If you have ever made a goal that would have a significant positive impact on your life, then failed to meet that goal, you need to listen carefully to this episode.
In this episode, John takes on goal-setting culture, and how, ONCE AGAIN it debilitates those who are in the most desperate need for change and transformation.
Topics include:
Buy my book! 75 EASY: the ultimate challenge for personal growth
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Weight loss coaching - Join the Weight Loss Freedom Academy today
To inquire about 1 -1 Coaching with John - email John at john@oakesweightloss.com
Check out the EASY WAY OUT Blog/Newsletter site
Join the free "Lose Weight with John" community
Watch the Easy Way Out on Youtube
If you have ever made a goal that would have a significant positive impact on your life, then failed to meet that goal, you need to listen carefully to this episode.
In this episode, John takes on goal-setting culture, and how, ONCE AGAIN it debilitates those who are in the most desperate need for change and transformation.
Topics include:
Buy my book! 75 EASY: the ultimate challenge for personal growth
Amazon US
UK
CA
AU
Weight loss coaching - Join the Weight Loss Freedom Academy today
To inquire about 1 -1 Coaching with John - email John at john@oakesweightloss.com
Check out the EASY WAY OUT Blog/Newsletter site
Join the free "Lose Weight with John" community
Watch the Easy Way Out on Youtube
Speaker 1 0:00
Listen, sometimes you podcast because you feel the leading of the Spirit, you feel all the Muses all your ancestors trying to speak through you. And sometimes you do it because your family is going to be home, you better do it now, or it's going to be too loud. So whether I feel like it or not, I've eaten a lot of grapes. So I do feel like that's gonna help me power through. This is always really fun. Once I hit record, I really enjoy doing this podcast, I really enjoy, like uploading it and seeing people download it. I don't get a lot of feedback on it. But when I do, it's really rewarding. And I'm sure the lack of feedback is just because I don't get that many downloads either. My dream for this podcast, my first big goal is to get 1000 downloads in one week after publishing an episode. I don't think that's crazy at all. I think given my reach on other social media platforms, my message obviously resonates. I just posted a tech talk yesterday that was like, Man, I got like 10,000 views. That's like my camera podcasts get 1000 listens, I feel like it's possible. If you could help me do that. That would be great. If you feel like these messages are important. And they're gonna help people get free from whatever's keeping them stuck in life, then please go review the podcast, five stars kind words on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, wherever you listen, or any and all of those places if you want to. That's gonna really help the podcast grow. The biggest thing you could do though, is say to a friend, a family member or co worker, here's a podcast you need to listen to, you're gonna like this. And just pick one of the episodes that you think is most appropriate them and get them to listen to it and go, Hey, did you listen to that episode? And if they say no, you drive to their house, and you kick down the door in the middle of the night. And then you find them in their beds. And you shake them by the lapels of their pajamas. And yeah, well, maybe don't go that far. But you get the idea. Right? Just force people force people to listen to this podcast. Because I think that's how you make a podcast grow. Threats, intimidation. Okay, little bit loopy and too much grapes, too many grapes. Fructose is coursing through my veins. Actually, I didn't sleep that well. Last night. I think that's why I wouldn't be there. You can tell you've lived a certain kind of life when more than one times you've watched a Dateline about people you grew up with? Yeah, a little unsettling. It's okay. The cops needed like a dozen years to figure out that they were guilty. I knew they were guilty from like, day one. But hey, that's another story. We're not here to talk about murder. This is not that sort of podcast. This is the one podcast that's not about crimes. Today's topic is goals and how they screw us up. Yeah, that's right. Your goals are killing your progress. Your goals are killing your goals. This isn't some play on where is this? Once again, I say these things and it sounds like it's a some like, click Beatty type thing where you get into it. And it's like, well, technically, it's like, no, I'm serious. Your goals are killing your goals. There is only one diet discipline is stupid. I mean, I say these things but backing up. First, just a quick public service announcement. If you're someone who realizes that emotional eating and lack of motivation are the core of their issues with their weight, and their inability to lose weight, then you should reach out and find out about coaching options. I'm having so much success helping people let go of emotional eating and reconnect with their innate motivation. It's a blast watching it happen. It's the funnest thing to do. It's going to completely change your perspective on what's possible for your life. And it's going to show you how easy life can be. It really can be easy, there is an easy way out. You're living the hard way right now. The hard way sucks. The way out must be easier. By definition. Make sure you're in the Facebook group lose weight with John. There's a link in the show notes. Sign up for the newsletter. There's also a link in the show notes for that. And you can find episodes of this podcast also on my YouTube channel. Guess where the link is? Show Notes. Got it. Alright, so let's dive into this week's topic. Your goals are screwing you up. Let me start with a story. So I had this claim. She's the oldest client we've ever had 70 years old, awesome client, delightful, kicking all kinds of butt with her weight loss and emotional eating issues. Well, she hit her first hiccup a few weeks back. And I was going through her data I usually have my clients keep their weight, calories, steps and any other pertinent information in a shared Google Sheet. It's not mandatory It's something that's really nice to have, like, let's say, if you had a plateau, I can get in there, I can look at that. And based on that, and asking a couple questions, I can usually figure out what's going on and provide a solution. So I'm looking at her chart, and I see this little note, a few days ahead of where we are, I see a number in the weight column. And it's lower than what she is currently. And I asked her about that. And she said, Yeah, I was just, that's my birthday. So I wanted to be at that number by my birthday. And I don't remember if it was actually her birthday, but it was some day, I want to get through the whole conversation or how I walked her to it. But sure enough, my instinct was correct that she had stalled her own weight loss by putting an expectation on her weight loss by making a goal. This isn't a weight loss podcast, but obviously, a lot of the people I do my outreach to are people with severe weight issues, severe emotional eating issues. It's an incredible milieu to work in, when you're really trying to talk about How do humans change? How do humans really change from the inside out, because that's really the only way to lose 200 pounds and keep it off for the rest of your life. That's really the only way to end a compulsive habit that you've been doing for your entire life, and not go back. That requires a profound change on the inside. Something that we don't see, almost ever, and when we do see is really hard to identify what shifted in the person. One of the things I've become sensitive to over the years is noticing how the men how our mentality affects physiological processes like weight loss, we know that your mentality can affect your digestion, we know that it can affect other body systems, we know that your mentality can affect your blood pressure, your eyesight, your heart rate, and even your immune system. And it's going to happen slowly. But the medical world is going to eventually wake up to the fact that most of the undiagnosable syndromes out there are physical manifestations of, for lack of a better word trauma. So when stress is the fundamental issue, and your inability to relate to it in a balanced way, or an advantageous way, when that is the fundamental issue of your weight loss. Anything you do to add unnecessary stress to your weight loss project is going to push you toward failure. Why? Because your weight gain is a result ultimately of stress to begin with. More stress is not usually the answer. And if it is, it's only in small doses here and there to kickstart something or
Speaker 1 7:51
to get fired up. That's not sustainable. The way we're taught to make goals in our culture adds stress. Almost every single goal you make in life puts a stress on you, without increasing your ability to accomplish that goal. All that does is add pressure without increasing capability. This is a recipe for crippling someone's confidence, and keeping them stuck in a cycle of failure and shame. Which does that sound like? The world of weight loss? Anybody else? Yeah, it does. So I've got five main ways that we make goals that totally screw ourselves up. And the first one relates to what this client had done, she had set an arbitrary goal. It was arbitrary, in the in the weight that she had chosen. And in the day, in her mind, the day was significant because some reason it only existed in her mind. Right? You wake up day to day, the world doesn't know that it's your birthday, that your physical reality doesn't know that it's a holiday or that it's a national day of mourning. It doesn't know the physical world doesn't give a shit. And to a certain extent, neither does your body. So when you say I would like to weigh 315 pounds on my birthday, what you're saying is, it's important that I weigh this amount by this day. And you've never answered the question of why. Why do I need to weigh that much for my birthday? One clue that you're doing this is that you're thinking in terms of round numbers. Yeah, you're thinking, Oh, I'd like to be at 150 by my birthday, or I'd like to be at 200 pounds even by my birthday. The more you're working with a rounded number, like let's say obviously 150 is a round number but 100 or 200 is a rounder number, right? 155 wouldn't be as round as 150. So the more you're dealing with a big fat juicy round number, the more likely you are to be making an arbitrary wriggle on an arbitrary timeline. Why does the screw up? Well, if the word arbitrary, didn't give it away, it's that this is not based in your best interests, or your well being. This is based in fill in the blank. There's so many reasons why we do it. And oftentimes, it's simply thinking that this future truth, it's going to happen. Okay? This is one aspect of manifestation culture that needs to go away. Because when you set expectations on reality, sometimes that shifts how you act and how you move. And that's good. Sometimes when you put expectations on reality, you simply are putting expectations on things that you don't fully control. And so you're creating the circumstances for a failure when failure or success never needed to come into this. When failure never needed to be a possible condition in the first place. As you find yourself worrying about whether or not you're going to hit a goal, pull back stop, stop. Because that's not what goals are for. I'm not going to jump to that right now we're going to talk about the very end. But goals have really one job. And it's not to add stress, or worry to your life. If your goals are doing that to you realize you are doing that to you. You are making yourself worried and stressed over nothing. And if you do this with your weight, you probably do it and many other aspects of life, I won't go through it all. But think about it. Think about all the ways that you do this, because there's probably dozens, I'll be okay when so and so does whatever. Well, no, you can't put that on something that other people control, your well being is within your control. And if you don't think it is that's an issue of boundaries. So the second big problem with goals is something I alluded to, with this issue of arbitrary goals. Why do you need to weigh 315 pounds by your birthday? Why do you need to weigh 300 pounds by your birthday? Well, because then that means that I've made significant progress. And then when I get on the scale, I'll see a two in front of my weight number instead of a three. And that'll make me feel good. Why? Because I want to lose weight. Why? Because I want to be healthy. I want to look good. Why do you get around to it as I want to love myself. Okay, that's a problem. That's a problem. It this is the number one cause of weight rebound, people losing weight, to get things that losing weight does not provide you losing weight does not provide you confidence, self love. It does not erase your negative beliefs. It does not erase traumas that have gone on healed, it can be a game changer, it feels great. But if you have a brain that could get you to gain 100 pounds in the first place, then you've got a steady drip somewhere in the background saying you suck eat cheese, right. And it just, it doesn't have to get you on the first day or the first month or even the first year. But eventually it cuts through why because it's like that drip of water that eventually erode through a boulder. This is what these negative patterns, cycles, habits, thoughts, beliefs. This is what they can end up doing to people that even though they're loving their new life, they're traveling, they're buying clothes that fit well, in quote unquote, normal stores, their relationships are improving, they're doing better at work. And then they will watch it disappear through their hands like sand. I think it's probably one of the one of the most miserable things you can go through maybe short of watching a loved one, go through that sort of torture is watching yourself. slip out of your own grass, watching your hard work, your dedication, your victory, watching it slip through your fingers. And watching yourself in a horrifying slow motion. Feel like you're being dragged backwards into an old life that you don't want. And yet, you're the one doing the dragging in some ways, which indicates that there's more than one will at work inside of people topic for another day. But it's very important when it comes to resolving these fundamental issues. So if you are attaining any goal, to get something that goal is going to attain you, you need to be really aware of that. Because oftentimes what we do, because so often when we make goals, we are trying to get x so that we can have why we're trying to accomplish this goal, so that we can have self trust, self love, self worth, so that we can be in a relationship, right? I've seen this a ton where people are like, ah, you know, I'm not dating right now. I'm gonna, I'm just gonna wait till I'm like 50 pounds lighter and then I'll get out there. And it's sad because oftentimes those people don't ever lose that 50 pounds. And they've shut the door to relationships until they've established a certain weight. And imagine that person's significant other being out, they're not getting to meet them because they were too heavy. Imagine how that significant others gonna feel. How terrible would it be if you didn't get out there and find your person because you weighed five pounds too much.
Speaker 1 15:26
And that's not a ridiculous example, people do that. People don't put themselves out there because they don't feel like they meet a certain standard. And all has to do with wanting y but thinking we have to get x goal before we can have Y. One of the things this causes us to do is hold good things that are available to us at arm's length. You can be surrounded by love. But if you believe you need to attain x in order to earn love, you can be surrounded by it by love and not feel like you deserve it and keep it at arm's length. I think I talked in a podcast recently about working at a company where I had to handle like a huge amount of money. And there was never a temptation to take the money because it was like it wasn't real, wasn't mine. And it didn't feel real. And that's what I realized that I was doing. And still do sometimes with love, that I refuse to accept it, or I can be swimming in it. I could be like going viral on social media. And people are like crying in the comments saying like, John, thank you so much. This one post like saved my life. And I'm not exaggerating, like that happens. And I can be so overcome by that. And also, at the same time, hold love at arm's length because, well, I haven't accomplished X, Y or Z. I have this viral video. But I don't have enough programs for these people, I don't have enough resources to help these people. And so I will withhold not forget about a sense of accomplishment. Forget a pat on the back, I will withhold love fundamentally from myself, because I haven't accomplished x, which is often an arbitrary goal. And it's something that if your mind is dead set on keeping ye away, like if there's those two wills going on inside of you. And one will is saying I want to attain this goal so that I can have love, let's say, and there's another part of you saying like, we can't have love. And it can be because you don't know how to accept it or you don't want to give it either way. I just talked about this in the weight loss freedom Academy, going through all the ways all the logical ways that our brain can decide to restrict or reject love. And it's remarkable, the number of ways we can do it. But if that will exist inside of you, all it has to do to keep your highest or most expanded version of yourself from accepting love is just to push that goalposts a little bit further, you get x and so you go now I can have Y right. And it's like, now you have to do R and then you can have Y because more is always better, right? You get to the mountaintop. And if your goal obsessed person, you just see more mountain tops. How many people whether are you like this or somebody that you know, they accomplish big goals. And before they even celebrate, accomplishing one goal, they're already on to the other. In fact, in the weeks leading up to accomplishing the goal when they know they have it in the bag. They're already like stepping off the boat onto the dock, getting ready to board a new ship. They're getting ready to take off on another goal because they think they're doing the goals to earn things but functionally, practically, they're doing the goals to distract themselves from lack and self imposed. That includes trauma imposed symptoms of lack are debilitating. So yeah, setting arbitrary goals on arbitrary timelines is a massive distraction. We're taught to set goals in any situation, no matter what the context is, make a goal, work backwards from the goal achieve the goal. But in practice, we use this as a distraction from the path rather than direction or encouragement to get on the path. And so often, we can create goals as a way of holding good things that we already possess and deserve at arm's length. If you're setting a goal to lose weight, so that you can have love, what you just did was create a two year project to earn your own love. When actually love is on 100% available to you right now. It's not gonna be any more available to you, when you're at 150 pounds versus 350 pounds. The amount of love that's here for you is not going to be different. The only thing that is going to change is your decision on how much you're willing to accept. And just ask yourself who's more likely to actually lose 200 pounds and keep it off somebody who can accept it They're fully loved at 350 pounds, or a person who thinks they can't accept love if they're one pound over 150, who's actually powerful, the one who has a goal and has a clear vision, and it's going to manifest and all this stuff, right? It's worth the practical worker bee mentality meets the Protestant work ethic meets the manifestation ethic. And all you've actually done is take all your power away, you've dammed up the river, you've snuffed out the flame. When you make goals, too often, you declare, I am without, and I'm going to remain without until. And you need to start asking yourself, why you're making goals? What is the ultimate goal? Beyond your goal? Every time you make a goal, ask yourself why? Why? Because so often, whether it's your finances, relationships, career, your health, the obvious answer is not the actual answer. Well, who doesn't want money? You have it? Why, in particular, do you want money? Well, I really want this nice car. Okay, why do you want that nice car? Well, I don't know, it's fun, like, people will think I'm cool. People will like, like me better people will respect me, I want people to see me as somebody who can afford that car. Okay, there you go. I'm just gonna save you $60,000. Because what you're looking for, you're attempting to pay a certain amount of money to buy the respect of other people. Now, that's a factor, the car you drive can affect the amount of respect people give you. But what won't change, no matter how many cars are grown, is the amount of respect and love you're willing to receive from other people. And that's often the issue, not the actual respect or love of other people. And once you actually receive the love and respect that's in your environment, right now, you're going to be a lot less thirsty for acknowledgement. And all of a sudden, if you get the cards because you can afford it, you have the abundance, and it's a cool car, and it's fun to drive. And yeah, turn some heads. Cool. That's nothing wrong with that. As long as Hey, the way I'm gonna get that car is actually by realizing that I am fully loved right now. I am complete right now. Reason number three that goals are screwing you up, is that when you're creating goals, you think you're trying to create success, but what you're actually creating as failure. I've already alluded to this. But the fact is, and a big part of the headline here is that goal setting culture is not for you. Who's it for? Ask yourself that. And all these things I'm talking about with goals, they only become more severe, the more important the goal is to you, the more you actually need to make a change, the more you desperately want to make a change, the more these five issues are going to come up. And the more they're going to make it difficult for you to actually see change in your life. And so this one is a big one. You create goals, ostensibly to ensure your success. But what you actually do is create failure. Here's why. When you identify a problem, you need a solution, that solution is going to be some form of goal, right? If I attain x, I can have Y, right? If I can win the war, I can have peace. If I earn this amount of money, I can afford x. If I can lose this many pounds, my doctor will take me off my diabetes medication and I'll get to be healthy, your goals can be good things, saying that you're pursuing x to get y doesn't mean that y is a bad thing. Oftentimes y is a very good thing, such a good thing that it's built into the fabric of your life. And so by rejecting it, you're actually strangling yourself. And so even with good goals, especially with good goals, we can see our hopes for a bright future laying on the other side of that goal. And so in our minds, we draw a line. And on the other side of the line is success. And on this side of the line is us and a whole lot of distance between us and that line. And our plan is however, we're going to try to cross that distance. But when you draw a line and demarcate the difference between success and failure, what you've done is you've painted yourself in the territory of failure. And you will be in that space of failure until you cross that goal line. Now let me ask you something. Let's go back to weight loss as an example. I have two people that are 350 pounds, which one is more likely to get down to 150 pounds and stay there. The person who sees themselves as a failure until they reach 150 pounds, or the person that never introduced success or failure as a call. concept, but merely change their habits. Who would succeed? Now obviously changing your habits.
Speaker 1 25:07
It's a little bit deeper than that. I'll get there. We'll come around to that. So often, when we set goals, what we do is we actually set conditions for failure. We think we're creating conditions for success. But all we've done is actually create conditions for failure where there were no conditions for failure in reality beforehand. For instance, I'm out running, and I'm getting tired. And I say, okay, that there's a maple tree 100 yards away. If I can make it past that tree, I did a good job today. And if I fall short, right, if I get, like people ending the marathon, and they're like, on those baby deer legs, and they're falling down, and then you got to get the space blanket around them, or else they're gonna die. That's me. I'm running toward that maple tree. And I collapse three feet from the maple tree. And I think I have failed, I set an arbitrary goal. And I've decided that I'm a failure now. Now, how much had had I run before that could have been 10 feet, it could have been 10 Miles is someone who has given something there everything till they fallen down. Or someone who let's say I got sideswiped by a goose or something. I don't know something random. Geese are assholes. Yeah, hate geese. That's a topic for another podcast, out of nowhere, Goose takes you out? Does that make you a failure, because failure has a way of getting our attention. There's a reason that we're obsessed with it. It's because it's our brains way of saying you need to focus on this, and you need to fix this. And you need to get good at this, so that we're capable enough to survive. That's it. Every time you set a goal, at the core of your psychology, what you're saying is, I need to increase a skill, or an ability, or I need to possess something that I do not currently possess, to ensure my survival. When you draw a line and say success is on the other side of this line, you haven't created success, what you've actually created in this moment is failure. And this moment is all that exists. So when you draw a line out there in the future, and you say, beyond that is success. What you've done is paint yourself as a failure, or paying your efforts as a failure in the moment, now, sometimes that's innocuous, I want to catch a fish. And so I feel like I haven't won until I catch the fish. And yet, the pursuit of catching the fish is fishing, right? They don't call it catching, they call it fishing. That's an old saying, indicating that. Yeah, the process is what's fun. And obviously catching a fish is great. It is ostensibly the goal, but you can spend a nice day out pursuing that goal, even if you don't attain it. Many goals are like that. And that's really not what we're talking about here. Now, if I put a gun to your head and say catch a fish, I'm gonna put a bullet in you. Different story. So the more dire your circumstances, or the more desperate you are to reach your goal. Or the more this goal could have a bearing on your quality of life, your survival, the more likely you are to fall into this false dichotomy between failure and success. Now, in practice, when a goal is actually a solution to your actual survival, let's say a health goal, right? Where oh, man, I'm who doctor was not happy about those cholesterol numbers, I gotta make changes. That's gonna feel like panic and anxiety, versus comfort versus peace. Okay, but it's still failure and success. Otherwise, when you have a goal that you think is going to impact your status, socially, the way other people see you, it's going to impact your ability to get love, respect, status, praise, the more that tends to feel like an emotional void, a hollowness, more of a depression, or a deep pain in your soul. So what am I saying? Or am I saying that anxiety and depression are largely the result of people setting goals? Yep. That's what I'm saying. When you decide that reality needs to be different than it is, you're putting yourself in a precarious situation. We think that we're putting ourselves at the precipice of change. But so often, what we've done is actually hold reality at arm's length. We're not just holding esoteric concepts like love and worth at arm's length. We're also holding reality at arm's length. If it's raining outside and you go Ah, right. Guess what, this is the day you're not not going to find that $100 On the ground, because you're not going to go outside, because you're not going to walk because you can't walk in the rain because I hate the rain. When you let circumstances dictate your actions, your opportunities diminish. And there are many ways to create success and abundance and better health. And I could talk about acceptance till the cows come home. That's another way to look at what we're talking about here is that with goal setting, we're drawing lines between what is good and bad. When in reality, there is no line. And what this does, it not only cuts us off from possibilities, it adds pressure. So the possibilities dwindle. The amount of tools you're going to use dwindles and the pressure to succeed rises. Here's an example. You're at work and you're typing away. And all sudden you smell smoke, and you run to the break room where the smoke is billowing out of let's say a microwave. Brian tried to microwave a hot pocket. But he left the fork on his plate. Classic Brian move so the the microwave is exploding, it's catching the counter on fire. The napkins are on fire. The cupboards are going up in flames. Now in that moment, you're thinking, great, burn this mother to the ground, I'm going home. No, you're thinking, oh shit, there's a fire, I need to put out the fire. And so everything in your surroundings disappears except what? The solution your brain shuts off its perception of everything. Except the fire extinguisher, you are looking for a red tube, canister like shaped object and nothing else. Okay, so when you are in dire situations, we know about tunnel vision, right? But one of the ways that tunnel vision happens is by fixation on what your brain is trying to find. When you are in a high stress situation, your brain looks for the solutions it already knows about, which makes it difficult to see solutions that are right in front of your face. There's a five gallon bucket of water standing at your feet, and you're looking around for a fire extinguisher.
Speaker 1 32:15
Why is there a bucket of water? I don't know probably Brian more Brian bullshit. So even if you didn't start the fire, even if it's somebody else imposing this upon you. reactivity is going to cause you to miss out on opportunities to either prevent harm or to attain good things. I feel like I could talk more about that. But I'm not going to belabor it, like into the success failure dichotomy, which is really about how you frame your life where you we think that we're setting up this future where we're succeeding, but all we ever really accomplished is in the moment, creating a context of failure. The success failure dichotomy doesn't just paint your context as failure. What it can do is it can affect your view of your progress. You know, the saying a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step, right? So in the success failure dichotomy, 1000 Miles is the goal line. And we are in a context of failure until we hit that goal line. So the journey to the goal line involves step 123 200 500 600 700. But in the successful your dichotomy, what happens to all your progress, is that your feedback for everything you're doing is failure. You take a step and your brain goes, assessment, failure, you take another step, assessment failure. Now in a healthy mind, the brain can recognize like, yeah, no, it's gonna take us a while to walk 1000 miles. So it's not realistic that we would be there yet. Like that's that little it doesn't make any sense. However, the context of stress is really important. You're starving, and your next meal is 1000 miles away. A single step feels like, well, that's not worth anything. Making it 900 Miles. What's that worth? Nothing. You don't get the meal. It's like Willy Wonka said nothing, you get nothing. Right? It's the Vince Lombardi of reality that you either win or you lose. So when you're pursuing goals in the context of stress or lack potential for harm, lacking essential needs, you are more likely to interpret your all your progress toward that goal as a failure. Again, you're out with your buddies fishing. It doesn't feel so much like a failure. You might laugh about it. But all of a sudden, if your life depends on it, or if, hey, if I don't catch your fish, like my friends literally are not gonna like me anymore. All of a sudden different story. So to some of those fourth points, and then move into my fifth point, recognize that the context of stress or profound lack is going to change goal setting from a healthy, normal, totally legit behavior into something that is going to wreck you, and it's actually going to wreck your progress. Now, the answer there is, well, just don't ever be stressed. Don't ever suffer from profound lack. Great, great answer. And that's, that's often the answer you're gonna get from most of society. Most self help books are like, well, you can operate very well and stressed, so don't be stressed. You gotta love yourself to love yourself. And it's like how, how, and there's a giant chasm, bigger than the Grand Canyon, between self help and transformations people actually need. And between the medical establishment, the psychological establishment, and the changes people need. And it's not for lack of caring. It's just there's a gap, right? And I'm saying, hey, there's a gap here. And there obviously, is, you can look at our mental health or collective mental and physical health and see the gap. Or get it done culture is not working for all those people in the gap. If biting down on their mouthpiece and throwing hands, was the solution, they all would have been out by now. 99% of them sure there's some irredeemable lazy people. There's some people who are just like, Yeah, I don't care that and that's, whatever, it's fine. Right? But but the people who are actually miserable and would have done something about it, they've tried, they've tried their best. And their best hasn't been good enough, because they don't have the perspectives or tools that they need to cross the gap. So in that situation, I'm not dealing with someone who has the luxury of having all their needs met, and feeling like they're totally have their head above water. No, these people feel like they're just barely able to breathe, barely able to make ends meet, barely able to get up in the morning, get through their day. For that person, I would say this, goals don't exist. When you set a goal to lose 100 200 pounds, you're talking about something that's in the future, the future does not exist. Only what's here in this moment exists. And in this moment, you weigh X amount. So again, using the context of weight loss. But just think about this in terms of everything in life, take whatever you think you need to do. And ask yourself, why? Why do I need to live? Why do I need? Why do I need to lose 200 pounds? Well, because I want to travel and fit into clothes. And why? Because I want to feel good. Okay, so this is about feeling good. You want to feel good. Okay, let's get back in the moment right here, what's going to make you feel good. And you realize that eating 10 pounds of spaghetti isn't gonna make you feel good. That's not what makes you feel good. Moving toward your health is what feels good. Eating healthy living. Because guess what, you're not just going to feel good. Because you fit into clothes differently, you're going to feel good, because you eat better. You get exercise, your social life, your relationships, your career, probably all functioning at a higher level. So your goals don't exist, they really don't. They're in your imagination. And they're often arbitrary. And they're serving your stresses rather than your deepest values. And your passions. Goals also require you to have an endpoint in mind. That means that any activity that doesn't have an obvious endpoint, or whose endpoint doesn't obviously contribute to your project gets rejected. Because we are fixated only on the things that we think, based on the schema of our minds as it is that the fire extinguishers that our brain can identify, rendering everything else unseeable to us. All that exists, our directions. The next step, that's all that ever exists. This is the hack to accomplishing anything. This is the hack to losing weight. This is the hack to improving your relationships, your finances, your career, the next step, what's the next and what's easiest, because the way out has to be easier than the way in, if you're in hell, the way out has to start to feel a little bit cooler. Right? Like it's a little bit less hot. I'm going to keep going in this direction. That first step isn't going to totally change your sensation of life. However, it can present enough of a change for you to realize like, Oh, I'm moving in the right direction. And when you're present to that direction you're moving in the moment, you're also more present to the feedback you're getting in the moment, somebody who's obsessed with losing 200 pounds isn't going to be as receptive to, I eat that salad. And I felt really good, like vegetables, like give me like fiber and nutrition, nice. That person is more likely to be able to appreciate the improvements they're seeing in their sleep, their mood, and all these other intangibles that the scale isn't going to reflect. And the scale is great. I'm not crapping on the scale, if you've been around long enough, you know, I've actually think the scale is awesome. And it's our brains that are the problem, not the scale. But non scale victories are a thing too. And it's the subjective. Whereas the scale is very unnecessary tool, and how we actually create change, and how we ground ourselves in reality, because the scale gives us data as to what reality actually is not what we want it to be or what we hope it to be. But what it is, which allows us to take appropriate action. But really, what's going to keep you going day in day out, is knowing that you're doing good things for yourself, and allowing yourself to receive the benefits. The one thing I don't want you to allow is freedom from shame, because realize that if you are moving forward, trying to feel good about yourself, and you start to notice that Oh, wow, I do feel better when I'm working out and eating right? A lot of times that's because of shame. That's the only good feeling that I want you to look out for freedom from shame, as a result of changing our behavior ultimately isn't healthy and just deepens this shame cycle. But it's those subjective markers of experience that are going to viscerally tell you, Hey, we're going in the right direction. This is easier, this is better. And when your brain goes, I need candy. And you go, yeah, no, if it feels that way, doesn't it? Yeah. But this feels really good. So we need candy. Why? Because we want to feel good. Well, we're already feeling good. If you're
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really under the gun, and you really need change, goals don't exist. And goals aren't really going to be as helpful to you as you think the the closer the goal is in proximity to you, the more helpful it will be. So if you can't totally let go of setting goals, at least set goals that are more achievable, and that you're going to reach faster. A great goal is the next pound, a great goal is I'm going to do all the things I need to do today that are going to create weight loss, whether or not it shows up on the scale tomorrow, I don't care. But I'm going to do the right things and good things will happen. A person who can think like that, who can think in terms of this is the direction I want to go. And that's how I'm basing my decisions today. The difference between that person and the person who's looking around going, am I success or failure, still failure, that person is going to be costly, dejected, as they get closer to the goal, their brain is going to wear them down more and more. And oftentimes, this is what's happening to people. As they end their weight loss, they come in on fumes. And they stick around for a little bit. But then they're back to their normal self care routine, which is inherently unhealthy. And now they need it more than ever, because they've absolutely beat the share themselves and trying to lose the weight. This is a juicy topic, I could I feel it spoking out from the hub in so many different directions. I could definitely go on, I'm probably going to end it there. I feel like there's so many little points that I didn't make. I'll be kicking myself as I edit this. But hey, that's what it's a good thing that there's more podcasts I can do, right? I'm going to try to keep doing this weekly. It feels really good. Intrinsic motivation. My goal is to get 1000 listeners in the first week of an episode. But really, what is my goal? It's just a direction. It's just keep doing this thing that you'd like to do, John, because it feels good. You do that, and the 1000 people are going to show up. That's a foregone conclusion. And the same is true of whatever goals you have going on in your life right now. It's like wow, we really can enjoy the journey. And that's something that I'm still very much learning how to do in every respect of life. So thank you for listening. I hope this kicked loose, some stuck places inside of you hope it helps you kick a hole in the wall of your prison and crawl your way out. I hope it helps you consider the possibilities that are at hand right here in the moment. If you stop thinking about the future, and just think about what you want right now and what you deeply want what you value, not just what sounds good, because of a compulsive need to fill an empty place inside of you. If you know someone who is a perfectionist, they're constantly striving for one goal and then they're on to the next one in this loop where they're never going to be good enough and you think they'd be receptive to this. Obviously if people are happy with that I've done said on this podcast but if you know somebody who He needs help with their weight. They need help with their finances, they're really up against it. And it feels like they have fewer tools than they need. Feels like they have less energy than they need to accomplish the goal. Send us their way. Please share this podcast. Sure any episode. This is the 16th episode, there's got to be an episode that you've listened to before where you're like, I really liked that. You keep sharing them, get the word out. I'll keep making these podcasts. This is more than a podcast to me. I think you know that if you've been listening. So I genuinely appreciate you listening. And I really appreciate anything you can do in your own life to help express these concepts to other people, and watch them bear fruit in your own life. I have a bunch of free resources for you in the Facebook group lose weight with John, you can go to the guide section in there, sign up for the newsletter that's got valuable stuff in it. The links to both of those things are in the show notes. Subscribe to me on YouTube, Instagram at John Oakes coaching tick tock at Fat Loss coach. And if you want to learn more about coaching options, including a lower cost option that I'm cooking up, if you're interested in this lower cost option, email me, John at Oaks weight loss.com Say interested in coaching or interested in low cost coaching. If you've ever thought about pursuing coaching before, but financially, it wasn't a possibility for you at the time. Reach out because I've got this idea that I'm cooking up a way to have a coaching experience and in a container that's exclusive to the people who have signed up for it. But that is definitely very affordable and amassed like just insane value compared to what you get. So with that I'll bid you a deal of leaders saying and I'll talk to you next time.