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2Why Are We So Obsessed with Goals?

…the most striking continuity between the old religion and the new positive thinking lies in their common insistence on work—the constant internal work of self-monitoring.

—Barbara Ehrenreich, Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America¹⁶

EVERY YEAR, MILLIONS of people create New Year's resolutions, set new goals, or dream up intentions for how they'll do things better on their next trip around the sun. And while plenty of people don't actively partake in this ritual, the “New Year, New You” energy is still part of the cultural air we breathe. We can't avoid the recycled headlines about how to finally stick to your resolutions this year or how to make a plan to accomplish your biggest goals. Stores fill their displays with exercise equipment, planners, productivity books, and motivational journals. We are bombarded by the societal imperative to make this year better than last—to reach higher, work harder, and achieve our dreams.

Now, I'm certainly not the first person to question the wisdom of this tsunami of goal-setting advice. But I wanted to go further than questioning. I wanted to know why it seems so difficult to envision a way to live and work outside of this paradigm of continuous improvement. As a former religious studies student, I am trained to examine the underlying beliefs that make up our worldviews. I had a hunch that our obsession with goals and achievement wasn't some fluke of genetic programming. Instead, ...