Toxic Goals By Catharine Bramkamp

Let’s welcome back monthly columnist Catharine Bramkamp as she shares with us “Toxic Goals.” Enjoy!

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The Promise of Goals

We are conditioned that meeting our goals will deliver happiness and contentment.

But life always gets in the way.  

And we feel we will never reach our goals and so are resigned to never achieving true contentment and happiness.

But what if the biggest obstacle to our happiness is the goal itself?

The Cultural Weight of Goals

We are so entrenched with the necessity and sanctity of the big goal — Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. How do you know you’ve arrived if you don’t know where you are going? — that it is hearsay to even question goals.

Goals are good. 

Goals are what you use on your college applications.

Goals are what you have at hand during a job interview or when you are begging for money in a grant proposal.

Goals are big business. 

What I discovered is that even in the second half of life, it is difficult to drop the goal habit.

You NEED GOALS so you can ACHIEVE them.

Goals and the Artist’s Life

But what does that look like for an artist?

Let’s say a photographer has established goals and is relentlessly working to achieve them.

He is ready to check off his SMART goals.

The stretch goal is to show his work in an upcoming gallery exhibition three months from today.

This show, like publishing a book, like a performance gig, will be IT and will not only make him rich but will go viral, propel him to fame and launch his lucrative second career.

He will be recognized and . . . make lots of money.

And money is always the goal.

Sound familiar?

The Wrong Wall

Yet, another popular saying about goals is: Before you spend your whole life climbing the success ladder, check to make sure the ladder is leaning on the right wall.

If we are in the second stage of life, we may want to indulge in asking — why are goals religiously focused on fame and money?

Both are fine, but we are capable of creating and following more interesting and life affirming pursuits.

What if the goal is to just finish a piece you love?

What if the goal is to feel good about an outcome?

Or — and this is radical — what about setting a goal based on joy and  creating something you care about while becoming enriched by the process?

When Goals Undermine Creativity

Okay, okay, you still can’t shake off the whole fame/money dynamic.

Let’s unpack our LV trunk and take a look inside.

Because the wrong goal can alter the very process of creating art, and not for the better.

You are the photographer, SMART goal list in hand.

Plus the stretch goals of the Gallery show, lead to shows in larger and larger ventures, garnering more money, much of which you have already spent in your head.

You leave the house weighted down with camera equipment and expectations.

You line up your first shot but all those expectations cloud the image.

• Will this fit in the upcoming show?
• Is this the right angle for the stated theme of the show?
• What are the other photographers submitting?
• Can you find out so you can be different?

As you eye the angles, the unknown competition, the opacity of the judges’ mood that day, the vision of the new car you will buy when this show works out and you sell all your prints, you notice an individual lingering in the shadow of the doorway across the street.

You briefly wonder about their story, but that is a distraction from THE GOAL.

After a whole day spent second guessing every building, every angle, every light, you return home exhausted with no photos at all: Every shot was  pre-judged, pre-rejected.

Not good enough to meet the goal.

Artists in the Same Trap

Every artist gets to play this game.

Writers are particularly prone to contorting their work to fit the mandatory goal of Best Selling Author.

This goal demands months of market research, scraping up funds to attend important conferences, weeks crafting a pitch for agents, and later for publishers.

Years writing and re-writing manuscripts that meet the criteria for a best seller (for instance: vampires, Jane Austen romance plot, zombies, short chapters, things that explode.)

Out of frustration, the writer may even resort to using AI to create a bestselling novel outline plus just a few scenes that will grab the reader and propel the author to fame and fortune.

Or perhaps you are an actor bent on fame in this second phase of life because you always wanted to act but instead went into a successful career in sales.

But now, here you are, retired and laboring in the community theater space but always, every day, reminding yourself that the goal is Broadway.

Yet it’s taking too long. 

The small theater company isn’t good enough to showcase your talents.

You become impatient with fellow actors and impatient with the necessary processes.

You have no time to mess around, and the longer it takes, the more important the goal of fame and money looms.

Are your artistic goals turning you back into the striving machine you vowed to leave in retirement?

Perhaps that hamster wheel of always striving inspired retirement?

Maybe there was a health scare and you thought — I only have one life, I should live it.

Yet here you are, same old frustrations, same old worry, same goals.

The Cost of Toxic Goals

While you focus on those goals, and force your new work to meet the Time-bound, Measurable goal, your creative flow at first backs up, then bursts the dam, sweeping away everything in its path.

Like a heart attack.

But we must have goals.

Shouldn’t we have goals?

Stay with me…

I love goals, I need goals, but I’ve learned to change how to manage them, and bend them to my will, so the goals help my creative process, not thwart it.

Because socially acceptable yet un-creative goals are anathema to living our passion.

For instance, the Muse will take one look at your SMART goal list and whisper, “I’m here to inspire, not increase your bank account.”

Without even realizing it, we have fallen back into our work default — create what is acceptable in exchange for money, believing this exchange will make us happy.

What Makes a Good Goal?

If not fame, what then is a good goal?

Maybe the creative goal for photography is not to hang portraits in a juried show, but rather spending a glorious day exploring your art.

Staying open to surprise and serendipity.

Spending a minute or two talking to the person lurking in the shadows who happens to have a key to the nearby cathedral vault and would be happy to show off its treasurers.

Or you land an acting role in the local production of Our Town with your only goal to perform well and support the troupe.

During the show run, you discover that as much as you loved the idea of acting, you are far better at managing both the performers as well as the fundraising.

You become famous for saving the local theater company.

As for the writer, he considers his AI generated novel and begins to wonder if this is really the right wall on which to rest his ladder.

Is this the work he wants to be known for? 

Is he an artist or a content provider?

Or will he spend his days crafting a story that feeds his soul and helps readers?

Choosing Joy

Did you create your goals or are you just responding to what is popular or easy?

This is our time to feel the earth, photograph the sky, write from the heart.

We have time to help our friends realize their own creative lives, to help our community nurture more creative expression, to deliver joy into the universe.

Joy.

That’s a good goal.  

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Catharine Bramkamp is a successful writing coach, Chief Storytelling Officer, former co-producer of Newbie Writers Podcast, and author of a dozen books including the Real Estate Diva Mysteries series, and The Future Girls series. She holds two degrees in English and is an adjunct university professor. After fracturing her wrist, she has figured out there is very little she is able to do with one hand tied behind her back. She delights in inspiring her readers.