You might be setting the wrong goals

Goals are great, they give us a guiding light and something to reach for; but the kind of goals we set matter.

When we measure our success based on ourselves and our own standards, those are intrinsic goals.

When we measure success based on others or factors beyond ourselves, those are extrinsic goals.

Sometimes our extrinsic goals have the best intentions- maybe we want to help people or make an impact on something. But despite the good-hearted intention of these goals to help others, it’s still giving someone or something else the deciding factor if we succeeded or failed.

Helping people and making an impact isn’t a great goal, it’s a great outcome. I believe healthy goals are ones that only we can control. At the end of the day, we can only control: our thoughts, our habits, our words and our actions.

But making goals only based on ourselves is pretty contrary to what I’ve thought my whole life: what can I do for others?

Is it self-centered to only thing about your own personal improvement?

Absolutely not, because of one single principle I believe:

When we focus on what we need to be better, we make the environment around us better.

When we do things that truly make us happy and fills our cup, we can pour some of our cup into our daily interactions with others, into our work, our purpose, our imprint on this earth.

If we only set goals based on outcomes we can’t control, then we’re going to be like a pinball in a pinball machine, bouncing from side to side without any control. I’ve felt that before, and it’s not a great feeling.

Something that I truly love is writing. I have ever since I was a kid. I would write “books” on loose-leaf paper and staple them together and try to sell it (unsuccessfully, which is good because #stayhumble).

Many of you don’t know this, but before I wrote Chasing the Bright Side, I wrote a different book that I had the goal of selling to a traditional publisher. This was the book that was going to get acquired by a publishing house and put on shelves all over the world.

And that book didn’t work. It didn’t get picked up.

Why? Because I wrote it with the extrinsic outcome in mind- and that outcome was out of my control. If I open up that Microsoft Word document now and start reading, I wouldn't even recognize my own voice.

So instead, I changed my goal to just write a book about something I wanted to say and let go of the outcome of getting it published.

And I think we all know the ending to that story…that book was Chasing the Bright Side. Not only did it get published by one of the best publishers in the world, it was an instant bestseller and is on shelves at thousands of stores.

When we create things for the approval of others, we slowly lose a bit of ourselves.

But when we move and create from a place of internal alignment, we’re actually doing ourselves and our world a favor by showing up as we are, unlike anyone else.

My goal is to write and publish something every week. It’s not to grow my email list or gain more followers. If that happens, that’s a lovely outcome, but not the goal. I just enjoy writing and sharing my thoughts with you all.

After I speak, I love looking at people’s notes that they took during my talk. Without fail, there will be two people sitting directly beside each other who listened to the exact same speech I gave but heard something completely different. People take what they need in the moment, so it’s impossible for us to puppeteer their experience.

Which brings me back to your goals: try to make yours intrinsic. You’ll know they’re intrinsic if it’s something you and only you can control.

You can’t control approval from others.

You can’t control what other people will feel.

You can’t control specific outcomes.

You can control doing more things that you love or what makes you feel good on the inside.

Do you want to read 30 books?

Do you want to run/walk a 5k?

Do you want to fill an entire journal with your thoughts?

Do you want to learn to change the tile backsplash in your kitchen?

Set goals for yourself, leave the outcomes to the universe.