There was an interesting piece in the Harvard Business Review recently. It’s message: large goals – stretch goals – at the corporate level weaken company morale, threaten integrity and invite decay. “Let’s dispense, once and for all, with the managerial absurdity known as ‘stretch goals,'” writes Daniel Markovitz. Markovitz postulates that stretch goals

• Demotivate
• Foster unethical behavior
• Lead to excessive risk taking

“When stretch goals seem overwhelming and unattainable, they sap employees’ intrinsic motivation,” he says.  Better, he suggest, just to focus on small wins.

I think he’s wrong.

In mountaineering, we have a saying: Go big. Or go home.

Of course, there is a fair dose of bravado in that mantra. And yet, those high and lofty and difficult to reach peaks are what whisper to us in the darkness of the night; and drive us forward to achieve the unachievable.

I have many of my coaching clients make a bucket list: the things they want to do, be or have before they die. And I ask them to choose one grand goal from the list, and circle it. It is what I call the big, hairy audacious goal.

And my assignment to my clients is this: take one small step each day toward that grand goal.

Because it is the big hairy audacious goals that supply the juice for our lives. They are the great vision we hold for ourselves. They give meaning to our lives. They are the essence of who we are meant to be.

Our vision, our purpose, our raison d’etre, is the core of our humanity.

Sure, we need the achievable in our day to day lives. Sure, small victories feel great and build momentum in our lives.

But the big hairy audacious goals are the ones that light our lives on fire.

Go big. Or go home.