Integrity has no need of rules.

Albert Camus
Journalist, author, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, 1957

‘A study of the 1953 graduates of Yale University clearly demonstrates this point…’

In his bestselling book, Unlimited Power, Anthony Robbins describes a study of the Yale University Class of 1953 and the follow-up, 20 years later. He explains that the 3% of the class who had clear written goals and a plan for achieving them were more financially successful by 1973 than the other 97% of the class combined. In addition, he reports that the 3% scored more highly on measures such as happiness and joy. Robbins uses this study as proof of the power of goal setting, stating that ‘the difference in people's abilities to fully tap their personal resources is directly affected by their goals’.

When I read Robbins' book in 1999, I saw where I'd been going wrong. I hadn't set the kind of bold, audacious goals I clearly needed if I wanted to live a truly outstanding life. I started following the instructions in the book, asking myself what I really wanted. I made my goals clear and specific, and created a detailed vision of my future. I envisaged a life of passion and purpose, with health, happiness and financial freedom. The vision included me and my family, the kind of house we'd be living in and the business that would support us. Five years later, I'd left my job and had built a successful business. We were living with our two young daughters in a large house very much like the one I'd envisioned. The plan appeared to be working.

That's when my wife told me she wanted a divorce, and my world fell apart…

I'll be happy when… Wholesome… Secure… Successful… Passionate… Peaceful… Fulfilled… Free…

I had believed that if I could create a life like the one I'd envisaged, then I'd finally feel the way I wanted to feel. I'd been running on the ‘I’ll be happy when…' hamster wheel without even realizing it, in thrall to the outside-in misunderstanding. I was so preoccupied with future results that I was oblivious to the beauty of the present moment. There's only one problem with the oft-mentioned Yale University Goals Study…

It never actually happened…

Despite investigative efforts by Fast Company magazine and an in-depth search of Yale alumni archives, no trace could be found of it. Yale University has since stated categorically that no such study of the class of 1953 ever occurred. The likely explanation appears to be that the 1953 Yale study was such a compelling story that many of the world's best-known motivational speakers of the day used it to validate ‘success systems’ based on audacious goals, unwavering self-belief and massive action.

I'm not blaming Robbins and his ilk for my mistakes; my choices and decisions were my own. But it turns out that much of the ‘received wisdom’ about goal setting is nonsense, grounded in the outside-in misunderstanding. By the time you've finished this chapter, you'll see goals for what they are, and understand how you can use them in the context of a far more powerful and sophisticated ‘success system’ you've been benefiting from your whole life.

A goal is a thought

When people talk about goals, they're usually thinking in terms of a specific result they want to achieve. But what is a goal? A goal is a thought; nothing more. Any feeling you get when you think about a goal is telling you about your THOUGHT-generated perceptual reality in that moment, not about the result you're imagining. While a goal can be a useful tool (e.g. for helping you set a direction, organize your efforts or coordinate the efforts of a group of people), it has no power in and of itself.

You have an innate capacity for achieving goals

You set and achieve goals every day. Tasks as mundane as brushing your teeth, going for a walk or making a hot drink involve complex nested structures of goals, actions and evidence criteria. We employ these structures automatically without even thinking about it consciously. When viewed through the lens of ‘goal achievement’, making a cup of tea involves having a goal for some purpose, taking some action and meeting some evidence of completion.

But if you look at it more closely, the action ‘Make and drink tea’ is itself composed of a number of goals, each with their own evidence and action (e.g. boil water, put teabag in cup, pour water on teabag, allow tea to brew, add milk, drink tea). If we looked even more closely, each of these would be composed of yet more goals with their own evidence and action.

You see, the purpose of this book isn't just to help you create results; the purpose is also to help you enjoy your life, deepen your connections with others and experience an increasing sense of resilience and wellbeing, every step of the way.

You are already a results-creator

There are already numerous places in your life where you're able to create the results you want, often without even thinking about it. These are some of the areas where you're already well aligned with reality. And then there are other areas where it may have been a struggle until now. Those are the areas where you're likely not so well aligned with reality. It's easy to think of examples…

• The mother who manages to juggle a hectic family schedule, but can't seem to achieve a healthy bodyweight.
• The entrepreneur who makes money easily, but who struggles with their intimate relationships.
• The therapist who has a profound impact on their clients, but lives hand-to-mouth with no stable income.
• The company director who inspires loyalty and hard work in their people, but struggles with addictive behaviours.
• The analyst who's really good at their job, but yearns to do something else and doesn't know what.

Toxic goals

Toxic goals are goals grounded in the outside-in misunderstanding. They typically have an ‘I’ll be happy when…' or ‘I can't be happy until…’ structure, for instance…

• I'll be happy and fulfilled when I have a baby.
• I'll feel successful once I earn a million dollars.
• I can't be happy until I leave this boring job and find work I love.
• I'll feel secure once I'm married.
• I'll be confident once I've lost the weight.
• I can't feel free until I have a location-independent lifestyle.
• I'll feel successful once our share price hits $100.

These are all based around the false belief that our feelings are giving us information about our (future) circumstances. ‘Hedonic forecasting’ is the name given to our ability to predict how we're going to feel in future circumstances. It turns out that people are very poor judges of their future emotional state. Why? Because we get tricked by the outside-in misunderstanding. We innocently attribute our feelings to something other than THOUGHT in the moment. The second we do that, we're at risk of setting a toxic goal. Consider this imaginary conversation…

So am I saying Karen shouldn't find a new job? No. I have no idea whether she should find a new job or not. But here's what I do know:

When you're looking at the world from a place of misunderstanding, the goals you come up with will reflect that misunderstanding.
When you're looking at the world from a place of clarity, the goals you come up with will reflect that clarity.

So am I saying that when you're feeling down, you should do some exercise to change how you feel? No! There are no ‘shoulds’. When we drift out of reality and into La-la Land, caught up in contaminated thinking, we lose touch with common sense and wisdom. The moment we fall out of contaminated thinking and into the present moment, the way forward is clear and the next step is obvious…

• Sometimes the next step is to press ahead with what we're doing.
• Sometimes the next step is to rest.
• Sometimes the next step is to do something different.
• Sometimes the next step is to wait for inspiration.

Authentic desires

Blaise Pascal famously wrote, ‘The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know’. Authentic desires are results you want just because you want them. They may not even make rational sense, but they're authentic expressions of your being. Think about that for a moment…

Who you really are is the infinite intelligence and creative potential of life, the formless principles of THOUGHT, CONSCIOUSNESS and MIND.
Your authentic desires are an expression of that infinite intelligence and creative potential.
There is an intelligence and wisdom in you and your desires.

Authentic desires often arrive as insights and realizations, though they may have been travelling with you for a while as a kind of ‘knowing’ at the back of your mind. Here are some of the questions I sometimes ask my clients to start pointing them in the direction of their authentic desires…

• What do you want? What would you like to have happen? What would you love to create or bring into being?
• How will you know you've got that result? What will you see, hear and feel that will let you know you've got it?
• If you could wave a magic wand and have everything the way you want it to be, what would that look like?
• What would you want if you knew you couldn't fail? What would you want if you knew it was OK to fail?
• What would you want if you were guaranteed to get it?
• What would you do if you had £100 million in the bank?
• What would you do if all work paid the same, and you could get whatever work you like?
• What would you want if you didn't have to do anything?
• What would you want if you knew you were going to be happy, secure, successful and loved, whether you got it or not?
• What would you want if you didn't have to be unhappy about not getting it?
• If there were a miracle tonight, and when you woke up tomorrow everything was the way you want it to be, how would you know a miracle had happened? What would you see, hear, feel and know that would let you know a miracle had taken place?

The purpose of these questions isn't for you to come up with specific goals as answers to them; the purpose is to guide you into a reflective space where you're more likely to have insights and realizations about what's important and meaningful to you and for you.

The power of commitment

When it comes to going on holiday, most people are 100% committed once they've booked their tickets. Once you know where you're going, the relevant goals are a practical matter (e.g. what to pack, when to get to the airport etc). It's the same with any result you want to create: commitment means (metaphorically) booking your ticket; making the decision that you're going to move in a certain direction/do something/make something happen/create something/bring something into being.

So should I set goals or not?

You already set and achieve goals. A more relevant question might be ‘When is it useful for me to set goals?’ The answer: when it makes sense. If it makes sense to set a specific target, set one. If it doesn't, don't. As stated earlier, goals can be useful for helping you set a direction, organize your own efforts or coordinate the efforts of a group of people. If you're creating a complex result that involves the work of many people, or things happening in a particular sequence, goals can be an incredibly useful part of the planning process (if you're building a house, you probably don't want the decorators arriving to start painting before the walls are up). But goals have no power in and of themselves. Set goals when it makes sense to do so. And if possible, set them from a clear state of mind.

When you've got nothing on your mind, you're free to give your best.

So once you've got clarity about a result you want to create, how do you get into action?