Reaching a goal is the penalty you receive for setting one

I’ve always had a difficult time setting and sticking to goals. I’m great with routine (this blog is a solid example), but I’m not great at setting goals.

While I think I still need to improve in that regard, perhaps routines can be a better fit than goals in many cases anyhow. In a podcast with Adam Grant, former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho shared his opinion on goal setting:

Dude, I hate goals. I hate goals. Adam, I feel like people live life in a box. People live life in a box that the world has put them in, and my objective in this life is to break outside of the box.

Related to the title of this post, he goes on to say:

Essentially to say if you reach your goal, congrats. But what if you could have done more? Like you reaching that goal is a penalty that you achieve for setting it. And I’m just like, “Yo, let’s blow the top off of all this.”

Related to the podcast, here is Acho’s TED Talk from earlier this year: