Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 87 of the Listening Time Podcast.
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All right, in today's episode, we're going to talk about goals.
So I might have referenced this topic in other episodes in the past, but at the time that I'm recording this episode, it's January 5th 2023.
And so the new year is still fresh in my mind, and this is something that is on a lot of people's minds right now.
I know that when you listen to this episode, it won't be the very beginning of the year anymore.
It will probably be the end of January, I think, but...
This is still a relevant topic because a lot of people want to set goals for themselves and achieve their goals, not just at the very beginning of every year, but at any time.
You can start different projects or set goals whenever.
You don't have to wait for January 1st.
So I want to talk about this topic today and I want to talk about specific mindsets when it comes to setting goals and achieving goals.
And I think this will be an interesting topic to talk about.
Remember that you have the transcript for this episode as well.
That's in the episode description.
So go down and click on that if you need it and listen as many times as you need until you can eventually understand everything that I'm saying without using the transcript.
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All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time!
All right, let's talk about goals.
So what really inspired me to talk about this topic today is not just the fact that it's the beginning of a new year and people make resolutions.
In English, we use the word resolution to talk about the goals that people set each year.
We call these New Year's resolutions.
So it's not just that fact.
It's also because I was listening to a podcast on January 1st and the person in this podcast was talking about goals and was talking about something very interesting today that I hadn't really thought about too deeply.
And I wanted to talk about it here because I think it's very good advice.
And the advice that he gave was that there's a very big difference in our minds when we set a goal to try to do something, to try to achieve something that we want, and actually deciding that we are going to do something.
So those might sound similar, but they're not.
One of them is saying that I don't know what the outcome will be.
In English, when we say the word outcome, we're saying the result.
So if you say that I'm going to try to do something in 2023, what you're saying is I don't know what the outcome will be.
I don't know if I'm gonna succeed or fail, but I'm gonna try to accomplish that goal.
I'm gonna try to achieve that outcome.
So that's different from telling yourself and making the decision in your mind that you will achieve some outcome.
So in this second scenario, you're saying that you will achieve this outcome and you don't know how exactly you might do that.
You don't know how many times you need to try or how many different methods you need to try, but you know that you will achieve a certain outcome.
So one of them is not certain about what the outcome will be.
And the other one is certain.
And so if you make a goal for yourself and you do it the first way, you're not really committing yourself to achieving that result.
You're saying, all right, I'm going to try this and hopefully it works.
Right.
In the second scenario, you are committing to a goal.
You're not saying, I'm going to try something.
You're saying, okay, this is the outcome that I have decided.
I am going to choose this result, and now I have to get to that result.
And this actually works very differently in your mind.
Because you're not giving yourself the opportunity to fail when you set a goal like that.
You're actually just making a decision, right?
It's kind of like saying, okay, tomorrow I'm going to wake up at 7 a.m.
Right.
I'm deciding that if I decide that in my mind, I'm going to do it no matter what it takes.
Even if I wake up and I'm really tired and I feel like I didn't sleep very well.
If I've decided that I need to wake up at 7 a.m., that's it.
There's no debate.
There's no opportunity for me to not do that.
I just do it, right?
But if I tell myself, all right, I'm going to try to wake up pretty early tomorrow.
I'm going to try to do this.
Well...
In my mind, I'm giving myself a way to not do that, right?
If I wake up at 7 am the next morning and I feel really tired and I say well, at least I tried, but I'm going to go back to bed.
Then I didn't achieve my goal.
There's no debate.
In English, when we use the word beforehand, we're just saying before that thing.
So it's just like saying before.
So if you've already decided on the outcome beforehand, then it's simply a decision that you've made.
You're going to do it.
You've already decided.
You just have to actually execute that plan, that decision.
So this is a very important thing to understand, because most people, when they make goals for themselves, they usually don't decide on the outcome.
They usually just want to do something first.
And they want to try to do it.
The goal really is to try.
I'm going to try to eat better this year.
The goal that they've made for themselves is to try something.
And if they fail, oh well.
In English, when we use the phrase oh well, it's like saying something didn't go as planned, but it's okay.
We just say, oh, well.
And so that's the way that a lot of people make New Year's resolutions, or that's the way a lot of people set goals for themselves.
And so that's not the most effective way to actually do things and accomplish things.
On the other hand, if you set goals for yourself by deciding on the outcome, you'll find that it works very differently in your brain.
It's actually a very big difference, right?
It's not just a small little detail.
It actually creates a difference in the way that your brain thinks about this goal that you have.
Because you're focused on the outcome.
You have an outcome in mind that you've decided on and you're not focused on just trying.
You're actually focused on the outcome.
So let's think of some examples of how we can apply this.
Let's use some common New Year's resolutions that a lot of people have.
So the first one would be reading more books.
A lot of people have that goal in mind when they start a new year.
They want to read more.
They know that this is a good habit.
It's healthy for our brain and It's better than just watching TV and they want to learn things.
So they set this goal for themselves and they say something like I want to try to read more in 2023.
Well, if they say that, then they haven't decided on an outcome.
They've just said that they're going to try it.
Right.
But let's change that goal a little bit.
And let's say that you create this goal for yourself and you say, I will read 10 books in 2023.
So now you've decided on what the outcome will be.
So the way that you might go about this is, instead of just trying to find the time every day, you're actually going to make the time.
You have to use that time for reading.
Okay.
And so if you just try to read more one year, what you probably do is you do all your tasks during the day.
You do everything else.
And then, at the end of the day, if you have some time left over, then you might pick up a book and start reading.
But if you don't have any time left over, then you'll probably say well, I couldn't read today, I didn't have enough time.
But that's okay, because I was doing other important things and I'll try to read again tomorrow.
I'm sure you've done this at some point in your life, maybe not with books, but maybe something else that you wanted to accomplish.
And so this is very common and we're all guilty of this, I think.
So now let's say we actually make the goal and decide on the outcome that you will read 10 books in 2023.
Well, you can probably see how much time it will take you to read that number of books.
And you can say, all right, it's going to take me 40 hours or 50 hours or whatever it is.
And then you can divide that by 365, because that's how many days there are in a year, and you can see more or less how much time you need to read every day, how many minutes you need to read.
And let's say you need to read 40 minutes every day and this will allow you to read 10 books next year.
So what you'll have to do is have this 40-minute time slot set aside every day, and it is non-negotiable.
In English, when we say that something is non-negotiable, we're saying that something needs to happen.
There is no debate about it.
You can't not do it.
It has to be done.
So this is non-negotiable.
And maybe you set a time for yourself.
Maybe you say 8 p.m.
So every single day at 8 p.m., it doesn't matter what you're doing.
It doesn't matter what other task you still haven't finished.
You stop at 8 p.m.
You maybe set an alarm for yourself.
And you know that when that alarm goes off, you need to stop whatever you're doing.
And then you start reading and you read until 8.40 p.m.
And it's pretty simple, really.
But the thing is, is that you have to commit to this decision.
So it's very easy to say that you're going to read for 40 minutes that day, but then you get really busy with other things, right?
So you're not really prioritizing this task and you're not committing to the decision.
However, in your mind, if you commit to that decision, then it will be automatic.
Every time your alarm goes off at 8 p.m., you have to read for 40 minutes.
You stop whatever you're doing, right?
And we do this for other things in our lives.
For example, you go to work in the morning, probably or maybe you work from home, but you have to start work.
You can't just say, well, I don't really feel like working.
I have other important things to do, so I'll do that tomorrow.
We normally don't do that when it comes to our work.
Or the example I gave earlier about waking up in the morning.
If you have to work at 8 am and you need to wake up at 7 am, You can't just hear your alarm go off at 7 am and say I have other important things to do.
I don't want to wake up now.
I'll try again tomorrow.
Right.
We're not supposed to do that.
And we usually don't do that with other tasks.
But we tend to do this with goals that we set for ourselves.
We just try to do them.
We don't decide to do them.
Right.
But every morning you decide that you have to wake up because you have to go to work.
You have no choice.
So we want to do the same thing with our other goals, like reading.
You decide that you have to read.
There is no other option.
There's nothing else you can do because you've already made the decision.
And let's use one other example, losing weight.
A lot of people have this goal.
They have this as their New Year's resolution.
And so they usually say something like, I'm going to try to get in shape in 2023.
I'm going to try to lose weight and I'm going to try to exercise and eat healthy food and I'm going to try to be healthy overall.
So this is a goal that people set for themselves, and they tend to not achieve this goal, and then they try again the next year, and then they try again the next year.
And you notice there that the key word that I used is try, right?
They just keep trying.
And don't get me wrong, I know that it's very hard to lose weight and to change all of your habits.
And for some people, even if they change their habits, it's still difficult for them to get in shape automatically.
I understand that.
So don't get me wrong.
I'm not trying to criticize anyone because I know all of our bodies are completely different.
And if you have a problem losing weight, I completely understand.
Don't misinterpret what I'm saying.
I'm just trying to use this example for this little mental exercise.
You say, no matter what, I need to lose 20 pounds, right?
Or I need to lose 10 kilos next year and you decide that this is going to happen, and then maybe you can do the same thing that you did with the reading goal.
You can take the amount of weight you want to lose and then divide that by 12 and say okay, this is how much weight I need to lose every month, for example, and then you have that target for that month.
You've made that decision.
So every month you need to lose point seven kilos or something like that.
Right.
And so, instead of just trying to change your habits and do things differently, you have decided that this needs to happen.
And whatever it takes, you're going to do it, right?
You can try all the different diets, or try different techniques, or restrict the amount of calories that you consume, or you can fast for many hours.
In English, when we use the verb fast, we're saying that you don't eat.
So if I say, I fast until 11 a.m., I'm saying that I don't eat until 11 a.m.
So maybe you fast for many hours.
Maybe you hire a trainer who's going to help you do this.
But no matter what, you're going to do whatever it takes.
You're going to try all of the different things as many times as you need until you reach your target, because you've decided on the outcome.
You're not just trying, right?
So this is another example of that.
And it can be hard to do this, because this can be something that causes a lot of stress, short-term suffering, because you have to really change your habits, you have to really do things differently, and it can feel very difficult, to be honest, but if you've decided on that, then you're going to do it.
Of course there might be some external factors that prevent you if something really big happens or something really big changes in that time.
Yeah, it's not 100%.
But under normal circumstances, if you've decided to do it, if you're not just going to try, if you've decided on the outcome, then it's going to happen, right?
You're going to find a way because you have no choice.
It's just like what I said before with waking up and going to work.
If you've decided that you have no choice and you have to do that, you'll find a way to do it right.
So again, with this specific example, it might not be quite as simple, because our bodies are different and we have different issues with our metabolism and different things like that.
But you get the point.
This theory applies to most goals that we make, even difficult goals usually.
So I hope that this was an interesting thing for you to think about.
I hope that this kind of makes you think about setting goals differently.
And I hope that this episode was interesting for you.
And I hope that it was good practice for your listening.
Remember that you have the transcript available below the episode in the episode description, so click on that if you need it.
And if you want my advanced episodes, then you can sign up to become a Listening Time family member or VIP and you'll get two new advanced episodes every month.
And if you want to ask me questions regarding English, then become a Listening Time VIP and I'll answer your questions in a weekly QA session.
And don't forget to follow me on Facebook.
I'm posting a lot of content there, so follow me on Facebook.
The link is in the episode description as well.
And if you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and leave a review, and share it with anyone else who might find it useful.
All right.
Thank you for listening to this episode.
And I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
