The Moving Goal Post
“With a system, your behavior comes as a result of your values.”
When I was a freshman in high school, I didn’t place into very many Honors classes. For the entirety of my freshman year, all I could think about was how lonely I was not being able to take classes with my friends. I kept telling myself, Next year, I’ll place into all Honors, and I’ll get to take class with everyone else. When I was a sophomore, all my friends were promoted to be editors of their respective teams on the yearbook staff. I thought to myself, Next year, I’ll make sure to be promoted, too. When I was a junior, life was hell. 3 AP and 2 Honors classes, at most 6 hours of sleep a night, and more people to answer to in my extracurriculars. I was swamped. But I thought to myself, Next year, I’ll take it easy when I get into a good college.
Fast forward a couple of years, I’m in college, and it’s just the same as high school. Next year will be better. It wasn’t until I graduated that I realized that I’d been waiting for things to happen for the last 8 years. It was always, I’ll be happy when… Somehow, I never noticed that I had never once thought I am happy because… Every year, I had a new goal. I would look back on my year or my current situation and hyperfixate on what I lacked or what I had to gain.
Looking back over my academic career, I realize that goals are a trap. With finite goals, it’s easy to fall into the mindset of, “If I achieve this, then I will be happy.” This mindset did little more for me than putting off my happiness in the present. Worst of all, if I failed to meet my goal, I essentially doubled down on my misery.
Additionally, for someone with as poor of a work ethic as me, discrete goals and deadlines allowed me to put off effort or work until the last minute. For example, if my goal was to get a good grade in a certain class, I would have all the right intentions, but inadvertently end up minimizing my effort. This meant never doing any of the optional problem sets and instead Hail Mary-ing the entire class on a midterm that was 40% of my grade, and a final that was 60%. Because I was so focused on the outcome, I allowed myself to neglect the steps along the way.
I think a more sustainable approach that I am trying to embrace now is framing my goals as ideals that I value, and then formulating a system that embodies those values. Going back to the “Good Grades” example, here the value would be learning and demonstrating your ability as opposed to producing good grades. Now, the focus is on how I can best absorb the material and demonstrate my understanding rather than how I can most efficiently score as high as I can.
A good system or lifestyle would be reviewing and practicing the class material every day for half an hour. Previously, you’d stay up late the night before an exam to get the grade you wanted. Now, you’ve been reviewing and practicing all along. You’re good to go.
At the end of the day, you’re accomplishing the same thing - getting good grades. The difference lies in the intention. With a system, your behavior comes as a result of your values. It comes from you. With the goal, your behavior is prompted by an external factor, the exam. It comes from somewhere else.
By Path Mentor B.L., alumnus of Columbia University, majored in Computer Science
