The Importance of Anti-Goals

Thanks to the internet, we all know how to set goals with millions of articles teaching us not only how to set and achieve them. However rather than just having goals to strive towards in the new year we should all have anti-goals. It may seem counterintuitive, but what if we could get to where we wanted by avoiding and preparing for failure?

Our Goals and Anti-Goals help show us the path of where we were and where we might want to be.

So what are anti-goals?

Last week we established how end goals operate in our thinking and in regards to our overall growth.

Anti-Goals create a balance by showing us a tangible set of values or actions that we don’t want to be. Some examples include:

• I don’t want to be buried in debt or living above my means;
• I don’t want to be stuck in the office until midnight;
• I don’t want to be unfit or over a certain weight by 50.

Why Anti-Goals?

Anti-Goals stem from the concept of inversion or ‘premeditatio malorum’ which was proposed and used by several stoic philosophers including Seneca, Foucault and Socrates.

Premeditatio malorum or ‘Premeditation of Evils’ was used to envision worst case scenarios in order to resolve yourself against failure. By anticipating situations of complete failure, it not only helps the thinker mentally prepare, but also to see what we can do to avoid failure.

In the same vein Anti-Goals give us a benchmark of failure to avoid and allows us to anticipate ourselves at our worst. This allows us to easily develop our first steps of personal growth and, as we develop, helps us to stay true to ourselves.

Developing Anti-Goals

It is often easier to ask “what do we want to avoid” than to consider “what do we want”. Some Anti-Goals will come quickly to the top of your mind e.g. “I don’t want to be living paycheck to paycheck”, however others may require more reflection on what exactly we may not want. When I developed my list I broke it down into several key areas:

• Values → What standards or behaviours do you not want to embody?
• Habit → What actions do you want to make sure you consciously avoid?
• Physical → At 40 what physical health issues do you want to avoid?
• Emotional → Are there any states of mind that you want to avoid?
• Relationships → What relationships do you want to avoid? How do you want to interact with those around you?

The Anti-Goal Persona

Even after thinking about what we don’t want to be, it may be difficult to cement an image that motivates us away from what we don’t want to be.

The next stage in developing Anti-Goals is to take each element of your Anti-Goals and shape it into a living, breathing persona. Here it’s important to add one last key area: Identity. The Anti-Goal persona should have character and personality, what they want, and how they approach every day. By developing their identity, further traits or attributes that you want to avoid may appear or become clearer whilst also cementing an image on who you want to avoid becoming.

Personally my Anti-Goal Persona looks like this: At 45, balding and unfit with difficulty climbing stairs, he finds no joy in the work he does and just clocks in and out each day for the paycheck. He lives for holidays and does the minimum just to get by. He has a few surface friendships but no close friends who he can talk or open up to. He has a partner, but aside from greetings in the morning and at night there is nothing else that is discussed between them. His only escape is gaming, and the internet is the only place he finds joy and hints of passion.

Each person will have a different persona. Feel free to name yours or to dive into a deep description, but the key thing is that it should motivate you and be the embodiment of failure for you.

An Important Caveat

Anti-Goals are important, and once you’ve selected them they can be a great motivator. However they aren’t perfect and there are a few pitfalls to avoid:

1. Anti-Goals shouldn’t remain stagnant. I often imagine my anti-goals as a pursuer, and as I evolve, so do the goals and the persona who embodies them.
2. Don’t let your Anti-Goals to make you complacent. If every day you’re mindful of your Anti-Goals and still aren’t growing, consider whether your Anti-Goals are holding you back.
3. Don’t let your Anti-Goals consume you. They should work with your goals to help keep you accountable and propel you forward.

Make sure the Anti-Goals are constantly nipping at your feet. As you move forward, so should the crocodiles. Crocodile image modified from Wikimedia Commons

Maintaining your Anti-Goals

Like standard goals or targets, Anti-Goals need to be maintained and revisited as we grow. When we strive towards what we want, it is easy to tunnel-vision on our goals and growth, unconsciously taking up habits or traits we wish to avoid in the name of progress.

Therefore we have to make sure that these Anti-Goals develop with us and help inform our knowledge of where we are and how we grow. To do this we should revisit our Anti-Goal Persona every month, and see how they have grown or changed, reflecting any changes in priorities we may have had as well. Finally, we should re-develop our Anti-Goals from scratch every 6 months, comparing the two personas and traits, before focussing on where we want to grow in the near future.

If we don’t keep our Anti-Goals relevant we risk becoming what we aspire to be and adopting what we originally wanted to avoid

The process of changing how we approach a problem has been used to help mathematicians, businesses and being tidy, so why not apply it to our goals? Charlie Munger (Warren Buffett’s business partner) once said:

“A lot of success in life and business comes from knowing what you want to avoid: early death, a bad marriage, etc.”

So this year work out what you want to avoid. It may seem counterintuitive to think about what you don’t want to be, but your Anti-Goal persona will help make sure you never lose your identity as you grow and even motivate you into becoming who you want.