81: Is Goal Setting A Waste of Time?

Rosie (00:00)
Are you ready?

Roula (00:03)
Yes, let's go. Never sure with you what you're gonna ask me, but let's go.

Rosie (00:04)
You're sure? ⁓

I'm a bit late to the party with this. It's April. This is usually what you talk about in December or January, but here we are. It's on my mind. Goal setting. Is goal setting stupid? I probably should have changed my tone of voice. I'm giving away my opinion.

Roula (00:40)
know if this is a stupid question or is a good question. I don't know what to think, but we will see. Let's explore. Let's explore. First impression, I'm like that's a stupid question.

Rosie (00:42)
Wow. Stupid question. Let's explore exactly. Have an open mind.

Why?

Roula (00:56)
If you, I feel like if I don't have a goal that I'm working towards.

What's the purpose of spending my day?

Rosie (01:10)
⁓ do you have a goal every day?

Roula (01:13)
What

am I doing? I have a goal every day. Every day I have a goal. Good day.

Rosie (01:16)
What? Okay, walk me through this. ⁓ What about

yesterday? What happened?

Roula (01:24)
Today, my goal is to be in this call on time, in our recording session on time. My goal is not to exceed my percentage in carbs, fat, and protein. This is my daily goal. My goal is to have a tough conversation with someone and come out of it. The goal is to...

come out of it in a good way. That's the goal. The goal that I called about my fat protein, the goal is not to surpass my limits in eating those things. These are my goals. So every day I have a goal, multiple goals.

Rosie (01:55)
Mm.

Wow. Maybe

this is where I'm going wrong with my life. I didn't have a goal today. I didn't have a goal yesterday. I don't know. I just woke up.

Roula (02:16)
What's going for you?

walking out with Tilly isn't it the goal?

Rosie (02:25)
I

Roula (02:27)
So when you go out to work with Tilly, what do you think?

Rosie (02:30)
no, not walk. I said, just

woke up. That's it. I kind of just make things up on the spot. Like, yeah, let's go for a walk. So maybe, cause I feel like I'm stuck in a rut lately. Maybe I do need these daily goals or maybe they're more intentions.

Roula (02:34)
And then.

their habits, habits towards a daily goal. Because if you have a goal, but you don't build a habit to get to it, it won't work. If I have a goal to eat my specific percentage in carbs, fat and protein. So I have a goal. If I don't pay attention and intentionally action what I'm eating towards that goal, then the goal is useless.

Rosie (03:06)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Roula (03:17)
There are habits

and goals that habits will bring us to the goal no matter how small it is or big.

Rosie (03:23)
So your goal of hitting your protein fat carb ratio, is that part of a bigger goal? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Here's where I struggle. Cause that makes a lot of sense to me. It's very logical.

Roula (03:31)
Yeah, bigger goal is to lose weight in a healthy way.

Rosie (03:40)
I struggle because I set goals and when I don't achieve these goals, I feel like shit. It really negatively impacts how I feel and show up in the world. So how do you navigate this? Because surely there are days you've got your goals

Surely there's days where you don't hit these goals, are there?

Roula (04:06)
Of course, of course.

The main thing is cut myself a slack. If I don't hit the goals because ⁓ other more important things came up, then I have to accept that and be flexible and relook, look again at my goals. So today I didn't reach my food goal, but I achieved another goal that took priority and that's good.

Rosie (04:38)
Okay, that's a powerful refrain. ⁓

Roula (04:40)
I wouldn't feel good if

I intentionally did not reach my goal.

Rosie (04:47)
But what's an example?

Roula (04:48)
because I got lazy, I didn't pay attention,

I was seduced by the bag of chips, of crisps.

Rosie (04:56)
Okay, so how would

you deal with a situation like that?

Roula (05:00)
not to be hard on myself and promise myself that tomorrow I will do better because I would beat myself up and then think but whose fault is this? I made the wrong decision I made the wrong decision and now I'm regretting it beating myself up wasting my time instead of making a plan for tomorrow how am I gonna avoid

Rosie (05:09)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah.

Roula (05:30)
to make the wrong decision. And I will make the wrong decision again, but I train myself to pay attention more to what I'm doing and to respect my goal. And if I have a goal that I'm failing day time after time on my habits to reach it, that probably it's the wrong goal, the wrong time, the wrong goal, and I have to look at it again.

Rosie (05:49)
Mmm. ⁓

Okay, I have a question around that, but first, what you were saying before about making a choice not to work towards that goal, that comes back to accountability, doesn't it? That big A word, being accountable, owning it. Well, you know what? I made that choice. That's on me. But instead of getting into a negative spiral, it's like, okay, so how am I showing up tomorrow? But what you said just before.

Roula (06:10)
Yeah.

Rosie (06:24)
If you keep failing at these habits that are going to move you towards the goal, maybe it's the wrong goal. But how do we know when to draw the line? Because obviously we're going to fail at certain things. We're not going to do well. So how do we know when we need to reassess and go, look, this is not working versus

Roula (06:44)
Yeah, when we start feeling

shitty and guilty and ruminating and feeling like we're not happy.

We're missing something. We're not doing something right. So many feelings, so many feelings that would come in that are kicking in because we are not achieving these little steps that are little goals, goals towards our goal. I'll give you an example, my personal podcast OK. I'm not able to deliver an episode every two weeks.

Rosie (07:03)
Yeah.

Mmm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Roula (07:23)
And it's been really hard, really hard. I don't know. It's just been giving me hard time. And I realized what am I doing wrong? So my goal to release an episode every two weeks is not a bad goal. My habits are wrong. The way I'm working is wrong. I'm recording an episode for three hours and trying to make it in 50 minutes. It's demotivating. I'm spending way too much time fixing what I did wrong to achieve that goal. And I did not.

Rosie (07:46)
Mm-mm.

Mmm, mmm.

Roula (07:53)
get to my goal. So I took the time, we talked about this, to think about my podcast and I should do better. I must only record with my guest for one hour so that I don't spend time trying to make this wonderful episode from three hours.

Rosie (08:11)
So

you had to change your behavior. It wasn't like, okay, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing, but somehow achieve that goal by doing the same thing. And when I say that, it's like, well, duh, of course you can't do that and achieve your goal, but this is what we do, isn't it?

Roula (08:20)
Yeah.

Rosie (08:27)
Actually.

Roula (08:28)
we do, we put a goal and we do not assess our path toward achieving it.

Rosie (08:35)
Yes. Yes.

Roula (08:39)
assessing and building these habits. They can be small, they can look insignificant, but they make a difference. For you, Rosie, if you want to change something and have a goal every day, what would this look like?

Rosie (08:45)
Mm-hmm.

God, where do I start? That feels like such a big question. Where do I start? That's a genuine question for you.

Roula (09:06)
⁓ But it's now the end of the day for you. How did you spend your day today?

Rosie (09:10)
Yes, yes.

Roula (09:16)
Maybe

you don't have to answer now in details, but it's something that you can think about. How do you want to spend your day tomorrow?

Rosie (09:21)
Yeah,

true. Yeah, because I don't set an intention for the day or have a goal. I think flexibility is important, but you're right. If you don't have some sort of direction, how the heck are you going to move towards where you want to be?

Roula (09:36)
yeah it could be because you're stuck fixing the van

Rosie (09:41)
Yeah

Roula (09:43)
That could be part why you don't because your goal is to continue driving and making your podcast. That's your goal.

Rosie (09:48)
Yeah, and maybe part of my issue

is I haven't broken it down into smaller bits. I haven't laid out the path to get me there. At the moment, it's I want my van to be fixed so I can drive it, and I want to install an electrical system so that I can actually travel and be off-grid. Both of those things are not done.

but I haven't filled out the steps to get there either.

Roula (10:17)
I think this is the most important goal you have now. Fill in the steps to do that.

Rosie (10:23)
Hmm. So is goal setting pointless?

Roula (10:27)
Goal setting is very important.

Rosie (10:30)
I feel the same and I hate that because goals suck.

Roula (10:35)
Yeah, it makes us think of our life, of our purpose, and it's scary to do so.

Rosie (10:38)
Mmm!

It is. It's taking accountability.

Roula (10:44)
We will be

exactly and we will be faced with very uncomfortable moments. We don't want that. We want to do what's comfortable, what we do every day and just sweep it under the rug. Our goal is it's scary.

Rosie (10:50)
Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.

Ugh, yeah. ⁓

yes, scary. Yet we sweep it under the rug, yet it's scary because it's so important to us. There's so much on the line. ⁓ Rula, my God. I thought this would be a bit of a lighthearted episode, but this you've got in my head now. So, thank you, but also no.

But no, thank you actually. This has been an interesting one for me.

Roula (11:32)
You know what, Rosie, don't share

your big goals. I mean, I'm not telling you what to do. By the way, I've been telling you what to do from the beginning. Sharing our big goals is scary. We feel people are waiting for us either to succeed or to fail. The big goals are private. You can share them with people you trust. People will help you and elevate you, hold you accountable. You need them to be there for you.

Rosie (11:39)
Yes, you are.

Mm.

Roula (12:00)
So sharing these big goals don't need to be very well known except for you personally and the people you choose. The small goals are nice to talk about because these are your daily goal and then it will make you want to work towards it because you told someone that you're going to fix that thing in your van and tomorrow they will come and ask you how did it go? This makes you also feel accountable.

Rosie (12:18)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Roula (12:30)
to be a woman of your words and do it.

Rosie (12:30)
true.

Hmm,

interesting. Everybody has a different opinion on this. Do this, do that, but I quite like your take, so yes, I like you.

Roula (12:48)
thank you. I like you too. I like my fourth child sometimes.

Rosie (12:55)
Let us know everybody, a goal's pointless. Do you set a daily goal? When Roula said that, I think my jaw might've dropped, or at least it did in my head. I thought, what on earth? I don't think that's something I've ever done. So maybe that is something I will try tomorrow.

Roula (13:13)
Yes, I will check in on you tomorrow. I can't wait to hear from you, dear listeners. Let us know what you think. I cannot pronounce my words correctly. OK, bye.

Rosie (13:14)
⁓ okay.