I recently wrote an article that focuses on 3 keys that can help anyone break through their performance barriers; achieve that better tomorrow, whatever it is. The first step was to have a vivid picture of what your ideal future state looks like. It’s setting your goals. After all, you can’t aim for the bullseye if you don’t know where or what it is. But what if you just don’t know what you want to achieve, or you end up picking someone else’s goal for you, or the wrong goal, all together? I’ve posed this question to a few of my friends and colleagues, and lively discussions ensued. I’d like to share what came from those conversations.
Find your own path, not somebody else’s. Especially as a first-generation immigrant, the most immediate thought that comes to mind is “parents”. They want what’s best for their children and often their “guidance” is driven by a desire for their kids to have a better (financial) life than they had, so they point their children in a direction they feel will help lead them on a path to prosperity. Become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. Many of my immigrant friends had a similar path to mine. They largely did what was expected of them. All of them are “doing well”, so what’s the problem? “Define well”, is what one friend asked. You see, our parents measured much of success and happiness as a function of money because they didn’t have it. I told myself that becoming a corporate executive of a Global company was my goal. Unfortunately, when I got there at age 33, I realized I achieved a goal that did very little for the whole ME. Had one person (perhaps a coach) asked me one simple question: “What makes being a Global 200 executive so important to you?”, I’m afraid I would have had a blank look on my face and possibly said it was because of money. I could write a book on that topic, but, in short, that’s not a very emotionally intelligent perspective and it certainly doesn’t lead to fulfillment.
Hint: When you believe you have a meaningful goal, ask what makes it so important to you. Really do some digging here, so you can be sure to identify a goal that speaks to all your senses.
It’s OK not to know…yet. Not knowing can invoke this uneasy feeling inside us. How can anyone not have a career goal, right? I often tell my clients, especially early career clients, to enjoy the journey. Consider it took It took Steve Jobs about 10 years to figure out he wanted to start Apple from the time he dropped out and took his first calligraphy class. In his famous commencement address, Jobs said something profound I will remember for the rest of my life. He said, to be able to connect the dots looking backward, not forwards. Mind blown! How could so many of us have missed this our entire lives? Conventional thinking seems to suggest if we cannot connect the dots looking forward, we have “a lack of direction”, but that’s not necessarily the case unless you are just watching Oprah all day. So how can you make sure those dots connect, as Steve Jobs suggests, looking backward? When what you do on the journey to figuring things out is driven out of (your) passion.
Hint: If you don’t know your goal yet and it’s causing you to feel like you aren’t measuring up, try changing your perspective of not knowing. Look at it as a journey to passionately collect the information you need to know and to gain the experiences you want to experience, so that eventually a lightbulb turns on, leading you to say, “I got it!”
Most decisions are reversible. The stigma that sometimes comes with making the wrong decision can make anyone second-guess themselves. However, most mistakes are reversible, and few aren’t. So, if you go down the wrong path and make a mistake, so what? Is it really the end of the world, or just a lesson, giving you new insight on how to simply change direction, or do things differently? If you want to accelerate your professional or personal growth, don’t let the risk of making the wrong call keep you from making the call, in the first place.
Hint: When contemplating not taking a risk out of a fear of failure, ask yourself if you are really headed down a one-way street with no possible way to course-correct.
The path of growth is riddled with failures, but it’s your perspective of failure that will determine whether you eventually soar or take a nose dive. Sure, we said previously that most decisions are reversible, but it’s our choice as to how we let failure affect us. Do we let it stop us, or do we look at it as one step closer to the promised land? You’ve heard the expression risk-reward. So, remember the magic happens outside of your comfort zone. Why is it called a comfort zone? Because inside it, we are more certain of the likelihood of success BASED ON PAST SUCCESS. Comfort, because we won’t fail! With the recognition that most decisions are reversible, we can change our perspective of “failure” and see it for what it really is… “learning and growth”. Embrace those failures that happen outside the zone and see it as a chance to take incremental steps to get you where you need to go.
Hint: Instead of reflecting on the negative, you can do something incredibly powerful… do it in the positive. Instead of asking “why”, ask yourself, “Knowing what I know now, what should/would I do differently this time around?”
In conclusion, let your passion drive your goals, enjoy the journey of “figuring it out”, take those calculated risks, and remember that failure is your friend.
Written by Nick Tubach, MBA PCC
To learn more about leadership, communication, and how to accelerate your professional and personal growth, let’s talk about what is possible. Contact Bridgeline Executive Coaching.
FAQs
How do you set meaningful goals that are truly your own and not someone else’s?
The article identifies a common and underexplored trap in goal-setting: pursuing goals that were shaped by parental expectations, cultural pressure, or societal definitions of success rather than by a genuine understanding of what matters to you personally. The diagnostic the article offers is simple but powerful – when you believe you have a meaningful goal, ask yourself what makes it so important to you and keep digging until you have an honest answer, because a goal that cannot survive that question is almost certainly someone else’s goal wearing your name. A skilled coach can accelerate this process significantly by asking the kind of incisive questions that surface your actual values and motivations rather than the ones you have been conditioned to perform.
Is it okay not to know what your goals are yet?
Yes – and the article makes a compelling case that not knowing your goal yet is not a failure of direction but an invitation to pursue your curiosity and passion while you gather the experiences and insights that will eventually make your path clear. The article draws on the idea popularized by Steve Jobs that you can only connect the dots looking backward – meaning that the experiences you collect while you are figuring things out are precisely what become the foundation of a meaningful and distinctive future, as long as they are driven by genuine interest rather than passive drifting. Reframing ‘I do not know my goal yet’ from a source of anxiety into a season of purposeful exploration is one of the most liberating and productive shifts early-career and mid-career professionals can make.
Why does the fear of making the wrong decision hold people back from setting and pursuing goals?
The fear of making the wrong decision is often disproportionate to the actual risk involved, because most decisions – even significant ones – are reversible, and the cost of inaction typically far exceeds the cost of a course-correctable mistake. The article encourages a direct question when you feel paralyzed by the risk of a wrong choice: ‘Am I really headed down a one-way street with no possible way to course-correct?’ – and for most professional and personal decisions, the honest answer is no. Recognizing that most paths offer the ability to adjust, pivot, or restart removes much of the psychological barrier between a person and the bold action that meaningful goal pursuit requires.
How should you think about failure when working toward your goals?
The article reframes failure not as evidence that you chose the wrong goal or lack the ability to succeed, but as a natural and necessary part of any growth process that happens outside your comfort zone – and therefore a signal that you are moving in the right direction, not the wrong one. The practical mindset shift the article recommends is replacing ‘why did this go wrong?’ with ‘knowing what I know now, what would I do differently?’ – which keeps your energy focused forward on learning and adjustment rather than backward on regret and self-criticism. When you genuinely internalize that failure is information rather than verdict, the comfort zone shrinks and the range of goals you are willing to pursue expands significantly.
How does passion drive more effective goal-setting and achievement?
The article argues that passion is not just a motivational nice-to-have in goal-setting – it is the connective tissue that turns disconnected experiences into a coherent direction, because when your journey is driven by genuine curiosity and enthusiasm rather than external expectation, the experiences you accumulate naturally build toward something meaningful. This is the insight behind the ‘connect the dots looking backward’ idea: people who pursue what genuinely interests and energizes them tend to arrive at more fulfilling and distinctive destinations than those who follow a pre-mapped route based on what they thought they were supposed to want. The article’s conclusion is that passion-driven goal pursuit – combined with a willingness to take calculated risks and embrace failure as learning – is the most reliable path to both achievement and genuine fulfillment.
