#182 Not Everything Needs a Goal — A June Realization

Last week I finished reading “Hooked” by Nir Eyal and the book explores the psychology behind why some products capture our attention and keep us coming back. The book introduced me to the “Hook Model,” a four-step process, actually five - Internal trigger, External trigger, Action, Variable Reward, and Investment. Some key takeaways from the book:

Some key insights from “Hooked”:

1. Habits are formed when behavior is triggered repeatedly in response to a cue, leading to automatic action over time.

2. Internal triggers such as emotions or thoughts, are more powerful for habit formation than external triggers like notifications.

3. The more frequently a product is used, the more likely it is to become a habit.

4. Simplicity is critical: reducing friction in the user experience increases the likelihood of action.

5. Variable rewards create anticipation and excitement, making products more engaging and addictive.

6. Investment by users (time, data, effort) increases their commitment and likelihood of returning.

7. Successful products often start by solving a real pain point for users.

8. The Hook Model can be applied to both digital and physical products.

9. Designers have an ethical responsibility to consider the impact of habit-forming products on users’ well-being.

10. Tiny changes in design such as the placement of a button or timing of a notification can significantly impact user behavior.

11. The best products help users achieve their goals while also aligning with business objectives.

12. Creating a habit-forming product is a process of continuous testing, measurement, and iteration.

13. Small, incremental investments from users like personalizing a profile deepen engagement.

14. Not all products need to become habits; sometimes, occasional use is enough to deliver value.

15. Understanding users’ motivations and triggers is key to building products that people love and return to.

The book is concise, actionable, and packed with real-world examples. Definitely worth a read!

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A friend and I were talking about astrology the other day. You know, the kind of conversation that starts light: sun signs, retrogrades, “What’s your moon?”, but then slips into the deep stuff. If everything is already written, then what’s the point of our actions? If our path is decided by the stars, or karma, or the divine will, then where does free will even fit in? Are we just passengers on a train we can’t steer?

Think of Arjuna in the Mahabharata. He’s in his chariot on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, with Krishna as his charioteer. The war, you could argue, was already written. The sides were drawn. The karma of generations had led to this clash. And yet Arjuna still had to pick up his bow. He still had to aim. He still had to act.

Now here’s the part that struck me:

Maybe the chariot isn’t just a ride. Maybe it’s our effort. Our action. Our dharma.

The arrows of fate will still fly - loss, love, change, chaos. You might not be able to stop them. But your chariot, your conscious action, can determine how hard they hit. It might shield you. It might deflect some blows. It might just give you the strength to stand when the storm is over.

Maybe there’s an even better analogy.

Think of life like a river. The current is fate, it flows in a direction shaped by a thousand things beyond our control: birth, time, karma, history. You can’t change where the river ultimately leads. But you still have a boat. And you still have oars.

You can’t stop the river, but you can row. Row hard, row wisely, and you might avoid the rocks. You might find calmer waters. But stop rowing, and you’re just drifting.

That’s what the Gita teaches too, in its own poetic, paradoxical way. Yes, outcomes may be written but action is still required. In fact, action without attachment to outcome is the very heart of its message.

So is everything written in the stars? Maybe.

But you still have to pick up the bow. You still have to row the boat. And sometimes, that’s enough.

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I’ve just started reading this book called Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned, and right off the bat, it challenged something I’ve always half-believed: that setting big goals is the only way to achieve big things.

But what if that’s not true? What if the greatest things: art, innovation, and discovery don’t come from chasing objectives, but from following curiosity?

The book makes this bold claim:

The more ambitious and specific an objective is, the more it blinds us to unexpected opportunities—and ironically, the less likely we are to achieve anything truly great.

It sounds counterintuitive at first. We’re raised on goal-setting. SMART goals. KPIs. New Year’s resolutions. Everything is about the objective. But when the objective becomes the only focus, we tend to miss the small detours, the accidental discoveries, the weird hunches that actually lead to breakthroughs.

It made me think of the world of science. Penicillin wasn’t discovered because someone said, “Let’s invent a groundbreaking antibiotic today.” It happened because Alexander Fleming noticed something strange in a petri dish and followed his curiosity.

Or in art, Van Gogh didn’t aim to become Van Gogh. He painted obsessively, through failure and obscurity, with no clear objective other than expressing what he saw and felt. The greatness came later, almost accidentally.

Even in life, haven’t you noticed? The best conversations happen when you’re not trying to impress. The most meaningful relationships emerge when you’re not chasing them. The best ideas strike in the shower, not in the strategy meeting.

Rather than optimizing toward a fixed goal, we often make more progress by chasing interestingness, taking one step at a time toward what seems novel or meaningful in the moment. This concept is called “stepping stones” — and the idea is, you don’t know which stones lead to greatness, but you find out by moving.

You don’t climb a mountain by aiming at the peak. You climb by taking the next best step that the terrain allows. Not because outcomes don’t matter. But because the obsession with outcome can paralyze action, can warp intention, can lead us down paths that look efficient but miss what’s truly valuable.

So maybe the best things in life: peace, growth, love, greatness aren’t goals to be hunted. Maybe they’re consequences of how we move. Of what we notice. Of whether we’re willing to follow curiosity when it whispers, even if it doesn’t come with a plan.

The greatest achievements become less likely when they are made objectives.

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I came across a tweet from Naval the other day that’s been echoing in my head ever since:

It hit me because I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose, fate, and even the nature of greatness. And this tweet captures a quiet truth no one tells you in school:

Learning isn’t the hard part. Applying is. Choosing is. Timing is.

We’re swimming in knowledge today. Podcasts. YouTube. Newsletters. AI summaries of AI summaries. It’s tempting to feel prepared just because we’ve consumed more information than our ancestors could dream of. But when you’re in the thick of it, facing a difficult decision, a moral fork, a business risk — you don’t need more knowledge. You need to know which piece of knowledge matters. And that doesn’t come from theory. That comes from doing.

Naval puts it simply: “Life is lived in the arena.”

You can’t think your way into mastery. You have to step in. You have to take the meeting. Send the scary email. Ship the half-finished product. And sometimes, fail in public.

“The best term I’ve heard for this is relevance realization—the ability to realize what’s relevant out of a vast set of knowledge.”

Maybe wisdom isn’t about having the answers. Maybe it’s about knowing which question matters right now.

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