The 2 Parts of Happy Goal Setting

Goals can be an extremely effective tool to improve our lives. However, they also can cause us and others a lot of suffering if we don't implement two key factors of successful goal setting. (Please note, this is a lecture/podcast, not a guided meditation.)

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Goals.

I don't know if you've ever studied the power and concept of goals,

But they are very powerful.

But in today's podcast,

We want to look at both the pros and cons of goals.

Because with goals,

We can achieve many things,

But at the same time,

They can really keep us from living well right now.

The first time I think I was ever officially introduced to goals was when I was in graduate school.

I was working on my PhD,

And I don't know how I met this man.

I think he just approached me,

But he said,

Hey,

Could I get together with you and talk about your future and financial advice?

And I hadn't made any money yet,

But I said,

Sure.

So I think it was the following week that we got together,

And he explained to me that if I invested about 10% of my income,

Every paycheck,

That by the time I reached a certain age,

I would have this amount of money because of the concept of compound interest.

So if I invested in certain mutual funds,

I could look for perhaps a good return on my investment,

And with time,

I could amass quite a bit of money and not have to work anymore.

Now the silly thing about it was I had just started my career.

I mean,

Really,

I hadn't even started my career.

I think I was working as an intern at the time,

Making not much money and having a lot of debt.

Well,

I started doing the math because I like math and figuring out,

Well,

How much have I saved would this turn into in the future?

And believe it or not,

I really got caught up into it because I was thinking about 20,

30,

40 years out and thinking about all that I could do with it and what would happen,

How I could retire.

Now mind you,

I hadn't even really started my career,

And I was already thinking about how to end it.

So goals are very powerful,

But they can also cause us a lot of suffering if we're not careful.

And that's what we're going to explore today,

Both the good and the bad of goal setting.

Well,

Up to that point,

I had been so focused on my career and getting the degrees that I needed to create a job for myself,

I really had never really studied goal setting.

Well,

After that,

I did,

And I studied it quite extensively.

And mind you,

As I said,

There's a lot of good in it.

But what I learned was that goals could really become our obsession,

Where we just focus on them and focus on them,

And we don't live well now.

And I have really had to,

Over the years,

Work on that,

Because I developed very good goal setting techniques and ways of doing it,

Realistic goals that work well.

And it's been very effective for me and my life.

But at the same time,

I've needed to balance that with living well in the present moment.

So for us,

As people seeking to be happy and living peaceful lives,

How do we find balance between setting goals and living well in the now?

Well,

Let's talk about some of the key factors of healthy goal setting.

The first thing we need to come up with is healthy,

Realistic goals.

When we're younger,

I think we have the tendency to think we can conquer the world.

And for a lot of people that I've worked with and known,

I've seen that when they learn about goals,

Their goals become very big.

Like they want to become president of the United States,

Or they want to become the greatest scientist that ever lived,

Or they want to be remembered in history forever.

So we can become quite egotistical when it comes to goals,

Because we really want to conquer the world.

Now,

Mind you,

There's nothing wrong with having high goals,

But we have to be realistic.

I mean,

Many of us,

If we want to become,

Say,

A medical doctor,

Or if we want to get our PhD,

That's realistic.

I think for most people,

It may be hard.

We may have to work really hard at it,

But it's realistic.

But to say,

I want to become the greatest scientist that ever lived,

Or the best basketball player that ever played basketball,

That's unrealistic.

Because very few people ever make it to that level.

I mean,

Only a few in history make it to that level.

So goals need to be realistic.

And then after we have realistic goals,

The next thing we have to come up with are goals that we're excited about.

Not with the end result,

But with the process of getting there.

See,

Life is a journey.

And even when we set goals,

We just don't know if we're going to make it to the goals.

But if we decide along the way that we had a really great time getting there,

And something happened that made us not reach our goals,

Then it's okay.

We won't be disappointed.

We may be a little bit wishing we had made the goal,

But if we had a wonderful time getting there,

It's far,

Far better than setting goals thinking that if I reach this goal,

I'm going to be happy.

That's what we want to avoid very much.

Because a lot of people do that.

They're focused on the end result and everything they'll get,

Or think they'll get,

If they reach that goal.

What is far better when it comes to goals is coming up with things that we would enjoy doing getting there.

And if the goal never happened,

We had a really enjoyable time getting there.

And I really think this is the heart of goal setting.

If today you want to take away something that I'm saying,

Take this thing away with you.

The fact that goals can be beautiful,

But make sure they're goals that we enjoy getting there,

Not just looking for the end result.

So over the years,

I've worked with a lot of people that have goals.

And when I work with people that have goals that they enjoy,

Like for example,

They want to make a living as an artist,

Or they really like speaking in front of people,

And the goal is to make a living as a speaker,

Say in the acting world,

And get on plays,

And perhaps even make it to Broadway.

There are people that I see that really enjoy the journey,

Because even if they don't make it to their goal,

They are just enjoying the process of getting there.

The artist loves doing his or her art.

Now I've also worked with a lot of people that their goal was to make a lot of money.

And that was it.

They didn't care how they made it.

They just wanted to make a lot of money.

And in extreme cases,

They may do illegal things and end up in jail because the focus was on making money,

Not enjoying the journey to make money.

Or,

If they make it to the end,

And they do make a lot of money,

Because they almost killed themselves getting there,

By the time they get there,

Their bodies are wracked.

Often they become alcoholics or drug addicts,

Because now,

Even though they have a lot of money,

They've done so much damage to their body,

In many ways to their spirit,

That the purpose of life,

Just having all that money,

Isn't satisfying anything,

Because having a lot of money clearly does not make us happy.

I mean,

It brings us toys and thrills,

But it definitely doesn't equate directly with happiness.

So,

After deciding on goals that we are looking forward to the journey of getting there,

The next thing is to make sure we have balance all along the way.

So here,

What it means is,

There are certain things that we can do to make sure that our lives go well.

Staying physically fit,

Going on vacations,

Spending time with our partner,

Enjoying our children.

These are things that make for a good life.

But if we sacrifice them because we want to reach a goal,

Almost always there are consequences to these sacrifices.

We get unhealthy,

Perhaps we go through a divorce,

Perhaps our kids don't have much of a relationship with us anymore.

So here's the real secret sauce of good goal setting.

What we do is we say,

What's important to us?

I want to be the coach of my son's baseball team.

I want to make sure that I go to the gym three days a week.

I want to make sure that my wife and I are going on dates on a regular basis,

At least once a week.

We set those as the basis,

And then after we've done these things every day,

Then we work towards our goals after that,

Not the other way around.

What people tend to do is say,

I'm going to work on my goals,

And if I have free time,

Then I'll go to the gym.

That's not the way we do it.

We do the things that are important to us,

Maintain our level of current happiness and health,

And then we work and strive towards our goals.

And here's something really wonderful about that.

We have a tendency to think that,

Well,

I'll never reach my goals if I don't work really hard with them and sacrifice.

I have found the opposite to be true,

That if we take care of ourselves,

Then the goals that we set,

We can keep working towards them because we're not burnt out,

We're not exhausted,

We're not tired.

So the wonderful thing about self-care and seeking to be happy right here,

Right now,

Is we can,

In a sense,

Keep working on our goals because we're balanced.

I mean,

Think of it this way.

A lot of people may have a goal of,

Say,

Learning another language,

Which is a hard thing to do.

So if we dive into it and just work at it,

Work at it,

Work at it,

And sacrifice,

Maybe we leave our family,

We go to another country,

We don't see anyone,

We never work out,

That's all we do is work on our goal.

Then we may get extremely exhausted,

Truly get burnt out,

And never want to hear that language again.

If instead we say,

Hey,

I'm going to make sure that I spend at least an hour a day studying this,

As long as I've done my other things,

Then along the way we can reach our goal because we're going to be excited about it and keep working towards it and not get burnt out or exhausted.

Burnout and exhaustion are really often one of the big impediments of goal setting.

We set too high goals,

We want them to be the focus of our life,

And then we're not living.

If we live well with goals,

What will happen is the ability to achieve goals will become much stronger.

That's definitely what I have found.

I think I've reached a lot of my goals in life because I never was willing to sacrifice for the goals.

For example,

I remember when I was in graduate school or in college over the years,

I knew I had a long ways to go and I just couldn't stay up late cramming for exams or I would be exhausted,

So I always paced myself because every time I graduated,

Everyone else was done and I wasn't done,

So I had to be careful.

So I never once crammed for an exam,

And it made the journey of going to school far more enjoyable.

And to this day,

I love to learn.

It's probably one of my favorite things to do,

Is learning.

So when we take care of ourselves and work towards our goals,

That's a far better journey to stick with it.

Like some people may have the goal of losing weight.

That's a tough one because losing weight is very challenging.

But if every day we work at it,

Let's say we work towards,

This week I'm going to drink a little extra water with every meal.

I'm going to eat more slowly versus I need to lose 50 pounds by tomorrow.

I mean one that's realistic,

And if we lose the weight very quickly,

It's so hard on our bodies because we've sacrificed so much that we never want to see any form of diet ever again in our lives.

We just give up.

Or we give up because it's too hard and we just can't do it.

Realistic goals that are paced evenly out,

That we're excited about,

And enjoy the journey along the way.

Those are the key factors of successful goal setting.

Like I said,

Goal setting is beautiful.

It's helpful and they work if it's done right.

But I think a lot of people end up sacrificing too much for goals or giving up on goals because they have sacrificed too much and they just get exhausted and they say,

It's not worth it.

It is worth it if we're working towards things that we're excited about.

It is worth it if we balance ourselves along the way.

And then when we do that,

That creates a far better life.

So if we find that goal setting is something we're excited about and want to learn more about and do more of,

That's wonderful.

And I really feel goals work.

It can be incredibly effective.

But when we set the goals,

Let's make sure we're going to enjoy the journey of getting there.

We're not just doing them for the end result.

And two,

Let's make sure that the things that keep us balanced,

That put a smile on our heart,

That they are still always there.

We never sacrifice too much for our goals.

And I think when we do these two things,

Goals that we're excited about and enjoy the journey of getting there,

And not sacrificing too much for our goals,

We will find that life can be truly beautiful and we can also reach our goals in a realistic,

Healthy and beautiful way.

And if,

Like I said,

The goal doesn't work out,

We've enjoyed the journey of moving towards a goal and had a really good time getting there.

And the greatest thing is,

Life is always about living well now.

So it is a balance between living well now and working towards making our life a little bit better every day.

That's where goals can be effective.

They can improve our life.

If we want to make a little bit more so we can take more time off from work and go on more vacations,

That's beautiful.

That's wonderful.

But let's make sure that these are things that we're doing to get a little bit better every day versus rushing towards goals.

I think when we rush towards goals and sacrifice too much,

Then there's a price tag to be paid.

But when we do these two things,

Working towards goals that we're excited about and enjoy getting there and keeping ourselves balanced all along the way,

That will create goals that are both beautiful and realistic.

And we will have peaceful,

Beautiful,

Wonderful lives all along the way.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

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Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

🩵🙏🩵

This advice was very timely for me. I recently committed to a goal I had put off for a long time and was surprised that it made me feel worse.
When I examined why I was unhappy it was because I was constantly imagining getting “there” and not enjoying anything about being “here.”

Brilliant, inspirational talk - especially for an entrepreneur! Your happiness podcasts are changing my perspective on life - thank you Dr Puff 🙏

I agree with all you’ve said in this podcast and have always tried to teach my kids to enjoy the journey of life. Thanks❣️