Maybe goals belong in soccer?

I used to be very goal-oriented. Very. I even wrote a business plan for my writing (and achieved everything on it, and then some) and I used to do annual and semi-annual goal setting and readjusting. And then I had a sort of epiphany.

I wasn’t sure goals were the point anymore. Or if any goal-setting approach could be flexible enough to accommodate the rapid changes happening in publishing. The last plan I stuck with, I might have been better off ditching a couple of months after I made it instead of investing 9 months of effort in something that would take that long to see results, before I’d even know if it was the right approach.

So now I’m taking a more flexible approach. I’m no longer sure I should plan on anything beyond “write book, sell book”. Life changes too fast and it’s very easy for a plan to become a set of blinders instead of a path. And maybe goals should be left to soccer games.

I’m not the only one thinking this way. Check out Zen Habits for a very insightful piece on the shift away from goals.