Against Goal Making

Advice is never in short supply, and one piece I often hear paired with language learning is to be a “goal oriented” learner. We can argue over what that really means but the essence is fairly obvious: set clear objectives, reach them, receive benefit from the satisfaction and knowledge gained, and then repeat. There are many arguments (good ones) in support of this approach. I want to argue, however, that while goal making may be a good approach to language learning it is not an optimal approach.

Put simply, goals are not ideal because they are seldom reached.

I have set many goals over the course of my life and while several have been reached many more have gone unattained, partly realized, or completely dropped and forgotten. I would venture a guess that for every goal I actually made any real progress on there were probably ten goals which barely got off the drawing board. Goals more often lead to disappointment than success.

The arguments against such a morbid assessment of goal-making are not without merit:

- The goal making process itself is more important than results. It encourages us to act.

- Having defined targets to aim for is an essential beginning to any time-consuming process.

- Even low ratios of success (ex: 1/10) can yield worthwhile effort/utility ratios.

- Goal orientation is a common characteristic of successful, content people in general.

- Goal making forces you to analyze your own unique situation and characteristics.

Lost in this discussion, ironically, is the very notion of what goals represent: an endpoint. Therein lies the rub. Ends and language learning are mutually exclusive. I can finish reading a book, I can complete an examination, I can exhaust all the content on a web site; I cannot reach an end to either language learning or acquisition, native or otherwise.

Unknown words, weak domains of knowledge, and mechanics that need polishing are but a few of the areas of concern to any human being who communicates with and utilizes the world in which they live. If goal-oriented language learning yielded the kind of results most people expected then fluency examinations would be truer measures of skill and ability than they presently are.

Despite this negative assessment a larger view should be kept in mind: goals are not inherently bad, they are just bothersome. Goals are like chains that weigh us down as we move forward. We keep metrics to gauge our progress. We constantly worry that we are not doing enough to reach the goal. When our goal performance is less than expected (as it so often is) we second-guess and rethink our goals, creating whole new ones to fret over. Goals inspire us at the beginning but it is not long until the honeymoon has worn off and they just seem like fanciful dreams which will never come true. Whatever motivation we felt at the outset hardly seems worth the frustration brought on.

Of course the above dialog speaks very much to another important concept in language learning: failure. I am not the first to embrace and argue for the benefits of failure (http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/processes-not-results-or-everything-i-ever-needed-to-know-about-life-i-learned-washing-dishes). Failure teaches. Failure builds. Failure makes us stronger. I like failure (yes, I said it!), but I should also admit that failure can feel pretty crappy and is often a de-motivator due to its unpleasantness. The terms “goal” and “failure” are another pair that know each other very well.

It seems a paradox has emerged: failure is good but goals are bad (well, not ideal at least) and the two are blood brothers? So, does this not mean that, circularly speaking, goals are good because when we don’t meet a goal that constitutes failure and failure is good? The answer requires explanation.

Failure that happens naturally or as a matter of consequence is good. Suppose I get lost driving to a friend’s lake cabin and arrive late to a dinner party. This constitutes a type of failure, but I at least know one route not to take the next time. Now suppose I make a goal to read one novel every month. At the end of the third month I am not even half way through the first book… another failure, but of a worse sort because I now feel that I simply cannot read to the level I wish to. It is important to notice the distinctions at play.

In the first case, my failure was due in large part to things external from me and not something I was all that aware of to begin with because there were many unknowns. The goal itself – getting to the friend’s cabin for a dinner party – was not a goal that was entirely planned and developed by me. It came about naturally when my friend decided to have the party. In the second case the failure was part of a chain of consequences that started with my deliberate creation of the goal to read one novel a month. The blame comes squarely back to me. This is the root of the problem I have with goals: if I fail, it is my fault.

One could argue this would resolve me to correct my ways and set out on a better path, but that is not likely to happen for every deliberate-goal-rooted failure we encounter. Again, a ratio of 1/10 is springing to mind. Even if that single success was a big one I still had to wade through all the grief and tears of the ten failures. No pain, no gain? True enough, but favoring our quite natural aversion to displeasure and attraction to enjoyment is no less useful or valid an approach to fulfilling our hopes and aspirations than adopting try-try-again fatalism.

In summary thus far, goals have their good and bad points but it seems there are also more pleasurable paths we can follow to reach the achievements we desire. The question becomes, if not goal making then what? The response: habits.

Instead of making a goal to read one novel per month, I should instead resolve to read as much as possible. A few minutes here, a half-hour there, maybe even two or more hours if I have a chunk of free time on the weekend. The accomplishment will take care of itself. As long as we keep reading, the book will eventually be finished and without the time spent worrying about artificial deadlines it will probably be finished in a time frame acceptable to us. The real secret, however, is not so much the habit itself and how often I execute, but rather how I measure the success of the habit. This is one of the great powers habits have over goals.

Have you ever tripped over your own feet and stumbled? Walking is an ingrained pattern for most people but when we occasionally fail to walk correctly it is a mere temporary embarrassment and certainly not a reason to give up walking entirely. The failure is soon forgotten and you resume strolling correctly. Habits have a built-in resistance to unpleasantness and de-motivation.

Habits have another power that goals do not: an autopilot feature. Once the switch is turned on, habits become things we do unconsciously, they become reflexes. Reflexes are good because they are lazy. In most cases they are going to happen whether you put any thought/effort to it or not. When we consider time intensive tasks like language acquisition the benefit of the autopilot becomes obvious.

Putting all of this into practice, the most important practical consideration is how our environment affects and promotes good language learning habits. To acquire a second language we need lots of exposure to comprehensible input (see Krashen’s input hypothesis). The goal-maker will resolve to read/listen to the target language for X amount of time per day/week and will likely schedule specific times for those activities. The habit-former will simply surround himself with as much interesting content as possible.

A graded reader in the brief case, posters hung on the bedroom wall, a grammar reference in the toilet, an operating system with the language option set to the target language, movies in the target language always inserted and ready in the DVD player, an mp3 player loaded with lots of interesting content for whenever the learner has a free moment. The more the habit-former crafts and molds their environment into one where exposure to the target language becomes involuntary the more rapidly and smoothly good habits will set in.

It can be said that both the goal-maker and habit-former are studying. Any success the goal-maker achieves is the result of deliberate work. The habit-former is actually performing the same work but they are immune to the realization of that. They are “studying” all the time because it is a habit and a pleasant one at that. The unconsciousness of the process gives the allusion that they are magically making progress through little effort.

There are two practical points about habits and optimal co-integration with language learning:

Habits flow and ebb; they are not always constant. For example, you diligently review vocabulary flash cards for a month and then drop off for 3 weeks when you go on vacation. This is not bad, even if you have forgotten much of what you did pick up previously. As long as something was gained and the habit is contributing (even a little) to your efforts then it is likely worthwhile.

Care should be given as to how one will set about trying to establish good habits. Suppose I want to be more deliberate in learning new vocabulary. Flash cards are a popular method for review but they are also frustrating (constantly forgetting becomes monotonous).Instead, we should structure the habit to be as pressure-free as possible. One-sided flash cards are a good example. The target word and its meaning on the front and review of the cards becomes another simple exposure. The words will be forgotten at the same rate but the frustration of failure is removed. They will eventually cement in the mind as long as the exposure keeps happening with some regularity.

Finally, we ask ourselves, “Should goals never be made?” Certainly, the answer is not yes. As we said before, goals are not bad they are just not the ideal for the time intensive realities of language acquisition. If goal making is a concept that appeals to you it need not be avoided. Just remember to keep your goals very broad and loosely defined, few in number, and – this is the key – WITHOUT any consequences for failure. Too many learners have abandoned their studies because they felt they were not “making progress”. Progress is measured by what you do and how often you do it, not by manufactured benchmarks and waypoints. The sooner one can let go of their hereditary need to organize and systematize, the sooner they will be well on the path to the inevitable outcome of fluency by exposure.

EDIT (2011-06-05): Changed title.