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Have you ever felt this inner struggle? The better angels of our nature wants us to do good, productive things like reading a book (or meal prep for the week), but then we end up binging on Netflix (or indulging in other guilty pleasures) instead?
Well, you’re not alone! As human beings, we are goal-directed systems*, and (un)fortunately, we have many and often conflicting goals.
Goals: internal representations of our desired states. Desired states can be for a certain outcome, event to happen, or process to take place.
*Goal-directed systems are also known as cybernetic systems, if you wanna get all fancy 🤓
My real life example of conflicting goals I’ve experienced this week are the goals of:
spending time to work on my business vs
enjoying the short Canadian summer by spending time outdoors with friends.
I ended up only working 2/7 days this week, and although I feel personally fulfilled from all the sunshine, exercise, and social interactions, I also feel guilt from not having done as much work as I wanted on my business.
To further complicate the situation, there are both conscious and unconscious goals vying for your attention, action, and internal resources.
In fact, "Many of our goals are preprogrammed into our DNA because they increased the survival and reproduction of our distant ancestors,” (Kaufmann, 2020), so perhaps spending time swiping on dating apps (to find a mate) conflicts with your goal to finish cleaning out the garage (for peace of mind and being able to find things for once).
Here is how goals are conceptualized by psychologists. We all have what’s called“goal hierarchies” (or “goal pyramid”).
(image from Angela Duckworth: Hierarchy of Goals)
The low-level goals are things like your daily tasks (to-do list) or habits.
Low-level goals can also work at the subconscious and automatic levels, as true habits and behavioural scripts operate at the unconscious level.
(Note: true habits and behavioural scripts are topics for future newsletters 🙂).
The middle-level goals are most akin to what you and I would think of as “goals” you set for yourself.
For example “run a marathon” or “have children” or “launch my own business”.
This level of goal is usually the most conscious to us.
The highest level goals are what some call the Ultimate Concern; this is where it gets more abstract and relates to your overall identity or your highest values (who you want to become and why).
Due to the timescale of these goals (i.e., slower and in the future), our brains generally don’t give it immediate attention, and thus it may take more effortful intentions and reminders from your part to keep it forefront in your mind.
So what are us mere mortals to do to actually lead a fulfilling life, achieve our dreams, and become who we really want to be, when we have conflicting goals?
Luckily as humans, we all have freewill; we can choose to engage in more and more of the behaviours and actions that will reflect who we want to become and get one step closer to our life dreams.
Today's Action:
Step 1: Become aware and accept the fact that as humans, it is normal and natural to have conflicting goals!
So don’t be so hard on yourself that you chose to watch Netflix (or some other seemingly non-productive activity) over reading a book (or some other more productive activity) again!
Step 2: Once you catch yourself engaging in an action or activity that isn’t aligned to your highest goals, celebrate the fact that you caught yourself doing it at all! (vs binging for 3 hours straight)
Each time you catch yourself, you will get quicker and quicker at catching yourself and snapping out of the automatic binging.
And the more you celebrate that behaviour (of catching yourself), the more you train your brain to like or feel rewarded for noticing it quicker.
This is mindfulness in practice. It may sound simple to do, but as you may know, it’s not easy! And it will take practice.
Step 3: Do what Dr. Angela Duckworth (Grit researcher) recommends by asking yourself
What am I all about?
and come up with a
phrase that is 10 words or fewer
to help you get back to your Ultimate Concern.
You may have to ask yourself this question multiple times to get to your Ultimate Concern
This is important because as mentioned above, our highest level goals tend to not be at the forefront of our minds, and we need to become intentional about bringing it to consciousness.
(image from Angela Duckworth: Hierarchy of Goals)
Step 4: Use the phrase you came up with to guide you when you feel stuck doing something that may not be leading you there.
Example from Duckworth, “When I remember what my top-level goal is, it helps me make decisions all the way down the tree. My top-level goal is to help children thrive using psychological science. And every small decisions that I need to make today or tomorrow, if I put it to that test, does this or does this not further that top-level goal? I completely have my priorities in order."
(image from Angela Duckworth: Hierarchy of Goals)
When I did this exercise, I’m all about “helping people know better and do better through science, data, and wisdom.”
What about you? What are you all about?
Feel free to share it with me, your loved one(s), or team!
Until next time, Transcenders!
~Pylin
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P.P.S. I’d love to hear from you! Let me know if you love a topic, don’t like a topic, want to hear about a certain topic. I’m all about learning from others and connecting! Email link below or pylin@drpylin.com
Post originally written on September 9, 2020