Ensuring Goals Are Adaptable To Change

You may be going about “goals-based planning” all wrong. Many of us—and our clients—set financial and life goals based on what society expects or what we assume will bring us happiness. But neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff, PhD, founder of Ness Labs and author of the insightful new book Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World, says there's a better way. In my latest Barron's Advisor Podcast, Anne-Laure shared several ideas that challenge traditional goal-setting and offer practical approaches financial advisors can implement with clients. Here are three: ✅ Recognize the "Arrival Fallacy" Many ambitious people chase goals thinking happiness waits at the finish line, only to discover they're no happier once they achieve them. Anne-Laure calls this the "arrival fallacy." Instead, she recommends focusing on the process rather than the endpoint, so you can enjoy the journey rather than pinning happiness solely on outcomes. ➡️ Recommendation: Encourage clients to celebrate progress and small wins along the way. Doing so will make the financial planning journey itself more fulfilling. ✅ Adopt a Flexible, Experimental Mindset Rigid, long-term plans rarely survive first contact with reality (Remember Mike Tyson—Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face!). Life and circumstances change, yet financial plans often remain rigid. Anne-Laure suggests using a scientific approach—small, low-risk experiments that allow us to learn, adapt, and refine our direction. ➡️ Recommendation: Help your clients set financial "tiny experiments" to test ideas, such as allocating small budgets to explore new interests or life changes. Regularly revisit these experiments to adjust your plans based on real experience and your evolving desires. ✅ Beware of Mimetic Desire and Cognitive Scripts Anne-Laure emphasizes how societal expectations and subconscious scripts shape our goals, often without us realizing it. Goals like homeownership or retirement milestones are frequently adopted from societal norms rather than individual choice. ➡️ Recommendation: Facilitate discussions with your clients to identify the cognitive scripts shaping their financial decisions. Encourage them to reflect deeply on whether their goals truly reflect their personal desires or if they're simply mirroring external expectations. Lessons for Financial Advisors: If you're helping clients navigate financial goals, consider these three questions: 1. Are you guiding clients to appreciate the process of achieving their financial goals, not just the end result? 2. Are you encouraging experimentation as a way to refine and personalize their financial plans? 3. Are you helping your clients identify and question the external influences shaping their financial goals? What resonates most with your approach to advising clients? See comments for the link to the show.

Strategy conversations answer two questions: Where are we going? How will we get there? In these conversations, we often use “goals” and “outcomes” interchangeably. But they are not the same. In fact, the distinction matters a great deal when we are trying to organize collaboration in uncertain, fast-changing environments. GOALS ARE SET. OUTCOMES EMERGE. A goal is fixed—a clear target, defined in advance. As a competitive swimmer, I set goals each season. The number is set, measurable, and unambiguous. We either achieve it or we don’t. Goals live in a stable, predictable world. They assume we know what the path looks like and that we have enough control to hit the mark. Outcomes, by contrast, are multidimensional and dynamic. They evolve as we move forward. Outcomes acknowledge complexity. They recognize that when diverse actors start working together, new possibilities appear. Like fog lifting from the landscape, the horizon shifts as we take steps into it. Outcomes are less about planting a flag on a fixed hilltop and more about shaping a direction over time—always open to refinement as conditions change and as we learn by doing. NARROW GOAL SPACE VS. FLEXIBLE OUTCOME SPACE Imagine a strategy on a flat map. A fixed goal space is like a straight hiking trail with a clear destination: point A to point B. We measure success by whether we arrive. This works well in stable environments with known variables. Now shift your view. Imagine a strategy on a "dancing landscape." Continuous flows. Straight lines rarely exist for long. A flexible outcome space is more like a broad, shifting valley with many possible paths to higher ground. We may begin by saying, “We want to move toward a more adaptive company” or “We want to grow a resilient regional economy.” These outcomes are directional, not definitive. As we try small steps—piloting an initiative, testing a partnership—we learn which paths are promising and which are dead ends. New opportunities may open up that were invisible at the start. Learning is baked into the process, and the space itself reshapes as we move. PRAGMATIC STRATEGY AND ADAPTIVE CAPABILITIES The danger of confusing goals with outcomes is rigidity. When everything is defined as a fixed goal, we overcommit to artificial certainty. We force a straight line where only curves exist. But when we move into an outcome space, we hold a clear sense of direction while leaving room for discovery. This creates adaptive capacity—the ability to adjust as conditions shift. In complex collaborations, where the future is neither knowable nor controllable, the distinction is not academic—it’s essential. Outcomes anchor our shared purpose and guide us through the fog. We challenge ourselves and manage ourselves with guideposts: "By June, we should be here." If we miss a guidepost, we pause and assess why. In short, goals tell us what to hit; outcomes guide us on what we could become. #strategicdoing #adaptivepractice

Your goals are like a map: they need to be clear, relevant, and adaptable to the changing landscape. Studies suggest that 70% to 90% of organizations fail to achieve their strategic goals. Why? Lack of alignment, inadequate resources, poor communication, and a failure to include employees in the process. But perhaps the biggest issue is the reliance on the same old framework — SMART goals. While SMART goals have been a staple for decades, they might not be the best fit for today's fast-paced, agile business world. It's time to consider Adam Creek's CLEAR goals: Concise, Linked, Evaluated, Achievable, and Relevant. Here's how they differ: SMART goals focus on individual performance, while CLEAR goals align teams and organizations. SMART goals measure progress over fixed timelines, but CLEAR goals encourage ongoing evaluation and adjustment. SMART goals are static; CLEAR goals are flexible and responsive to real-time feedback. SMART goals emphasize personal responsibility, whereas CLEAR goals foster collective accountability. By adopting CLEAR goals, organizations can create a more adaptive, collaborative framework that helps them overcome common goal-setting challenges. Are you ready to evolve your goal-setting strategy for greater success in the year ahead? #CLEARGoals #SMARTGoals #Workplace #WorkplaceCulture Video by GrowthMatch