Rounding out what feels like six months of contemplative and retrospective blog posts over at the Test Double blog is this one on my own idiosyncratic approach to finding meaning in my work and how I wish more managers would approach their direct reports' career development.
To wit, I've never accomplished anything I felt proud of by setting a goal. In fact, the surest way to ensure I don't do something is to set a goal. When asked to set goals for myself, I've found that expressing the goal (as opposed to achieving it) becomes my overriding objective. The moment a manager approved my list of goals, I felt that I had completed the work asked of me and I would instantly lose all motivation to pursue the goals themselves.
This explains why planting flags can succeed where goal-setting fails. If what I'm searching for is meaning in my work, setting a goal creates an expectation of where, when, and how my future self should find that meaning. High pressure. Focusing on doing my job well and reflecting on whatever I did in retrospect, however, has allowed me to sift through my experiences, identify patterns, and give meaning to them. Low pressure.
I feel like managers as well as employees find comfort in planning what their future state will look like, as if it reduces any of the fear-inducing uncertainty that lies ahead. It doesn't, but I can't imagine why else people would so quickly reach for goal-setting as their primary career development approach when it almost always fizzles and fails.
I need exactly two things to do great work: awareness of others' expectations of what they think I should be doing and a shared definition of what success will look like when I achieve it. Nothing more is necessary to excavate metaphorical tons of marble from which I can chisel sculptures to mark the moments that mattered along the way.
One more note on what people get wrong about ✨Thought Leadering✨:
But here's the thing: I create these things for me and me alone. When a bunch of people read something I wrote or show up to one of my talks, do I find it encouraging and validating? Sure. But it's not what drives me. I started creating things to punctuate my life's sentences long before anybody took an interest in me and I wouldn't stop even if everyone loses interest in me.
If the lack of an audience is the reason you've failed to apply creativity in expressing the meaning of your life's work, that's a real shame.
