“Moonshots.” 🌙
“Big hairy audacious goals.” 📈
“Focus on the monumental, not incremental.” 🏛️

We hear this advice all the time.

Company leaders, motivational speakers, and self-help books preach it. 🙏🏻

These stretch goals are deliberately set out of reach.

They’re to inspire and counter complacency.

We’re told even achieving a substantial fraction puts you ahead.

But there’s a dark side that’s often overlooked.

Research shows that when goal failure occurs, we perceive our abilities as inadequate. 😔

And ourselves as incompetent.

Missing a goal affects self-esteem and motivation.

It causes disengagement from challenging future tasks. 😟

Worse, it leads to increased risk-taking and unethical behavior.

Suppose you set a stretch goal to lose 100 lbs in 6 months.

You diet and exercise and lose 60 lbs (a significant feat). 🏋️‍♂️

How likely are you to be happy you lost 60 lbs,

Versus disappointed you missed the goal by 40 lbs? 🫤

Think about business.

You set a stretch goal to grow revenue by 100% YOY.

Everyone works their tails off for 12 months.

By year’s end, you have grown 60% (still tremendous growth). 📈

Is management happy?

How does that make the team feel? 🫤

I’m all for goal setting and having a Northstar.

But be careful of the potentially detrimental effects of the big hairy stretch moonshot.

Remember, there is power in tiny gains. ⚡

Small wins, small projects, and small differences often make huge differences. 💪