The Biggest Mistakes People Make When Goal Setting and How To Avoid Them -Episode 29 w/ Coach Bryn

When you write down your goals every day, most people— and here's a little bit of the mental game, I mean, all of this is mental game— but most people don't put any emotion behind their goals. What I mean is, what is it going— what does it mean to you to accomplish that goal? What is it going to feel like to have that be a reality? What do you imagine that would bring to your life, the value, the benefit, whatever the case is? I'm excited for you to see this week's episode, but before we get to that, I have a message for you. If you're a parent of an elite athlete or a coach of a high-performing team and you want— you're looking for some help or assistance with making them more mentally resilient, perform with more confidence, be more consistent, anything like that, then this is for you. I have an 8-week program all designed to address exactly that, to help your athlete be at their best on a more consistent basis and not get tripped up by those little voices in their head and getting down on themselves for mistakes, but performing like we know they can. So what I want you to do is don't delay, schedule a— just grab a time on my calendar through this link and let's set up a time to talk about your specific situation and how what I'm offering in my 8-week program can help. Okay, so So it's Bryndresher.com/freeconsultation. So click this link, grab a time on my calendar. I look forward to talking to you. And now on to this week's episode. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of The Mental Advantage Podcast. Today we're going to be talking about something very important, which is goal setting, the biggest mistakes that people make when goal setting and how to avoid them. So stay tuned. I do want to make a special request. If you've been enjoying these episodes, whether it be the solo episodes or the powerhouse interviews that we are bringing to you week in and week out, make sure that you subscribe because you do not want to miss some of the heavy hitters we've got coming up and some of the great topics that we are talking about as we're heading into the end of this year, 2021. Going into the new year. So without further ado, let's get to it. Today, as I said, our topic is about goal setting. I know, goals. How many times have we heard about goals? I mean, we hear it all the time. You're probably like, really, is this gonna be another one of those SMART goal talks? No, it is not. I am not going to be What you expect in this episode, talking about what you expect in this episode, we're going to do it a little different. Will there be some similarities as the science around goal setting is pretty consistent? Yes, but there might be some controversy in here as I don't always agree with everything that's ever been said about goal setting. But I think that the key thing is, is that we all have goals. You have a goal, right? You probably have a goal right now. Maybe it is just to get through this episode. But a lot of us have goals, we have dreams, we have things that we want to accomplish. But many of us are just missing some simple things that are costing us time and energy wasted in the process of pursuing our goals. So not only this week are we going to be talking about goal setting, but we're going to do a part 2 in the next solo episode to give you a specific way to kind of check in on your goals midway. So make sure you stay tuned for that. So let's get to it. The biggest mistakes people make in goal setting. Okay, the first one you've heard before, but it cannot be stressed enough. This one is so small and so similar, but I'm going to give one small minor thing that you may or may not already be aware of. The first and biggest goal setting mistake that most people make is they do not write their goals down. They don't write them down. Do you write your goals down? Where are they written? Are they prominently displayed? Do you have them written down? So number 1, you do not write them down. Why should you write them down, you might be asking? Well, the first thing is to know that you have a 42% chance of actually accomplishing your goal— a better chance if it is written down. 42%! I'm no math major, but I like those odds. If you said I have a 42% better chance of winning some money or winning a competition, especially if you're an athlete, uh, then yeah, 42%. If you got a 42% better chance of making a shot, that's a shot you need to take, okay? If you're in the world of basketball, or a pass in football or hockey or whatever we're talking about, yeah, 42% are great odds. So if you want to— obviously we all want to increase our chances of accomplishing our goals, that's why we have them. So first and foremost, simple, simple, simple, write them down. Now, something we got to talk about, because I know you're like, hey, I got them all recorded in my app, I got them in the, um, in the old iPhone there, and, uh, you know, I got them on my Android, I got it, you know, in my tablet, I, I have a Word doc in my computer. Uh, yeah, so listen, um, I'm gonna go against the grain in this technological age that we're living in, and I'm gonna say grab, uh, something— some, some, some old technology called a pen, and then some even older technology, some paper— and you gotta write them down. There's something about how you engage your neural pathways with actual pen to paper. So I am going to encourage you when we talk about writing down your goals, to actually write them down, put them in somewhere. And then the next biggest mistake people make is they don't remind themselves about these goals on a regular basis. So I'm going to recommend that you either prominently display them somewhere, like right now on my ring light that's around my camera, which I know you can't see, I've got a picture of my income goals right there. Okay. But the other idea, if a static display is not for you, and you can take a screenshot— this is where you can use your technology, take a screenshot, make it as your phone background, stuff like that. There's lots of ways, but just kind of reminding yourself on a regular basis that it's there kind of keeps it front of mind, right? The other thing that you can do is to write your goals every single day. So every single day, just writing them as— now here's the key though, You need to not put them in the future tense, not in the future tense. You need to write them in the present tense. So words like, I am a 6-figure-a-year earner, or 6-figure-a-month earner is even better. But you're going to state them, right? I'm a, I'm a, I'm a top scorer on my team. I am the MVP of my conference, right? I am the top this or that, right? Whatever your goal is, you wanna keep it top of mind. Top of mind by either A, prominently displaying it, or you wanna write it on a regular basis, and you wanna get a little creative with it, okay? So one of the other things, as you're writing it, you wanna take some time to put some feeling into it, but we'll get to that in just a moment. Goal mistake number 1, you did not write it down and you did it with technology instead of good old-fashioned pen and paper. Okay, so that's the biggest mistake. Now the second thing that I want to talk about that I, I know this is controversial here where I'm going to go a little bit against SMART goals. I know everybody says your goals need to be realistic. I disagree. Another word for a goal is a dream, and dreams are not supposed to be realistic. So I'm gonna say that your goal needs to be unrealistic. Unrealistic, with a caveat, with a caveat. Okay, yes, they need to be unrealistic. And what I mean by that is if you can already see the path to how to accomplish your goal, like, yep, step by step by step by step, that your goal isn't big enough. It's got to be just beyond what you can fathom, just beyond what you believe is possible, right? So I think your goals need to be big. They need to be something that kind of scares you and like, what, how's that gonna happen? So I'm gonna recommend that. Okay, so make your goals big. They gotta be big, okay? And we'll talk about how to make them, bring them down to earth, but I want us to start pretty high, and then we'll work on a process of bringing it down to a level that we can understand. So again, your goal has to be unrealistic. It's got to be big. It's got to be something. I want you to even start saying it on a regular basis, right? I am an 80% free throw shooter. If you're like, but I'm only at 40%, or I'm only at 50%, okay, I'm an 80% 10 free throw shooter. Okay, now you got to go about the business of making that a reality. Okay, well, let's, let's pick a target, and now let's talk about the path on how to get there. Okay, so the next big— next mistake after we said not writing it down is making your goals too realistic, too logical, too easy. Okay, so they got to be big, they got to make you scared a little bit, and they got to be just beyond what you think is possible. Like I said, if you can see a clear path to how to get there just like that, your goal is probably not big enough. All right, the next biggest goal that people make is they don't make their goals specific. They are far too general. I want a car, I want a house, I want to be, um, I want to win games, I want to, uh, you know, uh, have a great game, I want to have a great season, right? That's too big. How do we get granular with it? How do we bring that down to something specific intangible that I can aim for, right? If I told you, you know, if we're doing archery and you're pulling back on your arrow to set off, you're not just like, all right, shoot the arrow anywhere. There has to be a target, and the target, right, the bullseye is the smallest place on that target. So obviously if you're like, shoot at the target in general, right, then, you know, but if you want the best bang for your buck to get the most points for that particular shot, you want to aim at something specific. If you come a little bit short, You've got data. And we've talked about this in the failure feedback episode, how to kind of hone in and figure out how to get closer. But the key is you want to aim at something specific. So most people don't make their goals specific. I want to have a great game versus I want to go, you know, 5 for 10 on the free throw, at least 5 for 10 on the free throw line. And I want to be a 70% shooter overall. And I want 5 rebounds 'with 3 defensive stops' if we're talking about basketball. Okay, far more specific than 'I want to have a good game,' you know, or 'I want to win.' That is so generic. Everybody wants to win. I need something more specific. So you need to get more specific, and the more specific the target, the better chance you have of hitting it. Because obviously having a great game, everybody has that goal. It's not very specific. But when you have something that's more about you, you have a better chance of hitting it. Okay, so we need to be more specific in our goal setting. And if you're— if we're not talking about sports and it's stuff off the field of play, well, we gotta think about the fact that we are not usually specific even when it comes to those things, right? I want a relationship, or I want a date to the prom, or I want, um, I want a car or house or something like that. It's like, cool, I got an old beat-up Cadillac in the back that breaks down every 5 miles, and I got an abandoned house at the end of my block that looks like nobody's living in. And you're probably like, why would you give me those things? Well, you said a car and a house. Those two things can be easily met by this versus the specificity is going to tune you and attune you to the right target and give you a better chance of actually getting the picture of what you have in your mind versus just saying something overbroad and general. Okay, so we want to write it down, we want to make it big, big, big, big, and we want to get more specific. Okay, more specific. So, and the thing about specificity too, and this is what I was leading to when I was talking a little bit about that bigness, is that as I said, it should scare you. There should put some emotion behind it. And part of that is when you write down your goals every day Most people— and here's a little bit of the mental game. I mean, all of this is mental game, but most people don't put any emotion behind their goals. What I mean is, what is it going— what does it mean to you to accomplish that goal? What is it going to feel like to have that be a reality? What do you imagine that would bring to your life? The value, the benefit, whatever the case is. So when you are writing your goals, when you are setting them, when you are making them more specific, tie them to some emotions like, oh my gosh, when I go, you know, 70% in that game from down deep, right? The 3, I'm just hearing my mom, you know, tell me after the game, that's the best she ever saw me shoot. That feeling of just the warmness in my chest, or the pride or whatever the emotion that that's going to give me, that's going to be a difference. When I go for rush for 100 yards in that game, oh my gosh, like I just know that is— I can see myself doing a dance in the end zone for having my highest rushing game, right? Or I throw for the most yards, or I, you know, I score a hat trick in soccer or in hockey or whatever it is, whatever your sport, whatever your field of play, whether it be sport, business, whatever it is, you have that opportunity to engage your emotions. That's one of the biggest problems people make, is they don't tie emotions to it, because then that starts to get the feeling in your bones, okay? And that's again raising your vibration, your frequency. You want to tune to the right channel so you can get the right station, okay? And the right, uh, actual things that you want to hear, see, and feel, okay? So put some emotion behind it and spend some time. The next biggest mistake people make besides, you know, they decide what emotion it's going to feel like is visualizing. There's not enough visualization on a regular basis of seeing themselves actually. So as I said, you can write your goal every day and then you can visualize it coming to fruition. Like, just see yourself, hear the voices of the people around you that would be congratulating you on a goal accomplished, right? See the crowd cheering your name for having the best game of your life. See, uh, you know, the after celebration of like how, you know, the moment at your locker where you're just giving thanks for everything that was great in the, in the whole series. Whatever it is, spend some time engaging your imagination in that with the emotion and the writing. You now have a powerhouse chance of bringing that goal that much closer to you by engaging all senses. Okay, all right. And my key when you're doing a visualization is always engage the 5 senses of your imagination. And you're saying, what 5 senses? I mean, what is it? What are you seeing when you're, when you're imagining this? What are you feeling or touching when you're imagining this? What are you hearing? Um, what are you— what, what, what are you smelling? And what are you tasting? All right. And maybe it's the taste of victory, but maybe it's just like the sweat pouring down your face. It could be multitude of things, but just by engaging your senses, it makes it that much tangible and real for you. Okay, all right, so these are the biggest things. Okay, now when we talked about— now that we talked about these other things, writing down the goal, making it big, we talked about making it, uh, you know, on, you know, just outside your reach, we talked about making it specific We've talked about adding emotion to it, engaging some visualization. And now the other thing you want to do is you want to now bite-size your goal. You want to come back down and say, okay, let's work backwards. So if this is the goal that I want, right, what are the activities or actions I need to do to be able to accomplish this big goal? So maybe my big goal is to be All-American, right, or to be a McDonald's All-American in basketball. Basketball or football or go to the combine or whatever it is, or, you know, on— to be drafted or to get a scholarship, whatever it is, right? And they said, that's— wow, that's awesome. Now what's my goal? So let's say I'm gonna— that's my end of season goal, then I need to work backwards from like, okay, I'm about 12 months from that goal, let's say hypothetically. And then now I need to go, okay, where do I need to be 6 months from now to be on track to have that happen? Where do I need to be 1 month from now to be on track for that 6-month goal to lead into that 12-month goal? Where do I need to be 1 week from today to be on track for that 6-month goal to be a reality? And, and then, uh, you know, 1 day, 1 hour, 1 week, whatever. Okay, so now some of you guys may be like, well, but Brent, how am I gonna know that? Okay, you're right, you might not, but it would be better to have an architected plan and know that Things might weave and change and all that, but it's going to give you the— at least determine what activity you need to make your daily goal so that you know that that's going to feed into your weekly goal, to your monthly goal, to your 6-month goal, to your 12-month goal. Does that make sense? Make it up, make it up. And as far as if I was wanting to be, you know, all-conference, then I need to know the stats of some of the other people in my conference. What are their general ideas? So then I can inform, well, I want to average this This is where I'm at, this is where I want to be, so these are the activities I believe would lead into that. Okay, so all of that will give us a better chance of actually accomplishing our goal. And then the other biggest mistake that a lot of people make when it comes to goals— let's say we got our plan, we wrote it down, we got our emotions, we made it big, we got specific— is We shared it with the wrong people. That's right, you cannot share your goals with everybody. Everybody's not rooting for you at the finish line and making sure that you get there. Some people are not ready to dream big, and they are going to project onto you their limitations, lack, all that. So you want to absolutely surround yourself with people that are going to encourage you. So which means you can't share your goal with everybody. So keep your goals close to the vest with a tight-knit circle of people that you know are going to cheer you on. Don't necessarily surround, you know, tell everybody about your goal because some people just don't have the bandwidth to hold it. Does that make sense? Everybody doesn't have the bandwidth to hold your goal. All right, some people are going to let it slip right through their fingers because they're they're, they're— it scares them and it reminds them of who they're not or what they're not doing. And so you don't want to surround yourself with that type of negativity. So make sure that you don't share it. This is why a lot of women, you know, the whole old wives' tale, or at least the tradition— I've never been pregnant, but from what I understand, one of the main reasons they don't tell people about their goals and, I mean, their, their pregnancy in the first trimester is because that's when things can the most likely could go wrong. And so obviously making sure that they have the right environment internally to hold that baby with the most positivity, they're gonna wait till they're out of those woods before they start sharing it with everybody. Okay, so similarly, you gotta kind of think of your goal as your new baby that you're not quite ready to share with the world till you get to a place where you have the right level of confidence, and then you can share it out with everybody. Because nobody's going to be able to mess with you once you've got some momentum. So wait till you've got some momentum before you start sharing your goals, okay? And then the last thing is— I already talked about it a little bit, you know, surrounding yourself— but just the right environment and the right, uh, self-talk, right? This is the right— so we already— a lot of people talk about the external environment, the external environment. I also want to talk about the internal environment. The internal environment. Do you have the right internal environment to help you accomplish your goals? Even though you've got the big goal, you, you're doing all this stuff, do you actually believe that it's going to happen? Do you have the right things going on inside of you to actually make it the right environment for your goal to flourish, right? So just like, let's go back to that baby example. You've got to be fertile. There's got to be enough fertile soil in here fresh, you know, soil to plant the seed for that goal to really sprout and thrive. Okay, so we want to make sure that we have the right internal environment. How do you do that? Obviously, you know, reading books, hiring a coach for your mental game. Uh, that I cannot stress enough. And I know I am one, a coach, and you might be like, well, you're just saying that because you're that. Listen, you don't have to hire me. Just get with someone to help you with your mental game. Of course I endorse myself. I think I'm good at what I to do. But all I want you to do is have somebody that you work with on your mental game. So reading, getting a coach, uh, positive self-talk, affirmations, visualization, all of that stuff. Making sure that you got the right environment going on inside so that all of this can work together in lockstep to make sure that you accomplish your goals. So listen, y'all, that is it. That is it, okay? Those are the biggest mistakes people make when making, um, when, when setting their goals, which then gets in the way of them actually accomplishing their goals. Oh, I forgot one, I forgot one, and this is probably the biggest goal killer, dream killer of all things, and this is stopping, quitting, uh, giving up on yourself, okay? So having that accountability, have an accountability, have something where you set Setting small goals— I can't believe I forgot this one— setting small goals along the way, because you need little victories. Celebrate those small wins. We've talked about it before, along the way, so that you can stay consistently on target. Because even if you map out the plan, you do all the things, if you don't set little benchmarks of places to celebrate progress, then I promise you it will be that much more difficult for you to continue, and you'll become another person that stopped 3 feet from gold. All right, so that is the episode on setting your goals. Reminder: 1, write them down, prominently display them somewhere, review them on a regular basis. Okay, make them big, just outside of your reach, something that scares you. Okay, if you could see the path quickly, then you're not going far enough. You need to also, uh, make them more Specific. They need to be specific. And that, that helps to be tied to an emotion, something that you actually like. Why do you want this thing? What do you imagine it's going to bring to you? What is it going to feel like? Okay, don't go general, go specific. Attach some emotion to it. Then use your imagination, engage all your senses in the vision of feeling it on a regular basis, of it coming true. Then you want to work backwards from your big goal to have smaller goals that that help you inform your regular activities towards going about accomplishing your goal. Set your own benchmarks along the way so you have ways to celebrate your wins, to kind of keep your momentum going forward for your goals. Do not share them with people that cannot hold the vision for you, right? You don't want to share it until you have enough momentum to where nobody's gonna shake your confidence, okay? And then you want to make sure you have the right inner environment with the right self-talk, um, you know, you've got some accountability and account— like, like I said, working on your mental game, doing some reading, whatever you need to do to support that soil inside so that seed of that goal can thrive. And you are going to be accomplishing your goals in no time. And never, ever, ever, ever, ever give up, okay? No matter how long it takes, the key is to keep on moving those legs like in football, right? So that is it. That has been this episode about goal setting. Let me know what was the most eye-opening, revelatory for you, or what are some things that you're already doing that maybe we didn't address that you think we should add? Like I said, stay tuned for the next solo episode. We're going to talk about a specific pro— process on how to better gauge your progress towards a goal and if there needs to be any pivots. So I'm looking forward to seeing you in that next episode. Obviously, we'll be back next week with a powerhouse interview with an amazing superstar from the world of sports. Again, please subscribe to the channel so you don't miss a second of all of this amazing stuff to give you your mental advantage. We'll see you in the next episode.