Anti-goals

What it is

A short list of outcomes you will not accept, even if they would help you reach a goal. Goals point you forward. Anti-goals mark the edges of the road.

When I use it

Every time I set yearly goals, and whenever an opportunity looks very attractive. The more attractive something is, the more useful it is to know in advance what you won’t trade for it.

How

1. Write your goal.
2. Imagine reaching it in the worst acceptable way. What did it cost? Health, family time, reputation, people you care about?
3. Turn each of those costs into a plain rule. “I will not , even if it means .”
4. Keep the list short. Three to five is enough. A long list becomes decoration.

A worked example

A professional one I hold: never recommend tearing out and replacing a working building system before trying to overlay and optimize what’s already there. Replacement always looks cleaner on a slide. It is also slower, more expensive and riskier than it looks, and the anti-goal forces the cheaper option to be tested first.

A personal one shapes this site: it will never carry my children’s details, health data, anything from my employer’s internal work, or my investments. That list is short enough to check before every post.

How it fails

Anti-goals fail when they are vague (“don’t burn out”). A good anti-goal is specific enough that you can tell, on a given Tuesday, whether you have broken it.