20 Building in Public: Anti-Goals

Matt Tompkins -

GM and welcome to building in public! Hell of a day, hell of a week. Let’s dive in.

Today is all about Anti-Goals. We’re going to invert the typical ‘goal setting’ process. I love this concept. And I think it’s very important for any ambitious person. So listen up!

I first came across the Anti-Goal concept by reading one of Andrew Wilkinson’s blog posts. Check it out here. It’s awesome. Plus, he’s the GOAT.

But first, let’s review what the typical goal-setting process looks like. Take this example of an individual who is looking to improve their career and financial position (this is made up, FYI). It may look like this:

  1. Arena: Career/Work.
  2. Get promoted to VP, Sales.
  3. Earn $250,000 annually by age 35.
  4. $1m liquid net worth by age 35.

Okay, this sounds pretty good, right? Right!

But here’s the caveat: What if you hit all these goals… but you’re 40 LBS. overweight, your wife/husband is ‘drifting’ away from you, and your kids barely know what you look like? Well, that sounds shit.

We’d call that a big fat L. As Shaan Puri once put it, “you’ve won the battle but lost the war.” We need to avoid this. We need to win the war. (And the battle).

This concept was also popularized by Charlie Munger who famously said: “All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.” Simple and perfect.

So how do we set anti-goals? How do we reach our goals, while simultaneously ensuring we don't end up somewhere we don't wanna be? I’m going to provide an example of how I’ve used anti-goals for fitness.

My fitness goals for Q3 are as follows:

  1. Bench press 250 LBS.
  2. Deadlift 405 LBS.
  3. Two outdoor workouts per week (biking, paddle boarding, walks, who cares)

I have systems in place to achieve this, but these can quickly become burdensome. If I’m working out 3 hours per day, stressing about everything I eat, and not seeing friends and family as a result, then this very quickly becomes a “won the battle, lost the war” situation.

So, I set “anti-goals”:

  1. Schedule 1 hour slots to work-out 5x per week. Same time, same days. I attempt to limit the slippage.
  2. Following a program online. Eliminates research I have to do.
  3. 80/20 for diet. 80% of my meals will be whole foods, 20% can be anything I want (it’s summer after all).
  4. I can’t think about fitness outside the gym.

Thus far it’s worked great. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the journey, without letting it consume me 24/7.

Take a look at Andrew’s version. These were goals and anti-goals between him and his business partner. They wanted wealth creation without the unnecessary stress and baggage that sometimes comes along with it.

Of course nothing is perfect.

But I love this idea. And I don’t think I’ll ever set goals without anti-goals again.

Highly recommend it. Give it a shot and let me know what you think.

Until next time.