Who Are You Without Your Goals?

A friend recently asked me, “who are you without your goals?”

I didn’t have a very good answer.

Since I was a kid, I’ve always been future-focused. Even when I did accomplish a goal, I was always onto the next thing, thinking that would finally be the thing that would make me feel whole.

Of course, that never happened. I was never happy, never content.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized there is no perfect destination, no one single thing that will help me feel like I’ve “made it.”

Life is a process with no real destination.

Of course, having goals isn’t a bad thing.

On the contrary, goals give our lives focus and direction. They increase motivation by helping us to feel like our actions are adding up to something meaningful. Goals help steer us and give us purpose.

But like anything, goals can also be negative. If you’re too goal-oriented (like I’ve been at times), you might be too focused on the outcome and forget to pay attention to the process. You might let your identity get too caught up in your goals. You might become your goals.

And then, when something happens that’s out of your control, and your goal fizzles out, or when you do accomplish your goal and then aren’t sure where to go next, you experience a void.

This is why finding joy in the process — in the doing of the actual work — is so important. After all, most of our lives are spent in this process mode, anyway.

We might as well be present and enjoy the journey.