Episode #11 - Goals - The Most Important Elements

Welcome to be x do = have a simple formula to Uncomplicate your life. My name is Malvin young. I'm a speaker entrepreneur and brand partnership manager with a well-known TV production company. This show is about a straightforward formula that I've used to coach hundreds of people over the last 15 years to overcome many challenges. Personally, I don't like to coach on any area of life that I haven't improved on myself. So lucky for you. I've had to overcome big challenges in the areas of relationship, finances, health, anxiety, and depression. Then after a crazy car accident, I had to do it all over again. I'm really excited about this show today, because what I'm about to share with you is made a huge impact on my life. And more importantly, I've seen many others who have practices methods, breakthrough barriers that have been holding them back their entire lives.

Also, please subscribe to get the most value out of this podcast. As each episode, we'll build on each other. We get into today's conversation. I want to share with you a company called Instacart. Instacart is an online shopping service. Uh, if you're in Canada and the us, and what this app does is you literally log on based on your postal code or your zip code. And they'll tell you all the shops locally that you can shop from. You literally choose what it is that you want. They do the shopping for you, and they deliver it to you. It's a great service. And right now you can try it for free. For two weeks. All you have to do is go to www dot Malvin, young.com forward slash Instacart and full disclosure. Here, we do receive a small fee for each person that does sign up and tries the service out.

So for each of you trying the service, it really helps our podcast here. Thank you so much for doing that. Welcome to episode number 11, where we talk about goals. I wish I had a one simple formula for you for goals, but the reality is there's so many philosophies and strategies and methodologies on achieving goals. And there really is no one size fits all. There is no one specific program that's going to help everybody achieve their goals. So I thought today it'd probably be most important to talk about, uh, the most important elements of achieving your goals and then maybe utilizing those different elements in any type of framework that works best for you. Um, I found that some programs are just way too structured. I'm a very creative person as I'm working on my goals. So I like some flexibility. So everyone's a little bit different in their own way, uh, when it comes to setting goals, but very important to understand there are different elements that are super important and no matter what philosophy, what's what a strategy you're using to achieve your goals, these elements you'll find them somewhere within those programs.

So, and in some cases I seen some programs that are just missing some very important elements. So I think today, what I want to do is really cover the most important elements of achieving your goals. And the first point I want to talk about here is motivation. Motivation is a funny one because most people get willpower and motivation kind of mixed up or intertwined, uh, in the sense that they get motivated for a short period of time. And they think, well, I have enough willpower to push me through this. So I'll, I'll get through it. When achieving goals is very important to find your motivation, that's going to cure you all the way through. You cannot depend on willpower. Willpower can only last so long as a matter of fact, willpower is exhausting. So, uh, you know, typically willpower is when you're doing everything within your will to go against, what's been normal for you thus far, and therefore can lead you to exhaustion, burnout, and quitting your goals very quickly.

So, uh, I think finding the motivation, the why the purpose, the reason for you wanting to achieve the goal is probably the most important element to start with. Um, it's, it's funny, you know, cause you can look at these motivations in two different ways. There's two different really kind of motivations. One is something you're running from you're motivated because you don't want life to be like that. Any more. For example, if you've been dealing with, uh, being overweight, for example, you could be coming from a place where you've drummed up a enough motivation. Cause you're like, I'm just sick and tired of being this way. I've had too many health issues, uh, it's not lining up with my future and therefore I'm now super motivated, but that motivation comes through a lot of, um, past experience that you know, where things are not working for you or it could be, you know, like for myself, I found myself broke, uh, one too many times as a young person and I just got sick and tired of being broke. And I was motivated to position myself to never be in a broke position again, going forward. Um, and those motivations may be different, but those type of motivations are the ones you're running from. I hear a lot of stories, you know, when you hear success stories online, it's funny how many of them are because people ran from something Oprah Winfrey. I don't remember all the details, but the Oprah Winfrey, um, uh, story was, uh, she grew up in a really rough times and she was not, uh, you know, inspired or happy

Living that way. And her motivation was to run from that kind of upbringing and create something new for herself. So a lot of these stories you hear are people running from something. Now there is another type of goal which is you're running towards something. It's when you, um, just have a real thirst for something, a real desire, an image of how you want things to be. And sometimes you may not even know where that came from. You just know that you want to achieve that. If that's becoming a musician, if that's becoming an athlete, uh, you don't really know, you just find yourself in a situation where you're craving and you have a strong thirst for achieving that goal, regardless of what the motivation is. If it's something you're running from or something you're running towards, regardless, it's motivation and motivation will carry you through to the top.

If you, if you're structuring yourself the right way, if you're doing the other elements that I'm going to talk about here, uh, it will be enough to get you there. And, um, you know, the running towards goal is interesting because if you find yourself in a situation where you're thinking, well, I don't know if I'm really running from something in order to achieve something new or what it is exactly that I do want going forward. That's when you want to sit down and really use the creative brain, sit down with a pen and paper and start designing what it is that you want, writing it out, drawing it, the fresh piece of paper. You can create anything, whatever that is for you. And the only thing that's going to really bring you down is your own thinking or, uh, other people's thoughts about that's creation.

So what I highly recommend is you just create it, keep it to yourself, write it down and keep it for yourself. There's a lot of power in that are not going to get the details of it. But when you find something that motivates you don't let anything else ruin it for you. You want to keep that motivation super important. The other elements I want to talk about is, uh, short-term versus long-term goals. I got asked this questions many times, like what is more important, a short-term goal or a long-term goal? Reality is they're both equally important when you're setting goals. You want to make sure you have short term goals specifically because short-term goals, they create excitement. They create zest. They create more motivation because when you're achieving these smaller goals, you just get more pumped up towards the overall big picture long-term goals. They create purpose, they create meaning they create alignment for yourself.

Like you really want that, uh, overall goal, whatever that may be for you, that could be a material thing that could be, uh, a way of being that could be, um, a company that you want to build that has an impact on many people. It can be just having an impact on people in a certain way, whatever that goal is, it's, what's going to bring purpose and drive into your life long-term and sustainability. So, um, and I don't know if sustainability is the right word, but sustainable, you know, making sure that that long-term goal is sustainable. So a, your longterm goal has to drive motivation, whatever that is, but B you should be setting up short term goals in order to build that zest and excitement. Um, and you're going to build more motivation through the process. If you find yourself as one of those people that, you know, um, your goals like a month out before you achieve something and you find yourself dying out before the month and not achieving it, um, it's very important to shorten that goal.

So if it has to be two day goal, then great set it as a two day goal, a three-day goal, a week goal, whatever it is, just make sure that your long-term goals are broken down into short-term goals that, uh, you can achieve as well as, um, they will build that motivation for you. So, you know, if you find that you can sustain a week, um, to achieve a goal, uh, one of the smaller goals then go for a week. But if you need that two days, don't feel bad to shorten it down to two days and have really mini goals along the way. So also, you know, another thing to look at here is when you are setting up new goals, you're also looking at creating new habits because your old way of being, and your old habits are not going to propel you or help you achieve your new goals.

How do I know that? Because if they were going to help you, you would have already achieved them a long time ago. So we know that something has to change within us. Maybe it's a character flaw, maybe it's a, um, personality traits. Maybe it's a, just a certain way of being, uh, maybe it's old behaviors, uh, old habits, but something has to change. And my warning to anyone that's working on goals is to understand that this is going to be the hardest part of achieving your goal. Your goal is never about achieving that goal. It's who you're becoming on the way of that goal, because it's who you become that dictates if you achieve that goal or not. So very important to understand that there's generally work that has to happen on you in order to achieve that goal. How many of us have fried our hardest me to include it here, tried my hardest to achieve a new goal and fall flat on my face and wondering why happened.

Well, what happened was me, I got in my own way because I tried to achieve a new goal using old behaviors and old mindset to achieve new goal. It's just not possible. And it is the single most absolute hardest part of achieving a new goal is recognizing that something has to change within you in order to achieve that. Cool. The next part is, uh, once you recognize what it is that you need to do change within you is you have to create a new model mindset around that vision. And this is where visualization comes in. And most people don't, you know, when I talk two people today about setting goals and I talk about visualization, most people laugh at that like vision boards and all that, and you don't have to get that far into it, but you at least have to have a picture in your mind of what, what it is that you want to become or what you want to achieve.

You need to see yourself having that. The very important part about that is that that drives more motivation. And you're also tricking the psyche as if you already had it as if you already have it right now. So therefore it's not as hard to achieve. Not saying goals are not hard. It's just easier when you see yourself already having it very hard to achieve a goal when you can't see yourself having it. I mean, how do you convince yourself every single morning to get up and go out and achieve the goal when you can't even picture it in your head? So very important to start creating a vision, understanding our character flaws, and then creating a vision about who do I need to be. Um, and also, uh, seeing yourself achieving that goal, seeing yourself, having that goal in your life right now. So next important part about achieving your goals.

This is a very important element, is that people think that, okay, this goal I've written down my goals and I have to do just go out and do these things on a weekly basis and eventually I'll achieve my goal. Well, the challenge is, if you're not putting your goals in your calendar and listening to your calendar, as opposed to listening to yourself, then it's going to be very hard to achieve the goals. And what do I mean by that? So typically when we have it in our mind that we're going to do this and that today, and what's going to happen as life is going to get in the way typical routines will come first and you'll be left at the end of the day saying, man, I didn't do that. So what we need to do is actually carve out time during the week to write these things in our calendars.

And we can't depend on our brain. Imagine having to remember all your tasks that you have to do like me for work. For example, I've tons of tasks to do, but they are organized for when I need to do them. There's no way I could possibly remember all the tasks that I have to do. I, if I depended on my brain, I would miss 80, 90% of them. So very important that you carve some time out in your calendar and here's the secret. Don't listen to yourself, listen to your calendar. So if I slot four times, uh, to go to the gym this week and I put them in my calendar and I have a reminder set up on my phone and I set them up in a way that's not going to interfere with time with family or time with the kids, um, time for work, I set them up.

So that it's time for me in my calendar. Then the real secret is to when the, when the reminder goes off, that you got to go to the gym and the next half hour is you listen to your calendar. My promise is at the beginning of setting a new goal, if you're listening to yourself, you will, majority of the time talk yourself out of it. Especially when willpower runs out, you just won't have the, the, the motivation. And therefore you might be tired one day. You might feel like the world just suck the energy out of me and I'm tired. And I just can't go to the gym. Those are all conversations where you're listening to yourself. But if you listen to your calendar, your calendar says, it's time to go to the gym. No resistance, just go to the gym. And if you look at your calendar as a tool to achieve your goals, you will respect that time that you put in the calendar.

Now each week that goes on, you may realize, Hey, I'm not organizing myself well enough here, and you may want to rejig it within your calendar. But the important part here, the secret to it all is to listen to your calendar, not listen to yourself. The next part I want to talk about is really just the whole kind of mindset around achieving goals. I want you to picture a big Hill two-sided Hill. You know, you go up one side and you could slide down the other side. I just want you to picture a Hill in your mind. And I want you to picture snow on that Hill, pitchy yourself at the bottom of that Hill. And you're starting a little tiny snowball. And your goal is to roll that snowball all the way up to the top of the Hill. Now you can imagine, as you're rolling that snowball up to the top of the Hill, you are seeing the snowball grow.

It's getting heavier and it's becoming harder to push. So when you start a new goal, you have to remember that it's like going up that Hill. What happens when you stop on the Hill and you have a big snowball behind you, you turn around and you kind of rest on that big snowball that you just pressed up the Hill. What would happen if you stopped for a rest? It's probably going to start rolling back down the Hill and therefore you're going to have to start all over again. Does this remind you of something? Every time we start goals and we get knocked down, uh, that snowballs coming right back down to the bottom of the Hill. And what's hard about it is the next time it's already a big snowball starting that snowball up the Hill again is really hard. Cause now it's bigger than the first time.

So the mindset we want to have around achieving goals is that we need to keep pushing that snowball all the way to the top. And why do we have to go all the way to the top? Because if we're going to push it down the other side, how much energy does it take to push down on the other side? Very little. It has its own momentum, and that's how your goals work too. You want to be pushing yourself all the way up that Hill and when pushing that snowball, sorry, all the way up that Hill and what's going to happen. My absolute promising guarantee to you is that things are going to get in the way they're going to try to make you stop example. Let's say you set a goal called I want to be financially independent. Like I don't want to worry about bills anymore.

I don't need to get loans anymore. I just want to be funny. I just want to depend on my own finances going forward. Say you set a goal like that. My absolute promising guarantee is that when you do that, everything will show up. That will stop you or show you that you can't do that. An example of that would be, if you owed some old bills magically, you're going to hear the bill collectors calling. Or if you got some money saved up, you're going to see something will happen to your car and you'll have to go and fix it. And you'll be back down to zero in your bank account. Again, we all know this too familiar, and it's, it's, it's almost like a

Law in the world. Like, uh, even Steven, you know, um, I don't know if you remember the old episode, if you ever watched this, but Seinfeld, there was an episode of even Steven where no matter what happens, it could never get ahead. Always ends up even, and same thing will happen even with a weight loss goal.

For example, you'll find that when you start this journey out and you start pushing that snowball up the Hill, you'll find cravings, kicking in, you'll find upsets, emotional distress, anything to make you want to eat again, that will show up your goal. And one of the hardest parts of achieving the goal is to resist all of that resist what's going on in the brain and stay focused on pushing that snowball up the Hill. You have one task to do is to get that snowball up the Hill. It's it's, it's the biggest challenge that we all have in achieving goals, sticking to it,

Your own calendar, listening to our calendar and not ourselves

And resisting everything that's trying to make you stop. And so, you know, if the goal is seeming really hard, that's all the stuff that's coming up for

You along the way that you need to deal with.

And so instead of, instead of

Letting it knock you down the Hill and making it hard for you to start all over again,

Why not just observe it become an observer

Server of those emotions become an observer of those thoughts rather than being those emotions and being those thoughts

Go. Hmm. That's interesting that that's showing up for me. That's interesting, but I'm not interested in

Participating. I need to make it to the top of the

Hill. That's interesting that my car just broke down when I'm trying to save, but I got to fix my car and I'm just going to keep pushing to the top of the Hill. That's interesting

That, you know, I'm trying to be a better person, but I'm getting into more arguments and I'm having a worst attitude now than before I start.

That's interesting, but I just don't want to participate. I don't have time to participate because my goal is to push the snowball to the top of the Hill. So very important concept to think

In this way, when achieving your goals,

All the nasty stuff is going to happen. As soon as you start writing down your goals and taking those first steps, it's going to be hard, but because

I'm an observer of those issues and challenges and thoughts and emotions, rather than being those issues, thoughts, challenges, and

Emotions, you know, step back

And really look at it and keep your, your mind focused. What is your ultimate goal

Here? It's to get through all of that and get to the top of the Hill so that you become

A person who deserves that

Goal. And you know,

This world is a very fair world. You may say it's unfair, but I say it's fair because it's been proven to me that you get out of this world, what you put into it, you get out of your life, what you put into it.

So it's very fair to you that it is.

If you are pushing through all these challenges, observing, learning, and growing and reaching the top

Hill, it's very, very, I would say rewarding. And it's very, you deserve it. You literally deserve what you get for achieving that. You know, a friend,

I might have a podcast on the other day and he talked about we're all, we're all self-made. But yeah,

Only the successful people want to admit it. You know, all of us when I've heard,

Had so many ups and downs in my life and when I'm on the down, I can literally point all fingers

To me saying, yeah, it's me. And I know

How I got myself here. I know what behaviors,

Characteristics, and actions that I took to get here. And it's not good. Yes. I, external events happen in life, but how I responded to them got me into that dark place. And then I've also been at the top of my goals, achieving really great things. And I have to acknowledge

That too and say, yes, it was 100% me that had me achieve that, you know, thanks to all the help and support externally that comes along with it. But really the truth is it comes down

To you. It comes down to you taking those steps to achieve the goal and remembering that it is a mission to push that Stoll wall to the top of the Hill. And it will be a bit hard, but don't be in the hardness of it, be the observer of it. The last thing.

And I want to say that really, I think there's a super important element here is it goes kind of ties back into the visual,

Um, but more so into this, this thing called state shifting. So for an example, if there are,

There's a specific goal that you want to achieve and you know, somebody who has already achieved

Leave that goal, then state shifting is the process of modeling that person. So modeling their behaviors and characteristics and actions, very important to understand here. Most people,

I will only look at modeling their actions. Well, what did they do? I'll just do the exact same things. And therefore I'll get the exact same row.

Well, I'll have to say, sorry to you. It doesn't work that way. How would it

Works is when you're truly modeling someone, you're modeling their characteristics and,

And their actions combined. If you solely focus on modeling their actions, you have to remember their behavior is probably different than yours. So your behavior driving the action is going to be different than their behavior driving the action. Therefore your results will be different. So very important that not only should we model the, um, action, very important to model their characteristics as well. So an example of that, let's just take will Smith for a moments. You know, I used to idolize that guy growing up. I thought he was just such a cool guy. You know, he was a rapper and he's a TV star at his own show. And, and just a funny guy, you know, and, and, uh, really just enjoyed him as a person. You know, when you watch his stuff, he just seemed authentic and great. So, you know, modeling somebody like will Smith would look like, how does will Smith walk?

How does he carry himself? How does he face the world when he has challenges? You know, modeling all of those things, the character, uh, of who he is as well as the action is super important, because if we are trying to only do what, what it is that he's doing without those, uh, characteristics and behaviors, we're just not going to get the same result. So how fun with your goals is what I'm trying to say here is model people and have fun and it's okay. Like we can be doing have anything that we want. So why can't we try on a, another set of behaviors when we're trying to achieve our goals, you know, and, and apply those behaviors to the new actions and have some fun with it, rather than it being this daunting, hard, scary thing to do, have some fun, trying to achieve your goals.

You know, every course I've ever looked at when it comes to achieving goals, really misses on the element of having fun. And I think modeling someone's behavior is a lot of fun. Like if you like going out, shopping and trying on new clothes, it's a lot of fun and you get to try it on and see what you look like. Well, try on someone else's behaviors and see what it looks like for you. You may actually like it. You may find it easier to achieve your goals by trying on those behaviors. But the most ultimate ultimate thing I want to share with you today about achieving your goals, is it, and I might've said it earlier in this podcast, but it's not about achieving the goals specifically. It's about who you are becoming as a person, as you strive to achieve goals. You know, my biggest lesson was I used to do, uh, network marketing, uh, years ago, and I found it really good for personal growth and, and, uh, changing my mindset and helping me achieve goals.

And there was one gentleman, his name was Franco. And I remember he said something, you know, regional vice president at the time was the highest position you can achieve. And I remember him saying, you know, uh, that he acted walked and talked like an RVP. And I said, why would you do that? You're an ETT, like the first position in the company. And he said, no, I'm not, I'm an RVP. I'm just waiting for the paperwork to catch up. And I thought that was the coolest thing. He's modeling what other RVPs are, what their behaviors are and what their actions are. And he says, if I do that long enough, I'll just become an RVP. So in my head, I'm already an RVP. I'm just waiting for the paperwork to catch up now. So very cool mindset have fun along the way, enjoy your goals, embrace them. I embraced those goals and I hope these elements really help you, uh, achieve your goals, but more importantly, help you become the person that you've always wanted to become. Thank you so much for listening to episode number 11. And if you hadn't had the opportunity, I please take the time to, um, subscribe or, um, or follow us here because, uh, you know, if you're doing that, that the episodes just come to you directly, rather than you having to go and search for what's the latest episode coming up. Uh, also if you

Haven't had a chance to take the time to leave a review, please do. So it really helps us podcast reach more people by doing so. The way the algorithms work in these, uh, platforms is the more people that are engaging and leaving comments. Obviously they will share that with more people. So it really does allow people to get more access to the podcast. And if you feel that there's something within today's podcast, that makes a difference for you, and it could make a difference for someone else, please share it. And, uh, you know, I really appreciate that. You know, I'm really grateful for, for all the comments and feedback that I've been getting from people and the people sharing the podcast it's really been taking off. And I'm really just doing this because I want to have an impact in some way, and it's my way of giving back. So I really appreciate you guys by furthering the message and continuing to share the podcast. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you for listening. Take care. Bye.