Mastery and Pleasure in Goal Setting: Conquering Your Goals Series

This post is all about gaining mastery and pleasure while conquering your goals. These two concepts can be game changers when it comes to staying motivated and making progress.

Why Mastery and Pleasure Matter

When we think about setting goals, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement at first. But as time goes on, motivation can change, and the goals that once felt so attainable start to feel out of reach. That’s where the concepts of mastery and pleasure come in.

• Pleasure refers to activities that are enjoyable and provide a sense of satisfaction. These are the things that bring you joy and help you relax, like spending time with friends, enjoying a good meal, or engaging in a favorite hobby. Incorporating pleasurable activities into your life can help you stay balanced and motivated.

• Mastery involves activities that challenge you and help you develop new skills. These tasks might be difficult at first, but they provide a deep sense of accomplishment once you achieve them. Whether it’s learning a new skill, sticking to an exercise routine, or tackling a challenging project, mastery is about pushing yourself to grow.

By balancing mastery and pleasure, you can create a more sustainable approach to reaching your goals.

Understanding Goal Setting

Before we dive into the activity, let’s talk a bit about goal setting itself. Effective goals are SMART—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. But even SMART goals can be hard to stick with if we don’t also consider how to balance the hard work (mastery) with the enjoyment (pleasure) that keeps us going.

Creating a Mastery-Pleasure Map: A Step-by-Step Guide

To help you balance mastery and pleasure in your goal-setting journey, try this activity:

1. Identify Your Goals:

• Start by writing down 2-3 goals you want to achieve. Make sure they’re SMART goals.

• For example, if your goal is to improve your writing skills, you might set a goal to write for 30 minutes each day or complete a short story by the end of the month.

Map Out Mastery Activities:

• For each goal, list activities that contribute to mastery. These are tasks that challenge you and help you grow.

• If your goal is to improve your writing skills, mastery activities might include following a structured writing course, practicing different writing styles, or setting daily word count goals.

• Write these activities under the "Mastery" column on your map.

Map Out Pleasure Activities:

• Now, think about activities related to your goals that bring you pleasure. These are things that you genuinely enjoy and that make the journey feel rewarding.

• Continuing with the writing example, pleasure activities might include writing about topics you love, joining a supportive writing community, or enjoying a cozy writing space with your favorite snacks.

• Write these activities under the "Pleasure" column on your map.

Integrate and Balance:

• Look at your Mastery-Pleasure Map and consider how you can create a weekly or daily routine that incorporates both types of activities.

• Aim to balance your efforts so that you’re not only challenging yourself but also enjoying the process. For instance, you might alternate between mastery-focused days (writing practice) and pleasure-focused days (writing about your favorite topics).

Reflect and Adjust:

• After a week or two, reflect on your progress. Are you feeling motivated and balanced? If you’re leaning too heavily on mastery and feeling burnt out, try adding more pleasurable activities. If you’re enjoying the process but not seeing progress, consider incorporating more mastery-focused tasks.

Note: While both mastery and pleasure activities relate to the writing goal in this example, you can incorporate other activities for pleasure too! Mastery goals can also be indirectly related, such as improving vocabulary or discovering a new genre for the above example.

Overcoming Challenges with Mastery and Pleasure

As you work towards your goals, it’s important to remember that you deserve to feel good. Often, motivation follows activity rather than the other way around, so the key is to start taking action, even if it feels difficult at first. Engaging in both mastery and pleasure activities can help you break negative thought cycles by gradually experiencing the emotional and physical benefits of achievement and enjoyment.

For example, if you’re trying to learn a new language but feel stuck, start with a small, manageable task like practicing vocabulary for just five minutes. Pair this with something pleasurable, like listening to music in that language or watching a favorite movie with subtitles. As you begin to see progress and enjoy the process, your motivation will naturally increase.

• Fear of Failure: By focusing on mastery, you can reduce the fear of failure. Remember, it’s not about being perfect, but about making progress and developing your skills.

• Procrastination: Use pleasure as a reward to help overcome procrastination. Complete a challenging task and then treat yourself to something you enjoy.

• Burnout: Make sure you’re not just working hard but also taking time to recharge with pleasurable activities.

• Maintaining Motivation: Mastery provides a sense of achievement, while pleasure offers immediate rewards, helping you stay motivated in the long run.

Let’s Get Started!

I encourage you all to create your own Mastery-Pleasure Map. Start with your goals, identify activities that will help you master those goals, and balance them with things you genuinely enjoy. Feel free to share your map here or let us know how this approach is working for you!

Discussion Questions:

1. What challenges have you faced in maintaining motivation towards your goals, and how do you think balancing mastery and pleasure might help?

2. How do you usually reward yourself when you make progress towards a goal, and what are some pleasurable activities you could add to your routine?

This post is part of the Conquering Your Goals Series. Check out all the posts here.