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This problem goes to deeper than one might think. The standard answer to it, from the proponents of goalsetting, is that these are examples of people setting the wrong goals \u2013 overly ambitious or everly narrow ones. Of course, it\u2019s true that some goals are wiser than others. But the more profound hazard here affects virtually any form of future planning. Formulating a vision of the future requires, by definition, that you isolate some aspect or aspects of\u00a0 your life, or your organisation, or your society, and focus on those at the expense of others. But problems arise thanks to the law of unintended consequences, sometimes expressed using the phrase \u2018you can never change only one thing\u2019. In any even slightly complex system, it\u2019s extremely hard to predict how altering one variable will affect the others. \u2018When we try to pick out any thing by itself,\u2019 the naturalist and philosopher John Muir observed, \u2018we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n