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The Reason Most People Never Reach Their Goals Is....
Episode 8126th July 2022 • The Daily Podcast with Jonathan Doyle • Jonathan Doyle
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It would be reassuring if the reason people don't reach their goals was simply a case of talent or circumstances. The reality is something very different.

In today's episode I share one simple idea that could transform your experience of goals how quickly you reach them.

Grab a free copy of my book Bridging the Gap here:

https://go.jonathandoyle.co/btg-pdf

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https://go.jonathandoyle.co/jd-speak-opt-in

Youtube version is here:

https://youtu.be/kjQQM1WS_90

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https://go.jonathandoyle.co/coaching

Transcripts

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Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.

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Once again, welcome aboard friends to the daily podcast.

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It is good to be with you.

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I hope you got a chance to listen to yesterday's episode where I went.

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Deep on the topic of commitment of showing up when you just don't

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feel like it of honoring the gift that you have been given.

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So I hope you got a chance to listen to that, to yesterday's

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episode, which I think.

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If you're looking on, the platform would have been Sunday, July

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24, 20, maybe Monday the 25th, depending on when it landed.

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So I hope you got a chance to listen to that.

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Would you please subscribe, hit that big subscribe button?

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It means a great deal to me.

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It's a great chance to reach more people.

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I'd love it.

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If you could leave a comment and go and check out the show notes, you can get

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free access to my book, bridging the gap.

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You can find out how to book me to speak.

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I am back on the speaking circuit as things have begun to open up.

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So I would love to come to your organization business school.

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Uh, government organization, church, whatever it is, and shape some content,

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particularly to help and inspire and

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encourage and help people grow.

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That's the goal to help people grow, to help everybody in your organization.

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And you realize this remarkable potential you have been given to

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go and check out those show notes.

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Friends today.

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We're going to talk a little bit about systems.

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I know some of you are listening.

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Um, regular listeners thinking, when are we back on Marcus Aurelius?

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I'll probably pick that up again tomorrow.

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Um, we're going to take that journey over us.

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Extended period of time.

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So.

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Um, Marcus Aurelius will rejoin us tomorrow all the

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way from first century Rome.

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He's just great how he just makes time for us.

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So we're going to check in there tomorrow.

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Today, we're going to talk about a quote from James clear, who's an author.

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And I came across a quote of his a few days ago, which I thought was excellent.

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I'm going to unpack that a little bit together.

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He says this.

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He says, you do not rise.

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To the level of your goals.

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You fall to the level of your systems.

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Or more time you do not rise to the level of your goals.

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You fall to the level of your systems.

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Now, if you read his work, you will know that he is deeply focused on the way

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that habits shape our outcomes and what incredibly habitual creatures we are.

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If you're not across the basic sort of neuroscience of habits.

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Um, You know, Imagine if we had to relearn most things every single day.

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Imagine if we sort of went through life, having to relearn every day.

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How to brush our teeth, how to cook a particular meal, how to make a

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cup of coffee, how to drive to work.

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If every single day we know kind of like Dory and finding Nemo, or

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we just keep forgetting everything and having to do it again.

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And again.

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So to, you know, I guess to take the pressure off the neural load that we bear.

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As a species we've got really good at habits.

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We've got really good at habitual things that we do day in, day out that reduce

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the neural load that stop the brain drain.

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And hopefully make our lives more efficient and effective.

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And of course, There's a whole perimeter here of, uh, different habits, right?

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The different ways that we can use habits positively and negatively.

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You know, people can use a substance to change their feeling state.

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And it's highly effective.

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So you can take drugs for example, and immediately change your feeling state.

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But there's of course other what the economists would

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call opportunity costs, right?

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Trade-offs in health and relationships and all sorts of other stuff.

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So humans are always looking for these ways.

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To simplify life, to make life more efficient and effective.

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So what, uh, James clear is telling us here is that.

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You know, none of us really have too much trouble articulating goals.

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Most people could say, oh yeah, I'd like this.

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Or I want to be this fit or lose this weight.

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Or I live here, I own this or drive that.

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Most of us do not have too much trouble figuring out the things

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that we actually want in life.

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So why don't we get them?

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I've been talking about this a lot in recent episodes.

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What stops us?

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You know, I've spoken recently about Stephen Covey's sort of

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point is that if you want different goals, you want different outcomes.

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You have to do different things.

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So there's a bunch of reasons why people don't get to their goals.

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But I think today, this is another insight is James clear says you

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fall to the level of your systems.

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So he's immediately highlighting the systemic.

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The systematic nature of human personal effectiveness is the goal of life to be.

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Um, optimized is the goal of life to be hyper-efficient no, the

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goal of life is to love people.

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And to fully actualize your potential in the service of

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something bigger than yourself.

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That's the purpose of life?

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I think.

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But.

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Part of the, you know, the freedom that we have.

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Is to choose how we want to develop and what we want to develop in our lives.

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And one of the ways we do that is the systems that we build around it.

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You know, you look at.

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Elite military units, right?

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Everything is systematized.

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Everything because they're high pressure situations.

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With a huge number of variables.

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So the, the training is built on this endless redundancy of systems.

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This happens, then do this, this happens, then do that.

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This thing goes over here.

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Then that thing goes over there.

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So I've never been in the military, but.

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You know, you understand that from the moment you're inducted, your

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life becomes radically systematized.

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You don't join the.

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You know, the U S Navy seals.

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And then I'd say, Hey guys, listen, I'm the head to bed when you feel like

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it, and look just wake up tomorrow or whatever time suits and then a.

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You know, we'll meet together, we'll have a vote and see, uh, we want to do

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some exercise and on, and then we'll just, you know, have a bit of a chat and

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see what we've got planned for the day.

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That's not how it works.

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Is it right?

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It's like every single second of the day.

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It's highly systematized.

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And that systematic nature of the day leads to extraordinary accomplishment of

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goals and outcomes and mission parameters.

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Right.

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So we look at these different effective systems such as elite military units,

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and we discover that the systems.

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Create high-level outcomes.

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You know, imagine being like a neurosurgeon, right?

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Like there's a bunch of systems that you follow.

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There's a bunch of protocols about what happens next and then this, and then this.

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Think about pilots, right?

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I mean, Paula, stand, sit there and go, Hey, let's just get it off

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the ground and see what happens.

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Right.

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You know, let's just fingers crossed.

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Is it windy?

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I don't know who cares.

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Let's just hit those engines and see what happens next.

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Of course, it's massively systematized and it's funny to note.

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That even in this really advanced, you know, technological culture we live in

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that pilots are still highly systematized.

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Checklist checklist checklist checklist.

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So what's the goal?

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Well, to get the plane off the ground.

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And to not kill a whole bunch of people and land them safely on the ground.

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Another destination.

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So the goal is clear.

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But the systems are utterly central.

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So let's just take this into our own lovers.

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Right?

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So what James clear is telling us is that if we want to have a higher

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level of goal attainment in our lives, What we are going to need.

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Is to have quality systems in our lives, quality systems around nutrition,

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quality systems, around exercise quality systems around how we use our free time.

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Uh, quality systems about how we avoid distractions, quality systems.

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About, you know, the, the, how we allocate our time, how we effectively

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and efficiently use our time.

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I spoke recently about a.

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A video is Lex Frieden.

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Who's a Silicon valley guy and he he's a single guy, but he did a video

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on how he uses his time in a day.

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And he's a very influential dude.

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And it's fascinating to watch.

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He sort of builds his day around three, four hour blocks of uninterrupted,

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deep verticals, deep work.

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You know, like this idea that he wants to be highly, you know,

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uninterrupted, he wants to focus intently on a particular thing.

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And so his systems, his whole day is just highly systematized.

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He allows himself sort of free reign later in the evenings.

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And often some time on the weekends, but his goal outcomes, his attainments

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in life are a mix of, you know, genetics and intellect and all

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the stuff that he brings, but he's really systematized his life.

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You know, and I'm, you know, I would have to say.

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I mean, it's harder for me with three young kids and, um, you know, we're,

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we're home educating one of our kids.

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So that takes up a fair bit of time.

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There's a little, there can be sort of.

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You know, sometimes for us, there's different challenges with how

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time's allocated during the day.

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But definitely for me between about 4:00 AM and 8:00 AM, basically every single

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day, my time is highly systematized.

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You know, I've got a beautiful coffee machine in my downstairs office.

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It's set on a remote timer.

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It turns on about 3:30 AM I come down at four.

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I have coffee exactly the same way at exactly the same time.

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I don't touch any email or anything.

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I have an hour for sort of prayer or meditation.

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And then I'm usually training some other on the trainer bike or I'm out on

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the road or I'm running or I'm rocking or doing whatever it is I'm doing.

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Uh, and then I'll do some recording.

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I'll often try and get, uh, the days podcasts and videos done,

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you know, before eight o'clock.

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And then, you know, I'll take one of the kids to school and I'm back.

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And then it's just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

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It's very systematized.

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And it helps me, like, I've always just been somebody who has really responded.

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To predictability in the environment.

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So I just want to say to you in this episode that if you want some more

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efficiency and effectiveness in your life, if you want some more goal attainment

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in your life, look at the systems.

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Do you let the day happen to you or do you take control of the day?

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Yes, that can be spontaneity.

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Yes.

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We can make time for people that need us.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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But is the broad description of your life, a life that has a level of systems.

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And repetitive behaviors that move you towards success.

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What is success?

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Success is unleashing and using the extraordinary potential God has

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created you with that's the game.

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That's the game we're playing here.

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The game we're playing is not the game of accumulation or financial reward.

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The game we're playing is not the game of power and cultural recognition.

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The game that we are playing.

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Is the game of gratitude for the talents and abilities that we have and the

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game of finding ways to develop them fully so that we can serve other people

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and make the world of fractionally better place than we found it.

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So let system serve you.

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My friend, let systems serve you.

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If you think about what I'm saying, you will get it.

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It's like, don't let the day just happen.

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Don't just look if you're on holiday, if you're in Hawaii, whatever me,

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but even then, you know, when we will ask, we've been Hawaii heaps and.

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You know, even then we're still thinking about, okay, what do we want to go?

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What do you want to see?

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What do we want to experience?

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We would have a rest day.

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We'll have this day.

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Trust me.

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I'm not like I don't run around with my family with a clipboard.

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I don't.

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I really do not do that.

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Um, though this morning when we were heading off to church, getting

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them all in the car on time is.

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They could have done with a clipboard.

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I tell you the truth that would have worked beautifully.

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But in general, um, you know, I hold myself to a pretty high standard.

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I try and model this to the kids.

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Uh, just in terms of, you know, they see that I do certain things

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in a certain way, and I do them regularly to them every single day.

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I think it's good for them to see that, to model it, but I don't inflict this

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on others and not inflicting it on you.

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I'm offering it to you.

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So one more time, James clear says you do not rise to the level of your goals.

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You fall to the level of your systems.

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So you can write down the most magnificent goal on the planet.

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It can be beautiful, spectacular, remarkable.

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But if your systems will not support it, you're not going there.

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And it's going to be eventually deflating and annoying and frustrating.

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So God bless everybody.

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That's all I want to say.

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Think about your systems.

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Think about your systems.

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Think about the structures and protocols and repeated behaviors that lie underneath

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the things you say are important.

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In your life.

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All right.

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We're done.

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Would you subscribe for me if you haven't done it already?

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Excuse me.

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Hit that subscribe button and go check out all those show notes.

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Book me to speak live.

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Um, and also if you want to just reach out and frame a question for me, I love it.

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When people do that, you can email me direct jonathan@jonathandoyle.co.

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But, um, love to come and speak at your organization business

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school, church, government group, whatever it is, reach out friends.

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I book up very quickly, but, uh, there's always a couple of spaces here and there.

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If you would love to talk about that.

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So God bless you guys.

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My name's Jonathan Doyle.

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This has been the daily podcast and I'll have another message for you tomorrow.

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