<ul><li>Anti-goals are the things we DON'T want to happen—either as final outcomes or along the way. Establishing them allows you to win the battle AND the war.</li><li>If traditional goals are the rudders that set your direction, think of anti-goals as the map that tells you where the rapids are. Awareness is key here.</li><li>The generalized process involves four steps: (1) Choose Your Arena, (2) Establish Traditional Goals, (3) Invert the Problem, and (4) Establish Anti-Goals.</li><li>Test it out by establishing anti-goals when planning for new projects, designing your life, or creating self-improvement plans.</li></ul>

Anti-Goals

The concept of anti-goals is grounded in inversion—a foundational mental model that says that complex problems are often easier solved backwards vs. forwards.With traditional goals, we envision the optimal outcome. We then build systems that will—hopefully—lead to that outcome.This is important and necessary—but it’s incomplete. Anti-goals leverage inversion to complete the picture.Anti-goals are the things we DON'T want to happen—either as final outcomes or along the way.

The Inversion Mental Model

What if your dream was to be a musician. And guess what - you did it! But while you’re touring the world, you gain weight, get addicted to drugs, your marriage is in shambles, and your kids don’t recognize you....you won the battle but lost the war.Anti-goals allow you to win the battle AND the war!

The arena is the "project" you’re going to be working on.A few broad categories to consider:<ul><li>Personal</li><li>Work</li><li>Health</li></ul>Your arena should be a specific project under a larger category. It’s the place where you’re looking for achievement, progress, or growth.

Choose Your Arena

These are your standard goals—the desired outcomes from the chosen arena. This should be easy, as it’s familiar.A few examples of traditional goals:<ul><li>Run a 6-min mile</li><li>Build a 100,000 sub newsletter</li><li>Promotion to VP</li><li>Create a top-25 podcast</li></ul>Clear, big picture traditional goals are important.

Establish Traditional Goals

To invert, ask and answer a few questions.In the pursuit of these traditional goals:What is the worst possible outcome?What systems would lead to that?What daily actions would I regret?In short, ask yourself what you would view as winning the battle but losing the war.

Outcomes, Systems, Actions

Now work backwards to establish your anti-goals—the outcomes you DON’T want.If traditional goals are the rudders that set your direction, think of anti-goals as the map that tells you where the rapids are.A thoughtful, clear map keeps you on smooth waters.

Establish Anti-Goals

Establish Traditional Goals:<ul><li>Run a 6-minute mile</li><li>Under 8% bodyfat</li><li>Deadlift 500 pounds</li></ul>Establish Anti-Goals:<ul><li>Never think about workouts. Hire a trainer to write workout programs.</li><li>Never think about diet. Buy pre-prepared healthy meals.</li><li>Never let workouts consume my life. Schedule 90-minute blocks at the same time every AM as my workout window.</li><li> </li></ul>

An Anti-Goal Example: Physical Fitness

<ul><li>Choose Your Arena: Select the project you are going to be working on.</li><li>Establish Traditional Goals: Set the specific desired outcomes.</li><li>Invert the Problem: What would it look like to win the battle but lose the war?</li><li>Establish Anti-Goals: Set the specific outcomes you DON’T want.</li></ul>So as you take on your next project, give this framework a shot. Establish anti-goals to sit alongside your traditional goals.Win the battle AND the war!

The Anti-Goal Framework

The Curiosity Chronicle has quickly become one of the most popular newsletters for growth-minded individuals in the world. Each week, subscribers receive a deep dive that covers topics ranging from growth and decision-making to business, finance, startups, and technology. In addition, subscribers receive The Friday Five, a weekly newsletter with five ideas curated to spark curiosity headed into the weekend.

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Personal Development

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The Curiosity Chronicle | The Power of Anti-Goals

Whenever you have something that you want, you have to be patient. In weight loss, you must be patient until the results show up. In a job search, you must be patient until something happens. Looking for love, house hunting, or promotion all generate the necessity of patience.

Patient experiences

A goal creates desire. The waiting period to get to that goal creates restlessness. Patience is all about managing your restlessness. Your patience will be tested like an elastic. The more stretched the elastic, the more likely you are to act unnaturally. For example, your performance level at work will drop if you don't get a promotion after an expected period. A lack of patience can force you to lower your demands. But, the reality is often different.

The goal often forces you to cut corners

<ul><li>Realign the purpose of a goal. A goal shows you where you need to go. It's your actions that get you there. Once you know the direction, only use the goal to check if you are still on the right path.</li><li>Find a suitable distraction. For example, finding a job is a most stressful process. It requires a lot of patience. For example, when you apply and go for interviews, you have to wait for a result. During this period, distract yourself with another activity. Read a book, build your side hustle, watch a movie.</li></ul> The key is not to obsess over a goal but find distractions to keep your mind off it.

How to control the elasticity of patience

The lack of patience forces us to choose paths we ideally wouldn't.

Throughout my life, there have been phases when I wanted something but had to wait for eons before I got that. But that started to change when I entered a semi-military boarding school. Back there…

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Psychology

How to Master The Painful Elasticity of Patience

Bridgerton, shown on Netflix, has become a global success.Here’s a deep dive into what made it such a success and what lessons every creator needs to remember today. Bridgerton is a great example of a successful series with lessons that every creator can learn from.

That Netflix Show Set In The 1800s

Throughout the series, we don't see any substantial racism or discrimination.The show is for a modern audience, and everything on this show is filtered through a modern lens.

Bridgerton Didn’t Try to Be Historically Accurate

In the world of content creation, the content tilt refers to what makes you so different that your audience notices you and rewards you with its attentionThe creators of Bridgerton wanted to make something refreshing and unique, and that’s exactly what they did.

Finding Your Own Content Tilt

<ul><li>It is refreshing to have Indian culture represented so well in a British period piece.</li><li>Kate’s love for chai over regular English tea, Kate and Edwina oiling their hair as most Indian people do, the subtle use of Indian languages, and the stunning Indian-style jewellery.</li><li>To top it all off, we saw this beautiful pre-wedding tradition of a Haldi ceremony, with a Bollywood classic soundtrack playing.</li></ul>

The Indian Culture: Exotic Ideas Shown On The Show

<ol><li>Embrace “weird” ideas and work on bettering them, because chances are, they could actually be brilliant. Things don’t have to make perfect sense for your content to be amazing and resonate with people.</li><li> Adapt your work for different audiences and deliver what your community wants to see. Such levels of diversity and inclusion in a period piece may not be accurate, but escapism and representation were what people needed.</li><li>You’re going to make mistakes while finding your content tilt and that’s okay.</li></ol>

Three Lessons From Bridgeton For Creators

When I first watched Season One of Bridgerton, I was amused and perplexed. Amused because of the witty banter and the enchanting Pride and Prejudice vibes the series gave off. After watching Season…

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3 Important Lessons Every Creator Can Take From Netflix’s ‘Bridgerton’

In a content-driven world, entrepreneurs who see themselves first and foremost as creators could have it the wrong way round.Whether you decide you are on the creator or entrepreneur path matters in making strategic decisions about where to invest your time, money, and energy in your business.

Creators vs. Entrepreneurs

<ul><li>Being a creator is a unique experience defined by building an audience on platforms where audiences can be found.</li><li>Entrepreneurs who identify too much with being a creator first and foremost may well be spending their energy on the wrong things.</li></ul>

The Worlds of 'Creator' and Traditional Entrepreneur Collide

<ul><li>The role of an entrepreneur is to keep their business alive, so they should prioritize building a product or service people actually want to buy.</li><li>Creating beautiful graphics on Instagram, threads on Twitter, or reels on TikTok might feel easier and safer, but in isolation, they are unlikely to move your business forward.</li></ul>

Content Creation Is Not Always the Best Use of An Entrepreneurs' Time

Creating content is often fun, and can feel good when you get likes and comments, but creating demand and selling what you have built is your number one job.Continue to do content creation if it is driving demand for your business and use the sales to pay for the team to support you run the other parts of your business.

Get Into Sales, Not Content

<ul><li>You get to choose if you are on the creator path or not.</li><li>Entrepreneurs don’t always get the choice to choose what to spend their time on, but creators do.</li><li>Creators get to play around in the phases before they make money from their content.</li><li>Being a creator should be about discovering what you enjoy and figuring out what other people find valuable.</li></ul>

Choose Your Path

In a content-driven world we are all creators to an extent. But entrepreneurs who see themselves first and foremost as a 'creator' could have it the wrong way round. Here's why.

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Entrepreneurship

Why entrepreneurs should be wary of calling themselves 'creators' 

The video essay’s reintroduction is one of the side effects of the pandemic. People became dissatisfied with the brain-numbing monotony of "day in the life" vlogs, test kitchen videos and makeup tutorials and instead wanted entertaining, but informational and analytical content.

Hour-long YouTube videos shows our desire for more nuanced content

Video essays have been around for over a decade on YouTube. Many Gen Zers were raised on video essays, academically and intellectually. Today, there are video essays devoted to virtually any topic you can think of, ranging from about 10 minutes to an hour. The video essay has been a means to entertain fan theories, explore the lore of a video game, explain or critique a social media trend, or expound upon an argument, hypothesis, or curiosity proposed by the creator.

The rise of the video essay

While TikTok's sudden rise has proven the need for bite-size content, the popularity of video essays from new and old creators suggests that long-form videos are still needed. One may argue that the video essay is in its golden era. Viewers are willing to indulge in user-generated content that is as long as multi-million dollar cinematic production by a major Hollywood studio, which was improbable a few years ago. People want to devote time to content they find interesting.

The video essay is in its golden era

Some video essayists have experimented with shorter content as a topic testing ground for longer videos or can expose people to topics or types of content they are unfamiliar with. The growth of shorts gave rise to hybrid creators who alternate between short and long-form content. People have a desire to understand things more deeply. So when people get tired of short takes, they want something more nuanced and in-depth.

Shorts are like a sampling of what you can get with long-form content

Social media discourse are simmering down. These days, creators are approaching controversy from a removed secondhand standpoint. Whether the video is a mini-explainer or a 40-minute hypothesis, it requires the creator to do their research. This often leads to summaries of alternative opinions or perspectives, which is very different from the more self-centered "reaction videos" and "story time" clickbait side of YouTube. This means there is a positive shift if social media discourse that encourages us to engage with ideas in good faith that we might not otherwise entertain or think.

Social media discourse is becoming less reactionary

Long video essays on YouTube are popular. TikTok hasn’t entirely shortened our attention spans.

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Videos

The video essay boom

It is easy to get caught up in setting goals that are unsustainable and unrealistic, then when we fail, we feel worse about ourselves.  However, with the right advice on how to do fitness goal setting, we can have real, positive change.

Setting attainable fitness goals

A big mistake when setting a fitness goal is to do too much at one time. You may want to go to the gym every day, cut out added sugar and get eight hours of sleep a night. With so many new goals, people get anxious, and if they fail at one, they feel like they failed in every goal. It is easier to pick one goal. Like doing a pull-up or completing your first 5K, then use your efforts to achieve that before deciding on a next goal.

Focus on one goal at a time

You can feel inspired and envy the images of the super fit. But basing your own goals on what you see others achieving is not productive. Top athletes can do things such as running a marathon or doing 100 push-ups. While it is great for them, it is not the goal that everyone should be measured by. Instead, your goal should be something realistic and achievable for you.

Make it your own

A measurable and clear goal allows you to track it. Wanting to be stronger is too vague. Saying you want to do 20 push-ups in one minute makes it specific. If the goal is also time-bound, you can develop a more structured plan for achieving the goals. A great way to help you is using the SMART method - your goal is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.

Make it measurable, specific and time-bound

Your goals should seem easy and within reach. You should feel very confident that you can achieve your goal. The more success you have in your fitness journey, the more confident you will become, encouraging you to keep at it.

Set the bar low at first

Be realistic with the time frame you develop for reaching your goal. Pick a goal you can achieve over the course of several months or a year. A long-term goal will help you see it as a lifestyle change instead of a quick fix, and you'll more likely continue.

Choose the long game

Some goals are driven by underlying fears and insecurities. Therefore, it's important to address the issues instead of assuming that achieving your goal will soothe them. If thinking about your goal brings anxiety, consider talking with a mental health professional.

Understand what's driving your goal

Permit yourself to change your goal as you progress. Perhaps your goal that seemed reasonable at first is really too difficult to maintain or may be too easy. If your definition of success is rigid, you may find it difficult to maintain. However, there's nothing wrong with changing your goal as you become more comfortable with your abilities.

Be flexible in your definition of success

Within your main goal, schedule smaller goals that are achievable in a shorter period. For example, if you want to run a nine-minute mile, make a smaller goal of running a half-mile in five minutes. Succeeding at the little victories will increase your motivation to complete the bigger goal. It's good to set mini-goals that can be achieved every two to three weeks. It can help to see if your macro goal is realistic.

Develop micro goals on the way to your larger goal

If you feel overwhelmed about the process or can't determine a realistic goal, it can be helpful to consult an expert, such as a certified personal trainer, to guide you. They may ask you about various factors influencing your lifestyles, such as prior history with fitness, nutrition, work and social history. Once they understand your life, they can create a program around what works for you.

Consider a professional's input

If you have crushed several fitness goals in the past and just take it to the next level, you may likely set a more complex goal. But if you're new to fitness, you may want to focus on simple behaviour modifications, such as going to the gym a set number of days a week. It's useful to consider what has stopped you from exercising in the past. For example, having a hard time getting up in the morning might mean evening workout classes will be more achievable.

Be honest about your prior and current habits

Support can make a huge difference in attaining a goal. When you think about your goal, include who in your life could encourage and motivate you. Then ask them to help you.

Find a support system

Whether it's a New Year's resolution or anytime, setting a realistic fitness goal takes some thought. Here's how to set fitness goals the right way.

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Health

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Exercise & Fitness

11 Tips to Set Realistic Fitness Goals You’ll Actually Achieve, According to Top Trainers

The main motivator to begin a project is urgency. When the problem can wait until tomorrow, you'll never start today. The three-step process to start today:<ol><li>Identify the conflict: "I'll never succeed."</li><li>Define the solution: "Do this every day."</li><li>Explain why you must start today: "I need sixty comics for my meeting in two months."</li></ol>

Use Goal Urgency 

January 11, 2022 — Big projects are intimidating, but how motivated would you feel if tomorrow was no longer an option? Ever since I spent 3,000 hours on a daily comic challenge in 2019, the one…

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Motivation & Inspiration

How to Start That Big Project You’ve Been Dreaming Of

Difficult conversations at work are inevitable, whether you're a leader addressing a team member's performance or an employee unhappy about a situation with your boss. Remote working adds another layer of difficulty. Many people would rather leave than talk to their boss. However, if people had taken the time to address the issues, they may have had a different outcome.

Taking the time to address difficult issues

You need to understand why you need to have the conversation. Decide if you should have the conversation in person or not. For example, if you have a conversation with an underperforming employee, you may either want them to improve their performance or go through the steps to exit them from your organisation.

Be clear on your objective

Create an outline and key talking points, including the desired outcome of the conversation, key messages or examples to share. Take advantage of an online conversation by keeping your notes in front of you or on a second screen.

Organise your thoughts

It's best not to have an impromptu conversation. Instead, schedule the call in advance. For example, you could ask to have a conversation and set a date and time on your calendar. Ensure that you both have privacy despite fake Zoom backgrounds.

Book time on the calendar

With remote working arrangements, a video conference may not always be the best choice. If you need to let someone go, a phone conversation can ease the psychological load. When you want to work with someone to get to a resolution, a video conversation may be better as there is less room for interpretation and increased levels of empathy.

Weigh the pros and cons of video

The sandwich approach to delivering bad news may be unproductive. Instead, lead with your perspective. For example, an employee who is micromanaged might say to their boss, " I have given it a lot of thought, and feel like I need to say that the way I'm being managed isn't working for me," followed by the reasons why.

Starting the conversation

When the conversation comes to an end, ensure both parties know how things will change going forward. It's always good to ask the other party to tell you their understanding of what just happened. It may be that they didn't get what you were trying to say. At that point, you can be specific and say exactly what they need to do.

Ending a difficult conversation

These six steps will help ensure you still have a productive conversation.


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Remote Work

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Communication

How to have difficult conversations when working remotely

Crab mentality is a phenomenon where people react negatively, in terms of their thoughts, statements, or actions, to those who get ahead of them, even though they don’t expect there to be direct benefits to doing so. For example, crab mentality can cause someone to discourage or sabotage their friend who is starting to do well at school, simply because they’re bitter about struggling with their own studies.

Crab mentality

People can have crab mentality for various reasons, such as because they’re trying to feel better about themself, because they view other people’s progress as coming at their own expense, or because they see others displaying the same kind of mentality.The main sign of crab mentality is that someone often tries to discourage or sabotage others, in cases where there are no direct benefits to doing so.

Why people have crab mentality

<ul><li>The tall poppy syndrome, which describes a phenomenon where people disparage those who do well.</li><li>Schadenfreude, which is satisfaction that’s derived from someone else’s misfortune.</li><li>The mentality of “if I can’t have it, neither can you”.</li><li>Various idioms, such as “misery loves company”.</li></ul>

Crab mentality: Related concepts

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Love & Relationships

When People Pull Down Those Who Get Ahead – Effectiviology

The moral and aesthetic values of people can be pulled in opposite directions. Serial killers like Richard Ramirez and Ted Bundy were infamous but had lots of female fans that sent them letters and attended their court hearings.
However, they were already perceived as attractive despite their crimes and some reprobates behave well with a small number of people. This does not support the aesthetic of moral wickedness but further the fact that beauty is seen as good.

The aesthetic appeal of moral wickedness

It takes us a while to see a person that we are attracted to for who they may be. This kind of projection is easy to maintain but only up until the event when we become the victim of another's callousness.
Meanwhile, there are people who have this innate desire to be the one to reform the other person, morally, and act as their moral savior. Therefore, badness in this case is in itself not the one that is attractive but the opportunity it presents.

The projection of positive traits

This is also known as the Bonnie and Clyde syndrome where certain people are attracted to those who have committed some sort of outrage.
But, having this technically means that badness in men is attractive to women.

Hybristophilia

Badness is often correlated with other desirable qualities like self-confidence and independence, but if we see badness through this perspective it's like telling ourselves that we prefer grueling flights because we can endure a ten-hour plane ride but not an hour for a taxi.

Badness and desirable qualities

Negging means making snide remarks to other people and they always give out negative feedback, more so in men to women.The mechanism as to how negging works has very little to do with the putative attractiveness of being rude or mean. Neggers is often seen as valuable because they appear insufficiently interested and give out very little compliments.Thus, we argue that neggers are not desired due to their impertinence but rather are chased for their kindness.

Negging

There are many people who have negative reactions towards extreme altruists - these are the people who donate organs to strangers and those who otherwise help others at a very significant cost to themselves.
However, we find extreme altruists unattractive because we feel like we may not be good enough in comparison to them. Therefore, it is an indictment of our own character.

Extreme altruists are not unattractive due to moral goodness

"The presence of a noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes the lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger, quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in the wholeness of our character."

There is a trope in popular culture: Women, it is said, like “bad boys.” But do they?

The Curiosity Chronicle | The Power of Anti-Goals

How to Master The Painful Elasticity of Patience

3 Important Lessons Every Creator Can Take From Netflix’s ‘Bridgerton’

Why entrepreneurs should be wary of calling themselves 'creators'

The video essay boom

Felix