Seems too easy for them to, intentionally or not, shape my request into ways that benefit them.
Yes. (Alignment problems everywhere.) It is better if your goal is measurable somehow, so you could provide a report with numbers, and the audience would… clap if the numbers increase, or something.
“Losing weight to feel comfortable” is like the opposite of this, and it takes a lot of time. Probably would need to replace it with an instrumental goal such as “get weight from X to Y” (to make it obvious it is not your goal to keep going below Y; getting to Y counts as success full stop). And there may be other things that could make you comfortable, for example buying softer shoes. Or, exercise could improve your muscles and make you feel better, without actually losing weight.
Another possible approach is to reward work, not outcomes. Like, you could make a plan “exercise twice a week, stop drinking soda”, and then just report every week whether you did this or not. The group would reward the effort.
All approaches have their disadvantages (e.g. the work you reward may actually not lead to the desired goal), but if it’s up to you to define and change your goals, you can try different things and see what works.
This is good stuff, thank you. I think these are all good ways to avoid the trap of letting others decide your goals for you, and I like the idea of continuously changing your goals if you find they aren’t working/have been Goodharted/etc.
Yes. (Alignment problems everywhere.) It is better if your goal is measurable somehow, so you could provide a report with numbers, and the audience would… clap if the numbers increase, or something.
“Losing weight to feel comfortable” is like the opposite of this, and it takes a lot of time. Probably would need to replace it with an instrumental goal such as “get weight from X to Y” (to make it obvious it is not your goal to keep going below Y; getting to Y counts as success full stop). And there may be other things that could make you comfortable, for example buying softer shoes. Or, exercise could improve your muscles and make you feel better, without actually losing weight.
Another possible approach is to reward work, not outcomes. Like, you could make a plan “exercise twice a week, stop drinking soda”, and then just report every week whether you did this or not. The group would reward the effort.
All approaches have their disadvantages (e.g. the work you reward may actually not lead to the desired goal), but if it’s up to you to define and change your goals, you can try different things and see what works.
This is good stuff, thank you. I think these are all good ways to avoid the trap of letting others decide your goals for you, and I like the idea of continuously changing your goals if you find they aren’t working/have been Goodharted/etc.