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Edition #252 – December 12th, 2024
​A newsletter by Anne-Laure Le Cunff​

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🍃 Rethinking Goals

In 2008, Spotify set the ambitious vision to create a legal music streaming service that could compete with piracy. Their initial strategy was clear-cut: secure licensing deals with major record labels, build a robust platform, and acquire users.

But the path that led to their current 626 million active users was anything but straight. They had to constantly pivot, experiment with different features, and even temporarily abandon certain markets. Their success didn’t come from religiously following their initial roadmap, but from treating each setback as an opportunity to learn and adapt.

Spotify’s story illustrates a crucial insight from decades of psychological research: the most significant breakthroughs often emerge from nonlinear paths. Yet, we cling to goal setting methods that promise certainty and control.

The Hidden Costs of Linear Goal Setting

Have you ever felt like you’re climbing an endless ladder, where each rung represents another goal to achieve? The moment you reach one objective, there’s always another waiting, leaving you exhausted and wondering if you’re making actual progress.

Linear goals dominate our approach to personal and professional lives. They offer a reassuring sense of clarity and measurability that our brains can find deeply appealing. That might be why the SMART goal-setting framework, introduced in the 1980s, is still used in companies around the world to this day.

But this traditional approach to goal setting is rooted in industrial-age thinking: straight lines, predictable outcomes, and measurable progress. While this might work well for manufacturing widgets, they fall short in uncertain environments characterized by rapid change.

Worse yet, research found that over-emphasis on specific, challenging goals can lead to reduced risk-taking, decreased intrinsic motivation, and even unethical behavior.

The problem lies partly in how our brains process goals and rewards. Neuroscience research has shown that the brain’s dopaminergic reward system is activated not only by achieving goals but also by anticipating rewards.

When goals are narrowly defined and tied to specific outcomes, the brain can overprioritize immediate, extrinsic rewards, leading to stress and fear of failure when those expectations aren’t met. This response helps explain why linear goals often lead to:

• Constant fear of failure and judgment
• A fixed mindset that limits learning opportunities
• Toxic positivity that pressures us to always present as successful
• Unhealthy competition that isolates us from potential collaborators

These issues become particularly acute in what organizational psychologists call VUCA environments (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) – precisely the conditions most of us navigate daily in our careers and personal growth journeys.

How to Implement Nonlinear Goal Setting

Nature rarely moves in straight lines, and neither does our personal and professional development. When we embrace nonlinear goal setting, we activate the brain’s reward system differently. Instead of seeking the dopamine hit of achieving a single goal, we create multiple feedback loops that encourage exploration and sustain motivation.

1) Start with observation. Keep a curiosity journal by taking field notes tracking your emerging interests, interesting conversations, and energy patterns. Document your current challenges and doubts without judgment. In particular, notice which activities energize you versus drain you.

2) Design tiny experiments. Create small, low-stakes tests to collect data. Focus on the process and let go of the outcome. You can’t fail when any outcome is treated as a source of valuable information to support the design of your next experiment.

3) Make space for reflection. Schedule regular review sessions. The Plus Minus Next method is a simple metacognitive practice that can help integrate learnings and adjust your trajectory based on emerging insights – not based on an artificial finish line.

Remember that you’re not aiming for perfection. Instead, notice what emerges without forcing specific outcomes. By releasing the need for perfection, you will paradoxically create the conditions for more meaningful growth. This flexible approach will not only feel better but also produce more sustainable results. What tiny experiment will you try first?

🛠️ Brain Tool

This week we interviewed the founder of Routinery, a mobile app that helps you design and actually stick to better routines. We talked about environment-driven habit formation, the routines of successful people, how to adjust routines over time as needed, the relationship between routines and neurodiversity, and much more.

⚡ Brain Picks

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• Learn how to better connect with yourself and others. Art of Accomplishment creates courses that help you show up differently in relationships and break free from old patterns. Alumni consistently call it the "single most impactful piece of development they've ever experienced." Applications for the December cohort close soon.

Many thanks to our sponsors for supporting the newsletter. Want to feature your product here? Email joe@nesslabs.com 💌

🤝 Brain Trust

If you enjoy the newsletter, you'll love our community of curious minds who grow together through interactive workshops and safe discussion spaces. Here is preview of what’s happening in the next month:
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• How to Learn from Your Experiments. In the closing session of our year-end experiments cohort on Dec 13th, we will explore how to extract helpful data, learn from your experiments, and decide what to do next.
​• Annual Review Workshop. Join me for one hour of self-reflection on Dec 16th where I will walk you through my simple Year in Review system so you can learn from 2024 and plan for 2025.​
• The Power of Seasonal Reflection. Explore the impact of seasonal changes, their importance, and how to integrate seasonal check-ins into your life during our next Creative Hour also on Dec 16th.
​• Uncovering your Dharma. Discover what dharma is and why it's important then learn simple practices in this interactive session facilitated by Katie Farinas.
​• Last coworking session of the year. Hosted by Javier Luis Gomez, this will be a 2-hour coworking session with 25-minute Pomodoros. Perfect to finish a creative project or write up your annual review before the holiday break.
​• From Collector to Creator. Take one of our self-paced courses to help you make the most of your mind, with exclusive worksheets and exercises, all from the comfort of our online community.

All of these and future events are included in the price of the annual membership ($49), as well as access to the recordings of all our previous sessions and a growing collection of case studies.

🌊 Brain Waves

Have a friend who wants to make the most of their mind? Send them the newsletter using your unique referral link below and unlock Reflective Minds, a database of good questions from great thinkers and creators.

Until next week, take care!
Anne-Laure.

P.S. Here are my 12 favorite books of 2024 – maybe you’ll find a nice holiday present in there!