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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
Everything you need to make your goals a reality
Big Goals: The Science of Setting Them, Achieving Them, and Creating Your Best Life delves deeply into effective goal setting practices for both personal growth and corporate excellence, empowering individuals across all ages to pursue their ambitions with a newfound sense of confidence and mastery. Readers of this book will gain a nuanced understanding of the little-known science of goal setting, with practical tools and unique worksheets to use on their goal-achieving journey.
The insight in this book is powered by 15 years of exciting findings of positive psychology, along with Caroline Adams Miller's extensive experience as an executive coach. In this book, readers will learn about:
- The newest science on mindset, grit, Artificial Intelligence, resilience, and gender perspectives
- Miller's novel BRIDGE methodology, which addresses the “how” between the assignment of Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Locke and Latham's Goal Setting Theory (GST) and why it has been proven to work so well
No matter whether you're scared to start, sick of failure, or somewhere in between, Big Goals explains the new approach you need to more confidently and effectively move forward towards achieving your goals in your personal and professional life.
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Seitenzahl: 361
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Introduction
I Knew Nothing About Accurate Goal Setting
The Science Remains Unknown
Faux
Excellence and Diseases of Despair
Learned Mastery, Not Learned Helplessness
We Have Entered a Global Learning Goal Condition
Quiet Quitting and the ‘She-cession’
Role Clarity and Productivity
History Predicts We Can Succeed
Before COVID-19, I Never Knew I Could …
How to Use This Book
PART I: The Pillars of Productivity
CHAPTER 1: The State of Goal Setting Today
How Do You Get There from Here?
CHAPTER 2: The Emergence of a Better Way
Time, Motion, and “Taylorism”
Doing Good versus Doing Well
Dominating or Cooperating?
A Disrupted World Requires a Disruption in Goal Setting Practices
Boys, Business, and Bull’s-Eyes
Agency Through Acronyms
#dudegoals and #dudeadvice
Do Mars and Venus Succeed Differently?
How WEIRD Are Your Goals?
A Rising Tide Will Lift All Goal Setting Boats
Timing Is Everything
Girls, Groups, and Goodwill
Transformational Leadership and Win–Win
America’s First Lady of Engineering
Greed Is Good?
Bullet Train Thinking
Is There a Better Way?
There Is a Better Way
Bridging the Past with the Future
CHAPTER 3: The Science-Based “Secret”
The 800-Pound Gorilla Everyone Loves
From Taylorism to Behaviorism
The Early Seeds of Goal Setting Theory
Pulpwood and Productivity
A Courageous Partnership
Performance Goals Aren’t Only About Performance
Cleaning and Checklists
The Checklist Manifesto
The Checkered Flag at NASCAR
Learning Goals
Dogged Determination Is Not Always Useful
“I Can Do It!” Muscle
Four Ways to Build Self-Efficacy
Goals Gone Wild
The Astronaut of the Deep
What’s Missing?
CHAPTER 4: The BRIDGE from Theory to Success
Goal Lessons Learned from Overcoming Bulimia
The Universal Eureka! Moment
An Updated High-Performance Cycle?
Me at My Best
Mars, Venus, and a Universe of Differences
Are You Happy for Me?
Catching Emotions
The Black Sheep Effect
Are Vision Boards Dangerous Fantasies?
The X Factor
Psychological Safety
The Progress Principle
Using BRIDGE Effectively
PART II: Crossing the BRIDGE
CHAPTER 5: Brainstorming
The Habsburg Jaw Effect
Premeditatio Malorum
and
Premeditatio Bonum
TripAdvisor and Waze
Stages of Change
Building the Scaffolding of Your BRIDGE
What Do You Wake Up For?
What’s the Dream?
A Glimpse Beyond the Horizon
Avoid Buridan’s Ass
WOOPing It Up
Have You Met Me Before?
What Type of Goal Do You Have?
And We’re Off!
Learning Goals
Performance Goals
And There’s More!
What’s New in the World?
“We Found the Needle in the Haystack”
Beam Me into a Better Future
Enter the Black Swan
The Best Dressed Guest Has No Clothes
Will It Work for People Like Me?
Are You Hallucinating on Me?
We Can All Grab and Go?
You Are Now on Your Way
CHAPTER 6: Relationships
Do You Believe in My Dream?
The Heliotropic Effect
Catalysts and Nurturers
The Power of the First Responder
What Are You Catching?
A World Record at 99
Mind Mapping Your Future Web
How I Found My Own Missing Links
Making a List and Checking It Twice
Who Has Your Back?
The Ability to Love Others and Be Loved Back
Building a Strong Bridge
CHAPTER 7: Investments
“Stats Don’t Lie”
Big Goals Require Big Investments
All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun
What Are You Willing to Invest in Your Dream?
"Yes" to This Means "No" to That
Saving Trees, One Vine at a Time
Investing in Others’ Dreams
People Want to Be Part of Your Dream
Would You Wear That to Your Grandmother’s House?
Hello! My Name Is …
What Is Your Time Worth?
Doing the Basics
Time Waits for No One
Halfway Across Your Bridge to the Future
CHAPTER 8: Decision-Making
What Were You Thinking?
“I Believe You Can Find a Way”
A Bias for Action
Learning and Performance Goals Pursued Simultaneously
Lessons from Starbucks to Taylor Swift
The “Human Computer” and the Astronaut
Is Your Decision Biased?
How Biased Are You?
Where There Is Judgment, There Is Noise
Is It Bias or Is It Noise?
How Texas Hold ‘Em Teaches Decision-Making
Poker Takeaways for Better Decisions
Can I Win This Hand with My Strategy?
CHAPTER 9: Good Grit
The “X Factor” of Success
Beast Barracks and the National Spelling Bee
Ordinary Grit, Mt. Rushmore Grit, and Mt. Olympus Grit
“I Killed the Tiger”
Amabots, Tattletales, and Purposeful Darwinism
“Hustle, Hustle, Hustle”
“I Don’t Have a Quit Button”
WeFailed
All Play and No Work Equals Zero Grit
Do You Have “Anticipation of a Hassle?”
Growing Your Grit for Goals
CHAPTER 10: Excellence
Earning Two Crowns a Week
Goals Without Feedback Are Meaningless
Beware the Peloton
Cycling Gone Wild
The Fine Line Between Pushing and Prompting
How Your Values Can Impact Your Excellence
Checklist for Excellence
“My Goal Is My Gift to My Kids”
The BRIDGE Across the Channel
Good Enough Is Sometimes Good Enough
Your Journey Across the BRIDGE
Walk Someone Else Across the BRIDGE
PART III: Supplemental Resources
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
End User License Agreement
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Foreword
Introduction
Begin Reading
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Index
End User License Agreement
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Praise for Big Goals
“Entrepreneurs with big dreams and ambitions will always benefit from working with the science of goal setting. Caroline has the unique ability of interpreting the science of goal setting in a relatable and actionable way.”
—Dr. Nadine Hachach-HaramFounder and CEO of Proximie
“As a founding CEO, I know how hard it is to take the right risks and have the grit it takes to see them through, two topics that Caroline Adams Miller explains in Big Goals with the most cutting-edge science available.”
—Susan TynanCEO of Framebridge
“Caroline Adams Miller is the first person who has disrupted and updated the field of goal setting to make it understandable and relevant to everyone, regardless of age, race, or gender. This book is must reading for anyone who wants to accomplish their own Big Goal!”
—Dr. Lea WatersCEO Visible Wellbeing, Professorial Fellow The University of Melbourne
“No one is more dedicated to understanding and harnessing character strengths to live with intention and excellence than Caroline Adams Miller. Her unrelenting passion for discovering, translating, and sharing the best science to catalyze human flourishing makes her a beacon of excellence in the field. In her latest work, Caroline skillfully guides readers to achieve their most challenging goals, beautifully weaving the science of character strengths into the very fabric of goal setting, purpose, vision, and meaningful relationships.”
—Dr. Jillian CoppleyPresident and Chief Programs and Services Officer,VIA Institute on Character
“What makes Caroline Adams Miller and this book a stand-out is that she combines the facts with the psychology. Each is important but together, you can reach the stars. Reaching big goals isn’t easy. In this book, though, anyone can access Caroline’s extraordinary coaching to get you to where you want to go in life, better, faster. Caroline’s approach is being adopted by our team and incorporated into GWI’s own programs to ensure the next generation learns these essential lessons early on.”
—Jennifer OpenshawChairman & CEO of Girls With Impact and Author of The Millionaire Zone
“Caroline Adams Miller doesn’t just talk a big game when she promises practical strategies for accomplishing our big goals; she delivers in her book, Big Goals. Drawing from a diverse group of researchers, Caroline generously brings us the most up-to-date and comprehensive guide on goal setting theory and her brand-new BRIDGE methodology, which when combined make it almost impossible NOT to be successful.. If you are looking for a book that empowers, encourages, and motivates you to set big goals and achieve them, this is the only playbook you will ever need.”
—Wendy ConklinThe Chair Stylist & CEO of Chair Whimsy
“Who knew we were going about our goals all wrong? Caroline Adams Miller did, and thankfully she shares her science-backed ways to go after our goals the right way. Prepare for life-altering results after reading this book!”
—Jodi WellmanAuthor of You Only Die Once
CAROLINE ADAMS MILLER, MAPP
BIG GOALS
The Science of Setting Them, Achieving Them, and Creating Your Best Life
FOREWORD BY BRIAN JOHNSON
CO-FOUNDER & CEO, HEROIC AND AUTHOR OF ARETÉ
Copyright © 2025 by Caroline Adams Miller. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Miller, Caroline Adams, 1961- author
Title: Big goals : the science of setting them, achieving them, and creating your best life / Caroline Adams Miller.
Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : Wiley, [2025] | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2024031219 (print) | LCCN 2024031220 (ebook) | ISBN 9781394273317 (hardback) | ISBN 9781394273331 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781394273324 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Goal (Psychology) | Success. | Self-actualization (Psychology)
Classification: LCC BF505.G6 M53 2025 (print) | LCC BF505.G6 (ebook) | DDC 158.1—dc23/eng/20240801
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024031219
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024031220
Cover Design: Paul McCarthy
To my grandson, Wally Miller: May you and all future grandchildren of mine be blessed with the strength of bold vision, the courage to test your limits, and the willingness to help make other people’s dreams come true, too. Never forget that you can’t keep what you don’t give away.
Foreword
I’ve spent the better part of the last 25 years integrating ancient wisdom and modern science into practical tools to help people forge excellence and activate their Heroic potential.
During that time, I’ve studied Socrates in Athens, Jesus in Jerusalem, and Marcus Aurelius near the Danube of Hungary while reading more than 1,000 self-development books – including all the classics on goal setting and Positive Psychology.
In the process of distilling all that wisdom into a practical framework, I discovered Caroline Adams Miller and her work, including her pioneering book on the science of happiness and its intersection with the science of goal setting, Creating Your Best Life, and later Getting Grit, both of which I use in my work with Heroic coaches all over the world who are bringing areté and excellence to as many people as we can reach.
Caroline immediately became one of my all-time favorite Applied Positive Psychologists. In fact, she’s at least tied for first as my all-time favorite PRACTICAL Applied Positive Psychologist!
Caroline has a gift for bringing the empirical wisdom from academia alive in the pages of her books – which is why I was so excited when she told me she was writing an updated book on the science of goal setting for the mass market that anyone from a high school student to a CEO could read and implement immediately.
Somehow, over the last several decades, no one has ever taken the time to write a book on THE most scientifically rigorous approach to setting goals.
Enter: Big Goals: The Science of Setting Them, Achieving Them, and Creating Your Best Life.
In this amazing book, Caroline walks us through the groundbreaking research by Edwin A. Locke and Gary P. Latham that led to their empirically proven “Goal Setting Theory,” then she brilliantly extends their seminal ideas with her own “BRIDGE” framework to help us get from where we are to where we want to be. She has merged the best of ancient wisdom with the latest cutting-edge findings to give us all the best possible approach to setting, pursuing, and achieving any goal, but especially the big goals that we dream about, and that change us and the world around us for the better.
To put it bluntly: This is the only book on goal setting you’ll ever need to buy. Period.
Brian Johnsonco-founder and CEO,Heroic, and author of Areté
Introduction
“How many of you set big goals?” I always ask this question whenever I’m working with students at Wharton’s Executive Education program, in global corporate settings, or delivering keynotes that span industries ranging from law to gaming. Almost everyone raises their hand.
“How many of you use Locke and Latham’s goal setting theory to help you achieve those goals?” In response to that question, I’ve rarely seen more than two hands, if that, go up in a room.
I’m no longer surprised.
In 2005, I considered myself a goal setting expert and was working as an executive coach, speaker, and author helping others map out change in their lives and organizations. As a credentialed graduate of one of the top coach training programs in the world, I owned and had read every popular book I could find on goal setting and success. My professional certification from the International Coach Federation required that my client work include accurate goal setting processes that incorporated progress metrics and accountability. It helped that as the grandniece of Olympic gold, silver, and bronze medalists, I took the job of helping people to become their best selves and accomplish their hardest goals very seriously. I was trained, certified, and well-read on the topic. What could possibly be missing from my approach?
The answer is everything.
I Knew Nothing About Accurate Goal Setting
The scales about my lack of real knowledge around goals fell from my eyes in October 2005 when my homework in the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program at the University of Pennsylvania included a research paper by Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, co-founders of goal setting theory (GST). I remember saying aloud in wonderment, “There’s such a thing as goal setting theory that’s based on research? There’s a real science to achieving goals that I’ve never heard of or been taught?”
The moment I found out that GST was one of the most robust, evidence-based theories on motivation and that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of studies proving its efficacy and replicating findings that had been accumulating since 1960, I arranged to have the entire handbook of their theory loaned to me by Drexel University, which I promptly copied, one page at a time. I felt like I’d just been given the keys to the kingdom, and I was determined to learn as much as I could so that I could pass it along to clients and others who wanted to know the most effective, proven ways to accomplish their goals, too.
I subsequently discarded every book I had once revered on how to achieve success by such motivational authors as Steven Covey and Brian Tracy. None of them had a shred of evidence or science referenced in their writings, and there were zero sources cited. Furthermore, none of them mentioned GST or Locke and Latham, the two individuals who were clearly the foremost authorities in the world on the topic. As my year in the MAPP program progressed, I continued to learn about how to thrive, succeed, and maximize one’s chances of achieving meaningful goals with concepts like self-regulation, emotional contagion, self-efficacy, priming, character strengths, and resilience – relevant research that had mostly been kept hidden in the Ivory Towers of academia where people like me in the “real world” couldn’t access or use it.
After consulting with my mentor, Dr. Martin Seligman, the “father of Positive Psychology” and the creator of the MAPP program, we agreed that my Capstone project would be a start toward rectifying this problem. I wove together what I learned that year along with reams of other science on motivation, change, and well-being into a manuscript that ultimately became the world’s first evidence-based guide to goal accomplishment for the mass market, and the first to map the brand-new research linking the science of happiness with the science of success. Creating Your Best Life (Sterling) hit the market in early 2009 in multiple languages, instantly becoming a classic among athletes, leaders in organizations, executive coaches, adults in midlife transition, and students crafting their future paths. It was reissued in 2021, and I was especially honored to see it continuing to ride the top of recommended reading lists as a top goal setting pick throughout the coronavirus pandemic, a period when many people started to question their career and life choices and seek a framework to create positive change for themselves.
The Science Remains Unknown
Fifteen years after Creating Your Best Life debuted, I feel more urgency than ever about the need to educate the world about the science of goal accomplishment, but in a shorter and more streamlined way. That is the book you are holding in your hands. I wrote it so that anyone from a manager in a Silicon Valley company to a middle school student can quickly grasp the concepts of goal setting science, walk through the steps from start to finish, and stand a good chance of becoming successful, or, at the very least, understanding what they need to do to make things happen for them and not to them.
My executive coaching clients are now exclusively CEOs who run organizations that are putting people in space, renovating outdoor environments, and disrupting educational, artistic, and financial industries. I still find that I’m the first person to ever teach them goal setting theory, which they then use to overhaul their company’s approach to change. Most fly to my strategy offsite center in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware from all over the world once or twice a year to do in-depth strategy sessions so that they and their employees can benefit from having leaders who know the difference between learning goals and performance goals (Locke and Latham’s definitions of these goals, not how some popular websites define them). Starting this annual process correctly reduces disengagement, enhances curiosity, results in greater success, and avoids the perils of what I call “goals gone wild” – situations in which performance and learning goals are reversed, often resulting in failure, a company’s reputation loss, and even death in the worst cases.
Faux Excellence and Diseases of Despair
In the past decade, anxiety, depression, and suicide have continued to rise among teens and young adults. COVID-19 and the forced separation of children from their friends through remote learning only accelerated these trends and added to the mental health problems that had been brewing for years. Part of those challenges came from the society that Generation X had created for their children. When I wrote Getting Grit (2017) I covered the rise in the “Self-Esteem Parenting” movement which began in the 1990s and preached that making children happy at all costs and giving them what they wanted without struggle would raise their self-confidence and result in a positive work ethic. Neither happened. Instead, it gave rise to the “everyone is a winner” mentality and rampant grade inflation that continue to this day.
A December 2023 report by Ray C. Fair, an economics professor at Yale, said that close to 80% of Yale University students received A’s for their work, numbers matched by Harvard and other private schools. Public schools trail only slightly in overall GPA averages. University officials feel powerless to change the relentless upward trajectory of faux excellence, which spiked sharply during the pandemic, and which they say is exerting even more pressure on students, not less. Amanda Claybaugh, dean of Harvard’s undergraduate education, explained, “Students feel the need to distinguish themselves outside the classroom because they are essentially indistinguishable inside the classroom. Extracurriculars, which should be stress relieving, become stress producing.”
Throughout childhood, Millennials were often not exposed by schools, sports teams, or society to traditional exemplars of high achievement or expectations to do hard things that required resilience, willpower, or curiosity. Gatekeepers didn’t want to discourage or stress them, and competition was considered by many authority figures to be unfair.
Is it any wonder that a generation raised on limited expectations of excellence might find themselves ill-equipped to handle experiences of disappointment, relationship rejection, and honest performance reviews in the workplace? When we believe people are too fragile to deal with stress and live in a world filled with images of Instagram perfection and YouTube moments of fame that they have no idea how to achieve, it’s no wonder they might become depressed or anxious when staring at their future. A lifetime of getting automatic accolades for standard efforts and accumulating participation trophies simply for being on any team in a soccer league has left many unable – or unwilling – to turn their own dreams into reality. They need a new approach and tools to help them bridge their current position to a more empowered future.
Rates of depression and anxiety among US adolescents were mostly constant during the 2,000s, but many studies show that those numbers rose by more than 50% from 2010 to 2019, which coincides with the arrival and spread of the smartphone in 2008. Gallup notes that screen time among teens has skyrocketed, with 4.8 hours a day mostly going toward social media apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat, with girls logging up to 5.3 hours daily. Excessive screen time has been linked to procrastination and an inability to focus on one’s goals, something three-quarters of college students say is chronic and problematic, wreaking havoc on their mental health, relationships, and work. Adding to their challenges, rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among college students more than doubled between 2017 and 2022, surprising one of the researchers who called the findings “indeed shocking.”
In recent years economists have also been discussing the rise in “diseases of despair,” conditions that are particularly pronounced in women at midlife who don’t feel their lives have purpose or meaning. Although there are many factors that contribute to the spike in eating disorders, depression, opioid abuse, alcoholism, and unhappiness seen in this age group, it’s thought that lacking the tools to identify and successfully pursue their own goals is also part of the problems besetting women. I firmly believe that goal setting science isn’t just an important means to help address the problems we see among our youth and young adults, I also think it can be a positive addition to how women – and men – handle the relationship, job, physical, and mental changes that occur at midlife, a period also correlated with the lowest levels of happiness in life.
Learned Mastery, Not Learned Helplessness
Seligman, who became a treasured friend and mentor at Penn, is renowned for the decades he spent in psychology studying depression and other ills prior to pioneering the field of Positive Psychology in 2,000, which is the study of flourishing individuals, organizations, and countries. He is perhaps best known known for his theory of “learned helplessness,” which posited that dogs in cages given electrical shocks and prevented from escaping, and who then lay down and gave up even when their cages were left open, had learned to be “helpless.”
Entire cities, educational programs, and social services were promulgated based on this theory so that individuals wouldn’t give up when they had the equivalent of electrical shocks. “Learned helplessness” is still such a common phrase that rarely a week goes by without someone saying to me that they or someone else has been the victim of “learned helplessness,” and that giving up on something had been the natural consequence of being repeatedly stymied in their goal pursuit.
We are incorrect in this line of thinking, however. In recent years, a new parsing of Seligman’s initial findings with more cutting-edge testing methods overturned his initial conclusion that people learn to become helpless when repeatedly shocked. His theory is now known as “learned mastery;” it was the dogs who escaped after being shocked who had learned a new, more adaptive habit. They were the ones who responded to adversity by jumping out of the cages, not lying down, which had made them “masterful” in their environments, not helpless. Now the belief is that helplessness is our default setting at birth, not something we develop as the result of setbacks. We must learn mastery by persisting through obstacles, which is how we learn to thrive and succeed – and you can’t buy, fake, or wait for someone to do this for you.
Plenty of accepted research backs this up. Ed Deci and Richard Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory, another widely proven finding, says that all humans have three basic needs they must satisfy. They are autonomy (the ability to control one’s environment), relatedness (caring and being connected to others), and competence (experiencing mastery in personal goals). Thus, if learning how to achieve important goals to feel masterful satisfies a basic human need, and we are born helpless, it means that one of the greatest tools we can learn or teach others to thrive is the science of how to accomplish the big goals. This is my mission.
Deci and Ryan note that “autonomous motivation” is optimal for goal pursuit. This occurs when you are aware and engaged in what you are pursuing, and how you are taking action. This leads to greater persistence, more flexibility and creativity, greater well-being, better health, and long-term positive effects across culture, lifespan, and gender.
We Have Entered a Global Learning Goal Condition
There are also current crises in the world that support the urgency of learning how to do hard things. As the coronavirus pandemic raged across the world beginning in 2020, no one remained untouched by the sudden impact of countries closing their borders, workers being ordered to stay home, and schools changing how they instructed students of all ages. Cities emptied. Hospitals filled. Organizations that once thought onboarding new employees could only be done in person welcomed new hires in mass Zoom meetings. Handshake deals turned into e-signatures on documents in the cloud. People who had never bought a dress online suddenly entrusted their family’s grocery shopping to masked strangers who left triple-bagged food on their doorsteps. In short, everything we’d once done automatically to achieve an assured outcome didn’t work any longer. If you did not adapt and accept that the world would never be the same again, and that you’d have to learn new ways to succeed, you wouldn’t survive, let alone thrive.
In GST parlance, we had entered a mass “learning goal” condition that Locke and Latham say is a period in which you must add knowledge and skills before expecting yourself to achieve any specific outcome by a certain date. I quickly grasped the suddenness and significance of this shift from a scientific perspective and explained to clients and friends how to apply GST to their lives to avoid becoming frustrated by holding themselves to unrealistic, old standards. I didn’t see that knowledge being shared anywhere else, though.
Quiet Quitting and the ‘She-cession’
The pandemic caused a significant drop in productivity in 2020, according to McKinsey, due to business lockdowns, economic uncertainty, and remote work adjustments. As companies developed new ways of working, results were mixed. Some found reduced commute times allowed workers to get more done, but those results were balanced by complaints of distraction, loneliness, burnout, and lack of collaboration. The addition of closed schools and remote education hampered productivity, as well, with women handling the lion’s share of disruptions to their careers.
This period quickly became known as a “She-cession” because existing gender inequalities were worsened, highlighting in “bright fluorescent marker the deep-seated disparities between men and women.” Some reports equated the drop in women’s standings in areas like academic research and publication to the equivalent of 10 years of lost progress, and an April 2024 Bloomberg report said that women’s representation in C-Suite roles was experiencing its first drop since 2008, marking an “alarming turning point.” Reports of “quiet quitting” by disengaged workers made it hard for companies to find and retain talent, leaving managers shorthanded and overwhelmed. Artificial intelligence advances have also contributed to a roiling business world because not only are management practices still in flux, but now companies also must invest in training and education to take advantage of artificial intelligence’s promise of improved efficiency.
McKinsey’s 2023 report on Women in the Workplace conducted with LeanIn.org quotes many women who say they are stymied at many turns in the workplace for reasons large and small, including what they describe as a different goal accomplishment metric for promotion for them than for men, whether they are working remotely or in person. “Women are often hired and promoted based on past accomplishments, while men are hired and promoted based on future potential. This bias affects women’s career advancement, especially early in their careers.”
Role Clarity and Productivity
In early 2024, Gallup’s annual “State of the Workplace” report described the workplace in starkly negative terms, noting that employee disengagement was at all-time highs and productivity had continued to plummet. Poor goal setting practices were identified as one of the key drivers of these negative outcomes for several reasons. Gallup said that unclear expectations were holding teams back, reducing satisfaction and weakening employees’ commitment to the organization’s vision and mission. “Role clarity” was identified as a particularly troubling weak spot because of its importance in engagement.
Even more concerning was that employees who understood what was expected of them at work had dropped dramatically in the previous four years, especially for exclusively remote and hybrid employees. Additionally, the lack of meaningful feedback from managers, especially on goals, priorities, strengths, and collaboration, had contributed to confusion about what was expected of them.
What was Gallup’s prescription to address these problems?
This respected research giant recommended starting with an emphasis on learning how to set higher quality goals. The report said that if the goals were set correctly and were reviewed weekly or bi-weekly with managers, there would be more role clarity. Workers would then understand what was expected of them, leading to greater productivity and worker engagement. As I read the report, I added a few of my own hypotheses: well-set goals would result in more accurate performance reviews, which would be especially helpful to women and minorities, who would get the type of feedback that would reflect their contributions and count toward leadership promotions. Using goal setting theory to separate learning goals from performance goals would also contribute to more engagement because of the curiosity and creativity evoked when people are allowed to learn what is expected of them instead of experiencing a demand for immediate results. And everyone would be happier – something research had conclusively found contributed to workplace well-being, group harmony, and enhanced confidence and optimism.
But who was going to give them this information? If most people still don’t know GST, which has been my observation since the initial publication of Creating Your Best Life, who was going to train them? Certainly not the motivational speakers talking about SMART goals, an approach that had been found to be harmful to people’s goal pursuits because of its conflicting terminology in different settings and the inherent inference to set “realistic” or “attainable” goals – not hard goals – or the business leaders who found inspiration from the tiny proportion of people selected for special forces teams.
I decided to try to fill those shoes.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, declared that 2023 would be the “year of efficiency” and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, said that productivity was lower than it should be because of bloated management numbers, stressing that reducing head count – not improved goal systems – would solve their productivity challenges. The problem of “BS” and “irrelevant jobs” of the “laptop class” in high tech and industrial corporations has long been a concern of investors, like David Ulevitch of Andreessen Horowitz, who said that “fake jobs” were preventing companies like Meta and Google from passing profits along to pensioners and other shareholders. “So those people aren’t just being useless (and being coddled to think useless jobs actually matter – they don’t), but they are also taking money away from the rest of the workforce’s retirement programs,” he said.
History Predicts We Can Succeed
The Bubonic Plague, also known as the “Black Death,” was a pandemic that spread through insect-infested rats beginning in the mid-1300s, wiping out between 25% and 60% of the population in Asia and Europe. It spurred sweeping upheavals in cultural, political, artistic, and medical norms. Instead of baseless healing approaches like bloodletting and forced vomiting, medicine evolved in a more evidence-based direction anchored in research and science. Wages grew to reflect the changes in a more powerful worker class, burial practices became more sanitary, industries evolved to incorporate guilds and apprentices, and even art became more realistic in its depiction of people and their lives.
The terrible pestilence and population losses of the Black Death birthed the Renaissance, a period of unparalleled knowledge expansion and human flourishing. We are now in an equivalent period. Our lives have been disrupted and everything from vaccine development to how we deliver higher education is nothing like it was just five years ago. It’s now normal for organizations to hire remote workers and create hybrid jobs that only require a day or two a month of onsite work; this approach was once viewed as unique and ineffective, and now it’s a benefit touted by companies to lure talent that is unlikely to disappear. Doctors routinely perform surgery and psychotherapy through augmented reality and video conferencing. Buying anything from dog food to prom dresses is rarely done at malls or by interacting with a human any longer, and what we purchase is increasingly brought right to us by drones, self-driving cars, and fleets of Amazon delivery vans in the middle of the night. Money doesn’t exchange hands much, either, as we tap credit cards on computerized checkout systems at gas stations and tell Alexa to reorder toilet paper for us. Even writing a check to hand to someone is thought to be an old-fashioned courtesy that will end soon.
If we are honest with ourselves, history is telling us that many of the recent painful and unwanted upheavals in our lives might be leading us to a new Renaissance, and I believe that part of that Renaissance will include rebirthing an approach to goal setting that is more modern, scientific, and effective.
One of the exciting medical advances of recent years has been the birth of “smart bandages,” which will soon be able to let doctors remotely monitor wounds, reduce scarring, and accelerate healing through light pulses and dispensing medicine through the touch of a button. “We kind of are [still] practicing medieval medicine in wound care,” Dr. Geoffrey Gurtner, chairman of the surgery department at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Tucson, said about his work with others on smart bandages. The US Department of Defense has invested in the project in the hopes that smart bandages will be used on the battlefield and other hard-to-reach locations before the end of the decade, marking the first major advance in wound care in hundreds of years.
Before COVID-19, I Never Knew I Could …
I like to ask clients, “Before COVID-19, I never knew I could… .” We all occasionally lose sight of how much more innovative and resourceful we’ve become since 2020 as familiar tools and rituals have morphed into newer, often improved, ways of doing things. In this abrupt transition, most people reported learning to live with less, focus more on the people who mattered, and improvise how to meet daily needs in new ways.
Just as the Renaissance created a more evidence-based approach to many fields, I believe it’s time for us to move into learning and embracing a science-informed approach to goal accomplishment through GST and the BRIDGE (Brainstorming, Relationships, Investments, Decision-Making, Good Grit, and Excellence) framework that I’ve spent years successfully testing and refining with business professionals, athletes, students, retired adults, and in a variety of cultures. Let’s do away with fantasy approaches like “The Law of Attraction” and learn how to master our environments in ways that build curiosity, optimism, and grit. Let’s go from dreaming about big goals to undertaking the journey to make them reality, regardless of how hard we must work to overcome challenges and not get a trophy at the end of every day.
