Stoic Internal Goals Stop You From Ever Losing

In this exploration of Epictetus' Enchiridion Chapter 19, we delve into the profound Stoic understanding of success and failure.

Many in today's society grapple with feelings of envy and frustration, often due to external factors beyond our control. Epictetus teaches that true freedom and happiness lie in understanding the distinction between what we can and can't control. Instead of competing in external contests that can lead to inevitable defeat, one should focus on personal growth and character.

Succumbing to envy and placing value on external achievements only leads to unhappiness. True success is anchored in good character and the wisdom to recognize it. Remember, freedom is about looking beyond outward appearances and valuing our internal essence.

Transcript

Today I want to talk to you about this concept of rigging the game in your own favor,

To succeed at life,

To suffer less.

And to begin,

I want to start with a quote by Epictetus.

He says in his handbook,

You will never have to experience defeat if you avoid contests whose outcome is outside your control.

Don't let outward appearances mislead you into thinking that someone with more prestige,

Power or some other distinction must on that account be happy.

And the way to be free is to look down on externals.

Many of us go through life hoping for good things to happen to us.

And we try to avoid,

Quote unquote,

Bad things happening to us.

We,

In a sense,

Chase pleasure and good emotions and run away from pain and uncomfortable feelings.

As a result,

When we are aiming at something,

Say we're aiming at a goal.

That goal could be passing an exam,

Getting to a destination on time,

Winning a lottery,

Whatever the goal is.

When we have this goal and we don't hit the outcome that we are looking for,

We experience frustration and anger.

From a stoic perspective,

This frustration we feel when things don't go our way,

While a lot of us feel it and it's normal,

It's also foolish.

And it's foolish because it stems from an irrational belief.

The belief that we can control things that we can't.

In stoicism,

This is called the dichotomy of control.

They believe that some things we are responsible for,

But other things we aren't.

They,

In a sense,

Divided life and experience into two categories.

The things that we are responsible for are our intentions,

Our thoughts,

Our considered opinions,

Our judgments.

The things that are not up to us are how people react to us,

What happens outside of ourselves,

Certain elements of our body and our reputation.

Now you may be thinking,

Well,

I can do things that have an influence on the world around me.

The stoics would say you have the ability to control how you act and how you think to a large degree.

But no matter how you slice it,

The outcome of that is just not within your control.

So you have full control over yourself,

Over the conscious parts of you,

But you have no actual control over the external world.

And so Epictetus would say that when we over-invest in things outside of our control,

We are,

In a sense,

Gambling and we are doomed to suffer.

So building on this quote that I shared with you at the beginning of this lesson,

What I want to do now is share with you three principles that can help you rig the game in your own favor so that you don't end up losing games you have no control over anyway.

So principle number one is to avoid external contests.

When we have an external goal and we don't meet it,

A lot of us call this defeat,

Right?

So imagine a game of tennis.

We're there playing tennis.

We want to win the game.

Our goal is to get a higher score than our opponent.

If we don't,

We have been defeated.

We consider this defeat.

The problem with this is that the outcome of the game is actually not within your direct control.

Even if you are really skilled,

Who's not to say that that day the sun is shining in your eyes,

Or there's a gust of wind that blows the ball slightly to the wrong side of the line,

Or you had a screaming baby keeping you up at night and you didn't sleep well.

Meanwhile,

Your opponent is just feeling on top of the world for no apparent reason.

What if the judge makes a mistake?

They have a lapsing concentration.

While there is a correlation between skill level and outcome,

It is not within any player's control to determine who gets the highest score.

There are too many external factors.

And so while it's okay to choose to have a higher score than your opponent,

That shouldn't be your primary desire.

Now I want to spend a moment looking at the difference between choosing and desiring.

If someone says to you,

Would you like chocolate ice cream or vanilla ice cream?

And you like them both,

Then you just make a choice.

I choose vanilla ice cream today.

Tomorrow it could be chocolate.

But it's not like you desire one and reject the other.

It's not like when someone pulls away the vanilla ice cream,

You're emotionally going to be deflated.

The same can be applied in our tennis analogy.

You choose to have a higher score than your opponent,

But you have another goal that is more important.

What is that other goal?

You might be asking.

The goal is to succeed at a game that you can win.

In principle two,

We're going to be looking at what you can do instead.

But this principle,

Avoid external contests,

Is just about that.

We don't want to become overly attached to things outside of our control.

Now I understand this may be counterintuitive to you,

But let's continue with the three principles.

Principle number two is define your own rules.

So outwardly,

When we play a game of tennis,

If we continue with that analogy,

We can follow the rules.

But inwardly,

We are defining our own rules for what success means.

And we are going to choose an outcome that is more within our control.

In other words,

An internal outcome.

So while you choose to follow along and win the game of tennis with a higher score than your opponent,

What you really choose,

What is your ultimate goal,

Is an internal one.

Such as to play to the best of your abilities or to keep trying no matter how you feel.

Another one might be to stay calm no matter the circumstances.

And with training,

Over time,

You can get a sense that you've won,

Even if the external outcome is not the one you chose.

So to break it down,

We can look at this diagram.

You have a goal and you ask the question,

Is this within my control?

So is it an external goal or an internal goal?

If it's an external goal and you pursue it,

There's always going to be a chance of defeat.

If you avoid it,

There's no chance of defeat,

But then you don't move closer to the thing you choose.

So what we can do is redefine that external goal into an internal goal.

When we pursue this,

There is no chance of defeat.

In other words,

We always win.

And while on the surface you may be thinking,

Well,

This is foolish.

Shouldn't you just try to win at all costs?

Well,

I would ask you this.

Who is more likely to be successful in the long term?

Someone who gets overly attached to the outcome and then crumbles when they realize that they can't control it,

Or they get a bit of bad luck.

Or someone is more focused on how they perform and they let go of whatever happens.

Someone who is constantly measuring themselves compared to who they used to be or who they could be and then aiming to become the best version of themselves through that.

Imagine there's a fight,

A mixed martial arts battle,

And the ref makes a bad decision.

And one of the fighters gets a point deducted from them,

And they didn't really make a foul.

Now they feel like they've been cheated and they're a point down.

The external goal of being up on points is not going their way.

They start to lose confidence.

They start to feel bitter.

Why is this happening to me?

This is not fair.

Do they perform better or worse than someone who says,

This is the fight game.

I'm here and I've got to keep moving forward.

I've got to be the best version of me I can be right now.

My goal is to stay calm and show up.

And that brings us to the third principle.

From a stoic perspective,

Good character is the only true success there is.

In this age of social media,

We look online and we see people that are laughing,

Good looking,

Rich,

Traveling,

High status,

Whatever.

And we conclude that they must be very happy because of that.

But if you do a little deeper digging,

You read biographies,

You watch some documentaries,

You'll see that oftentimes success can cause more problems than it solves.

A lot of people win millions at the lottery and don't know how to look after their money and lose it all.

And now there's someone who used to be rich and now they're normal again,

Which hurts.

You'll often see a lot of child actors who had fame too early,

Don't know how to handle that kind of lifestyle.

It isn't quite normal.

And then they self-destruct later on.

It's possible that fame and money and popularity might not solve your problems,

But make all of your existing problems bigger and more destructive.

That small spending habit that you have now becomes massive.

The thrill you get from gambling now becomes more destructive.

The narcissistic side of you now becomes overblown.

And the Stoics believed that true happiness and contentment and peace of mind comes from the person that you are.

You could be someone with not much money.

You could be someone with not that many friends.

You could be someone that looks average or as Socrates did particularly not good looking.

But if you are courageous,

Disciplined,

Wise,

Fair and kind,

If you have insight,

If you can see clearly and think properly,

Happiness is a natural byproduct.

And what's more is you probably won't even chase those things that everyone else is chasing anyway.

So gratitude for where you are right now comes into play.

The truly wise individuals don't overly attach themselves to entering into contests whose outcome they can't control.

They don't chase things and crave things external to them.

They may choose them.

The thing they seek the most is being a good person,

Developing excellence of character,

Developing wisdom and pursuing the goals that they define according to their own rules.

So the question that I want to leave you with,

As you go about life,

Ask yourself,

How can I make my own rules for what determines success in this situation?

And then do your best to achieve success on your terms and watch what happens.

Reviews

Thanks

Well-elaborated enough to sink in, but concise and densely packed enough to feel like a good use of the time and to hold my ever-wandering attention.

Thank you for sharing this wisdom. 🙏🥰

Great philosophy for living well..don't be too attached to an outcome..do your best and forget about the rest🙏😌

Many thanks. As usual, it is very helpful for me.

Thank you so much for this inspiring talk Jon! After listening I realized I get attached to a certain outcome all the time, but it’s really not within my control. Doing this gives me a lot of anxiety, so it is not helpful at all. Definitely will practice what you said here, choosing an internal goal that is in my control: just doing the best I can every day and try to be the best version of me whilst staying as calm as I can! Very insightful and so helpful, grateful for you 🙏💕

Well said. Internal goals are indeed preferable to external goals - though complementary external goals over which you do exert a significant measure of control can help boost existing satisfaction with internal goals. (The choice to reach for some sprinkles, whipped cream, or other toppings for your ice cream with the external goal of creating a sundae with your ice cream, for example. Complementary, but not necessary, and the ice cream is there regardless.)

I've been immersed in the phenomenological tradition for a few years now (Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, etc) but Stoicism was and remains my first philosophical love and foundation. So nice to hear it discussed outside an academic setting. 😊

I see you and the light within you. Be well. 🤲🏻💖🤲🏻