Episode 6: Everything You Know About Goal Setting is Wrong

Just about everything you’ve heard about goal setting is pure BS. If goal setting really worked, why are we all so rubbish at achieving our goals?

Episode 6: Everything You Know About Goal Setting is Wrong

Almost everyone agrees that goal setting is important to achieve your goals. So, why are we all so bad at it? Is it the message, the messenger, or us? David addresses this and provides frameworks for goal setting on today’s episode.

This is the first part in a 3-part series. Don’t miss the next installment and follow us on our website or social media.

View and download David’s four quadrants of goal setting here.

Show Notes

Coming soon!

Show Transcript

[00:00:00.370]

Alright, I’m going to go and clap now. Hi, and welcome back to another episode of The Buck Stops Here Business Podcast. Today we’re going to talk about goal setting, and about how just about everything you’ve heard about goal setting is pure BS. Or, if goal setting really work, then why are we all so rubbish at achieving it?

 

[00:00:25.080]

And so that’s what we’re going to talk about today on The Buck Stops Here Business Podcast. It’s a new year. I’m glad to have you all back again. And this is going to be the first of kind of a three-part series we’re going to have on goal setting. So, kind of just to give you guys an idea about that is that there’s going to be kind of three segments.

 

[00:00:42.060]

The first segment is going to talk about what goal setting is, what it isn’t, how to set up frameworks. Because ultimately, if you’re going to be setting up goals, I think we want to set you up for success as opposed to failure. The second part of this will be about choosing what goals to set, and kind of reinforcing those goals. And then actually the third part is kind of the nuts and bolts, the framework on this, about executing the goals, and how to have a framework to help you achieve those goals, like how to measure them, how to make sure that the goal is being set and framed in a proper way for you to achieving it, et cetera. So, going back to the beginning of this, I just want to kind of lay some knowledge a little bit on everybody here right now about goal setting.

 

[00:01:24.710]

So everybody, being a new year, everybody likes to set New Year’s resolutions. But the thing about it is that everybody out there agrees that goal setting is important to achieving things in your life and making things happen. Goal setting is part of what you need to do. You need to be setting goals. But the fact of the matter is that about 57% of Americans did not set goals for the new year, and that kind of number hovers between 50% and 60%. 50% to 60% of people say, “Ah, goal setting! Totally doesn’t work for me. Not going to do it.”

 

[00:01:58.300]

But then again, there’s a large minority now of people, though, about 40% to maybe 50% of them, who say that they will set some goals, et cetera. Now, the challenge with it is, is what percentage of people actually meet all their goals or resolutions that begin the year? It turns out that year on after year off, about 8% of people stick to all their resolutions. They stick to the goals they set at the beginning of the year. And on the opposite end of this entire thing, about 8% of people stick to none of them.

 

[00:02:28.930]

So, it’s kind of funny. And in the middle is where most of us fall in, okay? And it turns out, a lot of people are kind of jaded. They don’t know that goal setting is going to work for them.

 

[00:02:40.350]

They’re not sure what the goal should be, even how to set them. And there’s literally- you could go out and buy- probably- you can spend 100 or $200 on just books about how you set your goals, and how you should achieve them, et cetera. And we’re going to talk today a little bit about setting goals, what that is, what it is not, and how a lot of it is BS that you’ve just kind of been accepting for years and years and years. And there are some things that basically every business guru out there says about goal setting, you know, that’s kind of universal.

 

[00:03:12.650]

You need to record your goals in some memorable fashion. And the question is, should you put it on a post it note and put it on your forehead, so you see it every time you look in the mirror? Should you tattoo it on your arm? Should you write it down in a journal? Should you read it every night?

 

[00:03:25.520]

You should do it the first thing in the morning, before you eat breakfast, before you start to exercise. The problem with it is everybody agrees that you need to memorialize or record your goals in some fashion. So, you’re at least reviewing them on a regular deal. One of the statistics is that, that’s kind of really telling is that 25% of people who write their goals down or whatever it is, who start their goal setting at the beginning of the year and set the resolutions, forget about their goals. So, I think for one quarter of people, I can tell you why they didn’t achieve anything.

 

[00:03:57.740]

It’s because they didn’t put them down anyway to remember them. It’s one thing to be drinking with people before New Year’s Eve and say, you know, I’m going to lose 20 pounds by Valentine’s Day or something like that. Whatever it is. And that’s not a serious goal. That’s not something you’re going to be serious about achieving. And look, it makes sense.

 

[00:04:18.050]

If one in four people forget about their resolutions or their goals that they’re allegedly going to set, then they didn’t write those down anywhere and they probably weren’t serious. And that’s the big thing. You want to make sure that you’re committing to these goals on some level, and you’re going to say what they look like. The most popular goals every year are fitness, losing weight, saving more money, and that’s the kind of thing that people talk about.

 

[00:04:43.540]

Those are the ones that always happen. And look, it follows. At the beginning of every year, there’s wealth management courses that come out, there’s weight loss programs, there are gyms. They all hit real hard. There’s a whole bunch of sales for workout equipment before the beginning of the year. And just one of the things- that’s one of the big things about it.

 

[00:05:01.810]

A lot of people also put improving their diet on there, which is closely tied to weight loss. All these things are worthy and valid things. But the personal story on this, I want to tell you, is that when I started writing my goals down or putting them in some memorialized fashion, I started achieving most, if not all, of my goals. And, I’m going to tell you guys out there, when I didn’t do it and when I just kind of had it out there on the atmosphere, spoke it out of existence. Right?

 

[00:05:30.990]

I was lucky to achieve any of them, and sometimes it was someone else holding me accountable for that- on those goals because they happen to hear me. And they would ask me about that goal four months in and say, what did you do about this, David? And I would say, well, yeah, I’m going to get back on that. And I’ll recommit to the goal for a few weeks.

 

[00:05:47.300]

And it’s- look, it requires a lot of willpower. It requires some structure. And those are the things that most of the goal setting gurus kind of agree upon. Everything else kind of from there kind of splits it kind of meanders. It forks or becomes, you know, this crazy goal setting tree where everything is just not kind of organized. So, we’re going to talk about doing that and changing your mindset.

 

[00:06:12.780]

I’m going to go ahead and say, if you’ve- you know, it’s already three weeks into the new year. If you have not set any goals for the year yet, commit to doing that now. If you’ve not set a goal for yourself or whatever it is, it doesn’t have to be tied to the new year, and you don’t have to wait for any particular time. The best time to set a goal is now. As we’ve said before on the podcast, your life begins now, not five minutes from now, not five days from now, not five years from now.

 

[00:06:39.060]

Your life begins today. So, there’s no better time to set a goal for something you want to achieve than right now. They’re absolutely not. And so, the first thing I want to talk about is kind of what’s the difference between goals and objectives? Okay?

 

[00:06:53.360]

Goals need to be kind of bounded by different things you’re going to do on them, right? And a lot of people- in fact, our third part of this series is going to talk about setting SMART goals. We have a variation on SMART goals at the podcast that we like to subscribe to. It’s a little modified version.

 

[00:07:08.790]

SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound or time-oriented. Right? That’s kind of the normal wisdom talked about that. I think that definition is lacking in a lot of ways, and we’ll get into that in the third part of the series.

 

[00:07:25.040]

But at the very beginning, your goal should be specific. It should be something that you can state clearly in kind of ten words or less. Okay? You need to make sure it is measurable. You know, did you achieve it? Did you not? If you don’t have a way to measure it, you can’t manage it and you certainly can’t set it as anything.

 

[00:07:44.040]

Right? So, a specific goal is I’m going to lose X pounds by X date: I’m going to lose 25 pounds by the fourth of July. Okay? That is a specific goal, and it’s measurable. You can measure yourself on a scale at that point in time in the future, and you can decide if you’ve lost that weight or not. Okay?

 

[00:08:05.390]

The next one is kind of where we talk about what does it mean that the goal is achievable? Achievable means if you take certain action steps, you can achieve said goal, right? That’s the idea. It should be achievable. It shouldn’t be something impossible for you. An impossibility for you might be something like, I’m going to fly to the moon in a spaceship I make in my backyard of my house.

 

[00:08:25.770]

And unless you’re one of two people on this planet right now, I don’t think that anybody else could actually potentially do that. Those two being Bezos and Musk, possibly. But anyway, that being said, I digress. For most, that is not an achievable goal. And then realistic is kind of like- a lot of people get achievable and realistic mixed up, right?

 

[00:08:44.240]

Achievable is if you do these steps. To make things achievable, you need action steps, you need objectives, you need little goal posts across the way. Because if you’re going to make your goal achievable, you have to set yourself up for success, which means you have to recognize what the objectives are. Or, think of objectives as like small milestones on doing that. So, for example, if you’re going to work out every day, one of your objectives might be to get a gym membership, or to buy some workout equipment at home, or to download some exercises.

 

[00:09:09.550]

There are other things that you’re going to have to do in order to be successful on doing that goal. And if you don’t do those things, you will not have a successful goal setting strategy. All right? Realistic is kind of the next piece. Realistic is will you actually do this?

 

[00:09:26.810]

It has to do with commitment, it has to do with reinforcement, it has to do with roadblocks. There’s a whole bunch of things in there as to why people don’t achieve their goals. By the way, the studies show that most people who do set goals and achieve them are much happier. 90% of those people show a much more higher life satisfaction thing. And then, you have to make sure that the goal is time-bound.

 

[00:09:47.790]

Now, I’m going to go into more detail on this and really dig through SMART, but I want to at least give you guys the basic framework for that right now for what we’re going to talk about. So, difference between goals and objectives. Goals are kind of the overarching things. Objectives are kind of as we see it, at The Buck Stops Here, is that those are things you must do across the way. Because some people say things like, “Why didn’t you lose weight?” Well, I didn’t have, you know, the right whatever it is.

 

[00:10:12.900]

I didn’t have the right workout equipment. They didn’t even take the first step. If you don’t start moving towards your objectives, you’ll never reach your goals. You just won’t. And you’re lying to yourself.

 

[00:10:21.850]

And that’s the worst kind of lie. The one you tell yourself. At the end of the year, we’ve all looked at stuff and said we would do this thing. What things would I have achieved in the past year had I done these things? And here’s the thing. Goals are very personable.

 

[00:10:37.150]

When you don’t achieve your goals, and you’ve talked to somebody about it and they say, here’s how you should achieve your goals. I will tell you that what you’ve heard about goal setting is incorrect if you yourself have not been able to achieve them. And so, the question is why? Well, it was either the message, what people were telling you about how to set your goals, and that didn’t jive or vibe where you were in your life. It could be the messenger, maybe the person telling you how to set goals, you didn’t trust them or believe them. Maybe it was your parents telling you when you’re a kid or something like that, and you don’t want to listen to them.

 

[00:11:06.340]

What do you know, old man? Or, it could be you. But I’ll tell you, the reason you don’t achieve your goals is definitely one of those three things. It’s either the message, the messenger, or it’s you. And, I will tell you there’s only one common denominator in any goal setting.

 

[00:11:20.570]

If you’ve been to multiple goal setting seminars or something like that, and you haven’t achieved any of your goals, I’ll tell you of those three things, there’s only one of those that’s constant in every one of them. That is you. So, kind of the no BS part of this right now is you need to kick yourself in the butt. Right now. It’s time to ask yourself, what do you want in your life?

 

[00:11:40.740]

What do you want to be better? At the end of this year, or this quarter, or this week, or this day, what do you want to make sure is better in your life? And if you don’t want to make your life any better in any- I mean, quit growing. Quit living. Just shuffle off this mortal coil and move on. Because life is for the living and it’s for achieving things and doing things that you want. But your goals are very personal to you. The next question I’m gonna ask about you is, how should you set your goals?

 

[00:12:11.970]

There’s three ways to set goals, right? Kind of the way it works. And I’m going to do a shout out to one of these authors out there. I think he’s interesting. His name is Grant Cardone.

 

[00:12:20.840]

He’s got a book called The Ten X Rule, and he kind of believes that your goals are too small. If you ever hear him talk, I’m sure he has a podcast or something out there somewhere, he’s like, “your goals need to be huge. They’re way too small.”

 

[00:12:33.290]

And he thinks that your goal should be difficult, and aspirational. I’m going to tell you guys that I agree with him 100%, if that works for you. Otherwise, I believe he’s 100% incorrect. Because in some cases, that doesn’t work for people. That doesn’t work for them, because for them it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning. It may be hard to do little things in their lives. And for them if they don’t achieve- His whole argument is if you set your goal with this big audacious kind of what some people may say is a crazy goal, okay. If you miss it, which you probably will. You will probably not achieve this goal.

 

[00:13:13.410]

You might, but it’s really setting yourself up to not achieve it. But his goal is that if you say you’re going to make a million bucks this year, you’re much better off saying that then you’re going to make $100,000 this year. Because if you don’t make $100,000, or you make 80, or you say you’re going to make a little bit more and you make 130, but if you’re going to make a million dollars a year, it makes you change your mindset.

 

[00:13:32.430]

It makes you flip the way you look at things, right? And if you only end up at 300,000, you’re still three times better off than you were with that little weak goal, as he would call it. I don’t think he’s incorrect. I think if that applies to kind of your mindset and the way you do things, I think he’s absolutely 100% correct.

 

[00:13:51.320]

But I think he’s 100% dead wrong if you’re somebody that doesn’t work for. There are people that would scare them away for doing those goals. And you’re probably not the person who’s going to read or buy his books. But ultimately, I think that’s something to be aware of. But that is what one person is selling. That’s one person saying the way you should do it.

 

[00:14:06.870]

And I believe, at The Buck Stops Here, you have to analyze your own life and find out kind of what works for you at this point in time. The second set is kind of where a lot of goal setting gurus come in, they say that goal should be a stretch, but it should definitely be achievable if you make the proper efforts. If you take the right steps moving forward. Well, let’s analyze that one for a minute.

 

[00:14:27.860]

That doesn’t inspire me to do anything, personally. I like Grant Cardone’s idea of goal setting. That’s me, personally. All right? And other people who like this kind of goal settings will find the second kind of goal as kind of a mealy-mouthed-

 

[00:14:41.030]

This is not really ambitious enough for me. Again, it’s what works for you. And the third one is basically, goals are basically objectives that you should check off boxes on and you’ll achieve with some small effort. A little bit more effort than putting it down, but I’d rather achieve 1000 really small things.

 

[00:14:59.810]

And I call this the kind of the small goal setting, right? But I will say something to this; somebody told me once years ago, they said, if you change one thing in your life for the better, something minor – it could be as small as making sure that you write down your grocery list before you go shopping each time. Now, that doesn’t sound like a big deal.

 

[00:15:18.720]

That’s probably not really hard to do. But if you’re talking about financial responsibility and achieving some financial other goals you’ve got, if you make 52 of those resolutions each year, one each week, and just make them something small that you change incrementally in your life, by the end of the year, that’s going to look like a massive increase in what you’ve done. Just a giant increase in the things you’ve achieved or done during that year. So, something to be aware of is that is actually one way of looking at that, and that’s one way of definite looking at goal setting. And what I’m telling you is that you do what works for you. You absolutely do.

 

[00:15:57.910]

The next piece we should talk about, and this is kind of the part two of our episode, is we’re going to say, what goals should you set? So, today what I want to do is I want to kind of set up some different frameworks of different ways that you can use for choosing which goals to set, because sometimes this can be overwhelming for people. I will tell you the easiest goals to set are the ones that come top of mind at the beginning. You know- right now, I want you to spend 10 seconds and I want you to write down the three things you need to be paying attention to your life that you’ve never done.

 

[00:16:32.550]

All right. There should be three goals right there on your list. They were top of mind. They’re probably there because you know that you need to be there. And for a lot of people, this is way less, do things more.

 

[00:16:43.430]

But I think there’s a lot of things we need to talk about because a lot of us don’t get real balanced on our goals. Goals are a lot about- you need to figure out these ways, these things work for you in your life, and you can kind of find out which ways they work for you. So, different people have different ways of saying the things you should focus on, et cetera. Okay? So, Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

 

[00:17:07.150]

He’s kind of talked about, you know, kind of breaking life into four quadrants, and how you should live in, kind of as he calls it, quadrant two. Now, to just visualize this for a minute. And, if you watch the video podcast, we’ll have a picture of this kind of put up online so you can see. But, basically you have things that you need to do in your life that you’re responding to all the time, and I’ll talk about why this is important.

 

[00:17:27.630]

Quadrant two is where goal setting happens. Quadrant one, three, and four, you’re not going to live a satisfied a life. So, you’ve got things that are important and urgent, which is quadrant one. They’re important and urgent, but those are kind of like crises and things like that you have to deal with.

 

[00:17:41.390]

You have things that are not important that are urgent. So, those are like interruptions. Your kid walks into your room right now while you’re running a podcast or something like that. That is something that is urgent, but it’s not really that important, probably. If it is really important, it’s a crisis. Then, you’ve got things that are not urgent in your life, but are important.

 

[00:18:03.870]

Things that are not urgent in your life and important, which is quadrant two for him, those are things where you can do planning, where you can have recreation. Those things are important in your life, but they’re not urgent. If you’re managing your life through a goal setting framework, you kind of get to live life more in quadrant two. And, according to Stephen Covey, those people are much happier. And most of the social psychologists who have looked at that have decided that he’s actually kind of correct on that.

 

[00:18:29.680]

And, then quadrant four is kind of what I call the procrastination and loser category. It’s people who are spending a lot of time on things that are not important and not urgent. That sounded really harsh, but the reality of it is those are people who are spending their lives on trivia, small work. These people really are generally irresponsible.

 

[00:18:46.920]

They get fired from jobs a little bit heavier, just because they’re not focusing on the important things. It’s a lot of spending time on things that are not important and not urgent. Which, at the end of your life, if you spend a lot of your time on things that are not important and not urgent, you’re probably not going to have a very satisfied and fulfilled life. So, those are kind of his four quadrants. When you start talking about quadrants where you’re setting goals, there’s a couple of major ways they break down. The major one I see a lot is you have your mental goals, physical goals, kind of your spiritual goals and your emotional goals.

 

[00:19:25.070]

Now, some of you guys out there who are listening to this podcast may be like, well, I’m not part of an organized religion or Church. We still have spiritual goals. You definitely do. They could be time to think about things that debate the philosophy of the universe. It could be yoga.

 

[00:19:39.270]

I mean, it could be a whole bunch of different things, right? But the idea is that you have things that kind of center your being. And, if it’s not grounded to a religion, I’m not saying anything’s wrong with that. I’m just saying it’s different. So, don’t dismiss that category.

 

[00:19:51.480]

That is one of those big categories that comes up often again. And, so things that fulfill your spirit might be doing random acts of kindness for other people. Putting goodness or kindness back into the world. That is something that most organized religions and faiths say are probably important. You probably are supposed to give back at some point in time, right? So even if you’re not a religious person, you can do those things.

 

[00:20:15.540]

You’re finding balance and harmony in your life, being kind to other people. Positive affirmations are kind of those things. If you don’t like these four category quadrants, – mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual – kind of a more modern version on that is kind of mind, body, spirit, and kind of emotional is kind of self care. Okay? And what I’m going to say is that I think it’s important to get a sheet of paper out now and just divide it into four sections, and just kind of say, okay, what are things I want to do in these categories?

 

[00:20:47.220]

Look, there’s a lot of goals you can set. Those top three need to be there. Okay? But, I think you need to kind of put those things on there. And then my next one I’m going to challenge you guys to is just write some different things in those category. Things you would like to do, or things you think might be useful to you.

 

[00:21:01.460]

You could ask someone else, even. You can enlist support from a loved one and say, what do you think I need to be doing, if you can’t think of goals you need to achieve? But, I think after you get some of these things in those categories – I’ve seen this on a few places online – I think it’s a good idea to get like three adjectives or adverbs that kind of describe what you want your life to be this year. Now, by the way, if you think this is cheesy, you don’t do it.

 

[00:21:25.540]

But I find it to be very helpful for me. Do I want to be intentional with my actions this year? I want to clean up my life in a way to simplify the things that are not important, and I want to live a life of action and adventure. So, those are kind of things I’m looking at this year.

 

[00:21:42.160]

It may not be the same for you. You might be looking for balance and quiet and calm. I mean, we’re two years in a pandemic now, right? For a lot of people out there, they’re just looking for a sense of normality. Again, my point on the podcast is that you have to understand that your mileage might vary.

 

[00:22:00.510]

Everybody’s goals and what they need are intensely personal to you. Okay? I want to say something about your goals right now. You’re going to tell- You might be a person who tells everybody in the world what your goals are this year, right? Now, you be careful with this. If you’ve always been that person and you’ve not achieved any of your goals and you’ve told everybody what you’re going to do this year and it’s never helped you achieve them, maybe stop doing that. That is a way to possibly dilute your goals.

 

[00:22:29.430]

Just a cautionary word, there. You could be- By sharing it with so many other people, the goal has less value. Again, your mileage might vary, but I do think it’s important for you to probably write down your goals, memorialize it in some way. If you want to get a tattoo of it, that’s fine, too. If you want to write it in some indelible ink somewhere that you’ll always see it.

 

[00:22:49.180]

If you want to put post-it notes on your forehead, around your mirrors, or put them on your walls where you’re going to see them every time, at least that will help reinforce them. But there are other things you can do with that. You can tell it to a close friend. There are places online you can go where you can set a goal and do a challenge. And if you achieve the challenge, it’s like a penalty goal, right?

 

[00:23:09.250]

You set $500 on it. Something, a big sum of money for whatever it is. Maybe it’s $5,000, maybe it’s $50. It doesn’t matter. Remember, it’s personal to you, and it’s a penalty.

 

[00:23:16.930]

If you don’t achieve it by sunset date, you lose that money. Or, if you want to do an incredible, emotional tie-in, you agree to give this money to a charitable cause you hate, if you don’t achieve your goal. That’s about bringing an emotional tie-in, right? Look, I’m not saying you have to do that, but you find what works for you and that’ll motivate you, then that’s a good way to do it. Some people have like quadrants of life purpose.

 

[00:23:45.110]

You bring these things down into a different way. Sometimes people say that these quadrants should be broken down differently. I’m going to go and explain one of those. This breaks these down into personal well-being, career success, healthy relationships, and kind of giving back.

 

[00:24:03.260]

That’s a different way you can break your goals up. You want to find out what matters and what works best for you. And remember the way you set goals this year, I’m going to go ahead and tell you this, may not be the same way you do it next year. If you have a lot of other distractions and things happening, if you just started a new family, if you’ve got other things requiring your time, if you just took a big promotion at a career and you’re really focused on that, there are other things in your goal setting that you might need to think about. And, by the way, make sure that some of your goals-

 

[00:24:30.060]

Don’t just make them hard things. Make sure- and I’m going to go ahead and say this, this is where I’m going to go and weigh in and say something I think is important. I think it’s important you take time for yourself. I think it’s very important that you should have some rest, relaxation, and some hedonistic fun somewhere in your goals.

 

[00:24:46.890]

Same as pleasure seeking, reward yourself when you achieve them. For doing these things, do that. Reward yourself when you do things. One of the biggest things people miss is that they think you didn’t achieve your goal, and this is when people quit.

 

[00:25:00.180]

They missed the gym for a week. They get in a leg injury or hurt, or they fall off the wagon one week and they start drinking again, or something else happens. Remember, the best day to start your goals or to recommit to the goals is today. Just because you’ve fallen off and not done the things you’re supposed to, it’s really easy to get in that habit of thinking you didn’t do that.

 

[00:25:23.950]

I, personally, have a workout and weight loss goal for this year. I did some stuff last year, made a lot of achievements, and then I hurt a nerve in my knee back in December. I find myself not doing those activities, and what was I not doing? These are objectives. If I want to get back to working out, I need to have somebody look at that knee and see what’s wrong with it, right?

 

[00:25:42.140]

So, what did I do? I procrastinated and procrastinated, and I finally enlisted my loved one. I talked to my wife about it, and I said, hey- She’s like, you need to go see the doctor about that. And I was just procrastinating. She’s the one who made the doctor’s appointment for me.

 

[00:25:54.160]

I went and saw the doctor, and the doctor said, nothing there keeping you from exercising. So, I’m having to recommit to starting those goals over again. And the question was, was I using that as an excuse, or was that the reason I wasn’t following those goals? I can’t answer that for you now, but what I can tell you is that I’m recommitting to those goals, and I’m taking those steps. Take the steps to do the self-care to take care of yourself.

 

[00:26:15.190]

If you don’t take time for rest, you will be injured at some point later in the future. And if you hurt yourself, acknowledge it. If there’s something- is there there a roadblock that shows up in your goals? Let’s say your job changes and you were working from home, and due to the pandemic, all of a sudden you have to come into work, and that changes your workout routine. Go and recalibrate. There’s no reason why you can’t recalibrate your goals and reset them. If you’re one of those people in that middle category there, who thinks if you don’t achieve the goal-

 

[00:26:45.510]

Because here’s what happens; people kind of reach this halfway point in their goals and they track to where they’re at. And if you’re in that middle category where you believe your goal should be realistic, and you said, “I was going to lose 25 pounds by X,” well, halfway through your goal setting process, you’re only five or seven pounds down. You’re probably not going to hit the 25. It’s okay to renegotiate those goals with yourself and to let yourself off the hook. Because here’s the thing, if you didn’t do that goal at all-

 

[00:27:14.710]

Let’s say we don’t do it now, and we only get to 15 pounds, right? But if you renegotiate that goal in the middle of it, you’re still 15 pounds down from where you were at the beginning of the year. That’s a huge, huge statement and achievement for something you have done. Just because you didn’t hit this lofty goal or ideal does not mean that you did not do something you should be proud of. So, let yourself off the hook.

 

[00:27:38.010]

Often in life, we are our own worst critics. That doesn’t mean that criticism is not warranted. But at some point you have to figure out, is that criticism serving you? Is it moving you in a way that moves you to a more positive outcome? If the answer is no, it’s time to re-analyze that.

 

[00:27:58.640]

It’s time to recalibrate that and recommit to what you’re doing. So, this kind of brings me to where I’m at the end of this right now. There’s a lot more we can talk about this and about works. But if you got anything out of this podcast today, it’s really- you got to commit to setting your goals. That’s the things you’ve got to do.

 

[00:28:16.450]

You’ve got to resolve to setting some goals, and you need to memorialize those in some way. And you need to memorialize those in some way that you can look at them on a regular basis, and decide if they’re working for you or not. That means sharing it with a friend, writing it down in your journal, putting it on post-it notes, and putting it on a mirror, putting it online, signing up for some kind of thing. These are all options, but you need to look at the goals.

 

[00:28:40.510]

Remember, one in four people forgot about their goals. If you put them down somewhere that you’re going to look at them and see them, you need to know that. I think one of the biggest things you can get is an accountability buddy, a friend or somebody you trust, and often you want them to be setting goals at the same time. Check in with those people. Help them achieve their goals.

 

[00:29:02.100]

If you want to do something for yourself, help someone achieve their goals. It will make you feel good, and it will help you do that in the process. The second one is understand and rework the idea of what goal setting is. Allow yourself to let yourself off the hook a little bit. Set the structure up there, but figure out what goal setting is and what it is not, and realize at the end of the day, achievement and success are about moving yourself forward to those places.

 

[00:29:27.010]

Goal setting is about achieving things that were on your list of things you wanted to get do and get done. And it feels pretty good to go look at your list of things in the years like, man, I did this and this. And then, the next thing I want you to do is I really want you to take a step back and start analyzing what goals to set. Set up one of those frameworks, either put mental, spiritual, emotional, physical. Write down some things in there. Definitely write down your top three.

 

[00:29:52.730]

You’re supposed to do that listening to the podcast, but if you’re driving or doing something else, as soon as you stop somewhere, write down your top three. You probably know what those are and they’ve been staring you in the face for years, and you haven’t done them yet. So, I think this year and today is a good time as anything else to start those. So with that, that brings us to the end of this episode of The Buck Stops Here Business Podcast.

 

[00:30:15.370]

This is a very personal episode, but these also apply to setting things in your business and other things, and we’ll talk about those in other podcasts to come.

 

[00:30:23.500]

With that, do good work, be well, and I look forward to seeing you later. And if you like, please subscribe to this on YouTube and other places this podcast will be found. Thank you for your time.

 

More Recent Episodes

Scroll to Top