Goals, Guilt, and Giving Up

Once upon a time I talked about how things like Netflix, Social Media, and the constant “noise” of podcasts, music, and streaming were interrupting my life and making it less enjoyable and more taxing. In order to push myself back to a life of true fulfillment (not just pleasure-seeking), I created a goal of not watching Netflix or any kind of TV or movie for 28 days. I knew it was going to be tough, but I was really looking forward to the benefits that it would bring.

Well, my friends, I think it’s important to be honest with you. I did not complete my goal. I didn’t even get close. About a week in, I had a rough day and spent the evening streaming. Then I spent the next day doing basically the same thing, and then, well, let’s just say the pattern continued for longer than 28 days. I didn’t reach my goal, and, ergo, I didn’t gain the benefits that I was hoping for. I was just as tired, drained, and frustrated with life as I was before starting the goal except now, I had the added disappointment of failing – the guilt of giving up. I’ve done a lot of thinking about goals, guilt, and giving up, and I wanted to share what I’ve discovered. I hope that it helps shed some light around this complex concept.

There are a few axioms, or core assumptions, that I’ve discovered about goal setting, and these assumptions drive our motivations. One of these axioms is that Achieving goals is good. I think it’s a pretty valid assumption, but it’s hard to get motivated just because we know that this goal is a good idea. Like, yeah, I know that working out is good for my mind and my body, but I could also just sit here, drink my coffee, eat my Nutty Bars, and hunch over a computer for 8+ hours a day. The motivation of “exercise because it’s good for me” doesn’t really motivate me that strongly. So instead, I motivate myself by another axiom – the antithesis of the first: Failure is bad. For the example of exercising, I don’t exercise because I want to be healthier; I exercise because not exercising is bad for me. It leads to fatigue, and soreness, and stress. I don’t like those things, so to avoid the negative consequences, I motivate myself with anxiety – the anxiety of “what if” from failure. In other words, I fear failure. This fear, derived from the axiom of Failure is bad,is what motivates me to achieve my goals – it kind of always has.

There are many different types of motivations that can guide us to achieving our goals, but whichever one we pick not only guides us in completing the goal, it also determines how we respond to failure. For me, the motivation of Axiom 1 isn’t very strong, so achieving goals where I use this motivation is either slow going, or failure is common. Using the anxiety of Axiom 2, however means that I achieve my goals much quicker, but it comes with a cost. When I motivate myself based off Axiom 2, and I fail (which I eventually will), I have now done what I’ve been repeating to myself is “bad.” I’ve been filling myself up with thoughts of “avoid this negative outcome” in order to give me the energy to keep going, but when I fall into that outcome, I am filled with guilt. I have become what I’ve been avoiding this whole time. For me, this “negative” motivation is from an avoidance of pain. Maybe your motivation is to control the outcome, become invulnerable, being right, being free, or avoiding a feeling of worthlessness or helplessness. Whatever motivation that we use, it controls how we respond to failure.

When we let ourselves be motivated by some derivation of Axiom 2: Failure is bad, and we fail, we end up falling into guilt. This guilt is familiar. It doesn’t just come from ourselves setting goals and missing them, but it is ever-present in our lives from external sources as well. *Gets on my soap box* If you’ve ever scrolled on social media, been to any kind of learning environment, participated in any of most religions, or been a part of a greater society, you’ve likely experienced guilt and shame. We’re motivated to compare ourselves to others, get the best grades/score, avoid “sin” or failing to fulfill religious sacraments, and we’re surrounded by other people fueled by guilt and shame. Why? Because we aren’t as good as other people, we don’t get the best score, we participate in unethical behavior, we don’t fulfill our goals, and we’re a part of a society that constantly feeds us the story of Axiom 2: Failure is bad. I could go off for hours on this topic, but I want to stay focused on the task at hand *steps off soap box*. If you want to learn more about guilt and shame and how it is propagated by our society, check our Brené Brown’s book, Daring Greatly, and its sequels. What I do want to do is tear apart that Axiom 2.

Here’s the reality, the closer that a goal is to our core beliefs, values, or self-worth, the more destructive motivating ourselves by Axiom 2 is when we fail. That’s a weighty sentence. Let me break it down with an illustration. If you’ve read my post on Visiting My Values, you know that Relationships are the number one thing that I value. So, I desire to be the paragon of a good friend, son, sibling, leader, and partner. This is so core to how I define myself, that when I fail – when I hurt someone or damage a relationship or cause strife between myself and someone else, when I cause someone that I care deeply about to experience pain – I am broken. This would be the case regardless of how I motivated myself, but since I so often motivate myself based on the principal of Axiom 2, when I do fail – and when I did fail – all I could tell myself was how awful of a person that I was. The epitome of this mess – my foundation falling out from under me – occurred three to four years ago, and I’m still working through the damage I caused both to others and to myself. So, since that goal was close to who I was, when I failed, the side-effect of shame was even more intense. We assume that Failure is bad and fuel ourselves by that principal in order to avoid shame, but when we do fail, we drag ourselves into that very shame and guilt; however, that assumption is just that: an assumption (and we all know what assuming does 😉)

The truth is that Failure is okay. It’s not necessarily a good thing, but it’s not the Earth-shattering, guilt and shame infested outcome that we often fear. In fact, it can be a good thing. When we fail forward, we learn faster. (A quick disclaimer: the idea that failure is okay does not excuse us from apologizing for our destructive actions, nor does it allow us to excuse those failures which affect others even when everyone affected by the failure was aware of and accepted the risk. We still need to apologize and grow, but we don’t always get a chance to atone. That’s okay, too. It’s hard, but it’s okay. I’m primarily speaking of those goals which affect primarily us and not others.) The problem is that we have such a negative relationship with failure that we end up in guilt and shame. So, let’s say we magically get to the conclusion that Failure is okay. That’s all good and dandy, but now we’ve lost our primary source of motivation. This leads us to giving up. We’ve no consequences to fear if we fail, so what’s the point in succeeding? For instance, with my Netflix goal, there were absolutely no consequences to failing (other than the ones I was already experiencing). I didn’t even have to tell y’all about it if I didn’t want to. Another example is my relationship with exercise. I’m not motivated by body image and I don’t have an accountability partner, so there’s no guilt if I fail, and so I often fail. But I still hold true to Axiom 1: Achieving goals is good. I know that exercising regularly or limiting my streaming is good for me, but I just don’t have anything to motivate me to complete it.

We set goals to become better people. This is typically a good thing, but how we get ourselves there can have an unfortunate side effect: guilt. We want to avoid guilt, so we tell ourselves that Failure is okay, but this leads us to losing motivation and giving up. So, what’s the answer? How do we achieve our goals without being pushed into shame by failure? Honestly, I don’t know. I think that there must be a tension – or a balance – between the two axioms. But what’s the perfect balance? I don’t know; it’s different for everyone, but the best way to make an informed decision is to have all the pieces. So hopefully my journey with this will help you make a decision about when to let yourself be motivated by what, and eventually achieve your own goals.

Best of luck in the real world,
Christopher