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Are we obsessed with goals? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to you stuff you should
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Speaker 1: know from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome
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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always
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Speaker 1: this Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and he's here because he
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Speaker 1: decided to be here and he met that goal. You're
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Speaker 1: a successful human being, Chuck. I wake up every day
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Speaker 1: and I set goals for myself. Do you like, just
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Speaker 1: get out of bed, Get out of bed, take that
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Speaker 1: shower takes from Josh. Good again, clean those armpits, Chuck. Done,
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Speaker 1: good going, Chuck. You're a real go getter. Uh. Yes,
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Speaker 1: I have a bit of an intro. Okay, slightly anecdotal.
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Speaker 1: It's not necessarily newsy. Maybe this time last year it
0:51
Speaker 1: was Newsy. But um, Chuck, you heard of the occupy movement?
0:54
Speaker 1: Of course. Yeah, if you go down West Peachtree, you'll
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Speaker 1: see like Babe fourteen stouthearted Peel's still there. Man. Yeah,
1:02
Speaker 1: hats off to him. Um, But the the whole occupied
1:07
Speaker 1: movement one of the big criticisms of it that I remember,
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Speaker 1: and I think it's still floated pretty frequently because I
1:13
Speaker 1: was just discussing this with my aunt and Umi, right,
1:17
Speaker 1: and my aunts and old Lefty and um, she has
1:20
Speaker 1: like very pronounced ideas about the occupy movement, what a
1:23
Speaker 1: great thing it is and all that, right, Um and
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Speaker 1: she she was saying, we were talking about whether or
1:29
Speaker 1: not a successful and one of the criticisms of the
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Speaker 1: occupy movements that they didn't have any goals. They were
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Speaker 1: goalless and so how could you ever think about being
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Speaker 1: successful if there's no goals? Right, So my aunt was saying, well, no,
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Speaker 1: they were successful in like spreading awareness that there's like
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Speaker 1: a plutocracy and you know, there's this one percent and
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Speaker 1: they're in charge. So they were successful like that. They
1:53
Speaker 1: didn't need a goal. And that's kind of part of
1:56
Speaker 1: the point. You We made the point that um we
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Speaker 1: the Arab spring that it was based on all had goals.
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Speaker 1: They had a stated goal and mostly it was getting
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Speaker 1: this one person out of power. So there was a
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Speaker 1: measure of success or failure. And most of the time
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Speaker 1: it was a success, right, or at least there was
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Speaker 1: an ongoing, continued goal. So when I said that, though,
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Speaker 1: when I was like, well, you know, they didn't have
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Speaker 1: any goals, I feel like such a shmell, like just
2:22
Speaker 1: a corporate like dude, It's like, well, they didn't have
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Speaker 1: any goals, so they failed at it. And I'm curious, Like,
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Speaker 1: I feel like we in this country are very much
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Speaker 1: obsessed with goals and we are um, we equate success
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Speaker 1: with goals, reaching your goals and not just here. No,
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Speaker 1: but it seems like the West, the West. Okay, um,
2:46
Speaker 1: I think we should explore that. Okay, without any research whatsoever,
2:51
Speaker 1: let's just start talking right now. Well, I was, I was.
2:54
Speaker 1: It was interesting reading in this research because I was.
2:56
Speaker 1: I was kind of all over the place, Like part
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Speaker 1: of me was like, because we're gonna talk about like
3:01
Speaker 1: sometimes goals are great, sometimes there's a downside to them,
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Speaker 1: and here's sometimes you can achieve them, sometimes you won't. Um.
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Speaker 1: I was vacillating all over the place with it. Emotionally,
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Speaker 1: it was I was on a roller coaster. I was like, Man,
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Speaker 1: goals aren't that great to set? Sometimes you should just
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Speaker 1: be mindful and prideful about doing great. No, you can't
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Speaker 1: be prideful if you're a religious type, because probably it
3:25
Speaker 1: is a sin. He wants that to do with the
3:28
Speaker 1: goals though, well, you're saying you have to be prideful.
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Speaker 1: You can't be prideful. You're hands strong if you're religious.
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Speaker 1: Right out of the gate, Okay, I'm talking about myself. Uh,
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Speaker 1: And then other parts of me said, no, you know,
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Speaker 1: goals are great, and so I think where I landed
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Speaker 1: was sometimes goals are great. Sometimes there they shouldn't be around. Yeah.
3:47
Speaker 1: I guess that it probably is context specific and individual
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Speaker 1: specific and all. Um. But at the same time, I
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Speaker 1: think part of the problem is, like with this obsession,
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Speaker 1: is that they're we try to figure out how to
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Speaker 1: streamline things, whether it's achieving goals or whatever, and so
4:07
Speaker 1: we try to shove a one size fits all things
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Speaker 1: down people's throats. And in this case with goals, it's
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Speaker 1: set goals and achieve them or be unsuccessful. Yeah. And
4:15
Speaker 1: there's also sort of two parts to this which will
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Speaker 1: be intermingled, which is um, personal goals and like corporate
4:23
Speaker 1: type goals. And it's interesting if you look up goals
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Speaker 1: on the internet, Um, you gotta go a long way
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Speaker 1: to get past financial advice. Almost everything is like financial goals.
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Speaker 1: Financial goals. If you're twenty, you can think about retirement, yeah,
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Speaker 1: stuff like that, or you run into that guy who's
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Speaker 1: like go and for those of you who are like
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Speaker 1: blinking in disbelief, Yes, we're talking about goals, g O
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Speaker 1: A L S. And let's define what we're talking about.
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Speaker 1: Everyone has an idea of goals, but we don't want
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Speaker 1: it to get confused with um something like uh um drive, ambition,
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Speaker 1: um intention. So say, Chuck, you are you're like, I
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Speaker 1: want to I want to be a guitar player. That's
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Speaker 1: an intention, right, Yeah, I want to be a good
5:14
Speaker 1: guitar player. Saying a good guitar player would be a goal.
5:18
Speaker 1: That wouldn't I guess, But you want to play guitar. Okay,
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Speaker 1: we'll just say that's an intention saying I want to
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Speaker 1: be you know, am, I want to be able. I
5:26
Speaker 1: want to be a performing quality guitar player within the
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Speaker 1: next six months. That's a goal, right, that's a stated goal.
5:33
Speaker 1: Or I want to learn the solo for carry on
5:36
Speaker 1: my wayward Son by next Thursday night. You better man,
5:39
Speaker 1: you've got that show my kansascover band. You've been You've
5:42
Speaker 1: been talking a lot of smack. You better be able
5:44
Speaker 1: to deliver. Uh. My kansascover band is actually called wayward Son.
5:49
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, every Kansas cover band is called wayward son. Yeah,
5:52
Speaker 1: we have a club. Uh so where should we start?
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Speaker 1: Should we start with the downside of goals? And then
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Speaker 1: some of the more positives and like how to achieve
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Speaker 1: the merder? Let's talk about goals and how to achieve them?
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Speaker 1: There are this is There's been a tremendous amount of
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Speaker 1: study since the seventies and eighties, especially in um organizational psychology.
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Speaker 1: The field of psychology is to blame for a goal obsession.
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Speaker 1: I guess a lot of people say, yeah, and especially
6:16
Speaker 1: in the seventies and eighties, not just starting there, but
6:18
Speaker 1: that was when people were way into that kind of thing. Yeah. Um,
6:22
Speaker 1: my family has this book, you know, the family bookshelf
6:26
Speaker 1: from like stuff like that, like what color is your parachute? Um,
6:30
Speaker 1: there's one that I still have never I've never been
6:33
Speaker 1: brave enough to crack it open because I don't want
6:35
Speaker 1: to like accidentally just get the snippet of information and
6:38
Speaker 1: I'm ruined as a creative person. But it's called, um,
6:42
Speaker 1: becoming a more creative person. You could tell it's like
6:45
Speaker 1: a goal oriented self help book to become more creative?
6:49
Speaker 1: Is this at your dad's house? Yeah, it's that my house.
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Speaker 1: Now I've adopted it. Maybe it's like it's one of
6:55
Speaker 1: those have never opened it up. So, um, what I
7:01
Speaker 1: bring up psychology because there's a lot there's been a
7:05
Speaker 1: decent amount of study that under certain circumstances, you know, goals,
7:09
Speaker 1: setting goals can be helpful. Right. The problem is if
7:14
Speaker 1: you go to the internet or you get one of
7:15
Speaker 1: those self help books, or you start listening to self
7:18
Speaker 1: help gurus, you're gonna get um a lot of information
7:22
Speaker 1: and not all of it is good. Um. But of
7:26
Speaker 1: course all you can do is sort of study and
7:29
Speaker 1: ask questions on people who do reach their goals. Uh.
7:32
Speaker 1: So it's kind of hard to determine what is good advice.
7:35
Speaker 1: But um, I thought this one article in particular was
7:38
Speaker 1: pretty good because they listened out ten things, only about
7:41
Speaker 1: half of which were good advice. But you will find
7:43
Speaker 1: these ten things listed commonly and they are should we
7:47
Speaker 1: just go through them? Uh? Number one step by step plan.
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Speaker 1: Make a step by step plan to motivate yourself by
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Speaker 1: focusing on someone else who has achieved a similar goal,
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Speaker 1: Like look at Josh with smoking and he lost a
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Speaker 1: lot of weight, and think about me all the time
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Speaker 1: all the time. Drive yourself mad. Number three, tell other
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Speaker 1: people about your goal. You hear that a lot, so
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Speaker 1: you're sort of publicly accountable. Um. Think about bad things
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Speaker 1: that will happen if you do not achieve the goal.
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Speaker 1: I think that's negative recently, Okay, go ahead. Number five.
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Speaker 1: Talk about the good things that happened if you do
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Speaker 1: achieve the goal. UM Number six. Suppress unhelpful or negative
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Speaker 1: thoughts about your goal. Number seven. Reward yourself for making progress.
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Speaker 1: Number eight. Rely on will power. Number nine record your progress.
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Speaker 1: Number ten. Fantasize or visualize how great your life is
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Speaker 1: going to be when you achieve that goal. So those
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Speaker 1: are ten that probably the top ten techniques, according to
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Speaker 1: a psychologist named Richard Wiseman, who wrote a book I
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Speaker 1: believe in two thousand ten called fifty nine seconds about
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Speaker 1: goal setting and goal achievement. Right, those are the top
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Speaker 1: ten techniques cold from thousands of people. Do you want
8:56
Speaker 1: to give him the big surprise? The big twist to
8:58
Speaker 1: that list? That list has a twist to it, Chuck had.
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Speaker 1: Half of them are proven to make goal achievement harder.
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Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. The the even numbered ones were ones
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Speaker 1: that people who try those techniques usually don't succeed it
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Speaker 1: at meeting their goals. The odd number ones were proven
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Speaker 1: techniques that UM that Wiseman found, uh, we're commonly used
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Speaker 1: by people who set a goal and met it. And sadly,
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Speaker 1: in his study of the thousands of participants who had
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Speaker 1: like stated goals like quitting smoking, losing x amount of weight,
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Speaker 1: whatever it was, UM, only ten percent of them met
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Speaker 1: their goals. But of those ten percent, those odd numbered
9:44
Speaker 1: techniques were the ones that that were that proved successful. Right.
9:48
Speaker 1: And he gives on to point out that you can't
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Speaker 1: prove that that caused It's one of those causation things.
9:54
Speaker 1: Correlated does not prove causations, right, So quickly again the
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Speaker 1: odd number ones, these are ones that would help you
10:00
Speaker 1: out make the step by step plan um. And there's
10:05
Speaker 1: all kinds of articles on being concrete with your goals. Yeah,
10:09
Speaker 1: and also it breaks them down into um sub goals
10:13
Speaker 1: or something smaller in bite size. So like this big
10:16
Speaker 1: amorphous goal like becoming a good guitar player in six
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Speaker 1: months becomes you know, I don't know anything about guitars,
10:22
Speaker 1: but learning this chord today and then this and when
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Speaker 1: you put it all together and you've been keeping track
10:28
Speaker 1: and writing it down, it's it's it's controllable. Your control
10:32
Speaker 1: freak for doing this in the first place, and now
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Speaker 1: you are able to graphically display that habit. That's right. Uh,
10:38
Speaker 1: so make the plan. Tell other people about your goal.
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Speaker 1: They say that's a good thing to do. Um, think
10:43
Speaker 1: about the good things that will happen. But they say
10:45
Speaker 1: to draw the line at like fantasyland, right, don't do that. No,
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Speaker 1: Like when once you find yourself bathing in a lake
10:52
Speaker 1: of chocolate, you've gone too far. And also, I want
10:55
Speaker 1: to say, um, telling other people about your goal. You know,
10:58
Speaker 1: there's like whole website set up like publicly shame you
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Speaker 1: to keep you on track when you're sending when you're
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Speaker 1: doing a goal. There's this guy I wish you could
11:08
Speaker 1: remember his name. He did. He He came up with
11:11
Speaker 1: basically the Twitter diet, where you tweet to your followers Okay,
11:15
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this, and then every day you weigh
11:16
Speaker 1: yourself and you tweet the results, and then if you've
11:19
Speaker 1: gained a little weight, everybody on you and calls you
11:22
Speaker 1: a loser or whatever. Keeps you on your on on track,
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Speaker 1: And apparently it's been proven to work. There's other ones
11:29
Speaker 1: where you you log in and you track your progress
11:34
Speaker 1: and as long as you're not a liar, it shows
11:36
Speaker 1: that it keeps you on track. Um for things like
11:39
Speaker 1: quinning smoke or something like that. If you go and
11:41
Speaker 1: say I had a cigarette today or whatever, this thing
11:43
Speaker 1: will actually deduct a certain amount from your bank account
11:48
Speaker 1: that's connected to it to pay paler and they just
11:51
Speaker 1: take your money, like say, every time I have a cigarette,
11:54
Speaker 1: I have to pay twenty bucks. And when you go
11:56
Speaker 1: on and and keep track, this thing just takes your
11:58
Speaker 1: money out of your account and it's been shown to work.
12:01
Speaker 1: And that interesting because people like money exactly. I love money,
12:05
Speaker 1: you know. I've thought about declaring something like on a
12:07
Speaker 1: weight loss plan to like the stuff you should know army,
12:09
Speaker 1: because that's a good They keep you honest for sure. Well,
12:12
Speaker 1: but they're too supportive on most people will be like,
12:14
Speaker 1: oh it's okay, Chuck, you had any layer, like, don't
12:17
Speaker 1: worry about it, we still love you. It's like, no
12:19
Speaker 1: one would hold my feet to the buyer. You think
12:23
Speaker 1: you know, you do pose a pretty good is I
12:26
Speaker 1: think you might be right. I mean people would be
12:28
Speaker 1: very encouraging, but I think they would like you know,
12:30
Speaker 1: I see, I see what you mean you need some
12:32
Speaker 1: sort of um huh, it's too bad that we don't
12:36
Speaker 1: have like, um, I don't know, like a fitness podcast
12:41
Speaker 1: or something like that. Those people really hold you to it, dude,
12:46
Speaker 1: give a shot. Oh, I don't know, give it. Give
12:49
Speaker 1: it a shot, America, Chuck. Chuck is going to need
12:53
Speaker 1: his feet held to the fire, and you're gonna do
12:54
Speaker 1: it well. On that note, though, what I'm doing now
12:57
Speaker 1: is I found that a poundage goal. It's just in
13:01
Speaker 1: getting on that scale is no good. So I'm working
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Speaker 1: on like literally weekly in daily goals, Like I've got
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Speaker 1: my little calendar up on my refrigerator and my little
13:11
Speaker 1: marker next to it, and I mark publicly in my
13:15
Speaker 1: household if I went to the gym that day, and
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Speaker 1: the goal each week is, you know, four times a week,
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Speaker 1: good for you, and the week said I don't go
13:22
Speaker 1: four times, it's I'm sitting there looking at it, and
13:25
Speaker 1: it's shaming. I think you mean and I are going
13:28
Speaker 1: to go in together and get Emily a riding crop
13:31
Speaker 1: to smack your thighs with. Every time you you don't get,
13:35
Speaker 1: you don't reach your daily goal. Yeah, the poundage goal
13:37
Speaker 1: just I had someone tell me He's like, don't get
13:39
Speaker 1: on a scale, just like, well, if you want a
13:41
Speaker 1: way to obsess, like there, you have it right there.
13:44
Speaker 1: But it also it works for some people. And exactly
13:47
Speaker 1: we're coming around right here, like if that makes sense
13:49
Speaker 1: to you and you have, then do that. But it
13:52
Speaker 1: works for some people. For other people it's just a
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Speaker 1: little too much, okay, So quickly the remaining odd things
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Speaker 1: that should help you reward your self for making progress, um.
14:02
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean if you're dieting, I'm trying to
14:05
Speaker 1: lose weight. You reward yourself with like the hot fudge
14:07
Speaker 1: Sunday necessarily um, and then record your progress. And that
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Speaker 1: all ties into the accountability and writing stuff down instead
14:18
Speaker 1: of just visualizing and thinking about things. They say to
14:22
Speaker 1: be really concrete, like write it down, look at it,
14:24
Speaker 1: make it physical and real, right, And that's why they
14:27
Speaker 1: think that goals work. When they work, is they take
14:31
Speaker 1: things out of the subjective and put them into the objective.
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Speaker 1: So um. The there was a study from the seventies
14:38
Speaker 1: Bandur and Simon, And I can't remember Bandura's name, but
14:41
Speaker 1: his name is really familiar to me. He came up
14:43
Speaker 1: with something else. I guess it was habit formation. But um,
14:47
Speaker 1: they they figured out that. I guess they took a
14:51
Speaker 1: bunch of severely obese people and divided them into so
14:55
Speaker 1: the control group was told to just do their best
14:57
Speaker 1: at losing weight. The other group, um, we're told, like,
15:02
Speaker 1: you need to lose x number pounds by this weekend,
15:04
Speaker 1: x number pounds by this week. There they set goals,
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Speaker 1: and um they lost something like twice, you know, twice
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Speaker 1: as much. The people who said the goals lost twice
15:15
Speaker 1: as much of the people who were just told to
15:18
Speaker 1: do their best. And I think it's probably because it's
15:22
Speaker 1: just saying I have something to focus on, to pay attention,
15:25
Speaker 1: to quantify my progress, rather than you know, what is
15:28
Speaker 1: doing your best means? Well, there's ambiguity there because someone
15:32
Speaker 1: might said, well I did my best, and my best
15:34
Speaker 1: just isn't good enough. Well we'll get to that in
15:37
Speaker 1: a little bit, and that's that's absolutely correct. And then
15:41
Speaker 1: not not just with weight loss, I mean like people
15:43
Speaker 1: during this whole goal obsessed seventies and eighties, Um, there
15:47
Speaker 1: there were studies of how setting goals could reduce like
15:51
Speaker 1: accidents in the workplace, um, how they could reduce sick days.
15:55
Speaker 1: Like it became an obsession with companies, Yeah, to basically
16:01
Speaker 1: say like, hey, everybody set a goal and we're going
16:03
Speaker 1: to make a bunch of money. Um. And there's there's
16:07
Speaker 1: also this thing called stretch goals. I've never heard of
16:10
Speaker 1: that I had neither, and I was like that smacks
16:12
Speaker 1: of corporate buzz speak. You're gonna look that up and
16:16
Speaker 1: hanging fruit. It was. Yeah, stretch goals was coined by
16:20
Speaker 1: the legendary um G E CEO Jack Welch, and he
16:25
Speaker 1: basically said, like, a stretch goal is something that you
16:29
Speaker 1: some virtually unattainable goal that you give to your employees
16:33
Speaker 1: to shake them out of their out of their ruts basically,
16:38
Speaker 1: which isn't great people are finding out no companies. At
16:42
Speaker 1: least it does bring us to a two question though, Chuck, Like,
16:47
Speaker 1: this whole the whole point of what we're talking about
16:50
Speaker 1: is there is why don't why can't we just achieve
16:55
Speaker 1: our goals when we're the only obstacle. Well, Um, there's
17:01
Speaker 1: been a little research done on the brain, and research
17:05
Speaker 1: does show that the brain tries to protect you from
17:07
Speaker 1: change really, um, like anything that's scary or fearful, um,
17:13
Speaker 1: which could be any kind of change in your patterns
17:16
Speaker 1: in your daily habits is threatening basically, but not only that.
17:19
Speaker 1: Like even remember when we were talking about chunking and
17:21
Speaker 1: habit formation on the video podcast. Yeah, same thing. The
17:25
Speaker 1: brain is looking for a way to streamline a process
17:27
Speaker 1: so that it can use up the least amount of
17:29
Speaker 1: energy possible in carrying out something. And the way to
17:33
Speaker 1: do that is just get you to do the same
17:34
Speaker 1: thing over and over again. Habit formation. So our brains
17:38
Speaker 1: are naturally inclined, we think at this point in the
17:41
Speaker 1: this this point in neuroscience to finding the path of
17:46
Speaker 1: least resistance in carrying out something. So that's habit formation.
17:51
Speaker 1: Aubrey Daniels has a book called oops Uh Thirteen Management
17:55
Speaker 1: practices that Waste time and money, and he argues that
17:59
Speaker 1: the stretch goals are not good for your company because,
18:03
Speaker 1: um he's his sided studies that when people and departments
18:08
Speaker 1: failed to reach their goals, then there's a performance decline afterward.
18:12
Speaker 1: So you set up these almost unattainable goals and it's
18:17
Speaker 1: sort of a big bummer for everyone when you don't
18:19
Speaker 1: reach them. Yeah, especially if they've they've been really really
18:23
Speaker 1: working hard to achieve them. I imagine there's like an
18:28
Speaker 1: aftermath where you're just like, well, what's the point in
18:30
Speaker 1: any of this? If sure, we're gonna work our tails
18:32
Speaker 1: off and still fail. Well, And that's one of the
18:34
Speaker 1: points is that with goals, it's sort of looked at
18:37
Speaker 1: as a past failed thing you could. I mean, I
18:41
Speaker 1: guess some some managers are better at saying, well, we
18:44
Speaker 1: we got towards our goal, and that's really great, But
18:47
Speaker 1: most of the time it's we didn't reach our goal,
18:49
Speaker 1: so we failed, right, and that's Um. That's an inherent
18:52
Speaker 1: problem with goals, is what we were talking about with
18:55
Speaker 1: subjectivity and objectivity, where just do your best or raise
18:59
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand dollars in six months? Sure, right, Um.
19:05
Speaker 1: The good thing about goals is that they take away
19:07
Speaker 1: that subjectivity, but at the same time, like you were saying,
19:10
Speaker 1: they set you up for the measure of success is perfection,
19:16
Speaker 1: and um, that can be a problem for losers. Adam
19:20
Speaker 1: Glinski is a professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management,
19:25
Speaker 1: and he is a co author of a book called
19:27
Speaker 1: Goals Gone Wild. Very clever, but he has a quote
19:30
Speaker 1: in here I thought was really relevant, and he says
19:32
Speaker 1: that goal setting has been treated like an over the
19:34
Speaker 1: counter medication when it should really be treated with more
19:37
Speaker 1: care as a prescription strength of medication. Yeah, and I
19:41
Speaker 1: think you're too willy nilly with it right. Well, yeah,
19:43
Speaker 1: it's it seems like a way to solve a big
19:46
Speaker 1: problem all at once. And there is a dude named
19:49
Speaker 1: sim Uh sikin At Duke who did a study of
19:53
Speaker 1: companies that do stretch goals, and a stretch goal, UM
19:57
Speaker 1: and a way to quantify it says to uh, to
20:01
Speaker 1: be like the number eleven in flight magazine in the country,
20:06
Speaker 1: and to say, Uh, you're you're gonna be number one
20:09
Speaker 1: in two quarters. We're gonna be the number one in
20:11
Speaker 1: flight magazine in the country two quarters. Yeah, that's a
20:17
Speaker 1: that's a huge stretch goal. And they found sim Sitkin,
20:21
Speaker 1: who's got one of the better business school professor's names
20:24
Speaker 1: of all time. UM found that companies that engage in
20:28
Speaker 1: stretch goals typically are already desperate and embattled and um,
20:35
Speaker 1: if they fail at the stretch goal, they're in big trouble.
20:38
Speaker 1: Like it's a last ditch thing, and it's a lot
20:41
Speaker 1: to ask of your employees, and it's kind of unfair.
20:43
Speaker 1: Rather than saying, okay, you know what's wrong with our
20:46
Speaker 1: organization that led us to this point? How else can
20:49
Speaker 1: how can we do this incrementally? It's kind of like
20:51
Speaker 1: a hail Mary passes a stretch goal. Uh. Interestingly too,
20:55
Speaker 1: they've also found out that UM setting goals that PETE
21:00
Speaker 1: will don't meet lead people to unethical behavior, like when
21:02
Speaker 1: they're tasked to keep track of their own goals and
21:05
Speaker 1: report they will lie UM when they don't reach their goals. Yeah,
21:10
Speaker 1: just to say they have reached that you know, ethereal goal.
21:14
Speaker 1: But it's also you're asking somebody in as many words
21:17
Speaker 1: and not so many words, did you are you a success?
21:19
Speaker 1: Or are you a failure? When you're saying did you
21:22
Speaker 1: reach your goal or not? And UM. The other the
21:25
Speaker 1: other aspect of UM unethical behavior related to goal setting
21:30
Speaker 1: is this UM the idea that when you focus on
21:34
Speaker 1: a goal, it's your it's easier to compromise your everyday
21:39
Speaker 1: morality to achieve that goal. And apparently like that's that's
21:43
Speaker 1: a that's a possible outcome of of goal setting is
21:48
Speaker 1: that people just start kind of cutting corners and cheating
21:51
Speaker 1: and writing whatever they need to to achieve that goal.
21:55
Speaker 1: Slash be successful well or do weird and dangerous things
22:00
Speaker 1: like my father who like ate soup every day for
22:04
Speaker 1: like a year and that's it, like a bowl of
22:06
Speaker 1: soup and wore like one of those plastic suits around
22:10
Speaker 1: and then like July heat in Atlanta, or you know,
22:13
Speaker 1: I just won't eat anymore. Or although he I think
22:16
Speaker 1: he ate like cabbage soup for literally like six or
22:19
Speaker 1: eight months straight and it's it's not like it's not healthy.
22:22
Speaker 1: You know. That's a great example. Is something he otherwise
22:26
Speaker 1: wouldn't have done. That's kind of dangerous. Um it's also
22:30
Speaker 1: uh so it's dangerous. It can lead to unethical behavior.
22:34
Speaker 1: Another downside that people have suggested about goals is that, um,
22:39
Speaker 1: they they can keep you from learning. Yeah, you're so
22:44
Speaker 1: focused on this goal number. And then you're combined with
22:48
Speaker 1: the fact that your brain is in the habit formation,
22:50
Speaker 1: so it's trying to figure out the easiest way to
22:51
Speaker 1: do this one thing that you end up with tunnel
22:54
Speaker 1: vision and you possibly miss all sorts of other opportunities
22:58
Speaker 1: or ways of learning to do this thing better. They
23:01
Speaker 1: may have nothing to do with the goal, but way
23:03
Speaker 1: to achieve that goal because you you have blinders on
23:07
Speaker 1: goal setting off in is related to blinders like keep
23:10
Speaker 1: your eyes on the prize. Yeah, and we're kind of
23:12
Speaker 1: slipping here in and out of um organizational goals and
23:15
Speaker 1: personal goals. Um, but they do they do share some
23:20
Speaker 1: common downsides. Yeah. What I liked in this research was
23:24
Speaker 1: towards the end of it where uh, some more forward
23:29
Speaker 1: thinking companies are concentrating less on uh a number goal
23:34
Speaker 1: that everyone has to meet and more on what's called mindfulness, UM,
23:40
Speaker 1: being in the moment, being present, rather than focusing on
23:43
Speaker 1: the future. So this part stunk of positive psychology to me. Yeah,
23:47
Speaker 1: but I kind of like it. I think mindfulness and
23:50
Speaker 1: uh personal like your goal for me, Like I don't
23:56
Speaker 1: set goals like with the podcast, other than doing all
24:00
Speaker 1: some job like I don't, I don't want. We don't
24:03
Speaker 1: have no wonder we've been lagging lately in the ratings, Chuck,
24:09
Speaker 1: Like the ratings are nice, but you and I don't
24:10
Speaker 1: sit down and say like we want to be number
24:12
Speaker 1: five this week or we want this many downloads. It's
24:15
Speaker 1: more like you wake up and you just like, I
24:18
Speaker 1: want to do a great job today and be mindful
24:21
Speaker 1: and in the moment of that, And I know that's
24:23
Speaker 1: all hippie dippy but it's hippie talking. Um. Okay, So
24:29
Speaker 1: for those of you who do want to keep your
24:31
Speaker 1: eye on the ball and you do carry out goals
24:33
Speaker 1: and you set goals, right, what what are in addition
24:37
Speaker 1: to those you know, um steps you just gave to
24:40
Speaker 1: the setting goals. One of the things that they have
24:44
Speaker 1: to overcome, it feels like, is a procrastination. I thought
24:48
Speaker 1: this was interesting. Yeah, this is a really good interjection
24:51
Speaker 1: here was Um. One of the things that keeps you
24:54
Speaker 1: from achieving a goal, um is just putting off taking
24:58
Speaker 1: it up right, and that whole like journey of a
25:02
Speaker 1: thousand miles begins with one step kind of thing. If
25:05
Speaker 1: that's not working, he tried the tree falling in the
25:08
Speaker 1: woods thing. No, Buddhist like, Um, yeah, are are working? Um.
25:14
Speaker 1: You should hear about this effect, the Zigarnic effect Yea
25:18
Speaker 1: or ziger Nick. This was named for a Russian psychologist,
25:22
Speaker 1: Blooma ziger Nick. Although I said that like she was German,
25:28
Speaker 1: I don't do a good Russian. At least you didn't
25:30
Speaker 1: do a British accent for that. Yeah. Thanks. Um. She
25:35
Speaker 1: noticed something while she was eating at a restaurant in Vienna. Reportedly,
25:40
Speaker 1: she saw and I'm not quite sure I understand how
25:43
Speaker 1: it initially dawned on her, but she saw that waiters
25:45
Speaker 1: only seemed to remember orders which were in process of
25:48
Speaker 1: being served. Once we were completed, they forgot about them. Yeah.
25:52
Speaker 1: Like if if you went up to a waiter, uh,
25:56
Speaker 1: after they took the order and was waiting on another
25:58
Speaker 1: table and asked them about the order they just took,
26:00
Speaker 1: they could repeat it to you. But after they brought
26:02
Speaker 1: the food out and maybe the show was made, if
26:05
Speaker 1: you asked the waiter what that order was, they would
26:07
Speaker 1: have no idea. Or they came back and they were like,
26:09
Speaker 1: how's your steak, and you're like, I had the chicken, yeah,
26:12
Speaker 1: and they go commit. So she did a little studying
26:16
Speaker 1: on this and some other people, uh. And this was
26:18
Speaker 1: in the nineteen twenties, and then later on Kenneth McGraw
26:21
Speaker 1: um sixty years later did some studies on the Zigern effect,
26:25
Speaker 1: basically asking people to do puzzles and string beads together
26:29
Speaker 1: and do certain tasks, and then they would interrupt them
26:32
Speaker 1: sometimes and then quiz them afterward on what they remember doing.
26:37
Speaker 1: And I think more people remembered who had been interrupted
26:41
Speaker 1: than who had completed the tasks and yes, so that's significant,
26:46
Speaker 1: equally significant, And that Kenneth McGraw study was that, UM,
26:50
Speaker 1: something like of the people who were interrupted in the
26:54
Speaker 1: task and told that they were done, they didn't have
26:56
Speaker 1: to complete it, continued to complete it anyway. That would
26:59
Speaker 1: be yes. That would drive me nuts. If I like,
27:02
Speaker 1: if they gave me a puzzle to do and they're
27:04
Speaker 1: like ten pieces of left and he said now get
27:05
Speaker 1: on out of here, I would freak out. I would
27:07
Speaker 1: obsess about that the rest of the day, so and
27:10
Speaker 1: then forget about it the whole The whole point of
27:12
Speaker 1: this is that we have some sort of drive to
27:17
Speaker 1: complete a task once we've started it. So the key
27:21
Speaker 1: to overcoming procrastination, as it relates to the zigger neck
27:25
Speaker 1: effect UM, is to just dive in somewhere, anywhere, anything,
27:30
Speaker 1: it depending on And they've found and follow up studies
27:33
Speaker 1: UM that if this, if the goal is just too lofty,
27:37
Speaker 1: or if you really couldn't care less about the goal, UM,
27:40
Speaker 1: the ziggerneck effect is likely to not have that much
27:43
Speaker 1: of an effect. But if you do, you know, you're
27:47
Speaker 1: you're taking an order for money and you need to
27:49
Speaker 1: remember it, UM, and you're interrupted, you're going to remember
27:53
Speaker 1: this right, um To get around procrastination, you um just
27:59
Speaker 1: dive in and start. And it sounds like a cop
28:01
Speaker 1: out to say the trick did not procrastinating, it's just
28:03
Speaker 1: to start, but it's true. And they point out that
28:07
Speaker 1: a lot of people can be frozen and and I
28:09
Speaker 1: was sort of like this with my backyard when we
28:11
Speaker 1: moved into my house. It was like it looked like
28:15
Speaker 1: a junkyard, like a barren dirt junkyard. And it was
28:20
Speaker 1: literally one of those things where I walked back when
28:22
Speaker 1: we first moved in and I was just like, where
28:24
Speaker 1: do I start. I was paralyzed. I was like, I
28:27
Speaker 1: don't know what to do. And then you pulled that
28:29
Speaker 1: first weed and within two hours you had a brand
28:31
Speaker 1: new backyard. Well that's the point, though, is start small
28:34
Speaker 1: and be like, you know what, just let me do
28:35
Speaker 1: this one thing, and as long as you get that
28:37
Speaker 1: ball rolling, chances are you will continue little by little
28:41
Speaker 1: and eventually look back and be like, wow, I've actually
28:43
Speaker 1: gotten a lot done in the past six years. And
28:45
Speaker 1: apparently it doesn't even have to be um at. You
28:48
Speaker 1: don't even have to start at the beginning, Like you
28:51
Speaker 1: didn't have to start at this specific corner you could
28:53
Speaker 1: walked in the middle and started messing with whatever. Um.
28:59
Speaker 1: So the yeah, there's some traps we talked earlier about, um,
29:05
Speaker 1: the techniques that don't work. Apparently, some techniques not only
29:11
Speaker 1: don't don't help you achieve your goals, they actually are detrimental.
29:17
Speaker 1: They're deletrious to your achieving your goals. I'm sorry, they're
29:19
Speaker 1: detrious to you achieving your goals. Um. So, for example,
29:23
Speaker 1: if you make a goal way too specific, um, you
29:27
Speaker 1: you might get stuck on that one aspect of it
29:32
Speaker 1: rather and forget the overall part. So, um, let's say
29:36
Speaker 1: you wanted to be a better guitar player, and that
29:38
Speaker 1: was your overall goal, but your goal was to be
29:42
Speaker 1: able to play carry on my wayward son, and you
29:45
Speaker 1: focus on, you focus on it's just not working. It's
29:47
Speaker 1: just not working. Perhaps you just wasted a bunch of
29:50
Speaker 1: time um working on uh Stairway to Heaven, um that
29:56
Speaker 1: you would have mastered very quickly and gained confidence from
29:59
Speaker 1: and then exp board, and rather you're just facing frustration
30:02
Speaker 1: after frustration. You also don't want to have too many
30:06
Speaker 1: goals at once because then you're just that's just pine
30:09
Speaker 1: the sky stuff. Uh. And then you also don't want
30:14
Speaker 1: your goals to be too terribly short term. Okay, So
30:20
Speaker 1: like you want to be a better guitar player, right,
30:22
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Why not be playing sold out arenas eventually?
30:28
Speaker 1: Isn't that an even better goal loser? It is? Okay?
30:33
Speaker 1: Or actually a good example of that is with my
30:34
Speaker 1: little plan now with the wait thing, like the weekly thing,
30:41
Speaker 1: there is an overarching two month and four month goal,
30:45
Speaker 1: so it's sort of that sort of lines up with that,
30:49
Speaker 1: like it's not just week to week. It's week to
30:52
Speaker 1: week with a two month and a four month in mind,
30:55
Speaker 1: but not just two months and four months. Like I
30:57
Speaker 1: have to break down. I can't set a goal for
30:59
Speaker 1: a year out. I've got to break it down. But
31:02
Speaker 1: I wonder, um if if you set a goal for
31:07
Speaker 1: two months or three months, yeah, um, and it was
31:10
Speaker 1: to like lose x amount of weight or go to
31:12
Speaker 1: the gym x number of times or whatever, But then
31:14
Speaker 1: you set it, after you set those goals, a larger
31:17
Speaker 1: overarching goal to be you know, to have like some
31:20
Speaker 1: better get better, better cholesterol score a year from now
31:23
Speaker 1: or something like that. Would that work or would it
31:26
Speaker 1: set you personally? Would it set you back in your
31:28
Speaker 1: two shorter term goals, if you then made a longer
31:32
Speaker 1: term goal after this the shorter ones were made. U
31:35
Speaker 1: So like if I met the two months in the
31:36
Speaker 1: four months, if I made one for like a year
31:38
Speaker 1: after that, yeah, or you didn't even meet him. You
31:40
Speaker 1: were just like in the midst of them. You're started
31:42
Speaker 1: to have them kind of like under control, and you're like, Okay,
31:45
Speaker 1: I might actually meet these. I'm I'm in the thick
31:47
Speaker 1: of them. Why not just maybe set a longer term goal.
31:50
Speaker 1: I think that would work, which goes fits in the
31:53
Speaker 1: model of achieving goals can gain gain you confidence? Well,
31:59
Speaker 1: I just got my degree in organizational psychology. Just now,
32:03
Speaker 1: you watched to happen. Very nice, tricky son of a
32:07
Speaker 1: you know what, let's see what else, chuck. Uh, Well,
32:11
Speaker 1: I know that. Um, people talk about the younger generation
32:16
Speaker 1: people in there like twenties and early thirties or h
32:20
Speaker 1: actually a little more goal goal oriented now then maybe
32:26
Speaker 1: perhaps they were ten years ago. Uh And is that right? Yeah?
32:30
Speaker 1: And I think, uh, people, especially women, there's a big
32:35
Speaker 1: movement for turning thirty is like a big big thing
32:38
Speaker 1: now and it's always been a big thing. But like
32:40
Speaker 1: they're all these blogs now where these women have these
32:43
Speaker 1: goals where I want to do this by the time
32:44
Speaker 1: I'm thirty or I'm turning turning you know, I'm twenty nine,
32:47
Speaker 1: I'm turning thirty, and I want to get this done
32:49
Speaker 1: in the next year, like sort of a uh pre
32:52
Speaker 1: middle aged bucket list type of thing. And I think
32:56
Speaker 1: that Eat, Pray Love book had something to do with that,
32:59
Speaker 1: and that would be the bucket list. Yeah. Yeah, I
33:02
Speaker 1: actually another guy who I think he wrote it. He
33:06
Speaker 1: was a fellow p A with me in l A.
33:07
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and now he's like some big time movie guy.
33:10
Speaker 1: That's a pretty big time he had technical he was
33:13
Speaker 1: pulling the strings of Nicholson and Um Freeman. Um. But
33:19
Speaker 1: we know a girl, actually a girl who worked on
33:21
Speaker 1: our our TV pilot, Laura has um a blog twenty
33:24
Speaker 1: nine turning thirty where she wanted to do something new
33:27
Speaker 1: every day for a year, and uh, I read it
33:30
Speaker 1: from timetime. I think it's kind of cool. And they're
33:32
Speaker 1: not always huge things like one might be like, ah,
33:38
Speaker 1: make a make a bake a turkey for Thanksgiving, like
33:43
Speaker 1: something she had never done before in the middle of July.
33:46
Speaker 1: Or one might be go skydiving, like there are larger ones,
33:49
Speaker 1: but every single day she wants to do something every day.
33:52
Speaker 1: Huh Yeah, I think it's cool. Yeah, it's kind of interesting,
33:54
Speaker 1: and that's both short term and long term. Um, but
33:58
Speaker 1: also I wonder that like will be done with that.
34:01
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying now when you reference the
34:03
Speaker 1: bucket list that we have become Like the seventies and eighties,
34:07
Speaker 1: it was very goal or in but it seemed more organizational,
34:09
Speaker 1: and now it seems like it's transition more to personal
34:12
Speaker 1: goal setting like that just doing a bunch of stuff.
34:16
Speaker 1: I guess the point is is what will be done
34:18
Speaker 1: when you know that person turns thirty? Um? What will
34:21
Speaker 1: be done when somebody finishes the bucket list? And then
34:23
Speaker 1: there it's kind of sitting around like waiting to die,
34:26
Speaker 1: Like there's a there's in this article that you put together.
34:31
Speaker 1: Um it was, you know, there's the pro goal setting,
34:36
Speaker 1: there was the goal can be goal setting can be
34:38
Speaker 1: good and bad, and there was kind of the anti
34:40
Speaker 1: goal setting. And one of the things from the anti
34:43
Speaker 1: goal setting seemed to suggest like do we even need goals?
34:46
Speaker 1: Do we do we need to set them? Or is
34:49
Speaker 1: it really actually kind of a bad psychotic thing to
34:51
Speaker 1: to set it. To set goals especially, is like a
34:54
Speaker 1: regular habit. You know, if you are overweight and you
34:57
Speaker 1: want to lose weight, and you want to lose weight,
34:59
Speaker 1: maybe goal study is a good thing. But if throughout
35:01
Speaker 1: your normal day or your normal life, is goal setting
35:05
Speaker 1: a good thing? And I really think we kind of
35:08
Speaker 1: tapped it on the shoulder at the beginning, yeah, when
35:12
Speaker 1: we said it's kind of tailored to the individual. It
35:15
Speaker 1: is with the wait things. Some people might do very
35:18
Speaker 1: well with the poundage goal and not do crazy things. Um,
35:23
Speaker 1: some people might do better with you know what, I'm
35:26
Speaker 1: gonna start out this week by not eating sweets and
35:29
Speaker 1: going to the gym three times. Right, But isn't there
35:33
Speaker 1: also a voice in there somewhere And it seems like
35:35
Speaker 1: there's not these days, especially in the West, for the
35:37
Speaker 1: people who said I'm happy being fat, Well, yeah, that
35:40
Speaker 1: that is one of the things one of these psychologists
35:43
Speaker 1: points out is the detriment of goals is that sort
35:46
Speaker 1: of puts a taint on personal acceptance, right, you know,
35:53
Speaker 1: because the idea is if I didn't meet my goal,
35:55
Speaker 1: that means I have failed, and then I'm not good
35:57
Speaker 1: enough as I was and still not good enough because
36:00
Speaker 1: I didn't reach that goal. But even beyond setting a
36:06
Speaker 1: goal and failing, is there a place in this world
36:08
Speaker 1: and for people who don't set goals, who are not
36:12
Speaker 1: not like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, but somebody who like
36:16
Speaker 1: you know, has a job, goes to work, but isn't
36:19
Speaker 1: like out there like I'm gonna make an extra fifty
36:22
Speaker 1: k this year. I'm I'm um, I'm gonna have three
36:25
Speaker 1: kids in one year. Watch this, it's crazy, you know
36:28
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, like just setting setting goals that
36:31
Speaker 1: like like this is my life and it has to
36:33
Speaker 1: lurch forward. Somebody's just like, I'm pretty happy. I've got
36:36
Speaker 1: cable TV. It keeps me pretty happy all the time.
36:39
Speaker 1: I my cars beat her, but I mean it still
36:42
Speaker 1: gets me to and from work. I kind of like
36:44
Speaker 1: my boss. I don't want his job, but um, I'm
36:47
Speaker 1: pretty happy where I am. My wife and kids love me.
36:50
Speaker 1: I love them. We get to go on really you know,
36:53
Speaker 1: um poor vacations, but we go on vacations together and
36:57
Speaker 1: I spend time with them. Like those people are being
37:00
Speaker 1: edged out by goal setting in this country. That was
37:03
Speaker 1: me and still is to a large part. Oh yeah, definitely.
37:07
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I feel like you have
37:09
Speaker 1: struck something of a healthy balance though too. I feel
37:12
Speaker 1: like you can make your life progress, uh by leaps
37:16
Speaker 1: and bounds, by setting goals and achieving them. But I
37:19
Speaker 1: think we should all be aware that there is a
37:21
Speaker 1: cost to that, and it's frequently your comfort. Yeah you know, wow,
37:28
Speaker 1: good stuff. This isn't true about this one. You put together.
37:31
Speaker 1: Did a good job. I was sure of it. You
37:33
Speaker 1: said lots of words. So, um, let's see if you
37:39
Speaker 1: want to learn more about goals. I don't know where
37:42
Speaker 1: you've learned them on this site, do you no, But
37:45
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from you if you have encountered
37:49
Speaker 1: your own like twenties to thirties young bucket list experience
37:54
Speaker 1: Chuck does at least. Um, you can learn all about
37:58
Speaker 1: psychology at how stuff works dot com. Um, we've got
38:02
Speaker 1: stuff on positive psychology, happiness, all sorts of crazy stuff.
38:06
Speaker 1: Just type psychology into the search bar how stuff works
38:09
Speaker 1: dot Com and uh, I said search bar, which means
38:14
Speaker 1: it's time to plug our happiness audiobook. That's right, that
38:22
Speaker 1: is a goal. We recorded a Happy in Us audio
38:24
Speaker 1: book a while ago, and I think it's pretty good interviews.
38:29
Speaker 1: It's got which is you know, different for us we
38:32
Speaker 1: normally don't do internet. It was good. We put some
38:35
Speaker 1: time and effort into it. My niece speaks to that's right,
38:39
Speaker 1: quotes the Dolly Lama. At the beginning, we got an
38:41
Speaker 1: email from somebody saying, like that tier that the the
38:45
Speaker 1: listener up when they heard my niece saying that, and
38:48
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, that is cool, but it's good. Yeah,
38:51
Speaker 1: we have professionals and it goes all over the map. Man.
38:54
Speaker 1: We we explore whether happiness is a good thing, whether
38:57
Speaker 1: it's a bad thing. It was just good. I'm proud
38:59
Speaker 1: of it. I like it. There's also a Happy our
39:02
Speaker 1: super Stuff Guide to the Economy right next to it. Yeah.
39:05
Speaker 1: Is that still relevant? Yes, because it was about economics.
39:11
Speaker 1: It wasn't if we didn't even mention the bailout at
39:13
Speaker 1: it was fairly ever, it's about the money supply, it
39:16
Speaker 1: was about supplying demand. It was about classical versus um
39:20
Speaker 1: versus Kanzie and economics. Yeah, you're right, it was good. Okay,
39:23
Speaker 1: they're both worth it, and they're both but like four
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40:13
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