From Goal-Driven to Mission-Driven: Trading Short-Term Rewards for Long-Term Happiness
What would be possible if we shifted from a focus on goals to mission?
Last night, I was reminded of the power of focusing on expanding through connection and living through mission and purpose as opposed to the narrow focused goal mindset I’ve lived for years.
Throughout my life I’ve always valued kindness, connection, and compassion. It has always been important to me to see another person’s humanity, listen deeply, and treat others with compassion and respect. It has been important for me to “see and hear” other people. And, when I am working from a space of less stress, this mission is easy to live out in all aspects of my life.
But, when I get so focused on achieving goals, it is harder to focus on connecting with others. Often those goals are focused on my own personal-gain and bring stress, anxiety, competition and conflict to achieve them. That promotion or raise at work brings isolating from co-workers as they are competition or threats to the achievement of my success. Working towards that next degree becomes resenting family or friends asking for help or spend time together as it threatens my time to complete all the work necessary to excel in the degree program. Running a successful business and increasing revenue through bringing on and retaining more clients leads to guardedly networking with other professionals as I am suspicious of what they want from me and what might they say or do that might negatively impact my business.
It isn’t that goals are bad. Goals help us be clear on our intentions, they can create a plan and path for us to stay focused and work towards something. And, neuroscience confirms this: goals can activate neural pathways for action. We activate our prefrontal cortex and when we achieve our goals, we are rewarded with dopamine, and that motivates us to keep going. But the problem, for me, is when all my energy becomes focused on achieving that goal. When my identity becomes wrapped up in it. When the disappointment, and missed dopamine hit comes when the goal isn’t achieved and I became angry with myself, others, or circumstances that thwarted that achievement. I become isolated because I am so consumed by my need to achieve, that I lose connection, compassion, and seeing the humanity in others. That person who cuts me off on the way to work, they are personally out to get me. The coworker that got the promotion before me, quietly plotted behind my back to make sure I didn’t get my own recognition. I get angry, anxious, and at times even just shutdown feeling self-doubt in my abilities to achieve.
Neuroscience confirms this experience. When we are focused on specific goals that are not connected to a larger, clear mission, our brain experiences inefficient wiring. We experience loneliness, the brain is more reactive to external stimuli, and we are unable to efficiently integrate and connect information.
However, when I have been clear on my life mission, my values, and my purpose, I experience life in a different way. I am able to see how small goals do or do not fit in with my larger mission. I am clear on how my values are being honored or challenged, and I am more likely to choose how I respond to stressors, as opposed to react. I can be presented with a task I hate doing or causes stress and instead of procrastinating or get angry about it, I can evaluate how the task or small goal fits into a larger mission. Perhaps, for instance, I can see the goal as a way to create financial means for my long term purpose. Or, I might see how this goal can open up a larger opportunity for expanding my reach. Everyday interactions become less of a threat or stress, because I do not feel so insulated or hyper-focused on spending all my resources on my goals that aren’t connected to my larger mission.
In fact, neuroimaging show that people with clearer life meaning, a clearer mission, have brains that are connected more efficiently. The Default Mode Network is more strongly organized when we are clear on our life’s mission. And, the clearer we are on our life’s meaning, the stronger the connection with the emotional processing regions of the limbic system, allowing us to be stronger in reflecting on our emotional state, especially when faced with negative emotions. We are more regulated. In short, studies demonstrate that a clear life mission and a strong sense of purpose is connected with lower levels of negative emotions and less reactivity to everyday stressors.
I was reminded of this last night. I have been very clear on my mission lately: creating more opportunities for myself and others to feel connected, safe, seen, heard, valued. I had just finished feeding my horses in high winds, I was tired and hungry, and had planned on getting more work done when I got home. I realized I hadn’t stopped at the grocery store earlier in the day and slightly begrudgingly headed there before going home. Just as I started to get out of the car, it started to rain. I was feeling slightly frustrated and annoyed with myself. However, I ran in, and as I was checking out, saw one of the clerks I hadn’t seen in a while. I greeted him and shared I was glad to see him. And, I was so glad I did. He shared he’d been on medical leave for cancer, but through his treatments he was in remission. He began to smile and share how grateful he was to be back at work, even though there was great financial stress. I felt deeply honored that he felt comfortable sharing both the challenges and the happiness in that moment. He then went on to ask how I’d been and what I was planning to do for the holidays. I felt seen and honored too. It was a true moment of connection and humanity. It was a moment to live out my mission. Being clear on my mission allowed me not to drop into the brain wiring of protection, frustration, rushing about. Instead, it allowed me to stay regulated in my emotions and open for possibility in the moment.
Being clear on our mission is constant work, even when we are aware of the importance. This time last year, I felt I had lots of clarity on my mission, and as I went to launch and scale my new business, I felt confident I would stay aligned. But, then I started setting goals, and missed the important step of clarifying how each goal was related to my mission. I sought outside support, experts in business start ups, finances, marketing and they pushed me to make clear measurable goals. I did, and they helped me push towards accountability. But, I missed the step when I evaluated how those goals helped me with the mission. So, the financial and marketing goals felt empty, and led me to anxiously work towards those goals, and lose myself, my regulation, my clarity as I did so. I missed opportunities to live out my mission in my business, my relationships, my everyday interactions. My brain was only wired to seek the dopamine hit of meeting those unaligned goals, and when it didn’t I became angry, frustrated, full of self-doubt and lack of clarity. And, I felt stress in all areas of my life. Re-clarifying my mission helped me step more into my patterns of creativity, my connection, my compassion, my flow, my purpose, my joy.
If the immediate impact of considering focusing on your mission isn’t enough, perhaps the long term impacts might convince you. Research shows that a clear mission has wider impact than just efficient brain wiring. People with a clear mission and purpose in life report greater happiness, less anxiety, and less chance of cognitive decline due to aging.
Our society favors quick fixes and rewards, and achieving goals fits right into that system. While the short term push of goals can lead to short term success, this approach, if not part of a larger purpose, may not be sustainable, and may even have long term deleterious effects. In contrast, when we find clarity on our mission, we can execute more choice over our goals, and move towards more long term connection and happiness. What might be possible for you if you shifted from a focus on goals to a focus on mission?
References
Azab, M. (2021). Meaning and purpose in left (not goals) protect the brain. Psychology Today.https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/neuroscience-in-everyday-life/202101/meaning-and-purpose-in-life-not-goals-protect-the-brain
Hill, P.L., Sin, N.L., Turiano, N.A., Burrow, A.L., Almeida, D.M. (2018). Sense of purpose moderates the associations between daily stressors and daily well-being. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 52(8), 724–9. https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kax039.
Kross, E., Ayduk, O. (2011). Making meaning out of negative experiences by self-distancing. Current Directions in Psychological Sci- ence, 20(3), 187–91. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411408883.
Waytz, Hershfield & Tamir (2015). Mental stimulation and meaning in life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108 336-355.
