Goals that attain mastery

Even harder to get out of bed at 5.30 this morning to run, but nevertheless I managed 1.4 miles and explored a new route on my Brough adventure.

I read something new about goals today in Daniel Pink's "Drive". I've never been entirely comfortable with the concept of goals that are imposed by others.

Here's a couple of things that I read:

"Goals that people set for themselves and that are devoted to attaining mastery are usually healthy. But goals imposed by others - sales targets, quarterly returns, standardised test scores, and so on - can sometimes have dangerous side effects."

"Goals may cause systematic problems for organisations due to narrowed focus, unethical behaviour, increased risk taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation. Use care when applying goals in your organisation."

Interesting ideas. Whilst increased risk taking is not always a bad thing as far as I'm concerned, unethical behaviour, decreased cooperation and decreased intrinsic motivation are always a bad thing, I would suggest.

Maybe that's why my mile each day seems to work.

And the mastery I am attaining is probably the mastery of my side that is tuned to possibility, over my side that is concerned with negative and self-critical internal dialogue.