“What is good for GM is good for the country”
Charlie Wilson, GM’s CEO (see note at the end)

“If you want to make the gods laugh… tell them your plans.”
Allan Cole

“Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; white-collar slaves. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”
Tyler Durden, Fight Club

Goals, goals, goals. There isn’t a single trainer, guru, self-help author, editor, or coach who isn’t willing to share with us (in that tone that’s half parental, half conspiratorial, like someone about to reveal a great secret) the magic formula for success: choose your goal, write it down, make a plan to achieve it, take action, and adjust your approach based on feedback.

Those who want to sound sophisticated and certified throw in personal values, satisfaction criteria, sustainability checks, return on investment, various forms of “neurological alignment” (and who knows what else), all spiced up with the inevitable psychological jargon, possibly adding daily motivational rituals and the usual repertoire of affirmations and visualizations.

And then there’s that one piece of advice you just can’t seem to escape: your goal must be SMART! (I don’t think there’s anyone left in the world who doesn’t know that SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timed.)

The Cult of S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Obviously, I have nothing to say about this challenge when it comes to achieving something: ever since humanity has existed, there has been the concept of a “project” (from the Latin “projicere” = to throw forward), considered the most effective method of focusing different resources toward a common goal. We can be certain that the Great Wall, the Pyramids, the Parthenon, the Colosseum (or even a simple country cottage or a ship) were not built haphazardly, but using a plan as precise as possible, all the more carefully thought out the more complex the project was.

In the same vein, it is nearly impossible for an event, a business venture, a film, or whatever you may have in mind to turn out well without the right strategy and a well-developed plan. It is well known that a lack of strategic thinking and planning is the primary cause of failure in any field.

Therefore, I can only encourage the concept of “plan your work – work your plan”, at least professionally, as the only valid method for completing tasks and fulfilling commitments.

That said, I find it hard to understand why something so mundane and obvious is presented as a major innovation, why it still needs to be explained, and why it simply isn’t taught in schools alongside reading and basic arithmetic.

That said, it is clear that applying this planning principle to one’s personal life, as some trendy courses or self-help books suggest, is completely wrong, stupid, and when it works (fortunately, rarely), it is devastating.

Why Planning Works for Companies

And this is true not only from a practical standpoint (how can you plan for when you’ll have an accident, fall ill, or fall in love?), but also from a conceptual one: while following a plan is essential for a company to function properly, for an individual it simply doesn’t make sense.

What is the point—assuming it’s even possible—of making a plan for your life and sticking to it? Is it to live life like a theater character acting out a script? To live life like a trip organized by a travel agency where you know exactly where you’ll be and what you’ll see from… o’clock to… o’clock? Of course, this is a very efficient way to see as much as possible, to do as much as possible, but are we really sure that’s the goal?

We come to a point: companies obviously have profit as their primary goal, and the key to profit can only be organization, planning, efficiency, focus, and so on.

Why It Often Fails for Human Beings

But to believe that people have the same goal—so that the only measure of results is “quantitative”—means submitting to the brainwashing carried out by corporations that have not the slightest interest in people and want only consumers who will consume more and more. It means an extremely sad vision of a person who is as efficient as possible, as organized as possible, productive, and, we can be sure, as unhappy and bored as possible.

So, let’s get back to the topic: I have nothing against SMART goals and against motivational techniques. I know how important it can be to increase market share from 23% to 27% in your area, boost the success rate of meetings, deliver goods half an hour faster than the competition, or meet a project deadline. It’s okay to be as SMART, organized, and productive as possible.

But so we don’t end up unhappy and bored on a personal level, why not try something completely different? Why not trust in creativity, chance, and serendipity?

Why don’t we accept the obvious truth that the goals we’ve actually achieved and gave us a sense of happiness didn’t require any seminars, motivation techniques, visualization, or affirmations, but rather, we simply chased after them because we couldn’t think of anything else and “knew” that “this is what I want!”

The Difference Between Meaning and Motivation

So, I believe that when we approach this topic of goals, we should ask ourselves a question I always emphasize in my training sessions: what is the “meaning” of the goals you want? (in italian “meaning” is translated as “senso”, a word that—as I’ve said countless times—means, at the same time, either “direction” or “meaning”).

Maybe I have a personal view, but if you need to be “motivated” toward a goal, it means you’re not interested in it. If, when you think about achieving it, you don’t feel a sense of joy and fulfillment, it means it’s wrong. If you need affirmations to remind yourself of it and try to brainwash yourself, it won’t work. And if you achieve something, you can be sure it won’t bring satisfaction. And if you won’t be satisfied, what good are the goals?

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to a completely different conclusion on this subject, and I’ll talk about that another time; I’m not even sure it’s something that can be communicated through the written word.

S.M.A.R.T. or G.E.N.I.U.S.?

So, I don’t have a final answer, but please take a moment to reflect on this “meaning”—maybe you’ll discover something. And if you want a goal that truly motivates you, that will truly push you to take action, why not abandon the mediocrity suggested by the so-called SMART framework and use something else? For example, let our goal be:

• Grandiose
• Extraordinary
• No limited
• Incredible
• Universal
• Spectacular

I don’t know… but it feels far more alive to me!

Best regards,

Bruno

P.S. I deliberately included Wilson’s quote because I believe we must learn from the experience of others.

There is no doubt that GM was run using the most effective methods of design, efficiency, motivation, optimization, ROI, SMART, PERT, ISO, whatever you want.

Before applying them to our personal lives, perhaps we should remind ourselves that, on June 1, 2009, GM went bankrupt.