Goal Setting: A Mindfulness Perspective

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With the proliferation of Mindfulness literature and its mainstream popularity, many articles or teachings about Mindfulness come from sources that do not have a good understanding of the Sutras or human physiology. Worse, they can be misleading and inaccurate.
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There is nothing wrong with cultivating happiness and/or overcoming suffering as a Mindfulness goal. What is wrong is the “clinging” or attachment to that goal that is problematic. The notion of “chasing” happiness connotes clinging.

Clinging or attachment in the Sutras is considered problematic because of its failure to consider the “True Nature of Reality,” which encompasses:

• Annica (Impermanence).
• Anatta (No “self” exists ex nihilo, but is dependent on sustenance, conditioning and biology*).
• Dukkha (Nothing has any inherent value that can provide everlasting satisfaction).

Goal setting is encouraged in Mindfulness practice. Planning or making projections is an aspect of goal setting. Anticipation, analysis, assumption, using past knowledge as a basis for knowledge —and knowing the goal ahead — are all usual components for planning a goal.

As a matter of fact, the brain architecture is established primordially to be in a “predictive” mode. We need to know what is going to happen because our body is always in motion. The brain causes the mind to make estimates and learn from miscalculations to adjust its next plan of action. Planning is an inherent nature of the mind and goal setting is a natural aspect of predicting the future.

In the Sutras, specifically in The Noble Eightfold Path (see Bhikkhu Bodhi’s book of that title), one of the eight prescriptive ways for ending personal suffering is the path of Right Effort/Samma Vayama. Taking into consideration the goal of happiness in Mindfulness practice, it makes sense that Right Effort is oriented towards well-being and the avoidance of setting goals that compromise well-being. Therefore, in making plans or setting goals, it is necessary to know how to make goals that produce only well-being. Goals that can be destructive, such as Russia’s war to conquer Ukraine, do not qualify as an appropriate goal in Mindfulness practice.

Clinging or attachment to a goal is not a part of goal making because of its potential for collision with the True Nature of Reality. It is not wise to cling to any goal that can fail to be achieved due to factors that are beyond anybody’s ability to control. When we cannot achieve that goal, it is useless to suffer for its failure when it is, in fact, nobody’s fault. Due to the nature of impermanence, it is not possible to hold onto happiness all the time and “chasing” it will cause disappointment. However, if happiness is set up as a realistic goal incorporating the fact that from time to time happiness cannot be sustained, then it is fine to consider happiness as a goal. Obviously, living happily most of the time is better when compared to a life dominated by suffering. Mindfulness practice, incorporating skillful means and insight/wisdom, is designed to shift our life experience toward more happiness than when not practicing Mindfulness.
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It is important to remember that there are factors beyond anybody’s control. For example, no one expected the 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Syria and Turkey on February 6, 2023. The goal of being alive and well did not materialize that day for the over 50,000 people dead and 850,000 displaced children. If people knew that earthquake was going to happen, I am sure the victims would have moved away at least the day before it happened. Therefore, when setting goals it is best to

• incorporate contingencies, be realistic, be measurable, and be well defined;
• learn to let go of clinging by accepting, when the goal does not come to fruition;
• keep in mind that acceptance is an antidote to clinging and offers a sense of relief or release.


• ​*No "self" does not mean that the “self” or the “ego” does not exist. It means that there is no absolute, or permanent, or unchanging, or solid entity. Rather, the existence of that self/ego is dependent on other factors or variables or conditions. The technical jargon for this phenomenon is “emptiness,” which does not mean that there is “nothing” there; it is just that it has no “inherent” existence i.e., independent or self-existing on its own.

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