Why You Should Articulate Exactly What You Want
I’m not the biggest fan of New Year’s resolutions and I have a love-hate relationship with goal-setting. I realize the usefulness of the New Year’s season as an opportunity for reflection and evaluation of what additions or subtractions need to happen in life, and I do appreciate setting aside time to do just that. But, as I’m probably not the first to say, I’ve found that focusing on what I do day-to-day is more effective than getting too caught up in planning. Everyone can have a plan, but not everyone can engage in the minutia of what’s needed day-to-day.
My problems with goal-setting are:
- some people might set goals for the sake of setting them without having fully thought out the reasons why, because setting goals is trendy
- some people might set goals that are too high and their lack of attainment leads to frustration and dejection
- some goals might not actually be on target with the things people are aiming at in the long term — a goal of becoming a black belt in martial arts could take away from the time to obtain the goal of forging healthy bonds with family, for example.
And maybe it’s just me, but goals generally aren’t an issue. I know what I want. What I want is locked away in my brain. My problem is that I don’t articulate what I want.
Why wouldn’t I say what I want?
In Robert Caro’s The Passage of Power, he chronicles Lyndon Johnson’s time from Majority Leader of the Senate to Vice President in John F. Kennedy’s administration (and eventually Johnson taking command after the tragedy in Dallas).
If you’re familiar with the story, you know that Lyndon Johnson never set out to be Vice President, the job where John Adams said, “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”
Lyndon Johnson wanted to be President. That was the goal to which he maneuvered, cajoled, and manipulated his way toward attaining. That was the goal he made sure all his political arrangements aligned with, and that none of his actions — like getting too involved with Texas oil — could interfere with.
And leading up to the 1960 race for the Democratic Nomination for President, Lyndon Johnson had a lot going for him to help him attain his goal. He had just led the Civil Rights Act of 1957 through a United States Senate that hadn’t passed Civil Rights legislation in 82 years, he was serving in one of the most powerful positions in the country as Senate Majority Leader, and due to his ties with the South and other parts of the country, it looked possible that he could gain enough delegates to secure the nomination or send it to later ballots where he could cajole and persuade in the backrooms.
But to the astonishment of his friends and foes, Johnson didn’t act. He didn’t move forward. This goal he had been working towards his whole life, of becoming President of the United States, the goal that he lost in his race for the 1956 nomination, was in arm’s reach. And he didn’t act. He did nothing.
According to Caro, at one point Johnson flew out to Idaho for a speech and meetings with political leaders whose support he needed. Irvin Hoff was helping with the Johnson campaign and said this about Johnson’s inability to say that he was running for the nomination. “It was like he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He had flown out there to say it, but he couldn’t bring himself to get the words out.” And Johnson’s protege Bobby Baker echoed the same sentiment.
Why wouldn’t Johnson just admit that he was entering the race for the nomination? Why did he start campaigning and still refuse to admit the goal to which he was aiming? Why couldn’t he articulate his goal? Because, as Baker would say, “the problem was LBJ’s fear of being defeated.” And as Caro wrote, “that saying it would be admitting that he was trying, and trying might mean failing.”
Johnson continued not to give anyone assurance that he was running. Everyone was confused. Reporters, his friends, and the future President he served with could not understand his actions. Johnson’s campaign headquarters were even kept a secret. Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion wanted to meet Johnson, and for Johnson, the public relations master, that was the perfect opportunity for media attention. Instead, Johnson only met in private. According to Caro, a Johnson ally, Eliot Janeway, would say, “he is his own principal source of defeat.”
This was very strange. This was the same man who said that “if you do everything, you’ll win.” And he wasn’t doing everything. It took him long to even do anything. And once he finally confirmed his candidacy and turned his ferocity toward the prize he so desperately wanted, it was far too late. He waited far too long.
If I have to state a New Year’s goal, it’s to be clear about what I want.
We all know how the future played itself out. Johnson went on to run as the Vice Presidential candidate on John F. Kennedy’s presidential ticket. He was an outcast in the administration and only served the office for his most desired prize after the tragedy in Dallas.
It’s unclear whether or not Johnson would have won the nomination in 1960 if he had tried his hardest following his 1956 defeat. Kennedy may have still won, but Johnson would have had a much better chance if he didn’t wait until it was too late. His chance was thwarted partially because he couldn’t clarify his goal and act on that clarification. He couldn’t say what it was he wanted.
And I can’t fully blame him. Johnson feared humiliation and failure. He feared not getting that goal to which he aimed. And the easiest way to assure not getting that which he feared, even though it meant he also wouldn’t get that which he wanted, was to not clarify what he was aiming at. The irony was that, by waiting so long, he did incur humiliation and failure. Before he had even lost the nomination people were laughing at his actions.
Saying what you need or want is hard. Just because you say it doesn’t mean you’ll actually get it. And by saying it, you’ve clarified your failure if things don’t work out.
As I acknowledged before, goal setting has its time and place, and some people work best by having frequent lists of goals to keep them motivated. But whatever your style, I think what’s most important is that we fully articulate the things we truly want, those things that if we don’t get we won’t view our lives as successes. We might only be able to clarify them to those closest to us, or they’re so private that we write them down in our own personal journals.
So, this New Year, instead of being pulled into the trend of making up new goals — things that might distract me from the things I actually care about in life, because having those distractions lessen my chances of failing at the things I do want — my aim is to properly articulate my goals. My aim is to clearly state what it is that I want and need, so that by articulating it I help avoid becoming my own source of defeat.
