ESYB2 109 - Types of Goal Setting to Help You Form Habits
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[00:00:00] In this video, let's do a deep dive into goal setting, examine different types of goal setting, and how all of them impact your habit building. So there are different kinds of goals. Some goals are on the simple side, like I just want to run every morning. Okay, that would be called a task based goal. I just want to be able to do a task every day.

Fine. But what if there is, and that's motivating, that is motivating and that is good in itself because you can create tiny little goals within that big goal because the tiny little goals can be like I want to beat my time yesterday, you know, maybe once you time yourself, I want to burn more calories or I want to run a little further or something.

I want to have a little better technique. I want to have a little more jump in my step. There are dozens and dozens, tiny little goals you can work towards within that big [00:01:00] goal of running every morning. And so you have a lot of dopamine release, tiny dopamine releases, and so it keeps you going and it helps you form that habit.

Fine. But there is a greater kind of habit, which is an identity based habit. So let's say you don't just want to run every day. Because Yeah, it's healthy, but it doesn't excite so much. What maybe excites more is, instead of, I want to run every day, I want to be an athlete. Like in the truest sense of the word, I want to be an athlete, right?

That is exciting. That is cool to many people. So, okay, that galvanizes far more, okay? So, let's say you were starting a business. I want to be a top 1 percent CEO or if you're an employee, I want to be a top [00:02:00] percent performer. It's amazing to have your peers recognize you as that. That's cool. I want that, right?

And so you're like, I want that. Something snaps and then suddenly it's a real and it's a very meaningful goal that is going to be the driver of your motivation for many months and years to come. Which is amazing, but of course within that meaningful gigantic goal of like, let's say I want to be a top 1 percent of anything, top 1 percent athlete, top 1 percent athlete, employee, CEO, okay, that's amazing, but within that there are many Goal based habits, like if you want to become a good CEO, well, one goal is I want to become great at hiring.

Well, you're hired, so you have to be great at managing. Okay, great, you're great at managing, you have to be great at communication, you have to be great at, uh, conflict resolution, and dozens of other [00:03:00] skills which have dozens of tiny little skills within them. So you have a, a nearly unlimited number of things to work towards every day, which is going to give you that drive because, you see, when we do something after which we succeed, we feel good.

We have a dopamine release, anticipation, dopamine release, and at success, there's a little bit extra dopamine release. Most dopamine is released in the anticipation period, but at the event moment, When you get the reward, there's also a little bit of dopamine released. As opposed to if you fail, let's say you fail, well the dopamine drops below baseline and you feel horrible.

It just really feels hopeless and horrible, which is solved by having all these little tiny goals that give you a chance to succeed and continue to drive you towards that big, big identity based goal, which is transformation, which [00:04:00] after which you really become That identity that you want to grow into.

And so this is how you manage your goal setting. You see, there are three levels of little goals, right? The identity based grade goals. Then there's the task of, you know, task based goals, which is, I want to become a good runner. Okay, that's still a good task. And then, of course, there's the tiny, tiny little goals you can work towards every day and succeed every day.

There are multiple such goals per day. That is going to make you feel good about yourself and get you to naturally continue to work at whatever you're working on. Except better and better and better because you love doing it naturally and it starts to become a habit. Because you like doing it, so you're going to be more likely to do it.

So there's less discipline required and it just becomes more and more natural without even realizing it. Become a habit and boom, natural. That's exactly what [00:05:00] we want. And of course, the more natural such good habits we have, the closer we're going to get to becoming the top 1 percent performer.

