Value vs Target Goals in Personal Management
About the importance of goals and how the type of goal affects its outcomes.
Aug 7, 2025
Management
2 min
A man without a goal is like a lost ship in the open sea. Courseless. Goals are essential to steer us in the right direction towards our dreams. But besides their general purpose, they also have types, from which two of them are very distinctive from one another, and also the key to your productivity.
Target Goals
Let's cut straight to the chase. Target goals are the first category of goals that are good to know in any situation. This first type works by setting up a limit that, when reached, marks the completion of the desired achievement, thus fulfilling the goal. Simply put, by an example. "I want to read 5 books." It is beneficial and highly recommended to set up the time frame for the goal too, like I want to read 5 books this year, but that lies into a different best practice (cf. SMART). Achieving this goal means reading five books.
This type of goals gives one a specific set of problems (or benefits):
It's performance-oriented
It's rigid
It's short-term oriented
Can feel like a chore
Need administration
Has a clear limit
In any given company, we are used to setting up these goals regularly. We usually call them KPIs. Cumulative KPIs then compound to our target goals. For weeks, months, quarters, years… Updating these goals can feel like a chore after some time, doesn't it?
Value Goals
Value goals, on the other hand, offer a different philosophy. To do something just for the sake of doing it. It's almost like the famous claim of an unnamed company, "Just do it!". To have a quick example before you leave, it goes like: "I will read every day." And that also brings a different set of problems (or benefits):
The definition is open
It's more flexible
It's long-term oriented
Can feel overwhelming
Zero to none administration
Has no limits
In any smart company, we can see those goals set up. We usually see them in visions or strategies. Updating these goals rarely happens.
Comparison (Which Type to Use)
There are no clear winners here. Both types of goals have their place in management, they simply have a different purpose for the organization. I want to point out that in the company environment, the combination of the two is usually what works, but I would be curious to see whether only the second type could suffice in such an organization.
I found value goals especially beneficial for personal growth. The ability to admin less, yet the uncanny ability to steer oneself works really good. ("I will read every day" sets a clear objective for me and what I wanna do, but I don't need to think about it much).
What I see as the biggest differentiator of the purpose of the two is the way you look at the world. I see similarities to McGregor's theory of X and Y (cf. search theory of x and y), which assumes the motivation of an employee to be either positive or rather negative, which ultimately brings a specific set of problems (or benefits) to adapt to. If you see people as lazy, you will probably have lazy people around, if you see people as genuine, you will eventually have genuine people around. The same goes for your goals. This, needless to say, is my subjective view and nothing to be taken too seriously.
Disclaimer
I was using both types of goals for the majority of my life until I finally got rid of target goals recently. If you have never used any type of goals before, I would recommend setting up a set of target goals first, and upon achieving them (or even only upon making progress without achieving them), I would move on to set up value goals. In the team environment, I would bet on the same strategy, getting target goals first until eventually, with the team's maturity, aiming to get rid of them in the end.
