Goal Driven vs Discovery Driven Life

From time to time, I reflect what I am doing and can find a strong tendency of living a “discovery driven life” in myself.

Sometimes, after doing a lot of things very excitingly, I found out I didn’t have a goal at the very beginning. I tend to discover the dots first, and then find ways to connect these dots together afterward, instead of having a prediction, a projected line, and drive things along that line and reach the goal. In MBTI analysis, it is a typical difference of P type of people and J type of people. Me as an ENFP tends to do things like that.

The reason I love the MBTI theory is, it helps people to understand the motivation of themselves, and the style of doing things, and how to intentionally develop the other side of the personality to be a better person.

For me, as an example, to develop the goal setting, and to focus on that goal for a given time period is something I need to train myself.

3 thoughts on “Goal Driven vs Discovery Driven Life

  1. No, Jianshuo, actually having no set goal is the right way to success.

    I read that many extremely successful people, like Zanker, Donald Trump, or Warren Buffett all reported saying that they don’t set goals for themselves. The idea is that having no set goal can actually push a man farther. Successful people push themselves to the limit, but they don’t set any goal in the beginning. Of course, there must be successful people who set goals. People’ style are different. Go with your instinct.

    Conventional wisdom taught in many management books like “goal setting” is not the real ingredient for success. These books are often written by people who are as success as they portray themselves to be.

    Another example, Steve Jobs didn’t have a goal to be as successful as he is today. He simply followed his intincts and pushed himself to do(or create) something he loves. The end result actually shined far brighter than any goal he could have set when he was young. Actually, Steve was at his youth, a naughty kid who didn’t really focus on anything, at one time he went to India (your favorite place) to seek spiritual emancipation. He didn’t plan himself for a venture in high tech, but he did better than anybody.

    Success cannot be planned. It’s the action, risk taking and excecution that ultimately define success.

  2. I am not familiar with any acronym you mentioned here. However, I believe that so-called “discovery-driven” people enjoy the processes while “goal-driven” people pay more attention to the results.

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