# Confused why goal not marked as complete **URL:** \ **Category:** Akrasia\ **Created:** [April 15, 2016, 3:30pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/confused-why-goal-not-marked-as-complete/2108 "2016-04-15T15:30:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 6
**Author:** ![philip](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/philip/32/1505_2.png) [@philip](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/philip)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2016, 12:13pm UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/confused-why-goal-not-marked-as-complete/2108/6 "2016-04-21T12:13:38Z")
> [@callumm](#): > > Philsophically speaking, as recovering Akrasiatics, are we ever really ‘finished’ a goal? You’ve beautifully articulated one side of the divide within Beemindee-land; i.e. whether goals are of the always-and-forever-striving variety, or of the concrete-and-completable variety. I have some of both. Here’s a proposition of sorts: - **striving** **goals** should be expressed in terms of slope, units-per-time, with no end date - **completable** **goals** should be expressed in terms of a target value **or** target date, not both. The slope of a completable goal has to be somewhat distinct from the target, because it’s far too easy to get yourself into silly situations where, **with every derailment, the road becomes increasingly and unachievably steep**. I haven’t thought through the cases (given the variety of goal types) but it could be that this situation only occurs when we’ve specified both a target value and a target date; i.e. **the goal definition is overly constrained and rapidly diverges from reality**. It might still be desirable to specify the slope of a **striving goal** by entering a target value and/or date, but the day-to-day operation of the goal should be governed by the initially implied slope. Ironically, we used to treat the slope as the most important thing to preserve after a derailment, which really annoyed me when I’d specified a meaningful real-world end date (such as a conference or an exam). Now I find myself arguing for that behaviour, when it’s appropriate to the meta-type of the goal (i.e. striving or completable). Knowing that a goal is **completable** gives Beeminder a clear steer about when to **celebrate** **success**. Conversely, knowing that a goal is **striving** gives Beeminder a clear steer to **celebrate** **progress**. --- _[View the full topic](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/confused-why-goal-not-marked-as-complete/2108)._