Why Reaching a New Goal is Difficult

Daily Boost — Motivation and Coaching

Scott Smith

Education, Self-improvement, Business, Health & Fitness

3.9 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 January 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's the time of the year when it seems almost everybody is setting new goals. It's also the time of year most folks will quickly give up on those goals. There has been a lot of research about how long New Year's Resolutions last. On the short end, most folks give up at 12 days, the most committed stay in the game for an entire month. Now, since it takes 66 days to set a new behavior, it's no wonder people have such a difficult time changing. Here's an exciting way to think about that problem. Setting a goal is a conscious decision that is an executive function of your brain - which operates serially. While you may think that you can multitask, your brain processes one item at a time. That means it must prioritize what's most important so it can work on it for you. When you set and prioritize a goal, you are essentially eliminating other alternatives that may be more important to you. When you do, your brain views taking action as a potential opportunity lost and makes any new tasks difficult. How do you make it easier? The answer can be found in the word ''Alternative'' because the inverse is true— Any new goal will feel easier when it is more important to you than the alternative choice. In other words, choose wisely. If you want to set great goals, pursue them, make a significant change to your life, the secret is to make your goal more important than any alternative that may be lurking in the back of your mind. When you choose correctly, you'll find yourself automatically motivated to reach any goal you have successfully. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	How are you? Happy New Year again! I have some extra energy for you today. I'll share it with you if you'd like. Just take all you want, okay?
0:23.0	I've been doing cardio for like six weeks now, like an hour a day. I've been lifting weights. My wife is saying, honey, where you been?
0:30.0	I don't know. Getting fluffy?
0:33.0	Okay, today we're going to talk about goals. How's that?
0:35.0	And why sometimes it's difficult to do the things you need to do to reach that goal?
0:40.0	Particularly during resolution season.
0:43.0	It's a little bit of neuroscience. We'll keep it on the surface for you.
0:47.0	But I think you're going to like this and I'll give you a trick you can use to actually get what you want, okay?
0:51.0	It's cool. It's a daily boost from motivation to move.com, positive boost you need every single day because you and that guy and that lady and those people over there.
1:02.0	You're the boss of you and there's something you said you want. I want to do this. This is my dream. This is what I want to be coming my life. This is who I am.
1:11.0	And then suddenly life gets in the way. It gets difficult. You don't do it. Why is that?
1:15.0	A lot of reasons for it. And that's over here every single day to remind you to drag you forward just a little bit and say, hey, come on. Let's go do this thing.
1:21.0	Good to have you. My name is Scott Smith, founder, chief motivating officer here at MotivationMove.com. Yeah, a little pumped up today.
1:27.0	And for those you've been around a long time, I have to make an announcement today if I may.
1:33.0	You know that I've done every single show for the past 15 years. Oh, by the way, we're in our 16th season now.
1:39.0	15 years every single show has been with my Marilyn Monroe coffee mug, some like it hot in my hand.
1:46.0	And I have retired the mug. 15 years. It's kind of odd. It's like my first white past away and it took a long time before I just really settled and settled and settled and settled and settled and settled on that.
1:59.0	15 years actually and about a month and a half ago got to the anniversary of it. And for whatever reason, I felt the need to put the mug away.
2:06.0	So I have replaced it with a Harley Davidson mug because it goes with my road king. I actually got to free with my road king. So anyway, I make sure today all about your mind and goals and how to make it a little bit easier for you to accomplish those tests that seem kind of difficult.
2:25.0	Hi, I'm Danny Dyer and welcome to what's that smell? Smoking with a hint of burgers is my barbecue apron. Luckily, I can make this smell like freshly picked lilies.
2:36.0	Just pop it in the washing machine, add some surf tropical lily laundry detergent and my five smells like my dream holiday.
2:45.0	Get long-lasting fragrance with natural essential oils with surf laundry detergent. You can make anything perth of surf.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Scott Smith, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Scott Smith and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.