A Blog Without Goals Is…A Better Blog?

As I read through Blog Wise last week, I came across new-to-me blogger Leo Babauta of ZenHabits. I had heard of this blog before, but I never knew what it was about or why everyone was reading it (250,000 subscribers to be more exact). After all, there are no pictures, no comments, no nothing but black text on a white background over there. Leo’s interview sucked me in however. I read and reread this portion of the eBook. Why? Because Leo’s philosophy goes against everything we are taught about how to achieve anything of significance in life…and it is where I have kind of been at lately as a blogger.

You see, in November I hit my big blog goal of earning four-digits per month through blogging. I was excited. I was proud of myself. I did my happy dance. Then, I didn’t know what was next. That was the one big goal I had set for myself when I started blogging. I had reached that. I really didn’t care to set another monetary goal. I’m confident that my blogging income will continue to increase as my existing sites get bigger and I add more sites.

I’m also not big into the “numbers game.” I like looking at my stats. I like to see them moving in the right direction, but my big focus all along has been on quality not quantity. I don’t buy into this “he with the biggest list/lowest Alexa/highest PR wins” mentality. Sure, they are measurements of success in some sense – the visual and competitive sense that we use to compare our blogs to every other blog out there. However, they often have little relation to monetary compensation and they are easily manipulated. Looking at them from that point of view, now what do they mean?

So, the past few months I have been sitting here in limbo. I’m still blogging, but I’ve been feeling rather lost about it. I don’t have a goal! How can you live without goals?! What am I working towards? How will I know when I get there? There have also been a few things that I wanted to do but didn’t because they weren’t on “The List.” What is that about?

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Leo Babauta’s philosophy is that you don’t need goals to accomplish big things. In fact, you can probably accomplish much more with a no-goal lifestyle. You go where your passion takes you.

What a relief! This is where I am now. I have no expectations. I am going to do what feels right to me, not what the blogging community says I should be doing in terms of content production and marketing. If I feel like writing nine blog posts one morning, I will. If I feel like I would rather spend my time on Twitter, I will. If I feel like losing myself in work instead of doing anything blogging related, I will do that. And you know what? I’m really not feeling fearful about it.

Here are some quotes from ZenHabits that are resonating with me now. If you aren’t “feeling it” right now, perhaps these will give you a little peace as well.

If you find yourself swimming with all the other fish, go the other way. They don’t know where they’re going either.

Let go of expectations. When you have expectations of something — a person, an experience, a vacation, a job, a book — you put it in a predetermined box that has little to do with reality. You set up an idealized version of the thing (or person) and then try to fit the reality into this ideal, and are often disappointed. Instead, try to experience reality as it is, appreciate it for what it is, and be happy that it is.

Do less. Most people try to do too much. They fill life with checklists, and try to crank out tasks as if they were widget machines. Throw out the checklists and just figure out what’s important. Stop being a machine and focus on what you love. Do it lovingly.

From 38 Things I Have Learned in 38 Years

What do you do, then? Lay around on the couch all day, sleeping and watching TV and eating Ho-Hos? No, you simply do. You find something you’re passionate about, and do it. Just because you don’t have goals doesn’t mean you do nothing — you can create, you can produce, you can follow your passion. ~ The Best Goal is No Goal

That’s the thing: even with goals, some people aren’t going to achieve anything, because they haven’t figured out how to motivate themselves. Goals don’t do that for you — they just make you feel guilty that you haven’t gotten them done. And even without goals, people who are motivated are people who will get excited and do stuff. They’ll accomplish something great, no matter what.

Goals keep you focused on something in the future, instead of being present and enjoying what you’re doing right now. Goals keep you fixed on one path, which might not be the best path in a week or a month or a year. They keep you fixated on one thing, rather than being open to new opportunities, being flexible as the landscape changes, being free to pursue something you’re newly passionate about rather than sticking to something you’re tired of.

Achieving, Without Goals

What do you think? Could you accomplish great things with no goals?