If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.

Trying to implant a goal that is incongruent with the self-image is like trying to plant a grain by dropping seeds on rock-hard, bone-dry ground. No one can consistently out perform his or her self-image. No one can overcome it with willpower. No one can sneak past it and perform in an incongruent manner. The bottom line is that you cannot "do" things without "being" the kind of person who does those things. You must "be" to "do"."

A goal is a dream with a deadline.

There is a growing set of research that shows "learning or mastery" goals have much more positive effects on performance and internal motivation than "performance" goals.

When we factor in the consistent findings that stretch and specific goals both narrow focus on a limited set of behaviors while increasing risk-taking and unethical behavior, their simple implementation can become a vice. Goals are appropriate when you know exactly what behaviors you want, you aren't concerned about secondary behaviors, and unethical behavior is not a big risk.

Most companies strive to maximize shareholder wealth—a goal that is inadequate in many respects. As an emotional catalyst, wealth maximization lacks the power to fully mobilize human energies. It’s an insufficient defense when people question the legitimacy of corporate power. And it’s not specific or compelling enough to spur renewal.

If you ask young men what they want to accomplish by the time they are 40, the answers you get fall into two distinct categories. There are those—the great majority—who will respond in terms of what they want to have. This is especially true of graduate students of business administration. There are some men, however, who will answer in terms of the kind of men they hope to be. These are the only ones who have a clear idea of where they are going.

The same is true of companies. For far too many companies, what little thinking goes on about the future is done primarily in money terms. There is nothing wrong with financial planning. Most companies should do more of it. But there is a basic fallacy in confusing a financial plan with thinking about the kind of company you want yours to become. It is like saying, “When I’m 40, I’m going to be rich.” It leaves too many basic questions unanswered. Rich in what way? Rich doing what?

The safest way to get what you want is to deserve what you want.

The world has a way, not only of stepping aside for men or women who know where they are going, but it often joins and helps them reach their objective.

The principle of obliquity...says that some objectives are best pursued indirectly. We are all familiar with one application of the principle of obliquity. While Americans, characteristically, talk of the pursuit of happiness, happiness is rarely best achieved when it is pursued. Research in social psychology confirms our intuition and experience. Happy people are not, in the main, those who selfishly promote their own interests: in fact happy people are most often characterised by a kind of uncalculating and outgoing generosity.

Instinctively, we understand why. What makes for happiness is rather complicated and uncertain, and dependent on interactions with other people...In noting these things, we can see that they have direct business analogies.

Let me state the principle of obliquity rather more formally. When a characteristic is selected for in an uncertain and imperfectly known environment, deliberate action to promote that characteristic is often self-defeating, and the highest values of the characteristic will often be achieved by chance.

The goal fallacy, then, is that though the periodic process of goal setting is well entrenched in the management practices of a growth enterprise, the process of goal attainment-monitoring, then taking the day-to-day actions that lead to attainment-is not. In fact, by defining a specific goal, management often fools itself into thinking it has implemented an element of company strategy.

Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal.

What you want is better than, not optimal. Your job is to do something today that's better than what you did yesterday. And to do something tomorrow that's better than what you did today.

The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark.