Can you clarify this? What do you think is the goal other than ‘be the strongest I can be’ that would result in me ending up stronger? (Also, not sure what sort of strength you are talking about here: physical? psychological?)
To me true strength is a physical and physiological balance. I feel that anyone who has the goal of being “the strongest” (whether they mean physically, mentally, in a game, etc) is seeking strength out of a personally insecurity about their strength. Being insecure is a type of weakness. Therefore by having the goal of being the strongest will never allow them to be truly strong. Does that make sense? It is a very Daoist idea.
Do you mean someone who wants to be ‘the strongest’ compared to others. I don’t think that’s ever a good goal, because whether or not it is achievable doesn’t depend on you. But ‘be the strongest’ is also an incredibly non-specific goal, and problematic for that reason. If you break it down, you could say “right now, my weaknesses are that a) I’m out of shape and can’t jog more than 1 mile, and b) I’m insecure about it” then you could set sub-goals in both these areas, prioritize them, make plans on how to accomplish them, and evaluate afterwards whether they had been accomplished...and then make a new list of weaknesses, and a new list of goals, and a new list of plans. You’re doing a lot more than just trying to be as strong as you can, but you’re not specifically holding back or trying not to be as strong as you can either, which is what your comment came across as recommending.
No not compared to others. Just someone whose goal is to be the strongest. It is the fact that it is an “est” based goal that makes it damaging to itself. I suppose if I were to take all the poetry out of the above mentioned statement I would say that any goal that involves “ests” (fastest, strongest, smartest, wealthiest, etc) involves a degree of abstraction that signifies a lack of true understanding of what the actual quality/ state of being they are targeting encompasses, and that until said person better understands that quality/state they will never be able to achieve said goal.
Note that all your examples take my goal and rewrite to have incredibly practical parameters. You define reachable objectives as targets for your examples, but the point of my example was that it was a goal that lacked such empirically bounded markers.
OK. Makes sense. As I said in this comment, apparently my brain automatically converts abstract goals into sub-goals...so automatically that I hadn’t even imagined someone could have a goal as abstract as ‘be as strong as I can’ without breaking it down and making it measurable and practicable, etc. I think I understand your point; it’s the format of the goal that is damaging, not the content in itself.
Yes, exactly. And if you do convert abstract goals into sub-goals you are abnormally brilliant. I don’t know if you were taught to do that, or you just deduced such a technique on your own, but the majority of people, the vast majority, is unable to do that. It is a huge problem, one many self-health programs address, and also one that the main paradigms of American education are working to counteract.
I think it comes from having done athletics as a kid… I was a competitive swimmer, and very quickly it became an obvious fact to me that in order to achieve the big abstract goal (being the fastest and winning the race) you had to train a whole lot. And since it’s not very easy for someone who’s 11 or 12 years old to wake up every morning at 5 and make it to practice, I turned those into little mini subgoals (examples subgoal: get out of bed and make it to all the practices, subgoal: try to keep up with the fast teenage boys in my lane, subgoal: do butterfly even though it hurts).
So it just feels incredibly obvious to me that the bigger a goal is, the harder you have to train, and so my first thought is ‘how do I train for this?’
OK, clarify: If I follow the goal ‘be the strongest I can be’ I will reach a level of strength X. What other goal would allow me to surpass the level of strength X (not just my initial level)?
Of course, I need to keep that goal over time, as phrased, rather than unpack it to mean “be stronger than I was back then”.
Some context: when I was recovering from my stroke a few years back, one of the things I discovered was that having the goal of doing a little bit better every day than the day before was a lot more productive for me (in terms of getting me further along in a given time period) than setting some target far from my current state and moving towards it. If I could lift three pounds with my right arm this week, I would try for 3.5 next week. If I could do ten sit-ups this week, I would try for 12 next week. And so forth.
Sure, I could have instead had a goal of “do as many situps as I can”, but for me, that goal resulted in my being able to do fewer situps.
Sure, I could have instead had a goal of “do as many situps as I can”, but for me, that goal resulted in my being able to do fewer situps.
I guess to me it seems automatic to ‘unpack’ a general goal like that into short-term specific goals. ‘Be as fit as I can’ became ‘Improve my fitness’ became ‘improve my flexibility and balance’ became ‘start a martial art and keep doing it until I get my black belt’ became a whole bunch of subgoals like ‘keep practicing my back kick until I can use it in a sparring match’. It’s automatic for me to think about the most specific level of subgoals while I’m actually practising, and only think about the higher-level goals when I’m revising whether to add new subgoals.
I guess, because this is the way my goal structure has always worked, I assume that my highest-level goal is by definition to become as good as X as I can. (‘Be the strongest I can’ has problems for other reasons, namely its non-specificity, so I’ll replace it with something specific, so let’s say X=swimming speed.)
I don’t know the fastest speed is that my body is capable of, but I certainly want to attain that speed, not 0.5 km/h slower. But when I’m actually in the water training, or in bed at home trying to decide whether to get up and go train, I’m thinking about wanting to take 5 seconds off my 100 freestyle time. Once I’ve taken that 5 seconds off, I’ll want to take another 5 seconds off. Etc.
I think the way I originally interpreted HungryTurtle’s comment was that he thought you should moderate your goals to be less ambitious than ‘be as good at X as you can’ because having a goal that ambitious will cause you to lose. But you can also interpret it to mean that non-specific goals without measurable criteria, and not broken down into subgoals, aren’t the most efficient way to improve. Which is very likely true, and I guess it’s kind of silly of me to assume that everyone’s brain creates an automatic subgoal breakdown like mine does.
Can you clarify this? What do you think is the goal other than ‘be the strongest I can be’ that would result in me ending up stronger? (Also, not sure what sort of strength you are talking about here: physical? psychological?)
To me true strength is a physical and physiological balance. I feel that anyone who has the goal of being “the strongest” (whether they mean physically, mentally, in a game, etc) is seeking strength out of a personally insecurity about their strength. Being insecure is a type of weakness. Therefore by having the goal of being the strongest will never allow them to be truly strong. Does that make sense? It is a very Daoist idea.
Do you mean someone who wants to be ‘the strongest’ compared to others. I don’t think that’s ever a good goal, because whether or not it is achievable doesn’t depend on you. But ‘be the strongest’ is also an incredibly non-specific goal, and problematic for that reason. If you break it down, you could say “right now, my weaknesses are that a) I’m out of shape and can’t jog more than 1 mile, and b) I’m insecure about it” then you could set sub-goals in both these areas, prioritize them, make plans on how to accomplish them, and evaluate afterwards whether they had been accomplished...and then make a new list of weaknesses, and a new list of goals, and a new list of plans. You’re doing a lot more than just trying to be as strong as you can, but you’re not specifically holding back or trying not to be as strong as you can either, which is what your comment came across as recommending.
No not compared to others. Just someone whose goal is to be the strongest. It is the fact that it is an “est” based goal that makes it damaging to itself. I suppose if I were to take all the poetry out of the above mentioned statement I would say that any goal that involves “ests” (fastest, strongest, smartest, wealthiest, etc) involves a degree of abstraction that signifies a lack of true understanding of what the actual quality/ state of being they are targeting encompasses, and that until said person better understands that quality/state they will never be able to achieve said goal.
Note that all your examples take my goal and rewrite to have incredibly practical parameters. You define reachable objectives as targets for your examples, but the point of my example was that it was a goal that lacked such empirically bounded markers.
OK. Makes sense. As I said in this comment, apparently my brain automatically converts abstract goals into sub-goals...so automatically that I hadn’t even imagined someone could have a goal as abstract as ‘be as strong as I can’ without breaking it down and making it measurable and practicable, etc. I think I understand your point; it’s the format of the goal that is damaging, not the content in itself.
Ahhh I am a moron, I did not even read that. I read dave’s post prior to it and assumed it was irrelevant to the idea I was trying to convey. X_X
Yes, exactly. And if you do convert abstract goals into sub-goals you are abnormally brilliant. I don’t know if you were taught to do that, or you just deduced such a technique on your own, but the majority of people, the vast majority, is unable to do that. It is a huge problem, one many self-health programs address, and also one that the main paradigms of American education are working to counteract.
It really is no small feat.
I think it comes from having done athletics as a kid… I was a competitive swimmer, and very quickly it became an obvious fact to me that in order to achieve the big abstract goal (being the fastest and winning the race) you had to train a whole lot. And since it’s not very easy for someone who’s 11 or 12 years old to wake up every morning at 5 and make it to practice, I turned those into little mini subgoals (examples subgoal: get out of bed and make it to all the practices, subgoal: try to keep up with the fast teenage boys in my lane, subgoal: do butterfly even though it hurts).
So it just feels incredibly obvious to me that the bigger a goal is, the harder you have to train, and so my first thought is ‘how do I train for this?’
Well, there’s “be stronger than I am right now.”
OK, clarify: If I follow the goal ‘be the strongest I can be’ I will reach a level of strength X. What other goal would allow me to surpass the level of strength X (not just my initial level)?
Again: “be stronger than I am right now.”
Of course, I need to keep that goal over time, as phrased, rather than unpack it to mean “be stronger than I was back then”.
Some context: when I was recovering from my stroke a few years back, one of the things I discovered was that having the goal of doing a little bit better every day than the day before was a lot more productive for me (in terms of getting me further along in a given time period) than setting some target far from my current state and moving towards it. If I could lift three pounds with my right arm this week, I would try for 3.5 next week. If I could do ten sit-ups this week, I would try for 12 next week. And so forth.
Sure, I could have instead had a goal of “do as many situps as I can”, but for me, that goal resulted in my being able to do fewer situps.
I suspect people vary in this regard.
I guess to me it seems automatic to ‘unpack’ a general goal like that into short-term specific goals. ‘Be as fit as I can’ became ‘Improve my fitness’ became ‘improve my flexibility and balance’ became ‘start a martial art and keep doing it until I get my black belt’ became a whole bunch of subgoals like ‘keep practicing my back kick until I can use it in a sparring match’. It’s automatic for me to think about the most specific level of subgoals while I’m actually practising, and only think about the higher-level goals when I’m revising whether to add new subgoals.
I guess, because this is the way my goal structure has always worked, I assume that my highest-level goal is by definition to become as good as X as I can. (‘Be the strongest I can’ has problems for other reasons, namely its non-specificity, so I’ll replace it with something specific, so let’s say X=swimming speed.)
I don’t know the fastest speed is that my body is capable of, but I certainly want to attain that speed, not 0.5 km/h slower. But when I’m actually in the water training, or in bed at home trying to decide whether to get up and go train, I’m thinking about wanting to take 5 seconds off my 100 freestyle time. Once I’ve taken that 5 seconds off, I’ll want to take another 5 seconds off. Etc.
I think the way I originally interpreted HungryTurtle’s comment was that he thought you should moderate your goals to be less ambitious than ‘be as good at X as you can’ because having a goal that ambitious will cause you to lose. But you can also interpret it to mean that non-specific goals without measurable criteria, and not broken down into subgoals, aren’t the most efficient way to improve. Which is very likely true, and I guess it’s kind of silly of me to assume that everyone’s brain creates an automatic subgoal breakdown like mine does.
Sure, I can see that. Were it similarly automatic for me, I’d probably share your intuitions here.