The Right Tension For Goals

Our growth and development is primarily driven by our environment, and one of the things that we can do to manufacture a more positive, inspiring, go-getting environment is to set goals. In order to get anywhere in life we need to know where we’re going, and a clearly articulated goal gives you that destination to work toward.

However, there’s a science and art to goal setting. Some goals are too big and impossible to comprehend that they don’t seem achievable, and paralyze you in inaction. On the other hand some goals are too uninspiring or easy to actually motivate you to make any major adjustments to your life.

That’s why we need to have the right tension for our goals, and the way we do that is by ensuring our goals are two things: Difficult and doable.

When a goal is difficult, it creates a demand on you. In order to achieve a difficult goal you need to do things that are difficult for you to do. As Jim Bunch puts it, goals are in place to “evolve you” and it’s the personal evolution you experience in pursuit of a goal that causes you to become capable of achieving it. 

When a goal is doable, it means that you see a path forward to achieving it. You’ve seen others accomplish something similar or even you’ve already done it once yourself. When a goal is doable it inspires you with a willingness to try.

I’ve found there are 3 ways to know if you’ve found the right tension for your goals. First is based on your own past experience. If you have metrics or reference points that you can build around, it helps you find that right degree of difficulty and doability. Second, if you don’t have personal experience, enlist someone else who does. They can fill in the gaps of your awareness and offer reference points that help you home in on the right amount of tension for yourself.

And last, there’s the intuitive way that you feel. Good goals are meant to make you feel a little nervous. You want to feel the quiet anxiety of knowing that pursuing this goal will challenge you, because not sensing that means your goal isn’t difficult enough. You pair that with the confidence to know that you’re prepared to give it your best. You notice yourself already stepping into a heightened state of focus and resilience, and if you don’t have that response then maybe the goal isn’t difficult enough. Your intuitive feeling layers on top of the reference points you’ve established to help you confirm that your goals have the right tension

So based on whatever is most important to you right now, set a goal that strikes that right tension. As Jim Bunch also says “Goals are written in sand not in stone,” so if you gain more awareness or information that your goals need to be adjusted to match the optimal tension, then make those changes.