Choose Challenging Targets
Over the winter holidays five years ago, my neighbour Bob told me about the January Minimalist Challenge he and his family were taking on to remove from their home the things they don’t need. On January 1, one thing goes. On January 2, two things. On January 3, three things, all the way to 31 things on January 31, for a grand total of 496. I had a great deal of energy to simplify my life, so this challenge felt like a good fit.
Like Bob, I had my eye on the end game—discard 496 items by the end of the month—and got started. On January 3 my family and I delivered 150 items to Goodwill. Another 346 to go.
Finding and donating the first 150 items was energizing and easy. The big bag of extra mittens and hats and scarves, essential winter wear were now available for others, along with the kids’ dress-up clothes (my old clothes) that were in perfectly good shape. These were the low-hanging fruit and I was worried this challenge would become a lot more challenging right away
It didn’t. On Jan 10 another 235 donations left our home, and I was startled by how easy it was to reach 385. And startled again when we easily found another 125 items, reaching a total of 510 items, and surpassing the target of 496.
“I thought it would be hard to part with my belongings, but it was far more difficult to look at the privilege I experience in my life.”
At the outset, I had a feeling that finding the last 100 would be excruciating and instructive, but not for the reasons I presumed. I thought it would be hard to part with my belongings, but it was far more difficult to look at the privilege I experience in my life. It is easy to give away what I don’t need because I have far more than I need.
The purpose of the challenge
When I set out on this task, I asked myself, “why am choosing to do this?” The first reason was that I feel good when life is organized and tidy. When the “stuff” around me is tidy I experience clarity. I don’t need my surroundings to be perfectly tidy, but there is a tipping point where clutter makes my brain cluttered too.
The second reason the challenge was appealing was because I appreciate the movement to a simpler life, of having on hand what is needed, not an endless supply of things we do not need. Kids grow out of things, for example, that we don’t need to have around us. And adults grow out of things too, those things we haven’t touched in years. It wasn’t enough to put things away and not think about them; I needed them to be removed from having to ever deal with them again.
At the time, I also recognized a third reason to take on the challenge: I wanted to more consciously choose my belongings, the stuff I have around me. It didn’t matter whether an item had been around for years or was brand new. I wanted to choose, rather than have belongings around me that were there only because they were there.
Once I started to discard items, I was able to see a fourth reason to take on the challenge; I was able to more clearly see how the world around me (which includes me) conspires to have me spend my energy (money) on things that don’t need my attention (buy things I do not need). Not only does the acquisition of stuff muddle with my brain, it muddles with my financial objectives. When the gratification of acquiring stuff wears off, I see I have wasted my money. And in doing so, I participate in the generation of unnecessary waste, and use of unnecessary energy to generate that waste.
“The purpose of the challenge became a exploration of how targets must be challenging.”
The purpose of the challenge became an exploration of how targets must be challenging. Without challenge, a target is arbitrary.
Targets can be arbitrary
The measure of success in this endeavour was not the target—the number 496. We reached 510 with ease, and had we stopped there we could have told ourselves we had easily met with success. But if it was that easy, did we really accomplish anything?
The 510 items discarded in my household could be the equivalent of 203 in another household, or 1413 for another. Without the context of our circumstances, it was an arbitrary target. It was simply a number and I completely misread the degree of challenge we would experience to meet the target.
The challenge would have been an even easier target to meet if we had more stuff in our home. the target would have been harder to meet if we needed to keep our belongings because we were either excessively attached to them, or we simply owned very little. The volume of stuff we owned, or our attachment to what we had, could have made that target of 496 quite different.
An arbitrary target has no value in the short term, but it does in the longer term because it points us in a direction. The value in the measure—the amount of stuff—is in knowing if we are moving in the direction we choose, or in the opposite direction.
As we worked on our challenge, we kept tabs on new things that arrived; anything new moved us backwards in our tally. With a feedback loop, we knew if we were moving in the direction of less stuff, or more stuff. So even though arbitrary, keeping an eye on the target compelled us to monitor our progress in moving in the direction we choose: less stuff.
Targets need to be challenging
When we reach a target, we reach a bifurcation point. For example, when my family reached the target of discarding 496 extra items in our home, most declared the effort complete and stopped participating. Even though it was not challenging (and scary), the target was reached and they declared the game over. In contrast, I chose to continue, out of curiosity about where I would find the hard choices.
Targets that are too easy to meet are dangerous because they invite us to believe that the work is done when the target is reached. The effort for my family to reach 496 items was superficial because we didn’t, as a family, reach any hard or tough choices. My family, as a whole, stopped before we felt the discomfort of hard choices.
In contrast, targets that are too hard to meet make us feel overwhelmed and demoralized and when this happens, we may stop our efforts long before the target is reached, if we even start. When we have the privilege of time (ie no urgency), there’s a Goldilocks sweet spot to find: a challenge that is not too easy and not too challenging.
And when we don’t create the conditions to practice hard choices on our own, the tough choices will come our way whether we want them or not. What we don’t choose to challenge ourselves with will eventually reach out to demand we make the choices we have been avoiding.
Targets help us make choices
My city, along with many others, sets and resets targets on several fronts. In September, as they began the process to adopt the new City Plan, City Council explored the language of “stretch” targets.
They were in a big question: are these targets ones we want to hit, or targets we want to stretch toward but not necessarily reach? They were talking about the commitment they were prepared to make.
They chose to hit the targets. And their conversation revealed the importance of consciously choosing the targets we set for ourselves. They knew that choosing to hit the target meant that they were choosing to take certain actions now, in the present. They did not give themselves room to maintain the status quo for a while longer and get to work on the stretch target in the future. In choosing to hit a challenging target, they were committing themselves to future action.
“In choosing to hit a challenging target, they were committing themselves to future action.”
Targets help us evaluate our choices, as I monitor the stuff that accumulates (or not) in my home, or as my City Council considers an update to our Community Energy Transition Strategy. As a city, we will not meet the targets set in the Paris Agreement so our action plan needs to be improved. Targets help choices at scale: me in my home, or my city on our planet.
Targets remind us that we chose, with every action, to move in a certain direction: to consume less stuff or to reduce our impacts on climate change. When taking action feels easy, we are making superficial impact.
When taking action requires us to make choices, we are choosing to move in a specific direction. When that choice is hard, we move more significantly in that direction.
REFLECTION
What is your learning edge right now, and is there a target, or commitment, you can set to help you stay on that learning edge for a while?
What targets has your city set for itself, and is the city taking action to meet those targets?