To be successful or fulfilled, we all know you need to have specific goals.

To achieve them, you should visualise, plan your steps there and attach deadlines and incentives. Work hard, even if you hate the work. And never stray from the path.

Goals can get you to work harder, focus more and perform better. But they also can make you more likely to cheat, kill your creativity, and make you less likely to thrive

But that outlook, say a growing number of academic researchers, career coaches and thought leaders, isn’t only flawed; it may also, ironically, be keeping us from success.

“We get so emotionally attached to a goal that we’re setting ourselves up for failure and disappointment,” says business advisor, author and speaker Stephen Shapiro. “The key for success is, if you have somewhere you’d like to be in five years, don’t be so attached to it that it drives everything you do.”

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