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106 - Goals are for Losers

You’re listening to episode #106 of the Feel Good English podcast, “Goals are for Losers” Uh oh!

Hello there, Kevin here. With another episode of the Feel Good English podcast.

How you feelin? Happy, relaxed, goooood! Good!

It’s already August, more than half way through the year. How are your annual goals coming? Yeah, well, me too.

I am someone who has typically set yearly goals.

In January, with a pen, paper, and a lot of motivation, I plan out my whole year and what I want to see happen.

Well, you know what, my year hasn’t ever really fallen nicely in line with my goals. Can you believe that? Things change. Goals change. Life happens. Opportunities you weren’t expecting come into your life, and often opportunities you were expecting don’t come. It can be frustrating.

But there’s gotta be a better way! And I think I found one. A better way.

I looked for a better approach. One that doesn’t make me feel disappointed in myself when I remember that I haven’t reached my original, yearly goals, because I often don’t reach the original goals I set for myself. I’m realizing more and more how hard it is, especially in business, to plan far in the future when not knowing what will come your way.

Today I am going to talk about goals. But not an inspirational lesson on how to reach every goal you set, but why you shouldn’t live a life focused on goals. It’s unhealthy. And possibly even less productive than another approach.

What’s that other approach? I’m not going to tell you. Well, not yet. Keep listening!

Oooh, that’s smart of me, ay?

I am also going to talk about something that can increase your odds, your chances, of success in life, or business, or both. And it has something to do with being a good English speaker, and not a “great” English speaker. All you need to do is work on becoming a good speaker. Good is “good enough”. Interested? Well, keep listening.

These ideas come from a book called “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big” by Scott Adams. A great book!

Also, something special for you in this episode is a special guest. Have you ever heard the Uncensored English Podcast? It’s a fun, and pretty damn funny podcast created by Keiran, an English teacher and a comedian. Keiran the Crazy Canadian will be on the show today, and I asked him about this topic, “Goals are for Losers”. We can all hear what he has to say on the topic. So don’t go nowhere (that’s bad grammar right there, but who cares?)

If you want to know more about this book; the English I use, and the lessons from today you can find the show notes on my website. I’ll put this one at www.feelgoodenglish.com/fail You can find a link there as well to download the audio book from this lesson. Listen to the whole damn book on your phone, for free. That’s a solid idea! Go to www.feelgoodenglish.com/fail to learn more.

Now let’s get into the lesson, “Goals are For Losers” and learn what to do instead of focusing on goals.

Let’s say you just got a new job. And you’re happy about. It’s a good job. It’s based on your experience, so you think you deserve this new job.

Well, now what? Do you commit to that company for the next 5 years? 10 years? Maybe the rest of your life? Or do you instantly start looking for a new job?

What? Start looking for a new job already?

Well that’s exactly what a guy, the author talks about in this book, did. Scott Adams met this guy on a flight who was the CEO of a very profitable company. Remember Scott Adams is the author of this book. What the company sold wasn’t important to this CEO he met . What was important to him was that he really enjoyed the job, made good money, and enjoyed the perks, the benefits. It was his dream job, you could say.

This CEO had a system that allowed him to eventually land his dream job. And his system he used was this: as soon as he got a new job he would start looking for a new one. Always searching for that dream job. How did he decide on his next position? Well, the new job simply had to be better than the last one. Better in his opinion, whatever that meant to him.

Some might think that this was disrespectful to his employer, getting hired but then instantly looking for something new. Well, his philosophy on that was, quoting from the book;

“His employers wouldn’t have hesitated to fire him at the drop of a hat for any reason that fit their business needs. He simply followed their example.” So basically this guy thought a company, a business would fire him as soon as they needed to. If it fit their own business needs, they wouldn’t hesitate to fire him. So why should he treat them any differently?

What is the significance of this story? It shows you the difference between a “system” and a “goal”, and Scott Adams thinks having a system in place is much better than only setting goals for yourself.

Goals, he thinks, are limiting. If you have a goal you are only focused on the future, your target, and could quite possibly miss opportunities that come your way while you are trying to reach that goal.

Quoting the book again, “With a system you are less likely to miss one opportunity because you were too focused on another. With a system, you are always scanning for any opportunity.”

Just like in the case of the CEO he met on the airplane. He knew that he could find that dream job if he kept looking, and he also knew that the dream job wouldn’t be available only when he was between jobs, or after he had tried working for a company for a while. The dream job could come at anytime, and so he always had to be looking. Always available for that opportunity. And it worked for him.

Let’s look at some other examples of systems vs. goals. I’m going to pull these examples from the book:

“The system-versus-goals model can be applied to most human endeavors. In the world of dieting, losing twenty pounds is a goal, but eating right is a system. In the exercise realm, running a marathon in under four hours is a goal, but exercising daily is a system. In business, making a million dollars is a goal, but being a serial entrepreneur is a system. “

Can you see the difference? A goal is a target. You need to do a bunch of things to get there, but you are focused on the target itself. Whereas a system is a way of doing things to increase your chances of having good things happen, even if you haven’t reached, or never reach your goal.

If you wanted to lose 20 pounds, that was your weight goal, but didn’t have a strong system in place, you have a very frail system. You might just give up on that goal, and even end up gaining weight instead. Oops!

But if your system was to train yourself to eat well, build healthy eating habits, then you would lose weight naturally and might even lose 20 pounds. But the lifestyle of eating healthy would outweigh the goal of losing 20 pounds.

Get it?

What about English. This can be applied here. And I’ve talked about this stuff before.

Here are some English goals:

1. I want to be fluent

2. I want to get great marks on the TOEFL

3. I want to be able to understand movies in English

Cool. Those all sound great. But how could we turn each of these goals into systems?

Turn these goals into systems to make the journey more enjoyable; to create more space for opportunities you might miss if you’re too focused on the goal?

Well, goal number one, you want to become fluent. What’s the system you will use to get there? Everyone’s will be a little different. Finding the tools, resources and tactics you enjoy, building a system based off of those, applying them every day, or as much as possible, that’s a system.

Goal number two, getting great marks on the TOEFL exam. So sure, having a goal gives you direction, I think that’s important. But way more important is the system you set up.

What tools do you need to be able to continuously prepare for the TOEFL? Create a TOEFL preparation system, get good advice on how to do that, and focus on that system.

If you prepare correctly, and build a strong system, your English skills will improve no matter what. Your value will increase because your English skills increased, even if you don’t hit those marks you want on the test.

Goal number three, understand movies in English. Set up a system for that. What could that be? I’ll let you think about that one. What would a system look like to be able to watch a movie in English and follow along with it, with no problem? Think about it, I’ll wait….

Lastly, here are some strong words: Scott Adams thinks goals are for losers.

Quoting the book:

“To put it bluntly, goals are for losers. That’s literally true most of the time. For example, if your goal is to lose ten pounds, you will spend every moment until you reach your goal feeling as if you were short of your goal. In other words, goal-oriented people exist in a state of nearly continuous failure that they hope will be temporary.

That feeling wears on you. In time, it becomes heavy and uncomfortable. If you achieve your goal, you celebrate and feel terrific, but only until you realize you just lost the thing that gave you purpose and direction.”

So, goals are for losers. Not literally for losers, meaning for people who always fail, but if you constantly are trying to reach your goals you will never feel satisfied, always feeling like you haven’t arrived at your destination. You are always “losing” until you reach the goal, but quickly find a new goal to make you feel like you’re losing again. A vicious cycle of feeling like a loser.

And, as I mentioned in the beginning of this episode, I brought on another podcaster, the host of The Uncensored English Podcast by Keiran the Crazy Canadian. Brought him on to talk about this idea with me, goals are for losers.

So let’s get another perspective on this, and let’s hear someone else’s English, and if you have a really good ear you might even hear a little bit of Keiran’s Canadian accent.

So let’s get another perspective on this, and let’s hear someone else’s English, and if you have a really good ear you might even hear a little bit of Keiran’s Canadian accent.

Let’s listen in:

Kevin: So, Keiran I have you with me here, let’s talk a little bit about this topic of “goals are for losers”. So ah, what’s your thoughts on this, goals are for losers, basically if you’re obsessed with creating goals you’re always going to feel inadequate, or that you’re not enough, what do you think about that?

Keiran: Yeah, it’s an interesting idea. I think if you focus too much on the goal you might kind of forget the whole process and enjoy the journey, so in that sense, I could definitely agree with that.

Kevin: Yeah, enjoying the journey that’s a good point. You’re gonna be stressed the whole time, right? You’re not going to be having fun while you’re doing what you’re doing.

Keiran: Yeah and just on this topic I actually have a comedy show coming up on Saturday, and my original goal was one hundred twenty tickets sold, and at the moment I have about ten, which is not, which is not good, you know and I was stressing about it last week and I just thought, “you know what, I’m just going to do my best and we’re going to have a great small show if that’s the case, and once I kind of embraced that then I didn’t really feel so bad anymore.

Kevin You know and that makes sense because imagine, if you just constantly thinking about how you have not sold enough tickets then you might not put more energy into making sure that you give a good show, right? You’ll be distracted by what you don’t have instead, of you know, giving value to what you do have.

Keiran: Right, exactly, and I’m definitely going, after the show look back and see what happened, and maybe something in my system was wrong but, I can see how like, a goal is useful for direction but I’m not going to get hung up on it if i fail. That can be a little toxic .

Kevin: Yeah, and it’s kind of, like you said, looking for issues, what went wrong, and in the book I’m talking about in this episode, he really believes in creating systems, putting energy into systems, as opposed to goals. What does that mean to you?

Keiran: Well that’s really interesting, cuz he’s thinking about how to build the system to accomplish the goal rather than to just get to the goal, and it’s it’s funny cuz, I mean this is just the topic we’re doing, I did a comedy show in May, and I sold using what I thought was the same system, about sixty tickets, and I sold ten this time and I went and looked back and it seems like what I did was a little different. I’m just like, “oh my gosh maybe I accidentally screwed up my own system!”

Kevin: And if you put all the time into like, you know not all the time, you put time into getting, you know, building the skills of how do I sell tickets what do I need to be doing day to day to be selling more tickets and there’s a lot of aspects to a system, I think a system is a lot more, can be a lot more complicated , and requires a lot more skills building than reaching a goal and I think that’s also kind of what it comes down to is, building skills, improving your your skills to be able to reach your so-called “goals” you know?

Keiran: Right right for sure, I mean if you just have a goal and you don’t have a roadmap to you know lead to that goal and that goal is just going to be very depressing for you. So I think that the system is definitely… What’s the book?

Kevin: The title of the book is “How to fail at almost everything and still win Big” cuz says he’s failed at tons of things in his life, and that’s how he’s worked his way to the top.

Keiran: Yeah, dude, I totally believe that, you know, it’s kind of one of those cheesy expressions that you hear repeated over and over again, but you do miss every chance you don’t take. Every time you do something and you fail, you have a huge opportunity to learn from it, and this is not the first failed comedy show I’ve produced.

So I don’t mind, it’s just I’m like OK, it happened again, now I’m going to look back and see, you know, what am I going to tweak? What I’m going to tweak? And I think this time the real big mistake I made is just timing because we just had “Just for Laughs”

It’s the world’s largest Comedy Festival, it ended at the end of July.

Kevin: Ah right, people have heard enough jokes.

Keiran: No they have the best jokes in the world for two weeks and then I’m like “ay, come to my show you know it’s.”

Kevin: I guess it kind of comes down to, more of a confidence thing, confidence in taking risks and putting yourself out there, and seeing what works, and I think for English learners too, that such a huge factor in their success, is how confident they can be in just throwing their English out there and just you know seeing what works seeing 10

which situations are easier than others. If they’re in a difficult situation, that shows them they need to work on that area. If they’re not good at job interviews they need to build confidence in that area. So just having the confidence to look like a fool sometimes, right?

Keiran: Yeah you know you did a podcast that I listened on “The Five Second Rule”

and I honestly think that some of the people who improve faster in English are in my mind, I guess we would call them less intelligent, and what I mean by that is they just they just don’t overthink things, they just act, and I think I’m the kind of person who sometimes I overthink things and you just it just shoot your worry in the head you know?

Interesting concept. What do you think? How important are goals? Is this book discrediting the power of goals? Are systems just the means in which we reach our goals? Let me know your thoughts. Send me an email at kevin@feelgoodenglish.com

So, if we follow this concept of focusing on systems and not goals, we must get deeper with building the necessary skills to be able to create strong systems. Systems that increase our chances of success.

Scott, the author of the book, talks about something called The Success Formula. And what he suggests is that every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success. What does “odds” mean? It’s means your chances of winning, or getting something. So when we acquire new skills we increase our chances, our odds, of success.

And here’s what’s really cool about this. You don’t need to be an expert, the best at something, to increase your chances of success. As the author says, “you raise your market value by being merely good-not extraordinary-at more than one skill.

A couple good skills are better than being excellent at one skill. Unless, as the author points out and I agree, you are the best, the very best in that area. Well, most of us aren’t the best. And that’s ok. Let’s be realistic.

So let’s just say you know how to, develop software, let’s say, you’re good at it, and most people have no idea how to do it, that’s a skill. Let’s add that with another skill to double your chances of success.

What’s another skill we could apply to that?

Well, you, the listener, have a very obvious skill that absolutely doubles your chances of success. What is it? What’s that skill you have? I’ll give you a hint. It’s in the title of my podcast. English! Yes, of course. If you’re a good English speaker you have greatly increased your odds of success in life.

Good for you!

Do you have to be an excellent speaker to increase your odds of success? No. Definitely not. Being a good speaker, not an excellent one, is adequate for 90% of what you’ll do.

Unless you’re an English teacher or translator where English proficiency is the main part of your job, you don’t need to be excellent.

That’s a relief, right? Stop to think about that for a second. If you can understand this podcast, I bet you’re at least a good speaker. And the fact you’re a good English speaker already doubles your chances of success.

Let’s take a moment to think about that. Being a good English speaker, not an excellent English speaker, has already doubled your chances of success in business, life, whatever that may be. Think about that for a second, and smile…..

So, summarizing today’s episode:

If you want to achieve anything, then you need to have a clear set of goals, I agree, you need to know what you’re trying to accomplish. But, being goal obsessed has its flaws, and there’s a much better strategy, which is actually a lot more important. And that is in creating systems instead.

Goals and systems are connected. They contribute to each other’s existence and you can’t be entirely without one or the other. They’re both necessary. You’re going to have to reach certain outcomes to achieve your higher purpose. To get fit and healthy, you’re going to have to lose some weight. In order to be wealthy and financially independent, you have to earn some money. The difference is that systems free you from the outcome and are more consistent.

The next big idea, you can increase your chances of success by gaining new skills.

Getting good at something. You do not need to great at all these skills. It’s quantity over quality. I personally would prefer to be good at 3 foreign languages than reach nativelike fluency in one foreign language. And I think that would increase my marketability. My chances of being successful. What about you? Do you agree?

And don’t forget, you are already a good English speaker, which has doubled your chances of success. Good for you!

Thanks for listening to another episode. I hope it was *worth your time. It was definitely worth my time making it.

Also, thanks again to Keiran, the crazy Canadian for coming on the show. His podcast, Uncensored English is great. He focuses on fun content, and puts English learning on the side. He also has a cool community over at www.uncensoredenglish.ca , “ca” because it’s Canadian, ay? So go check him out then, ay? That’s not a very goo Canadian accent, but hey, ay?

Would you like a transcript to this episode? What about vocab and advanced grammar explanations too? You can get all that with my new Feel Good Premium program. Go deeper with this lesson, learn all this material, including the ideas from the book more deeply, so you can become an excellent English speaker… I mean a good English speaker. Or how about a “good-er” English speaker. Let’s get really, really gooder at English. Yes, I know, that’s terrible grammar. Incorrect English. That’s a bad joke. Just making fun of the words I used earlier. Don’t say gooder, ever. Unless you want to. Then so gooder as much as you want! I give you that freedom!

Again, get premium lessons on my website, feelgoodenglish.com. You’ll find out how to go premium there.

And lastly, do you like my show and what I do? You would make me really happy if you told somebody about Feel Good English. Share the love, and the knowledge. Help others become gooder at English, and gooder at life.

Ok, that’s enough of “gooder”

I’ll be back in a couple weeks with a new episode. If you can’t wait that long to hear from me, make sure you are on my email list. I send out weekly emails to thousands of Feel Good listeners to keep ya’ll moving forward, in English and life. To join the email list, just go to my website. Look for the bear. The bear is there to help you with your English journey.

Talk soon , bye bye!