Twenty years ago, I wrote Goal-Free Living with a controversial premise: our personal lives are better without goal obsession.
So can this work in business?
Absolutely. I’ve seen it firsthand:
→ Clients selling more after eliminating sales goals
→ Companies boosting innovation by giving greater flexibility
→ Organizations increasing performance by reducing output targets
Harvard Business Review called it out in their article “Goals Gone Wild,” highlighting the hidden dangers of rigid goal setting.
And just this week, INSTORE Magazine featured a goal-free strategy for retailers, quoting Goal-Free Living:
“Compare the traditional approach with the insight of Stephen Shapiro, whose book Goal-Free Living makes the case that you can have some kind of direction without obsessing about the specific destination. ‘Opportunity knocks often, but sometimes softly,’ he says. ‘While blindly pursuing our goals, we often miss unexpected and wonderful possibilities.’”
I advocate for “using a compass, not a map.” That is, you need a sense of direction, but not a specific destination. And then you “meander with purpose.”
The best results come when we stop obsessing over the destination and start paying attention to what emerges along the way, adjusting the direction accordingly.