Switching Gears

Switching Gears

D. S. Mitchell

A Box Of Books

Yesterday, I was pawing through a box of books I had stored in the garage.  I have looked around the house, searching for some “keep me busy” tasks to occupy my time during this “stay home, stay safe” order. As I looked at the books I was trying to decide if they were something I should drop off at The Salvation Army when the pandemic passes. Or, should I bring them into the house and find space for them on one of several bookcases.

Self Help

As I was trying to decide, whether it was time to part with the books or find space for them, I came upon Stephen Shapiro’s 2006 self-help gem, “Goal Free Living: How To Have The Life You Want Now.”  It has been more than a decade since I read the book. As I slowly flipped through the pages I remembered it distinctly, and wondered how I had allowed this little treasure to end up in a box in the garage. Standing there, in PJ’s and slippers, I thought the lessons from Mr. Shapiro’s book were so valuable that I should share them with  my Calamity Politics readers.

It’s Okay

Stephen Shapiro is the first person in my memory who gave me permission to reject the religion of goal setting that permeates the American culture.  His book encourages readers to live without the restrictions, structure and confining limits of a set of goals. His promise is that when you jettison the goal setting, you can find happiness.

If You Can Visualize It

I have been told since I was a kid, that goals of all kinds, big, small, wildly ambitious were all within my reach. I just had to want them bad enough. The rule was, if you can visualize it, you can have it; if you don’t know what you want (can’t visualize it), you might as well be lost at sea without a life-preserver. It was essential to develop a five-year-plan, kind of like China under Mao.

Five Year Plan

Mr. Shapiro’s premise disputes the American myth that you must be a goal setting robot.  In fact, Shapiro argues that if you want to be happy in its most broad interpretation, you need to throw that “five-year plan,” and the “life-time to do list,” into the garbage can, that is if you want to be happy now.

Motivational Researcher

Originally Shapiro was a motivational researcher.  While doing interviews with business leaders for a book he was intending to write he discovered something unexpected. After interviewing 150 of the country’s most successful people and traveling over 12,000 miles Shapiro discovered that the most fulfilled people were also the most spontaneous. Believe it or not, he discovered that the most fulfilled and content people were the least goal oriented. What? How could that be true?  It goes against everything he, or I, had ever been taught.

Not A Straight Line

After interviewing those 150 successful people from all fields of enterprise, from every part of the country, Shapiro had a new view of life. He found that most of the successful people had taken a circuitous route to their eventual success, and it seems that the circuitous trip was what made the result, all the more satisfying.

A Detour

Shapiro became convinced that the key to happiness comes from checking out the back roads and detours, both literally and figuratively, without fear of changing course. Following rigid goals Shapiro believes may lead a person to financial wealth, but there is a good chance that following the plan unquestioningly will jeopardize your identity and potential happiness.

Who’s Goal Is It?

1.) “Ask yourself, whose goal is it, anyway?” According to Shapiro, “Most people’s goals aren’t their own. They tend to be driven by society and family pressure.” 2.) When the focus is on the goal, he believes, it is like putting on a pair of blinders. It limits peripheral vision, causing people to miss out on lots of great opportunities. 3.) It creates a sense of always living for the future.  Sacrifice today’s magic moment in hopes that something wonderful will happen tomorrow. Goals are like that, you are always chasing them. 4.) People are essentially “courting failure” because they become attached to one particular outcome. Even when the goal is achieved, the reality seldom matches the dream, and worse, it closes other doors to exploration and opportunity.

Getting It Wrong

Shapiro’s premise goes against every core principle that I have been taught since childhood.  Is it possible that all those books, seminars and teachers were wrong? I need those scraps of paper, those directions to success. I need my goals. Or, do I?  Having fun and wandering around in the wilderness and having great moments sounds good. But I scratch my head, and wonder  can I achieve anything if I don’t have a goal?

In The Moment

Shapiro comforts me with, “Goal-free living isn’t about aimless, or things are getting tough” and I’m going to bail out, but rather it is about “being passion-driven in the moment, while knowing you can change course.” It is also about “getting out, playing, and trying lots of new and different things.” The central message Shapiro is sharing is that you can’t find out what you love by just sitting around thinking about it, you need to get out and experience it.

A Goal-aholic

I am a goal-aholic. I can’t just toss away all my goals. Or, can I? The more I have thought about it, I think Shapiro is saying “do you have the right goals and are you relating to them in the right way?”  I hear Shapiro saying, some people abuse goals, “as a way of escaping from being present in the here and now. They distract themselves by looking ahead. Life should be more into enjoying every single moment for what it is and allowing things to unfold.”

Hmmm, Maybe I Can Do This.

I  have been an RN for nearly 4 decades and one of the foundations of nursing is the Nursing Care Plan. The care plan for a patient provides direction and continuity of  care. That mind-set is hard to just sweep away. Having a plan for everything, sounds familiar. However, I can see where a care plan to direct the care of a patient over a short-term period is not the same as the life time goal setting we do for ourselves. But, as I reflect on the matter, that professional methodology got in the way of me spreading my wings.  In fact it still does in many ways. I wish I were better at this discarding everything I know.

SMART Goals

Shapiro wants us to think about aspirations (working in government) versus goals such as (getting elected to congress on November 3, 2020).  In general, widening the vision, changing goal to aspiration will give a person pleasure today, because “success” is then more broadly defined.  The biggest complaint Shapiro has is with the institutionalization of SMART goals. In other words, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results Oriented, and Time based. Sounds very similar to a Nursing Care Plan.  The idea that you will know right away whether you’ve succeeded or failed is misguided and crippling.

Step Back

The cure to the pain of a failed goal is to step back and ask yourself whether you defined the desired outcome too narrowly, and whether you tried to control the uncontrollable.  Shapiro reminds us, “Not only have you set yourself up for failure, but you’ve put a time limit on everything. Life is unpredictable, so give up control. Create many paths. And play hard.”

Apply Creativity

Above all, trash the idea that if you don’t succeed by Saturday morning at 11:30 you are a failure. Shapiro proclaims effectively, “I’m not going to be done with what I’m doing till I’m dead. It is really about applying creativity to every aspect of your life.” I like that, “applying creativity.”

Listed below are Shapiro’s eight guide posts for living a Goal-Free Life:

1.) Use a compass, not a map. Allow yourself to take the less traveled path, allow yourself to try new things.

2.) Trust that you are never lost–every seemingly wrong turn is an opportunity to learn and experience new things.

3.) Remember that opportunity knocks often, sometimes softly–while we are blindly pursuing our goals. Sadly, we often miss unexpected and wonderful potentials.

4.) Want what you have. Measure your life with your own ruler. Appreciate who you are, what you do, and what you have, now.

5.) Seek adventure-treat your life as the one time only journey it is, and revel in new and different experiences.

6.) Learn to be a people magnet. Constantly seek, build and nurture relationships with new people gaining support and comradeship of others.

7.) Embrace your limits. Transform your shortcomings and perceived inadequacies into unique qualities that you can use to your advantage.

8.) Focus on the immediate. Act with a commitment to the future and stop fretting about how things will turn out.

Toss It

I think Shapiro is on to something.  I believe he is right. Goals are by their very nature, self-limiting. So, here in the middle of 2020, I have decided to try once again to give myself permission to toss the goal list into the garbage can. Time to start living and enjoying life, with all its rewards and heart aches, now, in the moment.