A fake goal is something that you think you want, but when you dig deeper (or even worse, when you achieve it), you realize that’s not something that you actually wanted.

There’s nothing worse than putting all your efforts, your time, your resources into something, just to achieve a result that is not what you expected, or one that causes more harm than good (aka the “Fake Goal Trap”).

Making sure you don’t fall pray of fake goals is a two-step process.

#1 – Consider The Journey

A goal is your destination. The journey is the process that gets you there.

Sometimes you might set a goal to achieve something, but then you completely disregard the journey – all the steps that you need to take to get there. These are the actual things that you need to be doing every day, or every week, or every month. These are the habits you need to incorporate into your routine. If the journey is something you don’t enjoy, then chances are, you’re not going to enjoy the achievement of the goal.

Let’s say that you want to start your own business. You have a nice idea and now you want to make it into a business. Your goal is to grow your business to let’s say $100,000 of revenue each year (specific) in 24 months (deadline).

But you hate marketing. You’re not a salesperson and you loathe the “whole marketing thing”. That is a problem, a major one.

If your goal is to grow your business, the journey to achieve it involves a lot of marketing. There is simply no way around it. And if you wake up every day and you don’t want to get out of bed because your day is filled with marketing and sales activities, even if you achieve your goal, 24 months from now, you would’ve hated the journey so much that you might not enjoy your achievement at all. It might not be worth it for you. This might be a fake goal.

The journey is something that you’ll be doing every day, week and month. If you don’t enjoy the process, if the dissatisfaction from your daily activities outweighs the satisfaction of achieving your goal, you have a fake goal on your hands.

If you set a goal and you also enjoy the process that you will get your there, you have a real goal. Go get them tiger!

#2 – Consider All The Consequences

You often hear people say, “I want a bigger house.” That’s awesome (I want one too :)).

But rarely do people sit down and think of all the consequences of having a bigger house:

• Your home insurance goes up (by a lot)
• Your taxes go up
• You have more rooms to clean. This means either more of your own time and energy spent, or more money for a cleaning service
• You need more furniture
• Your utilities bill goes up dramatically

That is not to say that you should not have a bigger home as one of your goals. A bigger house is an amazing goal… as long as you consider all the consequences that come with achieving it, the good and the bad.

Often times, you get caught up in the good and the exciting and you forget to be realistic about what it actually means to achieve that goal. That can lead to the creation of “fake” goals. Goals that you get excited about, work hard to make happen only to be disappointed by the end result, because you did not consider all sides.

Here’s how to avoid fake goals:

If you like the journey, you’ve considered all the consequences, and you absolutely love everything about it, that’s a good goal; go after it.

But if you absolutely hate the journey or you don’t like it, and some of the consequences are a little bit bigger than the actual benefit, you might be having a fake goal on your hands.

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