"What's my goal?"

I really like this! A lot of the value I got out of the Sequences and related writings was written similarly, e.g., Hold Off On Proposing Solutions, The Map Is Not The Territory, Hug the Query.

This also reminds me of glowfic!Bella's three questions (what do I want? What do I have? How can I use the latter to get the former?) when orienting in new situations.

[-]Raemon11d40

Oh man, this reminds me that "what do I want" and "what's my goal?" are often importantly different questions, and worth asking separately.

[-]Mo Putera10d00

I wasn't sure I understood the difference, so I asked Sonnet 4 and it replied:

Yes, there's a meaningful distinction here that's worth understanding. The difference lies in timeframe, specificity, and the nature of desire versus direction.
"What do I want?" often captures immediate desires, feelings, or impulses. It's more about what feels appealing or satisfying right now. For example, you might want to sleep in, eat pizza, avoid a difficult conversation, or buy something that catches your eye.
"What's my goal?" is more about intentional direction and longer-term outcomes. Goals are typically more structured and forward-looking. They represent what you're working toward, even if it requires doing things you don't particularly want to do in the moment.

I suppose this is related to, if not exactly the same as, wanting vs liking? Or am I even more confused than I realise?

[-]Raemon9d20

Sonnet's description is basically how I'd describe it. It's somewhat related to wanting/liking but I don't think I'd particularly emphasize those as a referrent here.

A reason to ask "what's my goal" is to help prompt "what combinations of actions would help achieve this?", some reasons to ask "what do I want?" is:

a sanity check against lost-purpose-goals. If you're pursuing a mistaken goal or one someone else told you to pursue, there may not be a ground truth for "is this even a good goal?". But, you can (hopefully) tell whether you actually want something, and if you notice you don't actually want it, you might want to check in with "okay... what do I want?"
if you spend your whole life doing stuff you don't actually want, you probably turn into a hollow shell-of-a-person, and I think there's something, like, "nutritious" about making sure to do some things you want on a regular basis.

[-]tcheasdfjkl19h20

Yeah when I notice I'm stuck on a vague/complicatd work task I ask "ok what do I actually want here?" and this helps.

I guess to the extent that's different from "what's my goal", it's mostly that "what I want" may not be achievable or within my control, so my goal might be something more bounded than that or something with a chance but not a certainty of getting what I actually want.

[-]CstineSublime11d60

This has reminded me that even immediate or short term activities have "goals". Like of course they do - why did I forget that? Cooking dinner has a goal. Buying a friend a birthday present has a goal. Plugging in an electric fan on a hot day has a goal. But when I read the title I was thinking of it in terms of long term projects and ambitions like trying to save the local rec center (by break dancing presumably) or building a startup.

This has given me pause on the second exercise: Instead of thinking about what my goals are for this week and the obligations I have coming up. but as I said - goals can be immediate - so I'm reflecting on this very comment here - the one I'm writing right now: what is my goal? I'm not sure: is it - "To write a comment that invokes a response from someone much smarter than me that will give me the tools to discover the right goals for me." or is it "to utilize these questions in this article and reflect on what I could be doing right now, and how to make better use of my time... right now?"

[-]Alicorn11d20

Note: if you don't feel like doing all of these,

Missing some kind of then-statement here.

[-]Raemon11d20

whoops fixed

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Step by Step Metacognition

115 "What's my goal?"

by Raemon

2nd Jul 2025

3 min read

115

Rationality

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115

"Buckle up bucko, this ain't over till it's over."

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[-]Drake Morrison11d80

I really like this! A lot of the value I got out of the Sequences and related writings was written similarly, e.g., Hold Off On Proposing Solutions, The Map Is Not The Territory, Hug the Query.

This also reminds me of glowfic!Bella's three questions (what do I want? What do I have? How can I use the latter to get the former?) when orienting in new situations.

[-]Raemon11d40

Oh man, this reminds me that "what do I want" and "what's my goal?" are often importantly different questions, and worth asking separately.

[-]Mo Putera10d00

I wasn't sure I understood the difference, so I asked Sonnet 4 and it replied:

Yes, there's a meaningful distinction here that's worth understanding. The difference lies in timeframe, specificity, and the nature of desire versus direction.
"What do I want?" often captures immediate desires, feelings, or impulses. It's more about what feels appealing or satisfying right now. For example, you might want to sleep in, eat pizza, avoid a difficult conversation, or buy something that catches your eye.
"What's my goal?" is more about intentional direction and longer-term outcomes. Goals are typically more structured and forward-looking. They represent what you're working toward, even if it requires doing things you don't particularly want to do in the moment.

I suppose this is related to, if not exactly the same as, wanting vs liking? Or am I even more confused than I realise?

[-]Raemon9d20

Sonnet's description is basically how I'd describe it. It's somewhat related to wanting/liking but I don't think I'd particularly emphasize those as a referrent here.

A reason to ask "what's my goal" is to help prompt "what combinations of actions would help achieve this?", some reasons to ask "what do I want?" is:

a sanity check against lost-purpose-goals. If you're pursuing a mistaken goal or one someone else told you to pursue, there may not be a ground truth for "is this even a good goal?". But, you can (hopefully) tell whether you actually want something, and if you notice you don't actually want it, you might want to check in with "okay... what do I want?"
if you spend your whole life doing stuff you don't actually want, you probably turn into a hollow shell-of-a-person, and I think there's something, like, "nutritious" about making sure to do some things you want on a regular basis.

[-]tcheasdfjkl19h20

Yeah when I notice I'm stuck on a vague/complicatd work task I ask "ok what do I actually want here?" and this helps.

[-]CstineSublime11d60

[-]Alicorn11d20

Note: if you don't feel like doing all of these,

Missing some kind of then-statement here.

[-]Raemon11d20

whoops fixed

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Curated and popular this week

8Comments

The first in a series of bite-sized rationality prompts^[1].

This is my most common opening-move for Instrumental Rationality. There are many, many other pieces of instrumental rationality. But asking this question is usually a helpful way to get started. Often, simply asking myself "what's my goal?" is enough to direct my brain to a noticeably better solution, with no further work.

Examples

Puzzle Games

I'm playing Portal 2, or Baba is You. I'm fiddling around with the level randomly, sometimes going in circles. I notice I've been doing that awhile.

I ask "what's my goal?"

And then my eyes automatically glance at the exit for the level and realize I can't possibly make progress unless I solve a particular obstacle, which none of my fiddling-around was going to help with.

Arguing

I'm arguing with a person, poking holes in their position. I easily notice considerations that feel really compelling to me that reinforce that my side is correct. I notice it's getting heated.

I ask "what's my goal?"

And then realize I had basically been trying to look smart and "win" some kind of imaginary points. But what I actually needed to do was change their mind. Which requires modeling their current beliefs and figure out what would actually persuade them, not what cached beliefs are compelling to me.

(Or, which requires de-escalating the tension and making it feel safe for them to consider changing their mind, whereas I'd previously been actively been implying that if I was right, they were dumb and should feel dumb. Nobody wants to feel that way)

((Or, maybe... I actually want to learn and potentially change my mind about something, and repeating reasons that I already think I'm right isn't really helping anyone, I need to be asking myself "okay, but what would change my mind?))

Product Discovery

I'm writing up a proposal for what my team should do next. I'm fleshing out a lot of details, getting excited about possibilities. I notice I've spent a couple days on this.

I ask "what's my goal?"

And the answer is "help my boss figure out what we should do next." My boss has given me a couple weeks to come up with some pitches for what to do. And I realize:

a) for the first week, I should probably doing a lot more exploring of radically different ideas rather than latching onto the first one I came up with.

b) I should be anticipating what my boss's objections will be, since it's ultimately his call.

I begin strategically directing my attention to areas that will help me find more novel ideas, and asking "what would be the fastest way to figure out if this idea is any good?"

Triggers

When is it a good time to ask "what's my goal?"?

One good time is "when you are first starting a project, or planning your day/week", so you just skip ahead past a lot of meandering unstrategic false starts on the wrong problem.

(Sometimes, at the beginning of a project, you will decide "my goal is to figure out what-the-hell-I'm-even-doing, and the best way to do that is via meandering play without stressing about goals." But, like, now you've doublechecked)

Another good time is "when you get a nagging feeling that you're doing the wrong thing" or "you notice you sure have been spending a lot of time on this particular step, and are feeling bored or frustrated."

Exercises for the Reader

Note: if you don't feel like doing all of these, maybe try just one of whichever is easiest.

Come up with 1-2 recent times you would have benefited from asking yourself "what's my goal?" earlier.

Come up with 1-2 projects/actions you're currently in the middle of, where you have a nagging suspicion you're not really tackling the right goal.

Come up with 1-2 moments you expect to run into in the next week where it seems likely you're going to go tackle something without really understanding your goals and predictably waste some time.

^{^}
I am experimenting with the mantra "your rationality paradigm is not complete until it is decomposed into simple sentences that people can immediately understand."