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The bar gets set either too high or too low and the entire process becomes self-defeating.
BHAGs (aka Big Hairy Audacious Goals)
BHAGs have the following attributes: * 50-70% of success * 10-30 year horizon * Requires vision (over tactics and strateg

Direct attention: They focus your effort toward goal-relevant activities and away from goal-irrelevant activities.
Get energized: Having goals lets you direct more effort towards their completion.
Plan deliberately: Individuals develop strategies that enable them to attain goals.

Planning: You download a training schedule (planning) * Execution: You start running * Accountability: There’s a social penalty for not completing them

They are at odds with long-term progress
They restrict your happiness
They rob you of the present moment
They set you up for self-judgement
They are arbitrary
many people find themselves reverting to their old habits after accomplishing a goal.
to the when-then trap, which mistakenly says “Once I achieve [X] then I’ll be happy.”
- Making happiness contingent on future success is one of the devastating effects of the hedonic treadmill.
When you have one foot in the future and the other in the past, you piss on the present.
A handful of problems arise when you spend too much time thinking about your goals and not enough time designing your systems.
The goal in any sport is to finish with the best score, but it would be ridiculous to spend the whole game staring at the scoreboard.
The only way to actually win is to get better each day.
if you trust your inputs (focus, kindness, self-accountability, habits, a growth mindset) the outputs should take care of themselves.
One approach is to turn outcome goals into process goals.
- An outcome goal is binary, measurable and time-bound such as: * Grow my newsletter audience by 5,000 readers * Lose 10 pounds * Generate $250,000 in annual sales
- A process goal is non-binary, iterative and ongoing:
  - Send two newsletters every week
  - Work out for 45 minutes five times a week
  - Make three sales calls each day
And did you notice how our goals sneakily became habits?