Stop Caring About Your Goals

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast, the number one mindset podcast in the entire world. Thanks to all of you that are listening out there. If you're the type of person who wants to learn and grow and improve themselves and learn about the psychology, the neurology, the early childhood development practices, all the stuff that you need to learn and grow, we put out episodes four times a week. Go ahead and subscribe to this podcast so you never miss another episode. Today, I'm going to talk to you about why I think you should stop focusing on your goals. And I'm going to give you a four-step process to accomplish everything that you want to in your life.

0:46Now, mind you, I've been coaching people, what are we at, 18 years now at this point? And I have told people to write down their goals. I have told people to focus on their goals every single day. And goals are great. They are important, but goals are extremely overrated. Goals can actually become really demotivating if you are really far away from those goals. You know, so sometimes people are like, all right, I'm going to write down my 10-year goal and they might get excited about it. Some people write down their 10-year goal and it actually becomes demotivating because they're like, oh my God, I'm so far away.

1:26I'm so far behind. There's so many things I need to do to get there. I'll never get there and they don't do anything. And it becomes paralysis by analysis. And so today I'm going to teach you what to focus on, what to pay attention to, and what to work towards that is way more important than your goals. And you're going to walk you through an exact process. I'll give you a couple of examples that will help you learn how to hit your goals by not making them the most important thing. So you'll still have goals. You'll still hit your goals, but you won't be focusing on your goals in any sort of way.

2:01So here's the very simple four-step process, okay? The first thing is you have to decide what it is that you want. It's crazy to me how few people actually know what it is that they want and they very rarely know what they want. They for sure know what they don't want, but rarely do they actually get really clear on what they want. So the first thing that you do need to do is you do need to figure out your goals and then we're going to build something else around them so you don't have to focus on them, right? So you have to figure out your goals. And the more clear that you can get about what it is that you want, what is it you're working towards, what is it you're trying to accomplish, the more likely you are to hit it.

2:41And so I always say this, but when you're writing out your goals, don't say, I want to lose weight. Because if you lose one pound, you accomplish your goal. But I'm pretty sure you didn't want to just lose one pound. Don't say I want to make more money. Say I want to make exactly this amount of money or I want to save exactly this amount of money. Because if you make$1 more, you made more money, which means you basically hit your goals. But I'm pretty sure that's not what you wanted. And so get very detailed about your goals and what exactly what it is that you want, how you know you're going to hit it, how you know, like if you did hit it, how would you know that you got there?

3:16And so the more clear, the better. Once you feel like you've gotten clear in your goals, get even more clear. And now you're really clear in your goals. So that's the first thing is decide what is it you want. Second thing is to make a plan on what you need to do to get there. Now, mind you, this plan will not be perfect. I promise you that. So if you're sitting around like, I need to make the perfect plan, and that's what's holding you back from taking the ashes you need to, your plan will never be perfect. but it at least gives you somewhat of a roadmap to get started. So some people, they figure out their goals and then they get caught up in the plan and they don't take any action because they have to get, you know, so in the minutia of their plan.

3:59No, no, no. You just need to come up with some sort of plan knowing that there's probably going to be detours along the way. Third thing is you need to figure out what daily actions need to be taken in order to hit that goal. This is where it really starts getting important. You figure out what daily actions need to be taken in order to hit that goal. And so what we're going to do is we're going to go from our goals to our daily actions. And the daily actions are way more important than the goals. And so let's say, for instance, that you want to lose 10 pounds, right? Well, cool. That's the goal.

4:35That is the results-based goal that you're shooting for. But what daily actions need to be taken in order to hit that goal? Maybe it's, hey, I need to get 10 ,000 steps in every single day. Maybe that's a daily action, a non-negotiable of what needs to happen. Maybe it's 30 minutes of moving my body, whatever that might be. Any sort of movement of the body is fine. So it might be yoga one day, it might be working out another day, whatever it might be. You figure out what daily actions need to be taken in order to hit that goal. And then number four, you're going to make this really easy on yourself, okay?

5:09because all too often we're making it way too hard on yourself. We're going to wake up every single morning and we're going to make a plan. We're going to take five minutes. And here's what you do. You put down your to-do list for the day and you're going to have this to-do list that is 10 things. That's 17 things. For some of you guys, it's 47 things. And you're going to figure out what the top three things are for the day. That's it. And what you're going to do is you're going to take an index card, a three by five card, and you're going to write number one, most important thing is this. Number two, most important thing is this.

5:43Number three, most important thing is this. And you're going to put your to-do list off to the side. You're going to take that index card. You're going to put in your back pocket and you're going to work on number one. And you don't go to number two until number one is finished. And then you can go to number two. And then you go to number three after number two is finished. And what you start to realize is that instead of focusing on all of the things that don't matter, you're going to focus on the three things that do matter. Because what I have found with a lot of people is that your to-do list is so long, you want to start crossing off the easy things so that your to-do list feels a little bit smaller.

6:17But in reality, that's not helping you accomplish the big goals that you want to. If you ever had a day where you're so busy all day long and like 7.30 hits and you're like, I got to lay down. And you were busy all day long, but you have this feeling like you got nothing accomplished. Well, the reason why is because you weren't checking off the boxes of things that actually really truly matter. And I talk about this in my book, Level Up. And the whole thing that I talk about inside of the chapter in Level Up is results-based goals versus action-based goals. A results-based goal is the result that you're looking for.

6:55And that's how we start our goals, which is I want to lose 30 pounds. That is a results-based goal. I want to make$100 ,000. That is a results-based goal. I want to save $12 ,000 this year. That is a results-based goal. All of those is where we start, but we need to take our results-based goals and turn them into action-based goals, which is what are the daily actions that need to be taken? So if I want to lose 30 pounds, that's the result. What is the action-based goal that needs to be taken? Like I said, it might be 10 ,000 steps a day. It might be 30 minutes of movement every single day. And so we have to take our results-based goal and we need to turn them into daily action-based goals.

7:39And it's pretty simple. We really tend to overcomplicate things. Goals only really need three things. And I say this all the time in the podcast because I try to make things as simple as possible for everybody. Goals need three things. They need direction, they need action, and they need time. The time part is where most people struggle because they want it now and life just doesn't happen now. You're not going to walk into a gym, do one workout, and then be pissed that you wake up in the morning you don't have a six-pack yet, right? You know that things take time. Great things take time. So let's say with your direction, action, time with your goals, right?

8:21Am I heading in the right direction? Am I taking the right action? Let's let time work its way out. Let's say that I want to lose weight. Let's figure out I get very clear exactly what it is, how much weight I want to lose. All right, what's my direction? Okay, I'm going to do movement every single day. I'm going to do four heavy lifting workouts a day. I'm sorry, four heavy lifting workouts a week. And then I'm going to do three sessions of yoga. But at least I'm getting my body moving every single day. and another thing that I need to focus on with my direction is I know what meals I'm going to be eating this week so I'm going to plan out my meals for the entire week and I'm going to you know on Sunday I'm going to make my Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday meals.

9:08On Thursday I'm going to make my Friday, Saturday, Sunday meals so I know what meals I'm going to be eating and I'm going to be planning them out I'm going to be cooking them. Then what I'm going to do to make sure I'm heading in the right direction is I'm going to remove all the food that doesn't fit and doesn't help me get to the weight that I want to get to. It's really a diet is really a lifestyle change. It's your movement. It's your mindset. It's the food that you're eating. It's your environment changing to make it easier for you. So it might be like, Hey, I'm going to still watch Netflix for an hour every single day.

9:45Like I have been, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to make myself, I'm going to be on my bike, my Peloton. And I'm going to have to, while I'm watching Netflix, I have to be on my bike. Fine. Well, at least you're still able to do something that you enjoy, but you're also doing something that's helping you get to your goal by focusing on the right action. So those are the direction, right? Am I heading in the right direction? I know my four workouts that I'm going to be doing every single week. I know those three yoga sessions I'm going to be doing. I know the meals I'm going to be eating.

10:16I'm going to move all the food that doesn't fit. Now action. Well, I need to make sure that I show up to the gym. I need to execute on the plan. Okay. What else do I need to do? The action. I need to make sure that I'm prepping those 21 meals throughout this week. So I've got my direction. And then the next thing I have to do is I have to take the right action. And I don't need to focus on tomorrow. I don't need to focus on next week. I need to just focus on today. What's the action that I need to do today? And then time, it just has to work its way out. And this is the one that we all want to control, but it's the only one that we can't control.

10:53Am I heading in the right direction? Am I taking the right action? Weight just doesn't fall off overnight. And so if I just know, hey, I'm heading in the right direction of a healthier lifestyle, I'm taking the right action of a healthier lifestyle, eventually I'm going to get to where I want to be. Let's say that my other thing is, you know what? Direction action time. I want to save$6 ,000 this year. I've been really bad with saving money. So I'm going to save$6 ,000 this year. And if I do the math, that's$500 a month. Okay,$500 a month. So what's the direction? Well, I'm going to stop eating out so much.

11:27I'm going to stop going to coffee shops. I can make coffee at my house. I'm going to stop doing those things. I'm going to automatically deduct a certain amount from every single paycheck. I'm going to check my bank account every single day. I'm going to make sure that I'm heading in the right direction. Okay. Now, what about the actions that I need to take? Well, I have to actually physically go and set up the automatic deduction, whether that's in person at the bank, whether that is talking to my employer, whether that is doing it online. I need to actually take the action of setting up the automatic deduction.

12:00So am I heading in the right direction? Am I taking the right action? Now we got to make sure time works its way out. Not all the money will be in my bank account right away. But if I'm heading in the right direction and take the right action, eventually I'm going to get there. And so at this point, when you're doing this, your goals almost become unnecessary. Now they're necessary because they give you like your results-based goals. They give you kind of like a, I guess you could call it like a shining star in the distance. Like it's our North Star that we're trying to go towards. But I don't need to focus on the North Star.

12:35I just need to look at my feet and I need to say, hey, am I taking the one step closer and one step closer and one step closer towards that North Star, right? I care more about being an action taker than a goal accomplisher. Because, you know, if, as long as I'm taking the right action, the goal will eventually get accomplished. Once again, being somebody who's been working on this for a long time, it almost never happens as fast as I want it to. Because in fact, when I set a goal I wanted to have happened last week. Like I said it today and I'm like, damn it, why didn't happen already? Right?

13:10So it almost never happens as fast as I want to, but I know that if I'm taking the right action, it will eventually happen. Whether that is this week, this month, this year, this decade, if I'm heading in the right direction, I'm taking the right action, I'll eventually get there. And so goals just need those three things. They need direction, action, time. We need to sit down and you get very clear on what they are. And then what we need to do is we just need to take the right action towards it. Goals take time. Become someone who checks off their top three things every single day. Become someone who takes action.

13:47Become someone who doesn't overthink anymore because there is nothing to overthink. Okay, I've got it down. I've just got to do the thing. Consistent daily action is what is going to compound and absolutely change your life. All I'm worried about is being consistent with my daily action every day. It blows my mind how much BS somebody will make up in their mind to stop them from taking the action that they need to create the life that they want, right? Decide what it is that you want, figure out those goals. You have that North Star, that thing that you can work towards, make a plan of what it is that you need to do to get there, and then just figure out what daily actions need to be taken in order to hit those goals.

14:30And then just wake up, put your to-do list down, put your top three things on a three by five card, and just accomplish those three things. Even if you get nothing else but the number one most important thing done every single day, you are heading in the right direction. You're taking the right action. You're moving towards the right place. What it is for you is you need to just make sure, okay, I've got my goal, but I just need to take one step closer, one step closer, one step closer, one step closer. There's a, for those of you that are overthinkers out there, I know, go ahead and raise your hand, the overthinkers.

15:06There's a lot of you out there, right? But there's a really cute quote from a book that's also a movie and it's called The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, The Horse. And there's a point where this little boy is in the forest and he says to the horse, he says, I can't see my way out of the forest. And which means like, there's too much. There's so many things that I need to do that life has just become so complex. So he says, I can't see my way out of the forest. And then the horse says, well, can you see your next step? And the boy says, yes. And he says, just take the next step. All too often, we think so much about what needs to be done and very rarely just take the next step and take the right action.

15:53So don't think about it so much. Just make sure that you're going, what's my next step? Not what's step number two, what's step number five, what's step number 100? What is the next step? And if I just take that step and I have my action-based goals in place, I will eventually get to the point where I go, oh my God, I accomplished my goal. I lost the 30 pounds. I saved the$6 ,000. I built the business that I wanted to, whatever your goal is for you. So just make sure, use the four steps in order to hit your goals. And then just, as I said, make sure you're heading in the right direction, take the right action and let time work its way out.

16:31So that's all I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram stories and tag me in at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. The only way this podcast grows is from you guys actually sharing it. And so I greatly appreciate it every single time from the bottom of my heart that you guys share it so that we can impact more people. So if you would help us by doing that, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.