May 24, 2012 • 40 mins
We've all been brought up to keep our eyes on the prize and our pedal to the medal when we go for that brass ring, but does the Western interest in goals verge on an insane obsession? Learn how goals work (and if they're healthy) with Chuck and Josh.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to you stuff you should
know from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always
this Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and he's here because he
(00:22):
decided to be here and he met that goal. You're
a successful human being, Chuck. I wake up every day
and I set goals for myself. Do you like, just
get out of bed, Get out of bed, take that
shower takes from Josh. Good again, clean those armpits, Chuck. Done,
good going, Chuck. You're a real go getter. Uh. Yes,
(00:44):
I have a bit of an intro. Okay, slightly anecdotal.
It's not necessarily newsy. Maybe this time last year it
was Newsy. But um, Chuck, you heard of the occupy movement?
Of course. Yeah, if you go down West Peachtree, you'll
see like Babe fourteen stouthearted Peel's still there. Man. Yeah,
hats off to him. Um, But the the whole occupied
(01:07):
movement one of the big criticisms of it that I remember,
and I think it's still floated pretty frequently because I
was just discussing this with my aunt and Umi, right,
and my aunts and old Lefty and um, she has
like very pronounced ideas about the occupy movement, what a
great thing it is and all that, right, Um and
she she was saying, we were talking about whether or
(01:29):
not a successful and one of the criticisms of the
occupy movements that they didn't have any goals. They were
goalless and so how could you ever think about being
successful if there's no goals? Right, So my aunt was saying, well, no,
they were successful in like spreading awareness that there's like
a plutocracy and you know, there's this one percent and
(01:51):
they're in charge. So they were successful like that. They
didn't need a goal. And that's kind of part of
the point. You We made the point that um we
the Arab spring that it was based on all had goals.
They had a stated goal and mostly it was getting
this one person out of power. So there was a
measure of success or failure. And most of the time
it was a success, right, or at least there was
(02:13):
an ongoing, continued goal. So when I said that, though,
when I was like, well, you know, they didn't have
any goals, I feel like such a shmell, like just
a corporate like dude, It's like, well, they didn't have
any goals, so they failed at it. And I'm curious, Like,
I feel like we in this country are very much
obsessed with goals and we are um, we equate success
(02:37):
with goals, reaching your goals and not just here. No,
but it seems like the West, the West. Okay, um,
I think we should explore that. Okay, without any research whatsoever,
let's just start talking right now. Well, I was, I was.
It was interesting reading in this research because I was.
I was kind of all over the place, Like part
(02:58):
of me was like, because we're gonna talk about like
sometimes goals are great, sometimes there's a downside to them,
and here's sometimes you can achieve them, sometimes you won't. Um.
I was vacillating all over the place with it. Emotionally,
it was I was on a roller coaster. I was like, Man,
goals aren't that great to set? Sometimes you should just
be mindful and prideful about doing great. No, you can't
(03:23):
be prideful if you're a religious type, because probably it
is a sin. He wants that to do with the
goals though, well, you're saying you have to be prideful.
You can't be prideful. You're hands strong if you're religious.
Right out of the gate, Okay, I'm talking about myself. Uh,
And then other parts of me said, no, you know,
goals are great, and so I think where I landed
was sometimes goals are great. Sometimes there they shouldn't be around. Yeah.
(03:47):
I guess that it probably is context specific and individual
specific and all. Um. But at the same time, I
think part of the problem is, like with this obsession,
is that they're we try to figure out how to
streamline things, whether it's achieving goals or whatever, and so
we try to shove a one size fits all things
(04:09):
down people's throats. And in this case with goals, it's
set goals and achieve them or be unsuccessful. Yeah. And
there's also sort of two parts to this which will
be intermingled, which is um, personal goals and like corporate
type goals. And it's interesting if you look up goals
on the internet, Um, you gotta go a long way
(04:31):
to get past financial advice. Almost everything is like financial goals.
Financial goals. If you're twenty, you can think about retirement, yeah,
stuff like that, or you run into that guy who's
like go and for those of you who are like
blinking in disbelief, Yes, we're talking about goals, g O
(04:51):
A L S. And let's define what we're talking about.
Everyone has an idea of goals, but we don't want
it to get confused with um something like uh um drive, ambition,
um intention. So say, Chuck, you are you're like, I
want to I want to be a guitar player. That's
(05:11):
an intention, right, Yeah, I want to be a good
guitar player. Saying a good guitar player would be a goal.
That wouldn't I guess, But you want to play guitar. Okay,
we'll just say that's an intention saying I want to
be you know, am, I want to be able. I
want to be a performing quality guitar player within the
next six months. That's a goal, right, that's a stated goal.
(05:33):
Or I want to learn the solo for carry on
my wayward Son by next Thursday night. You better man,
you've got that show my kansascover band. You've been You've
been talking a lot of smack. You better be able
to deliver. Uh. My kansascover band is actually called wayward Son.
Oh yeah, every Kansas cover band is called wayward son. Yeah,
we have a club. Uh so where should we start?
(05:55):
Should we start with the downside of goals? And then
some of the more positives and like how to achieve
the merder? Let's talk about goals and how to achieve them?
There are this is There's been a tremendous amount of
study since the seventies and eighties, especially in um organizational psychology.
The field of psychology is to blame for a goal obsession.
I guess a lot of people say, yeah, and especially
(06:16):
in the seventies and eighties, not just starting there, but
that was when people were way into that kind of thing. Yeah. Um,
my family has this book, you know, the family bookshelf
from like stuff like that, like what color is your parachute? Um,
there's one that I still have never I've never been
brave enough to crack it open because I don't want
to like accidentally just get the snippet of information and
(06:38):
I'm ruined as a creative person. But it's called, um,
becoming a more creative person. You could tell it's like
a goal oriented self help book to become more creative?
Is this at your dad's house? Yeah, it's that my house.
Now I've adopted it. Maybe it's like it's one of
those have never opened it up. So, um, what I
(07:01):
bring up psychology because there's a lot there's been a
decent amount of study that under certain circumstances, you know, goals,
setting goals can be helpful. Right. The problem is if
you go to the internet or you get one of
those self help books, or you start listening to self
help gurus, you're gonna get um a lot of information
(07:22):
and not all of it is good. Um. But of
course all you can do is sort of study and
ask questions on people who do reach their goals. Uh.
So it's kind of hard to determine what is good advice.
But um, I thought this one article in particular was
pretty good because they listened out ten things, only about
half of which were good advice. But you will find
(07:43):
these ten things listed commonly and they are should we
just go through them? Uh? Number one step by step plan.
Make a step by step plan to motivate yourself by
focusing on someone else who has achieved a similar goal,
Like look at Josh with smoking and he lost a
lot of weight, and think about me all the time
(08:03):
all the time. Drive yourself mad. Number three, tell other
people about your goal. You hear that a lot, so
you're sort of publicly accountable. Um. Think about bad things
that will happen if you do not achieve the goal.
I think that's negative recently, Okay, go ahead. Number five.
Talk about the good things that happened if you do
achieve the goal. UM Number six. Suppress unhelpful or negative
(08:26):
thoughts about your goal. Number seven. Reward yourself for making progress.
Number eight. Rely on will power. Number nine record your progress.
Number ten. Fantasize or visualize how great your life is
going to be when you achieve that goal. So those
are ten that probably the top ten techniques, according to
a psychologist named Richard Wiseman, who wrote a book I
(08:46):
believe in two thousand ten called fifty nine seconds about
goal setting and goal achievement. Right, those are the top
ten techniques cold from thousands of people. Do you want
to give him the big surprise? The big twist to
that list? That list has a twist to it, Chuck had.
Half of them are proven to make goal achievement harder.
(09:07):
That's right. Uh. The the even numbered ones were ones
that people who try those techniques usually don't succeed it
at meeting their goals. The odd number ones were proven
techniques that UM that Wiseman found, uh, we're commonly used
by people who set a goal and met it. And sadly,
(09:28):
in his study of the thousands of participants who had
like stated goals like quitting smoking, losing x amount of weight,
whatever it was, UM, only ten percent of them met
their goals. But of those ten percent, those odd numbered
techniques were the ones that that were that proved successful. Right.
And he gives on to point out that you can't
(09:50):
prove that that caused It's one of those causation things.
Correlated does not prove causations, right, So quickly again the
odd number ones, these are ones that would help you
out make the step by step plan um. And there's
all kinds of articles on being concrete with your goals. Yeah,
and also it breaks them down into um sub goals
(10:13):
or something smaller in bite size. So like this big
amorphous goal like becoming a good guitar player in six
months becomes you know, I don't know anything about guitars,
but learning this chord today and then this and when
you put it all together and you've been keeping track
and writing it down, it's it's it's controllable. Your control
freak for doing this in the first place, and now
(10:34):
you are able to graphically display that habit. That's right. Uh,
so make the plan. Tell other people about your goal.
They say that's a good thing to do. Um, think
about the good things that will happen. But they say
to draw the line at like fantasyland, right, don't do that. No,
Like when once you find yourself bathing in a lake
of chocolate, you've gone too far. And also, I want
(10:55):
to say, um, telling other people about your goal. You know,
there's like whole website set up like publicly shame you
to keep you on track when you're sending when you're
doing a goal. There's this guy I wish you could
remember his name. He did. He He came up with
basically the Twitter diet, where you tweet to your followers Okay,
I'm gonna do this, and then every day you weigh
(11:16):
yourself and you tweet the results, and then if you've
gained a little weight, everybody on you and calls you
a loser or whatever. Keeps you on your on on track,
And apparently it's been proven to work. There's other ones
where you you log in and you track your progress
and as long as you're not a liar, it shows
that it keeps you on track. Um for things like
(11:39):
quinning smoke or something like that. If you go and
say I had a cigarette today or whatever, this thing
will actually deduct a certain amount from your bank account
that's connected to it to pay paler and they just
take your money, like say, every time I have a cigarette,
I have to pay twenty bucks. And when you go
on and and keep track, this thing just takes your
money out of your account and it's been shown to work.
(12:01):
And that interesting because people like money exactly. I love money,
you know. I've thought about declaring something like on a
weight loss plan to like the stuff you should know army,
because that's a good They keep you honest for sure. Well,
but they're too supportive on most people will be like,
oh it's okay, Chuck, you had any layer, like, don't
worry about it, we still love you. It's like, no
one would hold my feet to the buyer. You think
(12:23):
you know, you do pose a pretty good is I
think you might be right. I mean people would be
very encouraging, but I think they would like you know,
I see, I see what you mean you need some
sort of um huh, it's too bad that we don't
have like, um, I don't know, like a fitness podcast
or something like that. Those people really hold you to it, dude,
(12:46):
give a shot. Oh, I don't know, give it. Give
it a shot, America, Chuck. Chuck is going to need
his feet held to the fire, and you're gonna do
it well. On that note, though, what I'm doing now
is I found that a poundage goal. It's just in
getting on that scale is no good. So I'm working
on like literally weekly in daily goals, Like I've got
(13:09):
my little calendar up on my refrigerator and my little
marker next to it, and I mark publicly in my
household if I went to the gym that day, and
the goal each week is, you know, four times a week,
good for you, and the week said I don't go
four times, it's I'm sitting there looking at it, and
it's shaming. I think you mean and I are going
to go in together and get Emily a riding crop
(13:31):
to smack your thighs with. Every time you you don't get,
you don't reach your daily goal. Yeah, the poundage goal
just I had someone tell me He's like, don't get
on a scale, just like, well, if you want a
way to obsess, like there, you have it right there.
But it also it works for some people. And exactly
we're coming around right here, like if that makes sense
to you and you have, then do that. But it
(13:52):
works for some people. For other people it's just a
little too much, okay, So quickly the remaining odd things
that should help you reward your self for making progress, um.
And that doesn't mean if you're dieting, I'm trying to
lose weight. You reward yourself with like the hot fudge
Sunday necessarily um, and then record your progress. And that
(14:14):
all ties into the accountability and writing stuff down instead
of just visualizing and thinking about things. They say to
be really concrete, like write it down, look at it,
make it physical and real, right, And that's why they
think that goals work. When they work, is they take
things out of the subjective and put them into the objective.
(14:34):
So um. The there was a study from the seventies
Bandur and Simon, And I can't remember Bandura's name, but
his name is really familiar to me. He came up
with something else. I guess it was habit formation. But um,
they they figured out that. I guess they took a
bunch of severely obese people and divided them into so
(14:55):
the control group was told to just do their best
at losing weight. The other group, um, we're told, like,
you need to lose x number pounds by this weekend,
x number pounds by this week. There they set goals,
and um they lost something like twice, you know, twice
as much. The people who said the goals lost twice
(15:15):
as much of the people who were just told to
do their best. And I think it's probably because it's
just saying I have something to focus on, to pay attention,
to quantify my progress, rather than you know, what is
doing your best means? Well, there's ambiguity there because someone
might said, well I did my best, and my best
just isn't good enough. Well we'll get to that in
(15:37):
a little bit, and that's that's absolutely correct. And then
not not just with weight loss, I mean like people
during this whole goal obsessed seventies and eighties, Um, there
there were studies of how setting goals could reduce like
accidents in the workplace, um, how they could reduce sick days.
Like it became an obsession with companies, Yeah, to basically
(16:01):
say like, hey, everybody set a goal and we're going
to make a bunch of money. Um. And there's there's
also this thing called stretch goals. I've never heard of
that I had neither, and I was like that smacks
of corporate buzz speak. You're gonna look that up and
hanging fruit. It was. Yeah, stretch goals was coined by
the legendary um G E CEO Jack Welch, and he
(16:25):
basically said, like, a stretch goal is something that you
some virtually unattainable goal that you give to your employees
to shake them out of their out of their ruts basically,
which isn't great people are finding out no companies. At
least it does bring us to a two question though, Chuck, Like,
(16:47):
this whole the whole point of what we're talking about
is there is why don't why can't we just achieve
our goals when we're the only obstacle. Well, Um, there's
been a little research done on the brain, and research
does show that the brain tries to protect you from
(17:07):
change really, um, like anything that's scary or fearful, um,
which could be any kind of change in your patterns
in your daily habits is threatening basically, but not only that.
Like even remember when we were talking about chunking and
habit formation on the video podcast. Yeah, same thing. The
brain is looking for a way to streamline a process
(17:27):
so that it can use up the least amount of
energy possible in carrying out something. And the way to
do that is just get you to do the same
thing over and over again. Habit formation. So our brains
are naturally inclined, we think at this point in the
this this point in neuroscience to finding the path of
least resistance in carrying out something. So that's habit formation.
(17:51):
Aubrey Daniels has a book called oops Uh Thirteen Management
practices that Waste time and money, and he argues that
the stretch goals are not good for your company because,
um he's his sided studies that when people and departments
failed to reach their goals, then there's a performance decline afterward.
(18:12):
So you set up these almost unattainable goals and it's
sort of a big bummer for everyone when you don't
reach them. Yeah, especially if they've they've been really really
working hard to achieve them. I imagine there's like an
aftermath where you're just like, well, what's the point in
any of this? If sure, we're gonna work our tails
off and still fail. Well, And that's one of the
(18:34):
points is that with goals, it's sort of looked at
as a past failed thing you could. I mean, I
guess some some managers are better at saying, well, we
we got towards our goal, and that's really great, But
most of the time it's we didn't reach our goal,
so we failed, right, and that's Um. That's an inherent
problem with goals, is what we were talking about with
(18:55):
subjectivity and objectivity, where just do your best or raise
a hundred thousand dollars in six months? Sure, right, Um.
The good thing about goals is that they take away
that subjectivity, but at the same time, like you were saying,
they set you up for the measure of success is perfection,
(19:16):
and um, that can be a problem for losers. Adam
Glinski is a professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management,
and he is a co author of a book called
Goals Gone Wild. Very clever, but he has a quote
in here I thought was really relevant, and he says
that goal setting has been treated like an over the
counter medication when it should really be treated with more
(19:37):
care as a prescription strength of medication. Yeah, and I
think you're too willy nilly with it right. Well, yeah,
it's it seems like a way to solve a big
problem all at once. And there is a dude named
sim Uh sikin At Duke who did a study of
companies that do stretch goals, and a stretch goal, UM
(19:57):
and a way to quantify it says to uh, to
be like the number eleven in flight magazine in the country,
and to say, Uh, you're you're gonna be number one
in two quarters. We're gonna be the number one in
flight magazine in the country two quarters. Yeah, that's a
that's a huge stretch goal. And they found sim Sitkin,
(20:21):
who's got one of the better business school professor's names
of all time. UM found that companies that engage in
stretch goals typically are already desperate and embattled and um,
if they fail at the stretch goal, they're in big trouble.
Like it's a last ditch thing, and it's a lot
(20:41):
to ask of your employees, and it's kind of unfair.
Rather than saying, okay, you know what's wrong with our
organization that led us to this point? How else can
how can we do this incrementally? It's kind of like
a hail Mary passes a stretch goal. Uh. Interestingly too,
they've also found out that UM setting goals that PETE
will don't meet lead people to unethical behavior, like when
(21:02):
they're tasked to keep track of their own goals and
report they will lie UM when they don't reach their goals. Yeah,
just to say they have reached that you know, ethereal goal.
But it's also you're asking somebody in as many words
and not so many words, did you are you a success?
Or are you a failure? When you're saying did you
reach your goal or not? And UM. The other the
(21:25):
other aspect of UM unethical behavior related to goal setting
is this UM the idea that when you focus on
a goal, it's your it's easier to compromise your everyday
morality to achieve that goal. And apparently like that's that's
a that's a possible outcome of of goal setting is
(21:48):
that people just start kind of cutting corners and cheating
and writing whatever they need to to achieve that goal.
Slash be successful well or do weird and dangerous things
like my father who like ate soup every day for
like a year and that's it, like a bowl of
soup and wore like one of those plastic suits around
(22:10):
and then like July heat in Atlanta, or you know,
I just won't eat anymore. Or although he I think
he ate like cabbage soup for literally like six or
eight months straight and it's it's not like it's not healthy.
You know. That's a great example. Is something he otherwise
wouldn't have done. That's kind of dangerous. Um it's also
(22:30):
uh so it's dangerous. It can lead to unethical behavior.
Another downside that people have suggested about goals is that, um,
they they can keep you from learning. Yeah, you're so
focused on this goal number. And then you're combined with
the fact that your brain is in the habit formation,
so it's trying to figure out the easiest way to
(22:51):
do this one thing that you end up with tunnel
vision and you possibly miss all sorts of other opportunities
or ways of learning to do this thing better. They
may have nothing to do with the goal, but way
to achieve that goal because you you have blinders on
goal setting off in is related to blinders like keep
your eyes on the prize. Yeah, and we're kind of
(23:12):
slipping here in and out of um organizational goals and
personal goals. Um, but they do they do share some
common downsides. Yeah. What I liked in this research was
towards the end of it where uh, some more forward
thinking companies are concentrating less on uh a number goal
(23:34):
that everyone has to meet and more on what's called mindfulness, UM,
being in the moment, being present, rather than focusing on
the future. So this part stunk of positive psychology to me. Yeah,
but I kind of like it. I think mindfulness and
uh personal like your goal for me, Like I don't
(23:56):
set goals like with the podcast, other than doing all
some job like I don't, I don't want. We don't
have no wonder we've been lagging lately in the ratings, Chuck,
Like the ratings are nice, but you and I don't
sit down and say like we want to be number
five this week or we want this many downloads. It's
more like you wake up and you just like, I
(24:18):
want to do a great job today and be mindful
and in the moment of that, And I know that's
all hippie dippy but it's hippie talking. Um. Okay, So
for those of you who do want to keep your
eye on the ball and you do carry out goals
and you set goals, right, what what are in addition
to those you know, um steps you just gave to
(24:40):
the setting goals. One of the things that they have
to overcome, it feels like, is a procrastination. I thought
this was interesting. Yeah, this is a really good interjection
here was Um. One of the things that keeps you
from achieving a goal, um is just putting off taking
it up right, and that whole like journey of a
(25:02):
thousand miles begins with one step kind of thing. If
that's not working, he tried the tree falling in the
woods thing. No, Buddhist like, Um, yeah, are are working? Um.
You should hear about this effect, the Zigarnic effect Yea
or ziger Nick. This was named for a Russian psychologist,
(25:22):
Blooma ziger Nick. Although I said that like she was German,
I don't do a good Russian. At least you didn't
do a British accent for that. Yeah. Thanks. Um. She
noticed something while she was eating at a restaurant in Vienna. Reportedly,
she saw and I'm not quite sure I understand how
(25:43):
it initially dawned on her, but she saw that waiters
only seemed to remember orders which were in process of
being served. Once we were completed, they forgot about them. Yeah.
Like if if you went up to a waiter, uh,
after they took the order and was waiting on another
table and asked them about the order they just took,
they could repeat it to you. But after they brought
the food out and maybe the show was made, if
(26:05):
you asked the waiter what that order was, they would
have no idea. Or they came back and they were like,
how's your steak, and you're like, I had the chicken, yeah,
and they go commit. So she did a little studying
on this and some other people, uh. And this was
in the nineteen twenties, and then later on Kenneth McGraw
um sixty years later did some studies on the Zigern effect,
(26:25):
basically asking people to do puzzles and string beads together
and do certain tasks, and then they would interrupt them
sometimes and then quiz them afterward on what they remember doing.
And I think more people remembered who had been interrupted
than who had completed the tasks and yes, so that's significant,
(26:46):
equally significant, And that Kenneth McGraw study was that, UM,
something like of the people who were interrupted in the
task and told that they were done, they didn't have
to complete it, continued to complete it anyway. That would
be yes. That would drive me nuts. If I like,
if they gave me a puzzle to do and they're
like ten pieces of left and he said now get
on out of here, I would freak out. I would
(27:07):
obsess about that the rest of the day, so and
then forget about it the whole The whole point of
this is that we have some sort of drive to
complete a task once we've started it. So the key
to overcoming procrastination, as it relates to the zigger neck
effect UM, is to just dive in somewhere, anywhere, anything,
(27:30):
it depending on And they've found and follow up studies
UM that if this, if the goal is just too lofty,
or if you really couldn't care less about the goal, UM,
the ziggerneck effect is likely to not have that much
of an effect. But if you do, you know, you're
you're taking an order for money and you need to
remember it, UM, and you're interrupted, you're going to remember
(27:53):
this right, um To get around procrastination, you um just
dive in and start. And it sounds like a cop
out to say the trick did not procrastinating, it's just
to start, but it's true. And they point out that
a lot of people can be frozen and and I
was sort of like this with my backyard when we
moved into my house. It was like it looked like
(28:15):
a junkyard, like a barren dirt junkyard. And it was
literally one of those things where I walked back when
we first moved in and I was just like, where
do I start. I was paralyzed. I was like, I
don't know what to do. And then you pulled that
first weed and within two hours you had a brand
new backyard. Well that's the point, though, is start small
and be like, you know what, just let me do
(28:35):
this one thing, and as long as you get that
ball rolling, chances are you will continue little by little
and eventually look back and be like, wow, I've actually
gotten a lot done in the past six years. And
apparently it doesn't even have to be um at. You
don't even have to start at the beginning, Like you
didn't have to start at this specific corner you could
walked in the middle and started messing with whatever. Um.
(28:59):
So the yeah, there's some traps we talked earlier about, um,
the techniques that don't work. Apparently, some techniques not only
don't don't help you achieve your goals, they actually are detrimental.
They're deletrious to your achieving your goals. I'm sorry, they're
(29:19):
detrious to you achieving your goals. Um. So, for example,
if you make a goal way too specific, um, you
you might get stuck on that one aspect of it
rather and forget the overall part. So, um, let's say
you wanted to be a better guitar player, and that
was your overall goal, but your goal was to be
(29:42):
able to play carry on my wayward son, and you
focus on, you focus on it's just not working. It's
just not working. Perhaps you just wasted a bunch of
time um working on uh Stairway to Heaven, um that
you would have mastered very quickly and gained confidence from
and then exp board, and rather you're just facing frustration
(30:02):
after frustration. You also don't want to have too many
goals at once because then you're just that's just pine
the sky stuff. Uh. And then you also don't want
your goals to be too terribly short term. Okay, So
like you want to be a better guitar player, right,
(30:22):
that's pretty good. Why not be playing sold out arenas eventually?
Isn't that an even better goal loser? It is? Okay?
Or actually a good example of that is with my
little plan now with the wait thing, like the weekly thing,
there is an overarching two month and four month goal,
(30:45):
so it's sort of that sort of lines up with that,
like it's not just week to week. It's week to
week with a two month and a four month in mind,
but not just two months and four months. Like I
have to break down. I can't set a goal for
a year out. I've got to break it down. But
I wonder, um if if you set a goal for
(31:07):
two months or three months, yeah, um, and it was
to like lose x amount of weight or go to
the gym x number of times or whatever, But then
you set it, after you set those goals, a larger
overarching goal to be you know, to have like some
better get better, better cholesterol score a year from now
or something like that. Would that work or would it
set you personally? Would it set you back in your
(31:28):
two shorter term goals, if you then made a longer
term goal after this the shorter ones were made. U
So like if I met the two months in the
four months, if I made one for like a year
after that, yeah, or you didn't even meet him. You
were just like in the midst of them. You're started
to have them kind of like under control, and you're like, Okay,
I might actually meet these. I'm I'm in the thick
of them. Why not just maybe set a longer term goal.
(31:50):
I think that would work, which goes fits in the
model of achieving goals can gain gain you confidence? Well,
I just got my degree in organizational psychology. Just now,
you watched to happen. Very nice, tricky son of a
you know what, let's see what else, chuck. Uh, Well,
(32:11):
I know that. Um, people talk about the younger generation
people in there like twenties and early thirties or h
actually a little more goal goal oriented now then maybe
perhaps they were ten years ago. Uh And is that right? Yeah?
And I think, uh, people, especially women, there's a big
(32:35):
movement for turning thirty is like a big big thing
now and it's always been a big thing. But like
they're all these blogs now where these women have these
goals where I want to do this by the time
I'm thirty or I'm turning turning you know, I'm twenty nine,
I'm turning thirty, and I want to get this done
in the next year, like sort of a uh pre
middle aged bucket list type of thing. And I think
(32:56):
that Eat, Pray Love book had something to do with that,
and that would be the bucket list. Yeah. Yeah, I
actually another guy who I think he wrote it. He
was a fellow p A with me in l A.
Oh yeah, and now he's like some big time movie guy.
That's a pretty big time he had technical he was
pulling the strings of Nicholson and Um Freeman. Um. But
(33:19):
we know a girl, actually a girl who worked on
our our TV pilot, Laura has um a blog twenty
nine turning thirty where she wanted to do something new
every day for a year, and uh, I read it
from timetime. I think it's kind of cool. And they're
not always huge things like one might be like, ah,
make a make a bake a turkey for Thanksgiving, like
(33:43):
something she had never done before in the middle of July.
Or one might be go skydiving, like there are larger ones,
but every single day she wants to do something every day.
Huh Yeah, I think it's cool. Yeah, it's kind of interesting,
and that's both short term and long term. Um, but
also I wonder that like will be done with that.
I see what you're saying now when you reference the
(34:03):
bucket list that we have become Like the seventies and eighties,
it was very goal or in but it seemed more organizational,
and now it seems like it's transition more to personal
goal setting like that just doing a bunch of stuff.
I guess the point is is what will be done
when you know that person turns thirty? Um? What will
be done when somebody finishes the bucket list? And then
there it's kind of sitting around like waiting to die,
(34:26):
Like there's a there's in this article that you put together.
Um it was, you know, there's the pro goal setting,
there was the goal can be goal setting can be
good and bad, and there was kind of the anti
goal setting. And one of the things from the anti
goal setting seemed to suggest like do we even need goals?
Do we do we need to set them? Or is
(34:49):
it really actually kind of a bad psychotic thing to
to set it. To set goals especially, is like a
regular habit. You know, if you are overweight and you
want to lose weight, and you want to lose weight,
maybe goal study is a good thing. But if throughout
your normal day or your normal life, is goal setting
a good thing? And I really think we kind of
tapped it on the shoulder at the beginning, yeah, when
(35:12):
we said it's kind of tailored to the individual. It
is with the wait things. Some people might do very
well with the poundage goal and not do crazy things. Um,
some people might do better with you know what, I'm
gonna start out this week by not eating sweets and
going to the gym three times. Right, But isn't there
(35:33):
also a voice in there somewhere And it seems like
there's not these days, especially in the West, for the
people who said I'm happy being fat, Well, yeah, that
that is one of the things one of these psychologists
points out is the detriment of goals is that sort
of puts a taint on personal acceptance, right, you know,
(35:53):
because the idea is if I didn't meet my goal,
that means I have failed, and then I'm not good
enough as I was and still not good enough because
I didn't reach that goal. But even beyond setting a
goal and failing, is there a place in this world
and for people who don't set goals, who are not
not like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, but somebody who like
(36:16):
you know, has a job, goes to work, but isn't
like out there like I'm gonna make an extra fifty
k this year. I'm I'm um, I'm gonna have three
kids in one year. Watch this, it's crazy, you know
that kind of thing, like just setting setting goals that
like like this is my life and it has to
lurch forward. Somebody's just like, I'm pretty happy. I've got
cable TV. It keeps me pretty happy all the time.
(36:39):
I my cars beat her, but I mean it still
gets me to and from work. I kind of like
my boss. I don't want his job, but um, I'm
pretty happy where I am. My wife and kids love me.
I love them. We get to go on really you know,
um poor vacations, but we go on vacations together and
I spend time with them. Like those people are being
(37:00):
edged out by goal setting in this country. That was
me and still is to a large part. Oh yeah, definitely.
But at the same time, I feel like you have
struck something of a healthy balance though too. I feel
like you can make your life progress, uh by leaps
and bounds, by setting goals and achieving them. But I
think we should all be aware that there is a
(37:21):
cost to that, and it's frequently your comfort. Yeah you know, wow,
good stuff. This isn't true about this one. You put together.
Did a good job. I was sure of it. You
said lots of words. So, um, let's see if you
want to learn more about goals. I don't know where
(37:42):
you've learned them on this site, do you no, But
we'd love to hear from you if you have encountered
your own like twenties to thirties young bucket list experience
Chuck does at least. Um, you can learn all about
psychology at how stuff works dot com. Um, we've got
stuff on positive psychology, happiness, all sorts of crazy stuff.
(38:06):
Just type psychology into the search bar how stuff works
dot Com and uh, I said search bar, which means
it's time to plug our happiness audiobook. That's right, that
is a goal. We recorded a Happy in Us audio
book a while ago, and I think it's pretty good interviews.
(38:29):
It's got which is you know, different for us we
normally don't do internet. It was good. We put some
time and effort into it. My niece speaks to that's right,
quotes the Dolly Lama. At the beginning, we got an
email from somebody saying, like that tier that the the
listener up when they heard my niece saying that, and
I was like, yeah, that is cool, but it's good. Yeah,
(38:51):
we have professionals and it goes all over the map. Man.
We we explore whether happiness is a good thing, whether
it's a bad thing. It was just good. I'm proud
of it. I like it. There's also a Happy our
super Stuff Guide to the Economy right next to it. Yeah.
Is that still relevant? Yes, because it was about economics.
It wasn't if we didn't even mention the bailout at
(39:13):
it was fairly ever, it's about the money supply, it
was about supplying demand. It was about classical versus um
versus Kanzie and economics. Yeah, you're right, it was good. Okay,
they're both worth it, and they're both but like four
or five bucks I think. So we're we're working on
getting them elsewhere hopefully, But You can definitely get them
on iTunes right now if you look hard enough. That's right.
(39:35):
It's good iTunes in the search in the store and
search stuff you should know super stuff guy, No, bring
both from off, that's right. If you want to get
in touch with me and Chuck with your bucket list,
you can tweet to us a very short bucket list
s y s K podcast. You can uh go on Facebook,
Facebook dot com slash stuff. You should know the new
(39:57):
timeline page that I hate if you love of I
don't know anybody that likes that, and some people did.
Some people like you're just old. You were just at
to change, and like what that's crazy? Like, no, it's
kind of clunky and weird. These are the same people
who tell you it's okay to have the extra Claire Hunt.
That's right. Uh. You can also set a goal to
email us um and you can achieve it by addressing
(40:20):
it to stuffed podcast at Discovery dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, does it how
stuff works dot Com brought to you by the reinvented
(40:42):
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to you stuff you should
know from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. With me is always
this Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and he's here because he
(00:22):
decided to be here and he met that goal. You're
a successful human being, Chuck. I wake up every day
and I set goals for myself. Do you like, just
get out of bed, Get out of bed, take that
shower takes from Josh. Good again, clean those armpits, Chuck. Done,
good going, Chuck. You're a real go getter. Uh. Yes,
(00:44):
I have a bit of an intro. Okay, slightly anecdotal.
It's not necessarily newsy. Maybe this time last year it
was Newsy. But um, Chuck, you heard of the occupy movement?
Of course. Yeah, if you go down West Peachtree, you'll
see like Babe fourteen stouthearted Peel's still there. Man. Yeah,
hats off to him. Um, But the the whole occupied
(01:07):
movement one of the big criticisms of it that I remember,
and I think it's still floated pretty frequently because I
was just discussing this with my aunt and Umi, right,
and my aunts and old Lefty and um, she has
like very pronounced ideas about the occupy movement, what a
great thing it is and all that, right, Um and
she she was saying, we were talking about whether or
(01:29):
not a successful and one of the criticisms of the
occupy movements that they didn't have any goals. They were
goalless and so how could you ever think about being
successful if there's no goals? Right, So my aunt was saying, well, no,
they were successful in like spreading awareness that there's like
a plutocracy and you know, there's this one percent and
(01:51):
they're in charge. So they were successful like that. They
didn't need a goal. And that's kind of part of
the point. You We made the point that um we
the Arab spring that it was based on all had goals.
They had a stated goal and mostly it was getting
this one person out of power. So there was a
measure of success or failure. And most of the time
it was a success, right, or at least there was
(02:13):
an ongoing, continued goal. So when I said that, though,
when I was like, well, you know, they didn't have
any goals, I feel like such a shmell, like just
a corporate like dude, It's like, well, they didn't have
any goals, so they failed at it. And I'm curious, Like,
I feel like we in this country are very much
obsessed with goals and we are um, we equate success
(02:37):
with goals, reaching your goals and not just here. No,
but it seems like the West, the West. Okay, um,
I think we should explore that. Okay, without any research whatsoever,
let's just start talking right now. Well, I was, I was.
It was interesting reading in this research because I was.
I was kind of all over the place, Like part
(02:58):
of me was like, because we're gonna talk about like
sometimes goals are great, sometimes there's a downside to them,
and here's sometimes you can achieve them, sometimes you won't. Um.
I was vacillating all over the place with it. Emotionally,
it was I was on a roller coaster. I was like, Man,
goals aren't that great to set? Sometimes you should just
be mindful and prideful about doing great. No, you can't
(03:23):
be prideful if you're a religious type, because probably it
is a sin. He wants that to do with the
goals though, well, you're saying you have to be prideful.
You can't be prideful. You're hands strong if you're religious.
Right out of the gate, Okay, I'm talking about myself. Uh,
And then other parts of me said, no, you know,
goals are great, and so I think where I landed
was sometimes goals are great. Sometimes there they shouldn't be around. Yeah.
(03:47):
I guess that it probably is context specific and individual
specific and all. Um. But at the same time, I
think part of the problem is, like with this obsession,
is that they're we try to figure out how to
streamline things, whether it's achieving goals or whatever, and so
we try to shove a one size fits all things
(04:09):
down people's throats. And in this case with goals, it's
set goals and achieve them or be unsuccessful. Yeah. And
there's also sort of two parts to this which will
be intermingled, which is um, personal goals and like corporate
type goals. And it's interesting if you look up goals
on the internet, Um, you gotta go a long way
(04:31):
to get past financial advice. Almost everything is like financial goals.
Financial goals. If you're twenty, you can think about retirement, yeah,
stuff like that, or you run into that guy who's
like go and for those of you who are like
blinking in disbelief, Yes, we're talking about goals, g O
(04:51):
A L S. And let's define what we're talking about.
Everyone has an idea of goals, but we don't want
it to get confused with um something like uh um drive, ambition,
um intention. So say, Chuck, you are you're like, I
want to I want to be a guitar player. That's
(05:11):
an intention, right, Yeah, I want to be a good
guitar player. Saying a good guitar player would be a goal.
That wouldn't I guess, But you want to play guitar. Okay,
we'll just say that's an intention saying I want to
be you know, am, I want to be able. I
want to be a performing quality guitar player within the
next six months. That's a goal, right, that's a stated goal.
(05:33):
Or I want to learn the solo for carry on
my wayward Son by next Thursday night. You better man,
you've got that show my kansascover band. You've been You've
been talking a lot of smack. You better be able
to deliver. Uh. My kansascover band is actually called wayward Son.
Oh yeah, every Kansas cover band is called wayward son. Yeah,
we have a club. Uh so where should we start?
(05:55):
Should we start with the downside of goals? And then
some of the more positives and like how to achieve
the merder? Let's talk about goals and how to achieve them?
There are this is There's been a tremendous amount of
study since the seventies and eighties, especially in um organizational psychology.
The field of psychology is to blame for a goal obsession.
I guess a lot of people say, yeah, and especially
(06:16):
in the seventies and eighties, not just starting there, but
that was when people were way into that kind of thing. Yeah. Um,
my family has this book, you know, the family bookshelf
from like stuff like that, like what color is your parachute? Um,
there's one that I still have never I've never been
brave enough to crack it open because I don't want
to like accidentally just get the snippet of information and
(06:38):
I'm ruined as a creative person. But it's called, um,
becoming a more creative person. You could tell it's like
a goal oriented self help book to become more creative?
Is this at your dad's house? Yeah, it's that my house.
Now I've adopted it. Maybe it's like it's one of
those have never opened it up. So, um, what I
(07:01):
bring up psychology because there's a lot there's been a
decent amount of study that under certain circumstances, you know, goals,
setting goals can be helpful. Right. The problem is if
you go to the internet or you get one of
those self help books, or you start listening to self
help gurus, you're gonna get um a lot of information
(07:22):
and not all of it is good. Um. But of
course all you can do is sort of study and
ask questions on people who do reach their goals. Uh.
So it's kind of hard to determine what is good advice.
But um, I thought this one article in particular was
pretty good because they listened out ten things, only about
half of which were good advice. But you will find
(07:43):
these ten things listed commonly and they are should we
just go through them? Uh? Number one step by step plan.
Make a step by step plan to motivate yourself by
focusing on someone else who has achieved a similar goal,
Like look at Josh with smoking and he lost a
lot of weight, and think about me all the time
(08:03):
all the time. Drive yourself mad. Number three, tell other
people about your goal. You hear that a lot, so
you're sort of publicly accountable. Um. Think about bad things
that will happen if you do not achieve the goal.
I think that's negative recently, Okay, go ahead. Number five.
Talk about the good things that happened if you do
achieve the goal. UM Number six. Suppress unhelpful or negative
(08:26):
thoughts about your goal. Number seven. Reward yourself for making progress.
Number eight. Rely on will power. Number nine record your progress.
Number ten. Fantasize or visualize how great your life is
going to be when you achieve that goal. So those
are ten that probably the top ten techniques, according to
a psychologist named Richard Wiseman, who wrote a book I
(08:46):
believe in two thousand ten called fifty nine seconds about
goal setting and goal achievement. Right, those are the top
ten techniques cold from thousands of people. Do you want
to give him the big surprise? The big twist to
that list? That list has a twist to it, Chuck had.
Half of them are proven to make goal achievement harder.
(09:07):
That's right. Uh. The the even numbered ones were ones
that people who try those techniques usually don't succeed it
at meeting their goals. The odd number ones were proven
techniques that UM that Wiseman found, uh, we're commonly used
by people who set a goal and met it. And sadly,
(09:28):
in his study of the thousands of participants who had
like stated goals like quitting smoking, losing x amount of weight,
whatever it was, UM, only ten percent of them met
their goals. But of those ten percent, those odd numbered
techniques were the ones that that were that proved successful. Right.
And he gives on to point out that you can't
(09:50):
prove that that caused It's one of those causation things.
Correlated does not prove causations, right, So quickly again the
odd number ones, these are ones that would help you
out make the step by step plan um. And there's
all kinds of articles on being concrete with your goals. Yeah,
and also it breaks them down into um sub goals
(10:13):
or something smaller in bite size. So like this big
amorphous goal like becoming a good guitar player in six
months becomes you know, I don't know anything about guitars,
but learning this chord today and then this and when
you put it all together and you've been keeping track
and writing it down, it's it's it's controllable. Your control
freak for doing this in the first place, and now
(10:34):
you are able to graphically display that habit. That's right. Uh,
so make the plan. Tell other people about your goal.
They say that's a good thing to do. Um, think
about the good things that will happen. But they say
to draw the line at like fantasyland, right, don't do that. No,
Like when once you find yourself bathing in a lake
of chocolate, you've gone too far. And also, I want
(10:55):
to say, um, telling other people about your goal. You know,
there's like whole website set up like publicly shame you
to keep you on track when you're sending when you're
doing a goal. There's this guy I wish you could
remember his name. He did. He He came up with
basically the Twitter diet, where you tweet to your followers Okay,
I'm gonna do this, and then every day you weigh
(11:16):
yourself and you tweet the results, and then if you've
gained a little weight, everybody on you and calls you
a loser or whatever. Keeps you on your on on track,
And apparently it's been proven to work. There's other ones
where you you log in and you track your progress
and as long as you're not a liar, it shows
that it keeps you on track. Um for things like
(11:39):
quinning smoke or something like that. If you go and
say I had a cigarette today or whatever, this thing
will actually deduct a certain amount from your bank account
that's connected to it to pay paler and they just
take your money, like say, every time I have a cigarette,
I have to pay twenty bucks. And when you go
on and and keep track, this thing just takes your
money out of your account and it's been shown to work.
(12:01):
And that interesting because people like money exactly. I love money,
you know. I've thought about declaring something like on a
weight loss plan to like the stuff you should know army,
because that's a good They keep you honest for sure. Well,
but they're too supportive on most people will be like,
oh it's okay, Chuck, you had any layer, like, don't
worry about it, we still love you. It's like, no
one would hold my feet to the buyer. You think
(12:23):
you know, you do pose a pretty good is I
think you might be right. I mean people would be
very encouraging, but I think they would like you know,
I see, I see what you mean you need some
sort of um huh, it's too bad that we don't
have like, um, I don't know, like a fitness podcast
or something like that. Those people really hold you to it, dude,
(12:46):
give a shot. Oh, I don't know, give it. Give
it a shot, America, Chuck. Chuck is going to need
his feet held to the fire, and you're gonna do
it well. On that note, though, what I'm doing now
is I found that a poundage goal. It's just in
getting on that scale is no good. So I'm working
on like literally weekly in daily goals, Like I've got
(13:09):
my little calendar up on my refrigerator and my little
marker next to it, and I mark publicly in my
household if I went to the gym that day, and
the goal each week is, you know, four times a week,
good for you, and the week said I don't go
four times, it's I'm sitting there looking at it, and
it's shaming. I think you mean and I are going
to go in together and get Emily a riding crop
(13:31):
to smack your thighs with. Every time you you don't get,
you don't reach your daily goal. Yeah, the poundage goal
just I had someone tell me He's like, don't get
on a scale, just like, well, if you want a
way to obsess, like there, you have it right there.
But it also it works for some people. And exactly
we're coming around right here, like if that makes sense
to you and you have, then do that. But it
(13:52):
works for some people. For other people it's just a
little too much, okay, So quickly the remaining odd things
that should help you reward your self for making progress, um.
And that doesn't mean if you're dieting, I'm trying to
lose weight. You reward yourself with like the hot fudge
Sunday necessarily um, and then record your progress. And that
(14:14):
all ties into the accountability and writing stuff down instead
of just visualizing and thinking about things. They say to
be really concrete, like write it down, look at it,
make it physical and real, right, And that's why they
think that goals work. When they work, is they take
things out of the subjective and put them into the objective.
(14:34):
So um. The there was a study from the seventies
Bandur and Simon, And I can't remember Bandura's name, but
his name is really familiar to me. He came up
with something else. I guess it was habit formation. But um,
they they figured out that. I guess they took a
bunch of severely obese people and divided them into so
(14:55):
the control group was told to just do their best
at losing weight. The other group, um, we're told, like,
you need to lose x number pounds by this weekend,
x number pounds by this week. There they set goals,
and um they lost something like twice, you know, twice
as much. The people who said the goals lost twice
(15:15):
as much of the people who were just told to
do their best. And I think it's probably because it's
just saying I have something to focus on, to pay attention,
to quantify my progress, rather than you know, what is
doing your best means? Well, there's ambiguity there because someone
might said, well I did my best, and my best
just isn't good enough. Well we'll get to that in
(15:37):
a little bit, and that's that's absolutely correct. And then
not not just with weight loss, I mean like people
during this whole goal obsessed seventies and eighties, Um, there
there were studies of how setting goals could reduce like
accidents in the workplace, um, how they could reduce sick days.
Like it became an obsession with companies, Yeah, to basically
(16:01):
say like, hey, everybody set a goal and we're going
to make a bunch of money. Um. And there's there's
also this thing called stretch goals. I've never heard of
that I had neither, and I was like that smacks
of corporate buzz speak. You're gonna look that up and
hanging fruit. It was. Yeah, stretch goals was coined by
the legendary um G E CEO Jack Welch, and he
(16:25):
basically said, like, a stretch goal is something that you
some virtually unattainable goal that you give to your employees
to shake them out of their out of their ruts basically,
which isn't great people are finding out no companies. At
least it does bring us to a two question though, Chuck, Like,
(16:47):
this whole the whole point of what we're talking about
is there is why don't why can't we just achieve
our goals when we're the only obstacle. Well, Um, there's
been a little research done on the brain, and research
does show that the brain tries to protect you from
(17:07):
change really, um, like anything that's scary or fearful, um,
which could be any kind of change in your patterns
in your daily habits is threatening basically, but not only that.
Like even remember when we were talking about chunking and
habit formation on the video podcast. Yeah, same thing. The
brain is looking for a way to streamline a process
(17:27):
so that it can use up the least amount of
energy possible in carrying out something. And the way to
do that is just get you to do the same
thing over and over again. Habit formation. So our brains
are naturally inclined, we think at this point in the
this this point in neuroscience to finding the path of
least resistance in carrying out something. So that's habit formation.
(17:51):
Aubrey Daniels has a book called oops Uh Thirteen Management
practices that Waste time and money, and he argues that
the stretch goals are not good for your company because,
um he's his sided studies that when people and departments
failed to reach their goals, then there's a performance decline afterward.
(18:12):
So you set up these almost unattainable goals and it's
sort of a big bummer for everyone when you don't
reach them. Yeah, especially if they've they've been really really
working hard to achieve them. I imagine there's like an
aftermath where you're just like, well, what's the point in
any of this? If sure, we're gonna work our tails
off and still fail. Well, And that's one of the
(18:34):
points is that with goals, it's sort of looked at
as a past failed thing you could. I mean, I
guess some some managers are better at saying, well, we
we got towards our goal, and that's really great, But
most of the time it's we didn't reach our goal,
so we failed, right, and that's Um. That's an inherent
problem with goals, is what we were talking about with
(18:55):
subjectivity and objectivity, where just do your best or raise
a hundred thousand dollars in six months? Sure, right, Um.
The good thing about goals is that they take away
that subjectivity, but at the same time, like you were saying,
they set you up for the measure of success is perfection,
(19:16):
and um, that can be a problem for losers. Adam
Glinski is a professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management,
and he is a co author of a book called
Goals Gone Wild. Very clever, but he has a quote
in here I thought was really relevant, and he says
that goal setting has been treated like an over the
counter medication when it should really be treated with more
(19:37):
care as a prescription strength of medication. Yeah, and I
think you're too willy nilly with it right. Well, yeah,
it's it seems like a way to solve a big
problem all at once. And there is a dude named
sim Uh sikin At Duke who did a study of
companies that do stretch goals, and a stretch goal, UM
(19:57):
and a way to quantify it says to uh, to
be like the number eleven in flight magazine in the country,
and to say, Uh, you're you're gonna be number one
in two quarters. We're gonna be the number one in
flight magazine in the country two quarters. Yeah, that's a
that's a huge stretch goal. And they found sim Sitkin,
(20:21):
who's got one of the better business school professor's names
of all time. UM found that companies that engage in
stretch goals typically are already desperate and embattled and um,
if they fail at the stretch goal, they're in big trouble.
Like it's a last ditch thing, and it's a lot
(20:41):
to ask of your employees, and it's kind of unfair.
Rather than saying, okay, you know what's wrong with our
organization that led us to this point? How else can
how can we do this incrementally? It's kind of like
a hail Mary passes a stretch goal. Uh. Interestingly too,
they've also found out that UM setting goals that PETE
will don't meet lead people to unethical behavior, like when
(21:02):
they're tasked to keep track of their own goals and
report they will lie UM when they don't reach their goals. Yeah,
just to say they have reached that you know, ethereal goal.
But it's also you're asking somebody in as many words
and not so many words, did you are you a success?
Or are you a failure? When you're saying did you
reach your goal or not? And UM. The other the
(21:25):
other aspect of UM unethical behavior related to goal setting
is this UM the idea that when you focus on
a goal, it's your it's easier to compromise your everyday
morality to achieve that goal. And apparently like that's that's
a that's a possible outcome of of goal setting is
(21:48):
that people just start kind of cutting corners and cheating
and writing whatever they need to to achieve that goal.
Slash be successful well or do weird and dangerous things
like my father who like ate soup every day for
like a year and that's it, like a bowl of
soup and wore like one of those plastic suits around
(22:10):
and then like July heat in Atlanta, or you know,
I just won't eat anymore. Or although he I think
he ate like cabbage soup for literally like six or
eight months straight and it's it's not like it's not healthy.
You know. That's a great example. Is something he otherwise
wouldn't have done. That's kind of dangerous. Um it's also
(22:30):
uh so it's dangerous. It can lead to unethical behavior.
Another downside that people have suggested about goals is that, um,
they they can keep you from learning. Yeah, you're so
focused on this goal number. And then you're combined with
the fact that your brain is in the habit formation,
so it's trying to figure out the easiest way to
(22:51):
do this one thing that you end up with tunnel
vision and you possibly miss all sorts of other opportunities
or ways of learning to do this thing better. They
may have nothing to do with the goal, but way
to achieve that goal because you you have blinders on
goal setting off in is related to blinders like keep
your eyes on the prize. Yeah, and we're kind of
(23:12):
slipping here in and out of um organizational goals and
personal goals. Um, but they do they do share some
common downsides. Yeah. What I liked in this research was
towards the end of it where uh, some more forward
thinking companies are concentrating less on uh a number goal
(23:34):
that everyone has to meet and more on what's called mindfulness, UM,
being in the moment, being present, rather than focusing on
the future. So this part stunk of positive psychology to me. Yeah,
but I kind of like it. I think mindfulness and
uh personal like your goal for me, Like I don't
(23:56):
set goals like with the podcast, other than doing all
some job like I don't, I don't want. We don't
have no wonder we've been lagging lately in the ratings, Chuck,
Like the ratings are nice, but you and I don't
sit down and say like we want to be number
five this week or we want this many downloads. It's
more like you wake up and you just like, I
(24:18):
want to do a great job today and be mindful
and in the moment of that, And I know that's
all hippie dippy but it's hippie talking. Um. Okay, So
for those of you who do want to keep your
eye on the ball and you do carry out goals
and you set goals, right, what what are in addition
to those you know, um steps you just gave to
(24:40):
the setting goals. One of the things that they have
to overcome, it feels like, is a procrastination. I thought
this was interesting. Yeah, this is a really good interjection
here was Um. One of the things that keeps you
from achieving a goal, um is just putting off taking
it up right, and that whole like journey of a
(25:02):
thousand miles begins with one step kind of thing. If
that's not working, he tried the tree falling in the
woods thing. No, Buddhist like, Um, yeah, are are working? Um.
You should hear about this effect, the Zigarnic effect Yea
or ziger Nick. This was named for a Russian psychologist,
(25:22):
Blooma ziger Nick. Although I said that like she was German,
I don't do a good Russian. At least you didn't
do a British accent for that. Yeah. Thanks. Um. She
noticed something while she was eating at a restaurant in Vienna. Reportedly,
she saw and I'm not quite sure I understand how
(25:43):
it initially dawned on her, but she saw that waiters
only seemed to remember orders which were in process of
being served. Once we were completed, they forgot about them. Yeah.
Like if if you went up to a waiter, uh,
after they took the order and was waiting on another
table and asked them about the order they just took,
they could repeat it to you. But after they brought
the food out and maybe the show was made, if
(26:05):
you asked the waiter what that order was, they would
have no idea. Or they came back and they were like,
how's your steak, and you're like, I had the chicken, yeah,
and they go commit. So she did a little studying
on this and some other people, uh. And this was
in the nineteen twenties, and then later on Kenneth McGraw
um sixty years later did some studies on the Zigern effect,
(26:25):
basically asking people to do puzzles and string beads together
and do certain tasks, and then they would interrupt them
sometimes and then quiz them afterward on what they remember doing.
And I think more people remembered who had been interrupted
than who had completed the tasks and yes, so that's significant,
(26:46):
equally significant, And that Kenneth McGraw study was that, UM,
something like of the people who were interrupted in the
task and told that they were done, they didn't have
to complete it, continued to complete it anyway. That would
be yes. That would drive me nuts. If I like,
if they gave me a puzzle to do and they're
like ten pieces of left and he said now get
on out of here, I would freak out. I would
(27:07):
obsess about that the rest of the day, so and
then forget about it the whole The whole point of
this is that we have some sort of drive to
complete a task once we've started it. So the key
to overcoming procrastination, as it relates to the zigger neck
effect UM, is to just dive in somewhere, anywhere, anything,
(27:30):
it depending on And they've found and follow up studies
UM that if this, if the goal is just too lofty,
or if you really couldn't care less about the goal, UM,
the ziggerneck effect is likely to not have that much
of an effect. But if you do, you know, you're
you're taking an order for money and you need to
remember it, UM, and you're interrupted, you're going to remember
(27:53):
this right, um To get around procrastination, you um just
dive in and start. And it sounds like a cop
out to say the trick did not procrastinating, it's just
to start, but it's true. And they point out that
a lot of people can be frozen and and I
was sort of like this with my backyard when we
moved into my house. It was like it looked like
(28:15):
a junkyard, like a barren dirt junkyard. And it was
literally one of those things where I walked back when
we first moved in and I was just like, where
do I start. I was paralyzed. I was like, I
don't know what to do. And then you pulled that
first weed and within two hours you had a brand
new backyard. Well that's the point, though, is start small
and be like, you know what, just let me do
(28:35):
this one thing, and as long as you get that
ball rolling, chances are you will continue little by little
and eventually look back and be like, wow, I've actually
gotten a lot done in the past six years. And
apparently it doesn't even have to be um at. You
don't even have to start at the beginning, Like you
didn't have to start at this specific corner you could
walked in the middle and started messing with whatever. Um.
(28:59):
So the yeah, there's some traps we talked earlier about, um,
the techniques that don't work. Apparently, some techniques not only
don't don't help you achieve your goals, they actually are detrimental.
They're deletrious to your achieving your goals. I'm sorry, they're
(29:19):
detrious to you achieving your goals. Um. So, for example,
if you make a goal way too specific, um, you
you might get stuck on that one aspect of it
rather and forget the overall part. So, um, let's say
you wanted to be a better guitar player, and that
was your overall goal, but your goal was to be
(29:42):
able to play carry on my wayward son, and you
focus on, you focus on it's just not working. It's
just not working. Perhaps you just wasted a bunch of
time um working on uh Stairway to Heaven, um that
you would have mastered very quickly and gained confidence from
and then exp board, and rather you're just facing frustration
(30:02):
after frustration. You also don't want to have too many
goals at once because then you're just that's just pine
the sky stuff. Uh. And then you also don't want
your goals to be too terribly short term. Okay, So
like you want to be a better guitar player, right,
(30:22):
that's pretty good. Why not be playing sold out arenas eventually?
Isn't that an even better goal loser? It is? Okay?
Or actually a good example of that is with my
little plan now with the wait thing, like the weekly thing,
there is an overarching two month and four month goal,
(30:45):
so it's sort of that sort of lines up with that,
like it's not just week to week. It's week to
week with a two month and a four month in mind,
but not just two months and four months. Like I
have to break down. I can't set a goal for
a year out. I've got to break it down. But
I wonder, um if if you set a goal for
(31:07):
two months or three months, yeah, um, and it was
to like lose x amount of weight or go to
the gym x number of times or whatever, But then
you set it, after you set those goals, a larger
overarching goal to be you know, to have like some
better get better, better cholesterol score a year from now
or something like that. Would that work or would it
set you personally? Would it set you back in your
(31:28):
two shorter term goals, if you then made a longer
term goal after this the shorter ones were made. U
So like if I met the two months in the
four months, if I made one for like a year
after that, yeah, or you didn't even meet him. You
were just like in the midst of them. You're started
to have them kind of like under control, and you're like, Okay,
I might actually meet these. I'm I'm in the thick
of them. Why not just maybe set a longer term goal.
(31:50):
I think that would work, which goes fits in the
model of achieving goals can gain gain you confidence? Well,
I just got my degree in organizational psychology. Just now,
you watched to happen. Very nice, tricky son of a
you know what, let's see what else, chuck. Uh, Well,
(32:11):
I know that. Um, people talk about the younger generation
people in there like twenties and early thirties or h
actually a little more goal goal oriented now then maybe
perhaps they were ten years ago. Uh And is that right? Yeah?
And I think, uh, people, especially women, there's a big
(32:35):
movement for turning thirty is like a big big thing
now and it's always been a big thing. But like
they're all these blogs now where these women have these
goals where I want to do this by the time
I'm thirty or I'm turning turning you know, I'm twenty nine,
I'm turning thirty, and I want to get this done
in the next year, like sort of a uh pre
middle aged bucket list type of thing. And I think
(32:56):
that Eat, Pray Love book had something to do with that,
and that would be the bucket list. Yeah. Yeah, I
actually another guy who I think he wrote it. He
was a fellow p A with me in l A.
Oh yeah, and now he's like some big time movie guy.
That's a pretty big time he had technical he was
pulling the strings of Nicholson and Um Freeman. Um. But
(33:19):
we know a girl, actually a girl who worked on
our our TV pilot, Laura has um a blog twenty
nine turning thirty where she wanted to do something new
every day for a year, and uh, I read it
from timetime. I think it's kind of cool. And they're
not always huge things like one might be like, ah,
make a make a bake a turkey for Thanksgiving, like
(33:43):
something she had never done before in the middle of July.
Or one might be go skydiving, like there are larger ones,
but every single day she wants to do something every day.
Huh Yeah, I think it's cool. Yeah, it's kind of interesting,
and that's both short term and long term. Um, but
also I wonder that like will be done with that.
I see what you're saying now when you reference the
(34:03):
bucket list that we have become Like the seventies and eighties,
it was very goal or in but it seemed more organizational,
and now it seems like it's transition more to personal
goal setting like that just doing a bunch of stuff.
I guess the point is is what will be done
when you know that person turns thirty? Um? What will
be done when somebody finishes the bucket list? And then
there it's kind of sitting around like waiting to die,
(34:26):
Like there's a there's in this article that you put together.
Um it was, you know, there's the pro goal setting,
there was the goal can be goal setting can be
good and bad, and there was kind of the anti
goal setting. And one of the things from the anti
goal setting seemed to suggest like do we even need goals?
Do we do we need to set them? Or is
(34:49):
it really actually kind of a bad psychotic thing to
to set it. To set goals especially, is like a
regular habit. You know, if you are overweight and you
want to lose weight, and you want to lose weight,
maybe goal study is a good thing. But if throughout
your normal day or your normal life, is goal setting
a good thing? And I really think we kind of
tapped it on the shoulder at the beginning, yeah, when
(35:12):
we said it's kind of tailored to the individual. It
is with the wait things. Some people might do very
well with the poundage goal and not do crazy things. Um,
some people might do better with you know what, I'm
gonna start out this week by not eating sweets and
going to the gym three times. Right, But isn't there
(35:33):
also a voice in there somewhere And it seems like
there's not these days, especially in the West, for the
people who said I'm happy being fat, Well, yeah, that
that is one of the things one of these psychologists
points out is the detriment of goals is that sort
of puts a taint on personal acceptance, right, you know,
(35:53):
because the idea is if I didn't meet my goal,
that means I have failed, and then I'm not good
enough as I was and still not good enough because
I didn't reach that goal. But even beyond setting a
goal and failing, is there a place in this world
and for people who don't set goals, who are not
not like Shaggy from Scooby Doo, but somebody who like
(36:16):
you know, has a job, goes to work, but isn't
like out there like I'm gonna make an extra fifty
k this year. I'm I'm um, I'm gonna have three
kids in one year. Watch this, it's crazy, you know
that kind of thing, like just setting setting goals that
like like this is my life and it has to
lurch forward. Somebody's just like, I'm pretty happy. I've got
cable TV. It keeps me pretty happy all the time.
(36:39):
I my cars beat her, but I mean it still
gets me to and from work. I kind of like
my boss. I don't want his job, but um, I'm
pretty happy where I am. My wife and kids love me.
I love them. We get to go on really you know,
um poor vacations, but we go on vacations together and
I spend time with them. Like those people are being
(37:00):
edged out by goal setting in this country. That was
me and still is to a large part. Oh yeah, definitely.
But at the same time, I feel like you have
struck something of a healthy balance though too. I feel
like you can make your life progress, uh by leaps
and bounds, by setting goals and achieving them. But I
think we should all be aware that there is a
(37:21):
cost to that, and it's frequently your comfort. Yeah you know, wow,
good stuff. This isn't true about this one. You put together.
Did a good job. I was sure of it. You
said lots of words. So, um, let's see if you
want to learn more about goals. I don't know where
(37:42):
you've learned them on this site, do you no, But
we'd love to hear from you if you have encountered
your own like twenties to thirties young bucket list experience
Chuck does at least. Um, you can learn all about
psychology at how stuff works dot com. Um, we've got
stuff on positive psychology, happiness, all sorts of crazy stuff.
(38:06):
Just type psychology into the search bar how stuff works
dot Com and uh, I said search bar, which means
it's time to plug our happiness audiobook. That's right, that
is a goal. We recorded a Happy in Us audio
book a while ago, and I think it's pretty good interviews.
(38:29):
It's got which is you know, different for us we
normally don't do internet. It was good. We put some
time and effort into it. My niece speaks to that's right,
quotes the Dolly Lama. At the beginning, we got an
email from somebody saying, like that tier that the the
listener up when they heard my niece saying that, and
I was like, yeah, that is cool, but it's good. Yeah,
(38:51):
we have professionals and it goes all over the map. Man.
We we explore whether happiness is a good thing, whether
it's a bad thing. It was just good. I'm proud
of it. I like it. There's also a Happy our
super Stuff Guide to the Economy right next to it. Yeah.
Is that still relevant? Yes, because it was about economics.
It wasn't if we didn't even mention the bailout at
(39:13):
it was fairly ever, it's about the money supply, it
was about supplying demand. It was about classical versus um
versus Kanzie and economics. Yeah, you're right, it was good. Okay,
they're both worth it, and they're both but like four
or five bucks I think. So we're we're working on
getting them elsewhere hopefully, But You can definitely get them
on iTunes right now if you look hard enough. That's right.
(39:35):
It's good iTunes in the search in the store and
search stuff you should know super stuff guy, No, bring
both from off, that's right. If you want to get
in touch with me and Chuck with your bucket list,
you can tweet to us a very short bucket list
s y s K podcast. You can uh go on Facebook,
Facebook dot com slash stuff. You should know the new
(39:57):
timeline page that I hate if you love of I
don't know anybody that likes that, and some people did.
Some people like you're just old. You were just at
to change, and like what that's crazy? Like, no, it's
kind of clunky and weird. These are the same people
who tell you it's okay to have the extra Claire Hunt.
That's right. Uh. You can also set a goal to
email us um and you can achieve it by addressing
(40:20):
it to stuffed podcast at Discovery dot com. For more
on this and thousands of other topics, does it how
stuff works dot Com brought to you by the reinvented
(40:42):
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
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