I was reading an article recently on whether having a goal for anything is better than not having a goal at all. This was insightful. I always believed that it is important to have a “goal” in life and at work so that we have something to look for.

The author of this article challenged this mindset of mine. She said if you have a goal, you may get limited in your thinking. You may think if you have achieved your goal, then you have arrived in your life. However, if you do not have a goal, your search for excellence never ends. It is an unending quest to improve yourself.

I liked this idea and hence decided to reflect on the same. I love driving and always plan for the same. I am clear on my destination and the stops on the way. I book my accommodation and even plan where I would have my breaks for food and so on. This is like setting a goal in life or work.

However, on the other hand, imagine going on a drive without a destination in mind. Just take your car out and drive on any road which you like that day and let it take you to an unplanned destination. Isn’t this exciting ?

I recently was driving from Chennai to Bangalore in my car. Both me and my wife all of a sudden decided mid way that we will divert our journey to Salem and take a break. We neither had planned for it nor were prepared for it. We bought some clothes, booked a hotel online on the way to Salem and spent a few days there. This was one of the most exciting holiday of ours.

Life is no different. It may be a good idea to plan a goal and put in all our efforts to achieve that goal. But once we achieve that goal, we may sometimes wonder what next and set another goal. Sometimes on our new year resolutions, we keep resetting our goals to suit our needs. This way the goal itself may become infructous.

Even at work, it may be a good idea to set our goals and strive to achieve it in our given time frame. But then if we reach a stage of life or work when we are able to excel without even setting a goal, we may have achieved “nirvana”. A stage where we are able to thrive in life without any goals, we may reach self actualisation.

What I enjoyed about this article was it challenged and changed my mindset. We sometimes start believe in everything to be structured and finite. Sometimes a pandemic may challenge the way we live and work. It may be a necessary situation to challenge our mindset. For eg, the pandemic made many CEOs & CXOs believe that “work from home” is a viable flexible option and need not hamper productivity at work.

Everything in life is similar. We start believing that what has worked for us over the years and what we have learnt from our elders and seniors are the only way to do things. An alternative view may shock us sometimes but if we are willing to be open and challenged, we may look at life with a whole new perspective.

Lets us keep the windows of our mind open always. Life is fun this way.

S Ramesh Shankar

16th Oct 2022