Every January 1st, I join millions of other people who put pen to paper and make a list of resolutions for the coming year. (I don’t call them resolutions, because that seems too negative, like I’m trying to break a bad habit. I call them goals.)

I have five goals this year, relating to career, family, and personal aspects of my life. If I meet these goals, I will be proud of myself. But I need to remind myself that the ways I meet the goals are at least as important as achieving the goals.

According to a study conducted by the Harvard Business School called “Goals Gone Wild: The Systematic Side Effects of Over-Prescribing Goal Setting,” setting goals, especially in the workplace, has a number of potentially negative consequences. The authors of the study found that some people focus so much on their goals that their overall performance drops, they ignore other important issues not tied to their goals, they create a disharmonious workplace, and they engage in “risky and unethical behaviors.”

For example, in the early 1990s, when Sears set a goal for its auto repair staff to bring in $147 an hour, the staff began overcharging and performing unnecessary repairs. “Ultimately, Sears’ Chairman Edward Brennan acknowledged that goal setting had motivated Sears’ employees to deceive customers,” says the study.

Even though the study looked at the dangers of corporate goal setting, its conclusions are worth considering when you set goals about your finances and other personal areas of your life. Don’t set unrealistic goals about money that cause you to ignore your family, cheat on your taxes, or engage in illegal or ethical behavior, for instance. I suggest appending all your goals with something like: “in a way that doesn’t cause harm to myself or others.” Then you can truly be proud of your accomplishments.

Mark Frauenfelder – Editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine and the founder of the popular Boing Boing weblog, Mark was an editor at Wired from 1993-1998 and is the founding editor of Wired Online.

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