Goals Are a Freedom Tool, Not a To-Do List

How are you? Well, come on in here and happy second half of the year. Last week was like a huge vacation week leading into the 4th of July. This week, I think a huge event leading out of it.

That's the one I'm on. Yes, I'm goofing off somewhere in the world today. I'm not here. Of course I'm here. Yes. Yes. Maybe 5,000 plus episodes, nearly 20 years, and I'm here.

We produce these on holidays as well. But I do them in advance, and I get out and I have fun with you. Yes, I could be walking amongst you someplace, somewhere, just having some fun. You're thinking, I'm listening to Daily Boost.

Scott. And there I am standing next to you, and you've never seen me. You don't even know. That could happen. It is good to have you. My name is Scott Smith.

Nice to have you here today. MotivationToMove.com is where I hang out. A lot of the stuff I talk about, I've done before. And I think I have about 1300 podcasts that are searchable on the website at motivation to move.com all spelled out.

So if you're looking for something in particular, go check it out. You'll find a likely a bunch of them. I mean, depending on what you're looking for, we do different topics over time. So good place to go.

So this, this week, a little bit of a turn from last week because this is my natural state right now. This is my natural state last week and this week. If you want to know where I spend my time thinking, if you're thinking, well, if I hang out with Scott a little bit, what's he going to be talking about?

Last week was building this peaceful base. And I said at the end of last week that the next thing that we get into is having to have that aspirational goal, that big thing, that goal, because,

Everybody I know, probably you, and if you're in the category of people like me, you want things to be peaceful, right? You want it all to be good, right? But you don't want it to be boring.

You want to have something to go for, to strive for. But I also find that people who just want the big stuff and the goals that ignore the peaceful base...

They crash and burn fast. So this week is about goal setting. Now, this is not traditional goal setting. I'm not going to tell you how to set goals. ChatTPT and Claude do that just fine.

Just go there and say, hey, tell me how to set goals. I ain't going to spend my time doing that. I've done that for 20 years. I'm going to go deeper than that.

I'm going to go more, well, let's go psychological. I hate to say that, but yeah, we're going to go a little bit. And give you a way to understand this and what you really truly need to do. And my hope is over the next few days, you're going to go like, okay, this makes sense.

I can do this. So independence, they just passed. Everybody went out there, in America anyway, and celebrated something. Love it or hate it, they celebrated.

Love it or protested, I should say. One way or the other, they were out celebrating because that's what you do, right? Freedom. We were all kind of handed that, at least in this country, and we're handed that in our lives as well.

If we're lucky, a lot of people are not. I'm not going to question that. It happens. But we have freedom. We have free will. But we have to ask, I think, maybe a little bit harder question.

What freedom did you actually build for yourself this year? I'm going to frame this in the frame, I guess, of the year, the first half of the year, now the second half of the year. I'm not saying, what are you going to be doing for the second half of the year?

Although I guess inadvertently this week we'll be doing that. But I'm saying, what did you build for yourself? What freedom did you build in the first half of this year?

Did you get what you wanted? Or have you been building up to something? It is a trap when you think about this. Most people set goals to do what? Most people set goals to get busier.

More tasks, more hustle, more proof, right? They're just going to kind of go after it. They want a bigger life, so they get a bigger to-do list. Now, I'll also say, I don't think most people think about that.

It's very possible for you to set a goal to be more peaceful, to take more vacations, things like that. But... Done this a long time, been alive for a while, work with a lot of people.

And unless you very, very consciously keep it under control, whatever goal you set usually causes a big mess. That's why people stop doing them. So the goal of a bigger life or a bigger anything or a bigger goal, whatever you're going after, causes a bigger mess that you got to clean up again.

A real goal is not about the thing you achieve. You ever think about that? It's not. I know you said the thing. I went out and drove a Tesla last week.

I kind of have a goal to get a Tesla now. I do. It's not about that. It's not about buying a Tesla. I could have done that last week. I could do it next week.

Not a big deal. It's the freedom waiting on the other side of whatever goal you set. So we'll stay on the Tesla metaphor. What is the freedom? Well, probably the freedom is, look at me.

I'm not driving my car. That's probably the freedom. Still an example, but a real one, right? And I tend to go for real. I tend to go for the things that actually drive people because I know that's how you're going to get stuff done.

So most people set the goals to get busier. They get the tasks. They get overwhelmed by them. You wonder why it doesn't work and you don't look at your goals anymore because most people is a glorified to-do list.

Again, the real goal is not the thing you achieve. It's the freedom waiting on the other side of it. So what is the achievement? It's just a toll. When I drive from Daytona Beach to Orlando, there are toll roads all over the place.

Freedom. I can pay a toll and I don't have to get in Orlando traffic. I'm willing to pay the price to get to where I want to go. Same thing with the personal goal you're setting, no matter what it happens to be.

Sometimes I look at this being a prison. Did you ever think about this? You can hit every number you set as a goal. You can hit every milestone along the way and you can still feel trapped.

You can still feel stuck. You can feel like you've made a bigger mess and you can't get out of it. Have you ever felt that before? You can build a career and still feel like, okay, this is not what I wanted.

You can build a life and you have, but the doors still feel kind of locked. That's a goal pointed, frankly, at the wrong target. The very thing you're looking for, whatever it happens to be, the freedom, the money, whatever, the peace of mind. I don't know the impact you want to have.

I don't know. It's a lot of things to a lot of different people. But the thing you set the goal actually locked the door. The goal is pointed at the wrong target.

And listen, I spend a lot of time talking with people about this all the time. I spend more time talking to myself about it. I will not start a goal if I don't know exactly where it's aimed. People get mad at me all the time.

Come on, Scott, go for it. No. No. I've done that my entire life. I get excited by you and I go do something. It's the wrong decision. Why? It was your decision.

It wasn't mine. People get upset at me all the time. I'll set a what was I thinking goal. I think I got it figured out. I go after it. And then I become a good quitter.

I quit because I think, what was I thinking? I stopped. Oh, Scott, you got to follow through. You got to go after your goals. No. You can do that stupid stuff.

The very minute that you said yes to something, you find out you're on the wrong track, become a good person at quickly exiting. Fast. It's like driving down a highway and you see a wreck in front of you, right? Uh-oh, look, traffic.

What are you hoping and praying for? An exit right there. What's the next thing? Should I take it or should I not? Listen, if the traffic is stopped, you're going to wish you did.

If you can, you'll get there faster because you get to go around the accident. Wow. I'm a little pumped up about this, aren't I? So I think a question here.

If... If I have a goal, and if this goal works, what does it set me free to do? If you can't answer that, it's kind of a chore. It's got a costume on called a goal.

It's kind of a mask. If you can't tell you what the target is and what it's supposed to do on the other side, whether you call it freedom or not, what do you really have? You got a chore. You got another to-do list item.

And something really to think about. So goals are a freedom tool. They're not a to-do list. I am not the first person to say this. I will not be the last.

And it bores the crap out of me to even say it now. However, I will meet you where you are. And I'm telling you right now, it's a chore for you. And it shouldn't be.

So this week we're building kind of like a one big goal that buys freedom kind of thing, right? But you can't aim it buried under everything else, can you, either?

So we talked about clearing the deck last week. We're going to kind of clear the field this week. We now know we have to point at the right target. But the problem is you're busy.

You get all those other targets you've been pointing at thinking it's the right thing. It's like you're playing a game of Tetris trying to win the game, the 1980s game, right? That's what it is. Tomorrow we clear the deck.