What do you think about the following goals?
Eat less junk food
Stop drinking
Argue less with my partner
Avoid bingeing Netflix series
These seem like great goals, right? They’re all connected in some way to reducing—if not eliminating—the negative impacts of a behaviour in someone’s life.
The problem is that they’re all terrible goals. They’re terrible because they’re goals that could be accomplished perfectly well by a dead man, i.e. a corpse. In fact, a dead man is guaranteed to accomplish each of these goals more effectively and consistently than you ever could.
Can a dead man eat less junk food? Yes—because they’re dead and can't eat anything, they will eat less junk food than any amount you have in mind. Can they stop drinking? Yes—because they’re dead and can't drink anything, they will stop drinking and never drinking again (no relapses!). Can they argue less with their partner? Yes—because they’re dead, they’ll do the truly impressive thing and never argue with their partner again. Can they avoid bingeing Netflix series? Yes—because they’re dead, and dead people can’t see or hear (or do anything for that matter), avoiding even the most tantalizing Netflix series won’t be any trouble.
Sounds ridiculous, right? It should. But this is how many of us frame our goals. We forget that when it comes to making real and lasting changes in our lives, it’s not enough to merely stop doing something; you need to start doing something else. You can’t just resolve to cut down or quit some 'bad' habit; you need to identify a 'good' habit to cultivate and practice in its place.
Instead of eating less junk food, why not commit to eating more nutritious foods? (Dead people can’t eat anything, so they can’t eat nutritious food.) Rather than stop drinking when it’s been helping you to cope with anxiety, why not commit to a coping strategy that’s healthier and more sustainable in the long-term? (Dead people can’t do anything, let alone regularly practice healthy coping strategies.) Instead of arguing less with your partner, why not commit to being more empathic and assertively expressing your needs? (Dead people are good 'listeners', I guess, but they don’t really offer much by way of direct communication.) Rather than binge yet another Netflix series, why not commit to a regular walking routine or start reading a good book? (Dead people can’t walk or read.)
Again, this probably sounds ridiculous—and of course it should. The problem, however, is that many of us set out to accomplish these kinds of dead-man goals. We set out merely to stop engaging in a behaviour rather than start engaging in some other behaviour. If your ultimate aim is to create real and lasting changes in your life, this approach just won't work.
That being said, if this is your natural tendency, don’t be too hard on yourself. There’s a way you can make this process easier. If you tend to frame your goals as dead-man goals, just ask yourself: “What would I be doing differently if I was [DEAD-MAN GOAL]?” For example, what would I be doing differently if I was eating less junk food, or not drinking, or arguing less with my partner, or not bingeing Netflix so much? In other words, you can turn a dead-man goal into a good goal pretty easily just be asking what you would be doing—rather than merely not doing—once you accomplished this goal.
Here’s the bottom line: if a corpse could achieve your goal just as effectively as you could (and even better than you could), then it’s not a good goal. To be a good goal, your goal must (at minimum) be one that a corpse could not accomplish.
