183: The Truth About Why You Need To Set Goals That Scare You

I'm sharing five facts about goal setting I've learned across 14 years of building BPN including the military's aim-shoot-move framework to BHAGs, OKRs, why your goal has to excite you, why high achievers don't actually want rest, and the dangerous we-have-arrived syndrome that plants the seeds of decline. CHAPTERS: 00:00 Intro 01:55 Valley To Next Peak 04:24 Aim Shoot Move 08:01 Dog Lesson 11:06 Goals Must Excite 15:50 Commitment And Control 21:33 Avoid Shiny Distractions 26:56 BHAGs 30:29 OKRs And Milestones 36:02 Serve More Judge Less 39:54 Continuous Goal Setting ORDER MY BOOK HERE: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210 FOLLOW: Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 25% off FOR LIFE ⁠ https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/collections/performance-nutrition IG: ⁠instagram.com/nickbarefitness/⁠ instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: ⁠youtube.com/@nickbarefitness This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal [health or profession] advice. Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN) is not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice. This podcast may not be republished without the written consent of Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN)

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:06Nick Bare?

  These are five facts about goal-setting that I have learned over my personal and professional life so far. And a few years ago, I was sitting down with my good friend Louis House. He was on my podcast and we were having a conversation about one of his newer books that he was publishing and releasing. And something he told me, I will always remember. And it's about being on mission. Now, mission and goals are very aligned. And he said, "A

• 0:44Nick Bare?

  man without a meaningful mission is a dangerous, dangerous man." Someone who does not have a meaningful mission they are pursuing is dangerous, not only to themselves, but to other people around them. And that leads into my first fact. The first fact is that goals provide us targets and prevent us from wandering aimlessly. Wandering aimlessly.

• 1:23Nick Bare?

  As much as I love the way that that sounds, that describes what it looks like and feels like to, to live life without a mission, without a goal, I hate it just as much because of how dangerous it can be to wander aimlessly. I was sitting in church a few weeks ago, and we go to Celebration Church here in Georgetown, Texas. Pastors Joe and Lori Champion lead that church. And something Pastor Joe was saying in one of his sermons, he was encouraging

• 2:01Nick Bare?

  us not to set up camp when we are in the valley. And being in the valley can be darkness, it can be a low, it can be a really challenging, hard time of our life. And what happens to a lot of people is you get to the valley, you get to the hard part of life, and...

• 2:25Nick Bare?

  You want to set up camp. You just want to stay there. Because climbing out of it is intimidating, it is scary, it is the unknown. So people set up camp in the valley. And as soon as you set up camp, you're telling yourself and everyone around you, I'm here to stay. I'm here for, for the long haul. And what we need to do when we find ourselves in a valley, and a valley doesn't necessarily have to be a really low part of your life, doesn't have to be a challenging hardship moment. It can be the lull between two highs, two successes, two wins, two accomplishments.

• 3:08Nick Bare?

  You know, if you look at someone who plays professional sports, if they win the Super Bowl, which is, which is a high, you know, a professional football player wins the Super Bowl, the highest of high they can experience in that professional path. After winning that Super Bowl, there's probably a lull until the next big win or championship. That lull itself might be the valley. What we have to do when we find ourselves in the valley is to throw in our rucksack and climb out

• 3:49Nick Bare?

  towards the other side, to the next goal, to the next win. If you find yourself in a valley, wandering aimlessly, you have to set a goal, you have to set a target. Like where am I going next? In the valley, I identify the next mountaintop, I identify the next goal, I identify the next mission, that's where I'm climbing to. I'm not setting up camp. Because as soon as you set up camp, you're staying there. Wandering aimlessly. And one of the things they tell us in the military was to aim, shoot, and move.

• 4:33Nick Bare?

  As soon as you stop moving, you're, you're a target yourself.

• 4:39Nick Bare?

  And that's the way that I approach life and moving through life. I'm going to aim at my next target, my next objective, my next goal.

• 4:50Nick Bare?

  I'm going to shoot. I'm going to execute and I'm going to move, I'm going to bound towards that goal, towards that objective, towards that challenge, that enemy, if you will. Aim, shoot and move.

• 5:08Nick Bare?

  I have found myself. I won't say many times before, but I found myself

• 5:16Nick Bare?

  in certain chapters, in seasons, in intersections of my life, wondering aimlessly.

• 5:26Nick Bare?

  And it's typically after a win or a success or an accomplishment.

• 5:34Nick Bare?

  I have recognized that I do not thrive in the absence of goals and targets. And I doubt you do either.

• 5:45Nick Bare?

  Because what happens when we don't have goals? We don't have targets that we're working towards that are challenging us.

• 5:54Nick Bare?

  We are wondering aimlessly. We can't aim, which means we have nothing to shoot towards, which means we have no reason to move. Aim, shoot and move. If I don't have something to aim towards, if I don't have a target, if I don't have a goal, I am wondering aimlessly. And like Lewis Howes says, without a meaningful mission, when you are wondering aimlessly, you are a dangerous, dangerous individual, not just to yourself,

• 6:28Nick Bare?

  but to the people around you as well, to society.

• 6:32Nick Bare?

  I've caught myself saying before,

• 6:36Nick Bare?

  after I accomplish X, Y and Z, after I finish this race, after my business hits a certain revenue target,

• 6:46Nick Bare?

  after I hire this one individual, I'm gonna chill.

• 6:51Nick Bare?

  And when I finally accomplished that thing, I finished that race. The business hits that milestone. Now I'm ready to chill. I'm chilling for five minutes. And I realize I don't want this. I don't want the chill. I don't want the wondering aimlessly. I want the next target. I want the next goal. So I set it.

• 7:15Nick Bare?

  I aim towards it, I shoot and I move.

• 7:19Nick Bare?

  I set it, I aim towards it, I shoot and I move.

• 7:25Nick Bare?

  A lot of people will say they want to chill eventually. They want to retire. They want to rest.

• 7:31Nick Bare?

  But when high performing, high achieving people finally get the opportunity to rest. If you're anything like me, you don't want it.

• 7:41Nick Bare?

  You don't want it because you rise and have learned and know

• 7:47Nick Bare?

  how fulfilling it feels to set goals and then chase them down.

• 7:54Nick Bare?

  And then what happens to you in the absence of having those targets?

• 8:01Nick Bare?

  As I was planning this episode, it reminded me of a chapter and section of my book titled Go One More. Chapter eight is titled Legacy Can't Be Bought, It Must Be Built. And there's a section there called Purpose and Direction that I'm going to read from. It's, it's a story that I share

• 8:24Nick Bare?

  from a conversation I had with my friend Bedros Kouyev, extremely successful entrepreneur. I've had him on the podcast before a few times and I've loved every conversation with Bedros.

• 8:40Nick Bare?

  And this section says, "I love the story Bedros Kouyev shared with me about the need for purpose in our lives."

• 8:52Nick Bare?

  While he was on my podcast, he told a great story about a dog named Cookie they got when his kids were younger. Cookie was part Mastiff, part German Shepherd, and even though she was only eight months old when they got her, she was a big dog. Shortly after bringing Cookie home, she began digging holes all over the yard and destroying their entire property. So Bedros decided to bring a trainer in to help them. After spending several weeks with Cookie, the dog trainer told him that he needed to give this type of dog a clear purpose, direction, and mission. These dogs are highly active animals, and in the absence of purpose and direction from their owners, they will create their own.

• 9:38Nick Bare?

  Their own purpose and direction. And because Cookie was not given a clear purpose and direction from the beginning, she created her own. That was digging holes all over Bedros's yard.

• 9:51Nick Bare?

  Bedros continued to tell me,

• 9:54Nick Bare?

  "That's humans, all of us," he told me. "Every single one of us, myself included, in the absence of service, routine, structure, and purpose, I will dig holes in my life.

• 10:09Nick Bare?

  Without a mission, without goals, without purpose, I will dig holes in my life. I will self-destruct." That illustration reinforced a belief of mine

• 10:22Nick Bare?

  that if I ever start self-destructing or self-sabotaging my life, it's because I'm not clear on my meaningful mission at that period of time.

• 10:33Nick Bare?

  I have to be proactive, take a step back, and make intentional decisions that reinforce what it is that I'm meant to be working on.

• 10:44Nick Bare?

  Goals provide us targets to aim, to shoot, to move. Those targets are meaningful missions. It's purpose. And if we don't have goals, if we don't have targets, something we're aiming towards, we will wander aimlessly. The second fact is that your goals, they need to excite you. They need to light you on fire. Now, from the time you set a goal and then you pursue that goal to success, achievement, accomplishment, it could be a few days, it could be a few months, it could be multiple

• 11:28Nick Bare?

  years. I am on a 14-year journey at this point in my life of building BPN, which was a goal that I set in 2012 in my small college apartment. 14 years later, I'm still jacked up about building BPN. That goal still excites me. I'm still lit on fire daily. There have been seasons where that fire is burning hot and it's roaring. And there have been seasons where it's pretty dimly lit and it's just

• 12:11Nick Bare?

  ashes. I'll be honest, it's not always this roaring fire. But if you set goals that you don't actually care about, they don't excite you, you're pursuing a goal because it excites your family, it's something they want for you, it excites the people that know you or follow you, social media, friends, acquaintances. If it excites them, but it doesn't excite you, doesn't light that fire inside of you, you're gonna have a really hard time staying committed to that goal.

• 12:50Nick Bare?

  I have set goals before that don't really excite me, but I felt like it was a goal that I was supposed to pursue.

• 13:03Nick Bare?

  And that fire was dim from the beginning and it burned out pretty quickly. So I abandoned that goal because I didn't actually care about it. You have to care about the goal for it to excite you.

• 13:20Nick Bare?

  That's the truth.

• 13:23Nick Bare?

  You have to really care about it.

• 13:27Nick Bare?

  Now, some goals are more serious than others.

• 13:35Nick Bare?

  You know, building BPN and their responsibilities come with that. Those are some weighty goals. They don't just affect me, but they affect other people in my life, employees, their families. Some of these fitness goals, these races, these competitions that I pursue, they're serious, but at the end of the day, they don't really affect many people other than myself.

• 14:06Nick Bare?

  It's a more personal goal. There's goals that I set with my family that, again, the responsibility, the heaviness, is very weighty because it affects more people than just me. It affects the people I love the most.

• 14:24Nick Bare?

  There's not too much more to say about this fact because it's pretty straight into the point.

• 14:32Nick Bare?

  If you're serious about your goals and the goals themselves are, are serious, the impact, the upside, the transformation that those goals may bring you and the people around you,

• 14:47Nick Bare?

  it has to excite you.

• 14:50Nick Bare?

  It has to light you on fire.

• 14:54Nick Bare?

  And if it does, it increases your probability of adherence and success.

• 15:01Nick Bare?

  And it makes the journey fun.

• 15:04Nick Bare?

  It's really easy to take, and I share this from, from a personal lens. It's really easy to take life too serious.

• 15:14Nick Bare?

  Where everything is just so serious all the time.

• 15:19Nick Bare?

  Work, family, food, fitness. I did this myself. I make everything so serious all the time. It doesn't have to be. Sometimes we make it so serious, we lose the joy and the fun and the spontaneous action of chasing down and pursuing the goal. Your goal has to excite you. It has to light you on fire. Fact number three about goals and goal setting is that goals require commitment.

• 16:04Nick Bare?

  On my run this morning, I had a nice, easy six mile run to kick off the morning. It's part of my morning routine that I love very much. I think about that run as I'm laying in bed at night, falling asleep. I love the first two hours of my day. Silence, solitude, fitness, heavy sweating. When I wrap up those first two hours of the morning, it's taboo, my family is starting to wake up, and I've had two hours to dedicate to myself. And one of the things I was thinking about on my morning run this morning that I shared on social media was a question.

• 16:47Nick Bare?

  What would happen if you pressed on the gas and never let up? What do I mean by that? In 2012, I made a choice. That was a step on the gas. That's when I launched BPN out of my college apartment in Western Pennsylvania with a $20,000 loan from the Military Associated Bank, USAA. I've shared that story many times before.

• 17:24Nick Bare?

  But in the summer of 2012, I got in that car, that metaphorical car. I pressed on the gas. And over these last 14 years since then, I have never taken my foot off the gas.

• 17:43Nick Bare?

  Now, there have been seasons where I've been able to throttle that gas to go faster. And there have been seasons where I've had to back off that gas and go a little slower.

• 17:56Nick Bare?

  When I was in my twenties and I wasn't married yet, I wasn't even dating Steph, I didn't have kids. I was able to press that gas to the floor and go dangerously fast. And then once I met Steph and we got married and we had kids, our life changed a little bit. There have been seasons now where I have to throttle back a little bit, go a little bit slower.

• 18:26Nick Bare?

  But I can confidently say in these last 14 years, I have not

• 18:31Nick Bare?

  ever taken my foot off that gas pedal.

• 18:36Nick Bare?

  That consistency, that commitment has paid off in a meaningful way.

• 18:42Nick Bare?

  What started with a $20,000 loan in 2012. And for context, in 2012, revenue wise, we did $20,000 in revenue. 2013, we did $20,000 in revenue. 2014, we did $20,000 in revenue. In 2017, we crossed the seven-figure revenue mark, $1.7 million in revenue. Today, we are valued at over $100 million.

• 19:12Nick Bare?

  And we've only accomplished that

• 19:16Nick Bare?

  because I pressed on that gas pedal in 2012 and I have never let off.

• 19:26Nick Bare?

  That's what commitment feels like. That's what commitment looks like. That is the result of commitment. 14 years.

• 19:38Nick Bare?

  This summer.

• 19:42Nick Bare?

  It's been meaningful, it's been extremely impactful, it's been very hard. But it's been very rewarding.

• 19:53Nick Bare?

  You need self-control to accomplish your goals.

• 20:01Nick Bare?

  If I use that same storyline and example, this 14-year journey of building BPN, but I can also apply the lessons I've learned in some of these fitness preps, working towards Ironman triathlons and taking my marathon time from 4 hours 15 minutes to 2 hours 39 minutes, running 100 miles through the Rocky Mountains of Leadville, Colorado, whatever it may be, through all of those goals that I've set, it has required commitment and it has required an insane amount of self-control

• 20:44Nick Bare?

  to accomplish those goals. Because what happens within any goal you ever set, that I have ever set, is that temptation sinks in.

• 20:56Nick Bare?

  Temptation to go a little bit easier, to quit, to stop, to pursue a new goal. You know, what typically happens when you commit to a goal, there's opportunity cost. That means when I commit time, energy, resources to one goal, it means I have to say no to all of these other goals.

• 21:22Nick Bare?

  That's what commitment looks like.

• 21:26Nick Bare?

  There is avoiding temptation to go pursue other opportunities because you're committed to this one goal. What I've seen a lot of people do is they commit to a goal, and as soon as they commit to that goal, there's this temptation of this new and flashy and sexy opportunity that looks better than the goal they're pursuing. So they abandon their current goal and go pursue the new goal, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It could be the right decision.

• 21:58Nick Bare?

  But then that same individual who left goal one to go after goal two now gets hit with the opportunity of goal three, which is more enticing, sexier, flashier.

• 22:12Nick Bare?

  So they abandon goal two to go after goal three. And eventually they abandon goal three to go after goal four and four to go after goal five and five to go after goal six.

• 22:24Nick Bare?

  There is the inability

• 22:28Nick Bare?

  to commit. There's a lack of self-control because they are tempted for and by the next opportunity.

• 22:42Nick Bare?

  I was thinking about this as I was planning this podcast, this conversation.

• 22:49Nick Bare?

  You know, goals require commitment. And in order to commit, you need self-control, the ability to avoid temptation.

• 23:01Nick Bare?

  Show me a man or woman, show me a man who can't resist the cookie jar. And I'll show you a man who doesn't achieve his goals elsewhere. Now, there will be an argument to this, there always is. But I have this one friend who can't resist the cookie jar. But in all other areas of their life, they are successful.

• 23:33Nick Bare?

  Well, yeah, that is the exception to the rule. There are always exceptions to the rule.

• 23:40Nick Bare?

  And I could say that

• 23:45Nick Bare?

  someone who cheats on their spouse.

• 23:51Nick Bare?

  Can't be trusted in any other area of their life. Let's just say I made that claim. And someone's argument could be, well, I know someone who cheated on their spouse and has integrity and honor and honesty in every other area of their life. Maybe, but they are an exception to the rule.

• 24:19Nick Bare?

  The way someone does one thing is the way they do everything.

• 24:24Nick Bare?

  Show me someone who can't resist the cookie jar and I'll show you someone who can't achieve their goals elsewhere. The lesson I'm trying to get across there is you need to harness self-control in learning how to avoid temptation. And if you don't, you are going to have a hard time committing to a meaningful mission, to a goal, to a target.

• 24:53Nick Bare?

  You don't want to be the person who always has to recommit.

• 24:59Nick Bare?

  I've seen a lot of people

• 25:02Nick Bare?

  that I've worked with,

• 25:05Nick Bare?

  that I'm friends with, that I'm family with. They're the person who is always recommitting to a goal. In January, they make this huge New Year's resolution. They're going to lose weight, they're going to start training, they're going to improve their diet. They're going to make all these lifestyle changes.

• 25:27Nick Bare?

  They commit. They're on track the first 30 days. The next 30 days, they become looser with their their guidelines and their strictness and by 90 days, they're back to their old ways. And then next January comes and they recommit. I'm changing my life this time. I'm gonna start training, I'm gonna start working out, I'm gonna improve my diet, I'm gonna make these lifestyle changes. Again, within the first 90 days, they fall off the bandwagon. Then next January comes and they recommit over and over and over again. That's not stepping on the gas and never letting up. That's starting the car, pressing on the gas for a mile.

• 26:11Nick Bare?

  Turning it off, getting out, walking away.

• 26:15Nick Bare?

  Later, coming back, getting in the car, turning it on, pressing the gas, driving a little bit.

• 26:22Nick Bare?

  You're never going to make significant, meaningful progress that way.

• 26:27Nick Bare?

  These are the yo-yoers.

• 26:30Nick Bare?

  These are the people who recommit over and over and over again, but never make meaningful progress towards their targets or their goals, because they're not on the move. They don't aim, shoot, and move.

• 26:49Nick Bare?

  What would happen if you pressed on the gas and never let up?

• 26:56Nick Bare?

  That is commitment.

• 26:59Nick Bare?

  The fourth fact about goals is that goals need to be big.

• 27:04Nick Bare?

  There is an amazing author by the name of Jim Collins. He has multiple books.

• 27:12Nick Bare?

  One of his books is called Built to Last, which I highly recommend. Built to Last is a good one. Good to Great is another exceptional book by Jim Collins. And he has this concept in Built to Last called BHAGs. That stands for Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals.

• 27:37Nick Bare?

  Jim Collins says, "To set goals that are so big, so hairy, they make you gulp. When you're about to fall asleep, your BHAG, your big hairy audacious goal, is there by your bed, all hairy with glowing eyes. When you wake up, it's there. Good morning, I am your BHAG. I own your life."

• 28:02Nick Bare?

  The concept of a BHAG, as Jim Collins describes it,

• 28:10Nick Bare?

  is this, you know, in his context, it's for an organization, for a business, but you can apply it to your life. It is this, this mission, this vision, this goal that is so big, it probably takes 10-plus years to accomplish. It's not something quick, it's not something easy. It is challenging, it is intimidating, it is scary.

• 28:33Nick Bare?

  It is the aim towards the target. And along the way, there's these micro-goals you have to set, which we're about to get into, that lead you towards accomplishing that big, hairy, audacious goal. But your goals have to be big.

• 28:51Nick Bare?

  In 2012, when I started BPN, building the organization into what it is today, that was a really big goal. It was scary. It was intimidating. And you oftentimes know that you have a BHAG, a goal that is so big and scary and intimidating, because it's more scary to people outside of your internal family, or team, or organization than it is to you.

• 29:22Nick Bare?

  I have often found that when I have this BHAG, this huge, big goal, and I share it with other people, they oftentimes laugh at me, or they snicker and they look to the person they're left or right, saying, "There's no way this dude's gonna accomplish that." That's a joke. He's wasting his time. Dude's crazy. That's the response you oftentimes want. Because to you, it's not crazy. It's gonna be really hard.

• 29:51Nick Bare?

  But for people who have never committed to a really big, hairy, audacious,

• 29:58Nick Bare?

  intimidating, challenging goal, they don't get it. They don't get what happens when you commit to something, and you pursue, and you aim, and you shoot, and you move over and over and over again.

• 30:13Nick Bare?

  Doubt is only dangerous when you start doubting yourself.

• 30:17Nick Bare?

  If you believe you can accomplish that goal, who cares?

• 30:22Nick Bare?

  What anyone else says about whether or not you're going to succeed towards that goal.

• 30:29Nick Bare?

  There's a goal setting framework. So there's BHAGs, very big hairy audacious goals, and then there's OKRs. So an OKR stands for objectives and key results. So BHAGs, like we've talked about, provide you a larger, longer term, 10 plus year vision, a goal to work towards. But to sustain that journey, that pursuit, you have to break it up into actionable, measurable steps. So OKRs, objectives and key results, they have two parts. One is objectives, the second is key results.

• 31:13Nick Bare?

  The objective is what we will accomplish, what you will accomplish. And the key result is how you'll know you've achieved the objective.

• 31:24Nick Bare?

  So OKRs add in performance benchmarks that guide short-term decisions about priorities and actions. So OKRs keep you in pursuit on progress towards your BHAG. And it's something that you can measure. You know when you're on track.

• 31:48Nick Bare?

  If it is

• 31:51Nick Bare?

  this huge running PR that you want to accomplish.

• 31:56Nick Bare?

  And I say your current marathon time is four hours. And you have a goal, you have a BHAG of 2 hours 30 minutes. It's a, it's a big hairy audacious goal. You don't just get there by hoping and wishing and running. You get there through a lot of racing, a lot of training, a lot of hurt, probably some injuries, a lot of really hard sessions.

• 32:25Nick Bare?

  And along the way, you have to set up OKRs, objectives and key results. You probably have to have some races and some milestones in between a four-hour marathon and a 230 marathon that say you're on track. You gotta run a 330 marathon. And you have to run a sub-three-hour marathon. And then you gotta run a sub-245 marathon. And then a sub-240 marathon. You gotta work your way towards the 230. The OKRs guide that big vision and that BHAG along the way.

• 33:08Nick Bare?

  But why do your goals need to be big? Because they stimulate progress. If your goals are too small, too achievable, you're leaving a lot on the table. They'll stimulate some progress, but not the progress that is life-changing, that is transformational. True BHAGs, true big goals stimulate life-changing, transformational progress in your life. Fact number five about goal-setting

• 33:49Nick Bare?

  is that goals will raise your standards over time. That's part of making progress. It's part of growing. It's part of development. There is setting the goal and then going after it, and you're gonna fail at many points along the way. You learn from those failures. And then you re-attack and you get better over time. And every time you fail and pivot and readjust and get better, you grow and your standards rise. You raise your standards along the way.

• 34:33Nick Bare?

  My standards for my personal and professional life 10 years ago.

• 34:42Nick Bare?

  Compared to today, 10 years ago, my standards were much lower than they are today. I hold myself to a higher standard in terms of the way I show up for my fitness, my diet, my business as a leader, my character, my family. My standards raised over time and in 10 years from now and then 20 years from now and then 30 years from now, I expect my standards to be higher than they are today. When we set goals, our goals must be aligned with our values and our priorities. That is part of the standard.

• 35:25Nick Bare?

  Our personal values and priorities are extremely important. They set the standard for how we live our lives, who we allow into our lives, how we serve other people. We are responsible and accountable for what we do and what we do not do, what we achieve and what we fail to achieve. True ownership, we have to have true ownership. Something I was thinking about on last week's run that I also shared and it connected with a lot of people.

• 36:10Nick Bare?

  Serve more and judge less. Serve more and judge less. Now, the lesson in church this past week was all about serving, servant hood. That is the purpose of why we should live our lives, to serve other people. Truly, servant hood is the foundation of everything we should be pursuing and what guides our future.

• 36:49Nick Bare?

  But it's really easy to find ourselves and I do this even today. And it's something I'm trying to get better at. But as we raise our standards over time, we judge others based off our new standards. And the example I gave in this post I made that I ended up posting on Instagram was, you know, say we decide we're going to stop drinking alcohol. We now judge everyone else who drinks alcohol. We lose weight and we get fit. We now judge everyone else who is overweight and unfit.

• 37:30Nick Bare?

  We have children and start a family. And your life changes significantly when you get married and have children and start a family. It's really easy to judge other people who don't have those same levels of responsibility. A partner, children, a family. They have more flexibility and options in their daily lives. It's just the reality of it for many people. But what happens to many of us, again, myself included, I am not excused from what I'm sharing now, is we raise our standards and then we judge everyone else

• 38:15Nick Bare?

  based off our new standard of living. Our behaviors, our actions. And I share that to say, it is not our responsibility, it's not our calling to judge others based off our own standards for ourselves.

• 38:39Nick Bare?

  But a better opportunity is to serve people who might want the help or need the help to raise their own standards, to stop drinking alcohol if they have a problem, to lose weight if they are overweight, to learn how to be a better husband, father, wife, mother, family-driven individual. We are called to serve others and judge less. But as we raise our standards, because that's one of the facts that happens as we set goals. When we are on mission, we set targets that we're going to chase down and pursue,

• 39:22Nick Bare?

  and we aim, and we shoot, and we move, and our standards rise naturally through that progression and that process. It's really easy to look around us and say, "I'm living of a higher standard. I'm now going to judge everyone else." That's not it. That's not the appropriate byproduct of setting goals and pursuing goals and accomplishing goals. It's not. Goal-setting is not a one-time event. It is continuous. And I previously mentioned Jim Collins, and one of the things that Jim Collins also

• 40:07Nick Bare?

  talks about in some of his books is this syndrome called "we have arrived syndrome." It's after setting a goal and achieving it, many fail to recognize that goal's success and don't follow through and set a new, bigger goal. The "we have arrived" syndrome shifts from a hungry pursuit to complacent ignorance and arrogance, ultimately creating the seeds of their decline.

• 40:46Nick Bare?

  Goal setting and the pursuit of these goals should raise our standards over a lifetime.

• 40:55Nick Bare?

  But what you have to be cautious of is that we have a Rive syndrome where you set a goal, you accomplish that goal, you recognize it and you start chilling and you're in that lull, you find yourself back in that valley and you don't set a new target, a new goal to go after. And you experience complacent arrogance.

• 41:20Nick Bare?

  And you don't just maintain at that point, you now decline. You have planted your own seeds of decline. Goal setting is not a one-time event. It is continuous. Raising our standards is a lifetime pursuit. It's a lifetime goal.

• 41:41Nick Bare?

  So it's our responsibility to set goals appropriately, responsibly.

• 41:49Nick Bare?

  Because in the absence of setting goals and working towards goals,

• 41:55Nick Bare?

  you end up wandering aimlessly. And like I mentioned in the beginning of this episode, this is a very dangerous place to be operating from.

• 42:06Nick Bare?

  So those are just five facts about setting goals.

• 42:13Nick Bare?

  And I share that because, like I mentioned previously, I have found myself before in the lull, in the valley between two accomplishments, two goals. And as much as I would love to say that I'd be able to and want to chill or relax or rest after accomplishing a goal,

• 42:41Nick Bare?

  I know what kind of self-destruction and self-sabotage that does to me in the absence of not being on mission. So I would encourage you guys, set goals, find yourself a meaningful mission and work relentlessly to pursue it.

• 43:03Nick Bare?

  Because the upside and the results are transformation.

• 43:20Nick Bare?

  The