Episode 36: The Secret to Success Is… Giving Up?

About the Episode

A lot of people treat goals like some kind of sacred self-improvement law, where the most important thing you can do is set and achieve your goals.

But goals are simply tools we use to point us in the right direction. Your goals should serve you—and so you shouldn’t be a slave to some arbitrary goal you set when it’s no longer serving you. So how do you know when a goal is no longer pushing you in the right direction?

In this episode, I talk about why I gave up a pretty big goal I set at the beginning of the year. I discuss what I think are the criteria you should use when deciding whether to give up on a goal or stick it out.

We also discuss what we learned from the goals survey we did for podcast viewers and listeners. How many stuck with their goals and how many have moved on? What are the most effective tactics people used to stick to their goals? What are the most important lessons they learned about their goals and themselves?

Check it out.

Mark Quotes From the Episode

Your goal should be moving you towards your values. And the moment that they start moving you away from your values, that’s when it’s time to give it up.

Whether you actually hit the goal or not is far less important than what the process teaches you.

Every goal should have a purpose behind it, and as soon as that purpose disappears, or is no longer clear, or is misaligned with what you actually care about, drop the goal.