Why You Should Not Set Goals

Stanley and Lehman argue in *Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned* that fixed objectives often hinder creativity, discovery and innovation, and that the greatest achievements become less likely when they are made objectives. They cite Campbell's Law and the cobra effect, in which a British government bounty for dead cobras in Delhi led residents to breed them. Creativity is described as a search through a space of possibilities, where stepping stones such as vacuum tubes on the way to computers often look nothing like the final goal. The authors suggest the best path to ambitious achievement may be having no objective at all.