issue struck a chord with many of you — multiple (that means more than two) people wrote in to say that they thought this was my best issue yet. Thank you to everyone who commented, shared anon feedback, clicked the like button, and shared it. I’m a bit behind on replies, but they’re coming through soon!

Also cool: nearly 100 of you liked last week’s links — I hope you find today’s finds just as useful! 

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Over on LinkedIn, the last two weeks have been more ridiculous than usual. There are roughly two types of new year’s posts you can see if you scroll on by —

1. Someone who’s setting some nice new goals for 2023 and is happy to share them.

2. Someone who wants to be contrarian and not set any goals or has set anti-goals.

Both posts are fine. What’s not fine are those people who are either openly or subtly mocking anyone else who hasn’t set their goal. Or hasn’t set the right goal (in their opinion).

New years are notorious for new beginnings. I subscribe to that notion too. New years are when most of us recalibrate. We wipe the slate clean, double up efforts, and try to make a change — somehow, we believe that starting anew can inspire us to do the things we couldn’t get to in previous years. That’s some good optimism and drive right there.

But sometimes, our new year’s intentions can be a bit ill-intentioned. We tend to focus on the goals we think we need to have — the stuff we need to get done by our birthday, our next big milestone, whatever it may be. And in the process, we may not realize we’ve either changed our minds (and our whole selves) or that this goal we think is necessary may not serve us anymore.

What is it with us and milestones?

For most of us, our ideal lives revolve around specific milestones we need to achieve by a certain age. The older I get, the more I see how many people lean into these milestones — almost as a premade blueprint for their lives. 

And while it’s easy to say ‘think outside the box’ or ‘escape the rat race’, it’s more challenging to do that when societal norms, biological functions, and whatnot bear down upon you. 

This is the first new year in a long time (possibly since I understood what goal-setting is and why I needed to do it), and I haven’t had the time to plan and don’t have the foggiest idea about what goals to set and what to work towards this year. 

I’ll be honest — I didn’t plan to hit a pause button on my goal setting. In fact, there’s a layout in my bullet journal that’s just waiting to be filled. But whether by accident or intention, I seem to have created a vacuum in my usual new year’s hustle to set goals/intentions. 

How do your goals make and keep you happy?

I think 2023 won’t properly begin for me until February, anyway. Not in a fun, “please end this one-month trial” kinda way, but more like I haven’t been able to get into the headspace that starting a new year needs. 

As a planner, I’m distraught. 

But as a growing & evolving human person, I’m trying to remember what I read in this article about outgrowing the life I thought I wanted.

“The concept that we’d outgrow old versions of ourselves isn’t new — in fact, it’s generally considered a positive: You grow out of old beliefs as your worldview expands; you grow out of habits or routines that no longer make sense for your life. 

But there’s also a version where you get exactly what you want — a school, a job, a city, a specific friend group — and experience the sinking feeling that the life and self you imagined you wanted simply doesn’t click. We’re used to outgrowing things that no longer fit. What about when we outgrow everything we thought we were supposed to want?” - Rainesford Stauffer

I’ve been thinking a lot about how so many of the goals and milestones we work towards are almost ways work-related or ideas that feel like they’ll bring us happiness. I’m guilty of this myself. Even though the whole ‘happiness tapers out after $75k’ is a myth, there is a limit to how much internal satisfaction and fulfilment money can get you. 

Along with those goal-setting posts I’ve seen on LinkedIn, I’ve also come across some posts by (mostly) self-employed folks who are targeting less work, more time with their family, sleeping in, cutting out cheap clients, etc., as their goals solely to improve their overall wellbeing — and sometimes, at the cost of landing big, prestigious names that would look great on their CV. Everyone doesn’t (need to) dream of starting their own company or becoming CEO wherever they work. All this to say: we’ve been conditioned to set goals that need to be high-achieving or dazzling.

Often, we aren’t able to see that doing something nice for ourselves is also productive — and this productivity doesn’t always have to help us get better at something or the other.

I’ll end with this — I’ve seen more than a few reels about new year’s and goal setting, but the one that struck a chord (which I also can’t find right now) was the one that said: it was never about the goal anyway. We rarely celebrate our goals beyond raising a glass and immediately focusing on the next goal to achieve. 

It was always about becoming the person who is able to achieve that goal. 

So really, what we need to strive towards is finding out who we are, who we’re becoming, and what goals can help us reach fulfilment & contentment and then keep that steady — not just the goals society or LinkedIn pressure tells us we need to set.

This was a slightly different issue — a bit more chatty and rambly — how did you like it? Your anonymous feedback helps me improve. Thanks!

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If you liked this issue (or like the newsletter in general), feel free to buy me a (cheap grocery store) coffee or two — or you can just share it somewhere!

Things I think you should check out! 💌

• Bloomberg’s 2022 Jealousy List has some brilliant articles written last year. I’m glad they collected them all — the history of the Haribo bear (my fav to munch on as I write this newsletter) and the article exploring how closely we’re tracking worker productivity are my favourites.

• The evolution of art & tech in 60 seconds (illustrated by an AI).

• Why do we get our best ideas in the shower? 🚿

• If reading more is one of the things you’d like to do this year, you need to check out The Bookstackers. Elizabeth has collected all the great bookish newsletters (and their writers) into one post — subscribe to their newsletters to find incredible reads in your inbox. Don’t blame me if your TBR gets too long, though!

• Also, if setting a reading challenge doesn’t seem to work for you, then maybe it’s worth thinking about what you’re reading and how. Gayla has some useful tips and cute out-of-the-box ideas to help you.

• Just trust me — this is my favourite link of the week. 🎁

• Leaving you with this quote that absolutely moved me (via agustd’s Insta story): 

  

I’ll see you next week — maybe not at the same time, but definitely the same place.