Why You Should Stop Chasing Goals

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

Warrior Soul podcast is written, produced, and edited by me, Albert. Our goal is to empower US military veterans to live their absolute best lives, and we do that by providing tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas that they can apply into their lives to become wiser, stronger, smarter, more resilient, and more capable human beings in the civilian world. If you're not a veteran, stick around because anything we talk about here can obviously apply to you. And if you like what we have to say, any information we provide, and the guests we bring on, please head over to iTunes and write us a written rating and review. It really helps to spread word about the show and to get this helpful information into the hands of more veterans so that they can in turn improve their lives and shape the future of this country.

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We'll have some information for you to check out. With that, let's get into the episode.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

I'm gonna tell you something that you probably haven't heard before that not many people are gonna tell you. In fact, what I'm about to tell you is probably gonna contradict a lot of the things you have heard about finding success in life and being happy. And it's this, you need to stop chasing goals. Now, before you stop this and never listen to this podcast again, hear me out on this. You have to think about what goals actually are.

Goals are results. And the reason why we choose to create goals, a lot of times is because we want to be happy. We want that outcome and we think that when we get to that outcome, when we get to that result, we are going to be happy. But but here's the truth, a few things happen as a result of setting goals. There are those that that set goals, that work for them, and that accomplish those goals.

But for many people, accomplishing those goals isn't enough. They keep going. They want more. Right? And and that idea of happiness, it hasn't hit them.

Right? They might be very accomplished, but I know many people who are very, very wealthy but not very happy. And then there's another set of people who are far more common. And those people will set goals, but a few months later, they... They've stopped pursuing them altogether if they've ever started in the first place.

Think about that. Right now, we're in November and come January, we're gonna see everybody with their New Year's resolutions. Right? They're gonna have their new set of goals for 2020. We're gonna see the gyms packed for a couple of weeks, and then after a few weeks by March, they'll be empty again.

Alright? It's never ending cycle for those people. They they... They're not happy with their lives. They'll set goals, but then rather than going and following through and working for those goals, they'll they'll, you know, not pursue them.

They'll give them up. So where does this leave us? And what I wanna tell you is that while goals... You need goals. Right?

Goals make a really good destination. Right? They they allow you to see where you wanna go. You shouldn't be chasing them. You shouldn't be chasing them.

Now where am I getting this from? Well, it's behind this is the idea that to create any meaningful change in your life, it's gonna be difficult. Now, I want you to think back. A lot of you served in the military. What made you sign up for the military?

Right? And for a lot of you, it might have been the status. Right? A lot of us love the idea of wearing a uniform, makes us feel important and things like that. But but for most of you, it was probably the meaning behind it. Right?

You wanted to serve your country. You wanted to serve some higher purpose. And that's what led you to get through all the difficult times at boot camp. It's what led you to get through all the difficult times in your MOS school. If you went to advanced schooling, it allowed you to get through that.

Right? And this is the thing you need to understand. Goals mean nothing unless there's meaning behind them. That's why we see so many people who wanna lose 20 pounds, but yet a few days later, they'll be eating chocolate cake or cheesecake. Right?

That's why we see so many people who wanna start a business or they wanna write a book, but rather than putting the extra hours in after work, they're sitting on their couches watching Netflix. Alright? That's why. The reason is because just setting the goal isn't enough. If they truly want to get to that goal, if you truly want to get to that goal, there's gotta be a greater meaning behind it.

Now there is a book that I think everybody everybody needs to read. We should be reading it in elementary school. We should be reading it in middle school. We should be reading it again in high school, and then on into college. And that is a book called Man's Search for Meaning by doctor Viktor Frankl.

And in that book, Frankl details his his life in a Nazi concentration camp. He was imprisoned for three years, and he spent time in a few different concentration camps, I think including Auschwitz and and Dachau. And one of the things that Frankl learned while he was there was that the common view of human psychology at the time that was that was most promoted by Sigmund Freud, who was the most famous psychoanalyst psychoanalyst in history. The common view was that human beings were driven by the pursuit of pleasure and by running away from pain. And what Frankl saw in those concentration camps contradicted everything he had learned as a psychologist up to that point.

You see, in those Nazi concentration camps, Frankl and his fellow prisoners, they were living in absolute filth. They were covered in dirt, their own excrement, and God knows what else. On a day in, day out basis, they were witnessing murders. And they were on the verge of starvation for most of the time that they were there. In that environment, those men had every reason to try to give up living.

They had every reason to try to commit suicide or to just stop working and have the Nazis execute them. Frankl wanted to know what drove them to try to continue living. And one of the things he noted was that surviving one of those camps wasn't a passive act. Right? You didn't you didn't just get lucky.

You actually had to try to survive. And if you didn't try to survive, you you were killed very quickly. So given that, what would make that group of people do everything they could to live even in the absence of anything pleasurable and in the presence of so much pain? And the answer he came to was meaning. And this is what Frankl said about the pursuit of success and happiness.

He said that success and happiness weren't something that you could just chase, not something you could pursue. They both had to to just ensue. They both just had to happen. And they happened because you found meaning in what you were doing at the moment. And the mistake that so many of us make is that we'll set goals.

We'll set goals with the idea that they'll raise our status. We'll set goals with the idea that somehow they're gonna make us happy, but we're not able to attach any meaning to them. So what should you do? Well, let's say your goal is to lose 20 pounds by the springtime. Rather than just saying, hey, I wanna lose 20 pounds by springtime, what a better course would be would be to say, you know what?

Maybe you have kids. And you look at your kids and you say, I wanna be around for when they're getting married. I wanna be around when they have kids of their own. And losing 20 pounds is gonna be a good first step to try to get healthy enough so I can live long enough to see those kids thrive. Right?

Maybe you wanna build a business. Rather than just saying, hey, I wanna build a business, think about the impact you wanna have on people. I'll tell you this much. This business, Warrior Soul, has been an absolute... I would say, it's it's absolutely the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life.

There's been so many months where I didn't know where my next paycheck was coming from, where I didn't know how I was gonna get revenue, where I, at times, I didn't know how I was gonna get my next meal. But what's driven me to continue doing it, what's driven me to continue doing this podcast in spite of all the months I would look at my numbers and say, wow, is anybody actually listening to this, Is the meaning I have attached to it. My mission is to empower US military veterans to live their best lives. And that's why I do this. Because I know that if even a few of you listen and you take what I put out here and apply it to your lives and you gain some benefit from that, it's worth it to me.

And that's what allows me to continue working and that's what allows me to go to sleep at night. I could have tried to get a job. I could have I could have taken a lot of other career paths, but I chose this one because of the meaning. And the lesson there is this, if you want to pursue anything difficult in this life, again, don't chase goals, don't chase success, Chase meaning. Try to find the meaning in what it is you're doing right now.

Try to attach a meaning to to the things you want out of life. And that's what's gonna drive you to do the very difficult work and walk the very difficult path you're gonna need to walk to get there. And that's all I got for today, guys. I highly suggest you read that book, Man's Search for Meaning. I I talked about it a few months ago.

It's it's literally a life changer if you haven't read it before. So make sure you you you get it on your Amazon list and you give it a chance. I'll have links to it up on the show notes. Beyond that, I wanna thank you guys for listening. If you got something out of this episode, please make sure you're sharing these episodes out, and please write us a written rating and review on iTunes.

I know a lot of you listen on YouTube, you listen on the other platforms, but if you could just head over to iTunes and write us a review, It it helps so much to to spread word about the show. Beyond that, if you would like to take some of your own action, we've started a group here at Warrior Soul called the Warrior's Obituary Society. And that group is meant to empower its members to live their absolute best lives, lives worthy of epic obituaries. And it starts with an eight week development program. And during that program, you are going to take a really good hard look at your life to determine what you actually want from it.

We're gonna get you to write a meaningful vision. And from that vision, we are going to get you to write goals that have a strong meaning attached to them. And then from there, we're gonna work on specifics. We're gonna work on getting you to set up a fitness plan that's gonna be customized to what you need. We're gonna help you to figure out a finance plan that's gonna help to support you in your financial goals, to help you to get to do all the things you wanna do in life.

And then we'll work on your business and your career, your family relationships, and then your mindset and spirituality. Now, if this is something that you think you'd be up for, if it's something that you think you'd be interested in, you can learn more at www.warriorobituarysociety.com. And if you've got any questions after you visit that page, feel free to email me at chris@warriorsoulagoge.com. I'm always happy to sit down and and talk with any potential members who are interested. Now, I'm sick, guys.

I apologize for my voice being dimmer than usual, but the show's gotta get done. So I hope you enjoyed it, and we'll be back at you later this week with some more awesome content.