Do most people have goals?

@PrettyParrot so did your parents value education and push you towards A Levels? Did they value having children within a secure relationship (you mentioned marriage)?
Not everyone has that upbringing. Life doesn't come, or rather wasn't instiled from a young age. My DD's new bf is breaking out of his Mother's way of life. She's got a lot of issues, caused by her dysfunctional upbringing. Her son, has managed to get a good paying job, the family has treated him as a money tree and emotionally etc done a right number on him. His goals, learning to drive, have legitimate insurance, have savings, increase work qualifications, buy a home, not be a soft touch, have become his goals. For some people, healthy eating, cooking, not abusing alcohol etc, as in, be the opposite of their parents, are goals. You can get in the habit of shouting, or running late, so your goal is to do better.
Goals are good for people with low self esteem, self worth and thinking (often via childhood) that they won't amount to much. We don't all start adulthood on the same functioning level.
Even starting Christmas planning/buying early so you get to enjoy December, is a goal. Work goals can be setting and maintaining boundaries, if you don't do that naturally.

Also remember you can start, get to a certain point and pause for a while, or decide to re-focus. That’s fine. It’s part of achieving and growing.

In the end a writer is someone who writes. Achieving comes from doing. Not from looking at the very end of a journey (one version of that journey) and deciding ‘yes or no’ to that.

@prettyparrot every journey starts with one step. If you want to learn a language, start Duolingo, or find an evening class. That’s step one. Attend for a term / get to day 100 on duo is step 2. And so on. Sounds like you’re not breaking down aspirations into manageable tasks - goals - which is why you see achieving things as overwhelming and unattainable.

Left behind from what?

I don’t set goals either in or out of work. Why would I? Perfectly happy with life. Just get on with it… get stuff done. Enjoy myself. What do I need goals for?

Yes. Many.

I'm finding ChatGPT useful or organising my goal setting actually. I like a goal.

Well, having a goal is not the same as succeeding at it.

@Gwenhwyfar yes it will - but not every time, if you have your own ambitions and goals (which I’d read as short to medium term attainments) towards achieving your ambitions. If none, you’ll be the one left behind every time.

Sort of, I mean, I wanted to get a management position at work and I did that in 5 years.

Now, I just want to survive the next 5 years 🤣n

I'm just doing my teams yearly reviews, every single one hates the "what are you planning to achieve in the next 12 months" as for most it's just coming to work and doing a good job and going home at the end of the day..

That happens whether you have goals or not.

From the title I thought you meant life goals, in which case, not everybody, but lots of people.
Work goals, yes, if you work for a large organisation. In our place it helps you to access training, sometimes training is available to people who have it identified in their plan. You don't have to pay it any more than lip service if you don't want to, just literally describe what you will be doing anyway. It is useful if you want to pivot a bit career wise, as you can get your manager to identify opportunities.

No, I don't have goals. I'm in a job where promotion isn't really possible and I'm too old to re-train so there's no point aspiring to anything other than having a life with the least hassle possible.

It was actually on MN that I learnt that most people are supposed to have goals.

Goal is one of my least favourite words at work. I'm at leadership level and am responsible for strategy and planning, but die inside a bit when goal setting for myself and with others. My main goals are to work on interesting stuff, ram money into my pension, have a rich life outside work and earn more money.

Has anyone come across wankers who talk about their big hairy goals at work? Started showing up in strategy meetings a couple of years ago and it makes me sick in my mouth. You can just imagine the baseball cap wearing tech cunt who coined that one.

Our manager tells us what our work goals are. They are generally pointless and unattainable, but he's a bit like the Trunchbull in, "I'm big, you're small, I'm right and you're wrong"... permanently! Quite frankly, we just aim to get through the day with everything going well. If we can get through the day without having to deal with the manager, than it's even better!

I do have personal goals, but I don't tend to think of them as such. I just know what I'd like my house to look like eventually (it's been dragging on for three years so far...!), what skills I would like to learn (I know that I need to practice on my piano, and I'd love to learn to play the cello and the harp and many other things), and things that I'd like to have in my life (like some sheep, a kitchen garden and more of a grown-up car than my sporty little student-type runaround!).

We have to do them every year in work, I just make them up. My only work goal is avoiding line managing anyone 😂

Ive never had goals in my personal life. I’ve got what I need.

I have goals but they're based around living with chronic illness so any day i get up get washed dressed and clean my teeth I take as a win. All I want is a peaceful happy life. I have no interest in being rich or having a career im happy to plod along in the back ground.

@Castlerigg yes it’s important to do things for yourself. I’m sorry you’ve been through a hard time. Why not make a list of goals for yourself, purely for yourself that will make you feel good? Maybe 3 short term things you can achieve without too much hard work. The sort of things you’d put off because they’re not a priority. I don’t know what that would be for you but for example, one of my goals I keep not achieving, which would fall into that category for me, would be actually get up and do a park run. I find once I’ve achieved something I consciously set out for myself, the sense of achievement motivates me to do more.

Record keeping wise, my system involves a lot of notes on my phone and pieces of paper with lists to tick off. Then they evolve as one thing leads to another. Some people may find that exhausting and overwhelming but for me I find boredom and stagnating incredibly stressful. Where some people could do with setting more goals for themselves, I could do with some precise relaxing and just Be-ing. So maybe one of my goals is to do less, more 😆

I will say though, a lot of what I have in my life now would never have come about if I hadn’t had conscious goals for myself.

You are mostly just framing normal life admin as goals though - decorating a bedroom or training your dog or growing roses are all standard life stuff. Plus you seem to like formal structure with hobbies and projects.

All of this is fine if it works for you but lots of people would find it a regimented and dull way to organise every corner of their lives.

I think most people have goals, just perhaps not work related ones, and that changes at different stages of life.

I’ve always had quite strict career goals, since before I went to uni, I had a plan and I stuck to it and it got me exactly where I wanted to be but now my goals & plans have shifted. I’ve got a 1 year old and I’m pregnant with my second baby, both my husband & I have gone from being very money/career driven to actually placing more value on time than money for this phase of our lives. We still have goals, but work related? Not at the moment!

I'd imagine that most people.have personal goals. They just think of them more in terms of being Things I Want To Do.

I can't imagine many people go through life not having anythings they want to do or achieve. Even if it's just sorting out the garden shed.

Yes but there’s no reason everyone should

I absolutely do, but I can also understand why people don't. I have a five year plan at work, which i revise every so often. I also have "life goals", which include things like seeing an orca and a humpback whale, visiting every cathedral in England, and travelling to a few island groups.

@PrettyParrot you have listed your goals in your post. Until you re-write this as “achieve consistently and comprehensively”, rather than “on the most part” then those are your goals.