Setting and Achieving Goals

Setting and Achieving Goals

May 11, 2015
normasue

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey references one of Aesop’s most enduring fables: The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs.

The story is simple. A farmer discovers that his goose lays eggs of pure gold—one each day. In time, the steady accumulation of wealth makes him impatient. Wanting immediate abundance rather than daily provision, he kills the goose, only to discover there is no treasure inside. In his greed, he destroys the very source of his prosperity.

Covey uses this fable to distinguish between results and capacity. The golden eggs represent outcomes—goals, achievements, ideals. The goose represents the ability to produce those outcomes. Throughout the book, Covey returns to this question: Are you caring for your goose, or destroying it in the pursuit of results?

That framing caused me to revisit the story more honestly than I had before.

It is easy to judge the farmer for his short-sightedness. Much harder to recognize how often we do the same thing—sometimes dramatically, more often quietly—by neglecting the habits, disciplines, and internal formation required to sustain meaningful goals.

As I reflected on this, another analogy surfaced: habit formation is like physical training.

We often hear that it takes roughly three weeks to form a habit. That initial period feels difficult because it is meant to. Like strengthening a muscle, habit-building requires operating at the edge of current capacity. You are, quite literally, attempting what you cannot yet do consistently. Discipline is the resistance that makes growth possible.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland once described this process with clarity and compassion:
“For a while the harder you try, the harder it gets. Take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived.”

Seen this way, the fable becomes less about greed and more about formation. We do not lose our “golden geese” only through dramatic acts of self-sabotage, but also through neglect—through fear, complacency, lack of commitment, or the quiet decision to stop practicing what we know sustains us.

When I began asking myself honest questions—What do I want? What is my capacity to achieve it? What strengthens that capacity, and what erodes it?—I realized that growth requires change, and change requires humility. That is often where resistance enters.

The phrase carpe diem—seize the day—has always intrigued me, though I’ve found it vague in practice. What it has come to mean for me is this: seize the discipline necessary to increase capacity. Endure the temporary discomfort of formation in order to receive the lasting reward of fruit.

So I return, again, to the question that emerged from this fable:

Are you cultivating your capacity to produce, or slaying your golden goose?

What is your golden egg—your goal, your hope, your desired outcome?
And what is your goose—the habit, discipline, or practice that makes that outcome possible?

I am always grateful when stories—especially ancient ones—offer fresh insight into modern struggles. If this fable has taken on new meaning for you, I’d love to hear your thoughts.