Episode 83: Why You Want Goals

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price, you might not know it, but every result in your life is 100% because of the thought you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome!

Hello, podcast universe! Welcome to Episode 83 of the 100% Awesome Podcast, I'm April Price, and I'm delighted to be here with you. As you can hear, my allergies are a little bit better than they were last week, though my skin is still creating an extremely uncomfortable Earth-lif experience for me right now. And I'll admit that sometimes, I protest, sometimes I argue with that reality, but I also know that arguing with it only increases my suffering, right? Right. There's the pain of the eczema, and then there is the additional suffering I feel when I think it shouldn't be this way. I shouldn't have eczema, it's not fair, this pain seems ridiculous, and arbitrary, and unnecessary. But pain isn't ever ridiculous, or arbitrary, or unnecessary. It is in so many ways the very reason we are here.

The more that I can lean into the actual experience of my life without wishing that it was different than, the less suffering that I do. And that is the same for all of us. And I just want to offer you that the pain that accompanies this Earth-life is never a waste, it is never arbitrary. It is always our teacher. And last night I was thinking about this because we were talking to my daughter, who is serving a mission in Iowa, and her darling companion kind of overheard what we were saying. And she was telling us that she had suffered with eczema as a child. And she said that she would use this specific prescription ointment, and that it really helped. And I have that same ointment, but I have found no relief with it, right? Like I slathered on, and I complain about how this, like, doesn't even work, right? But my daughter's companion, she like told me about this technique that she uses where she puts the ointment on, and then she wears a layer of wet clothing next to her skin. And then she follows that with a layer of dry clothing so that she can sleep in her bed, and not get the bed all wet, right? Which sounds totally, extremely, uncomfortable, I know. But she's telling me this, I'm like, "Oh, my gosh, this sounds horrible, I'm never going to do this." But I was so desperate, I just decided to try it, right? And I have to say, I woke up with my skin significantly less inflamed.

And what I learned again, like before, you think this is turned into a podcast about getting relief from eczema? What I learned is that no suffering is for nothing, right? Sister Rindlisbacher's suffering has a child, alleviated some of mine last night. And this is always the way of it. We are doing this Earth-life together, and for each of us, the experience is going to be 50/50, right? 50% of my year is going to be allergy free, and 50% is not. Actually, it's not quite that bad, but it feels like it, right? But as a whole, my life is going to be 50/50, and the 50% positive, and the 50% negative is all for my own learning. And it gives me experience, and it allows me to be calm, and to grow. And in that process, sometimes it also allows us to alleviate the suffering of others, which is just awesome I think. There is purpose in all of it.

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Okay, so that was a total aside, so, thanks for bearing with me, but I think in so many ways it also kind of leads into what I want to talk to you about today. So, over the last couple of weeks, I have been thinking a lot about Moroni. And for those of you who don't know, Moroni was a prophet, right? The last prophet of the Nephite nation. And he lived about six hundred years ago on the American continent. And not only was he the last prophet of this great nation, he was also the last person, the last Nephite left after the destruction of his nation. And maybe just because of the isolation that we have had this year, because of the coronavirus, I feel like in so many ways I have never felt as palpably, or as searingly what that must have been like for him to be the last one, right? Like he wrote about how alone he was, and he said, "I even remain alone to write the sad tale of destruction of my people. But behold, they are gone." And he just, like you could just like hear the heartbreak in his words, "For I am alone." My father has been slain in battle. All my kinfolk are gone. I don't have any friends. I have nowhere to go, and how long I'm going to be here, and I don't know.

And remarkably, he lived thirty-six years like this. Thirty-six years alone, completely alone. And I have thought about that over, and over for the last couple of weeks, and wondered how he did that? How he could stand it? How he managed that? And one of the reasons that he lived those years was that God had a work for him to do while he was here, he was to be a witness of what had happened, and to keep the record of his people. But one day as he's doing this, and he's working on the record of his people, there's this part in there that hit me in a new way, as I read it recently. And that's what I want to talk to you about today. So, you might know this already, but he keeps these records on gold plates, and in order to do that, he first has to go find the gold, right? He has to go find the ore, and then he has to melt it down, and he has to create bellows, and he has to find enough heat to melt this ore, and like make plates. And then, he has to engrave on the ore. And it's like this huge process, right? Like so much work, and keep in mind that he's doing all this work totally alone. Anyway, there are a couple of verses where you can just see the futility in his mind about what he's doing.

And he says to the Lord, like, maybe this writing isn't even very good. He seems like, here I am doing all this work, and keeping this record because you've commanded me to do it. But I'm not even a very good writer, and probably no one is going to read this, and if they do, they're probably going to think it's terrible. And for me, I could just see my own eyes saying, like, "Why am I even doing this? What is the point of this? I'm all alone, I'm doing this work, it's probably even not that good. And no one's going to read it, or hear it, or listen to it anyway. What am I even doing here?" And maybe it's because I am so familiar with these same thoughts myself, but I just felt for Moroni as I was reading these words, and I just wanted to say, like, "Yeah, Moroni, I get it, right? I get it. This is what my brain wants to tell me all the time. What am I even doing? Am my even making a difference? What is the point of all this striving, and working, and trying? I don't think I'm actually getting anywhere. I think I might be failing, right?" I get it. And I have talked to several clients lately who have expressed similar thoughts. What am I even doing this for? And this is a thought, I think, that many of us have had, if we're honest, from time to time where our brain says, what is the point of all this? What am I doing here? And today I just want to offer you my answer to this question.

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So, what happens for us as spirit children of God, is that we all have an intrinsic need to grow, and develop, and become. And that part of us is always in there encouraging us to try, to do more, to accomplish, to set goals, to stretch ourselves. And so, then we get to work and we set some goals, and we decide to contribute, we decide to grow. And that takes effort, it takes energy, it takes discipline, it takes discomfort, it takes a lot of doing things we don't want to do. It takes a lot of vulnerability, and failure, and putting ourselves up to be criticized, or mocked, or disparaged, even just by our own brains, right? Disparaged by our own brains, but also other people have opinions about what we're doing. And that's what Moroni was facing, right? He was worried about being mocked, he was worried about the opinions of people who would go on to read this writing. And when any of us come up against that, right? All that energy, and discipline, and discomfort, and vulnerability, and possible criticism, our brains want out. Our brain is like, "No, thank you!" Right? All this pain, as far as I can tell, is optional. And so, I'm thinking, no, I don't want to participate, right? I think I'd like to opt out, I think this is a bad idea. And our brain says, "What are we even doing this for? What is the point? Let's just give up on this goal, and this plate engraving, and let's just not, right?

Our brain says there's no reason for it, we don't need to do any of it, so let's not. And then, it looks around desperately for that escape hatch, right? This is what happens to all of us, and what I want to offer you today is that your brain is right actually, you don't need to do any of it. But today, I want to give you a thought about why you might want to. Why you might want to stretch, and grow, and set goals, and become. In the hopes that it will make a difference for you as you start thinking about the end of this year, and start looking forward to next year, and start thinking about what you want to do, and accomplish in the coming year. So, before I get to the part about why you might want to do these things, I just want to emphasize why you don't need to, because I think it's really important to acknowledge that so, so many of us set goals because we think we need to in order to be better. We think there are all these parts of us that are unacceptable, or unlovable, or even just like unlikable, and we think we need to get busy, and fix them, and what I want you to know is there is nothing you need to change that can make you better. Nothing.

The version of you that exists right now cannot be any better. The version of you that exercises is not better than the version of you that doesn't, right? The version of you, that prays is not better than the version of you that doesn't. The version of you that gets angry is not worse than the version of you that doesn't. You are already whole. There is no such thing as a you that is better than the you that is right now. Just like other people can't be better than each other. Other you's cannot be better than you. There is nothing that you can do that will add, or subtract from your value, or your worth, or your goodness. You're worth is unalterable, and unchanging at every stage of your being, of every stage of your becoming. And so, we aren't chasing goals, or frantically trying to eradicate parts of us in order to finally be acceptable, right? There is no finish line ever for that kind of thinking. We never arrive anywhere, and when our goal is to be better, then we are never enough, and we burn out in the never-ending effort of trying to be enough. And we end up giving up, because who we become is never, ever good enough.

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Now, I've recently heard this interview with Apolo Ohno, who is an Olympic world champion speed skater, right? And he talked about how there are just not enough races, that are just never enough medals, that no matter how many times he won his brain, told him, well, you still need to be better. There is just no end to that quest. He said, it was so painful for him when his Olympic career was over, because he didn't know how to just be with himself without chasing yet another accomplishment that would finally be the one to make him enough, right? He couldn't accomplish enough to help him outrun who he was. The key for all of us is to go about our goals, and our becoming, knowing that we aren't doing it to get better, that we are already whole, that we are already enough, that we are already as good as we can get, and that any way that we want to grow, and become is just adding to our experience, and our knowledge, and our skill, right? When I exercise, or I pray, or I choose love, it doesn't make me better, but it does change my experience. It does give me skills in mastering my thoughts, it does teach me how to let my spirit rule my body. And those are skills that I came to learn, and I love learning them.

Okay, the second point that I want to make with this is that not only can you not get better, but your life won't get better either. Like at this point you might be saying, "Well, April, then what the heck is the point of all this?" Don't worry, I'm going to get to that, just hang in there for a second, okay? But I want you to know that life will never, ever, ever be anything other than 50/50. It's 50/50 when you exercise, it's 50/50 when you pray, it's 50/50 when you love instead of hate. Life is 50/50 because of the fall, not because of what you do, or don't do. It's 50/50 because of the factory setting of your brain, which is programmed to find problems no matter what the circumstances of your life are. And we aren't trying to outrun the negative by setting goals. We're not trying to outrun the negative by like changing our spiritual practices, or eating right, or rearranging our morning routines, right?

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We aren't trying to insulate ourselves from the negative by accomplishing a bunch of things in our lives, or by growing our business, or anything else, right? There is nothing that we can do, or accomplish, or achieve that will take away that mortal experience, that will protect us from the fragility of human life, or keep us from disease, or death, or disappointment, right? When people set goals to have a better life, then they do all this work to get to this new place and find, wait a minute, I'm still human, I still have problems, I still have pain. I'm still subject to disease, and death, and eczema, and then our brain says, well, like, "What was the point of all that then? Right? We should just sit here, and do nothing if we can't get better, and our life can't get better, we should just take it easy, right?" This is what my brain says to me all the time. Recently is I've had to be vulnerable, and leave my comfort zone, and take the next step in my coaching business, my brain has said, "Maybe we should just stop coaching. We could just stop trying to grow our business, and wrestle self-doubts, and we could just go back to doing the dishes, or ironing the clothes, or making cookies or whatever it was that we used to do with our time."

And if that's the goal, if the goal is to get better, or to make our life better, and we can't actually do that, then our brain is right. There isn't much point. But what I want to offer you today is that getting better, or making our life better was never the point. What if your goal setting, and your accomplishment, and your growing, and stretching in all the ways you want to is all about who you become along the way, and has nothing to do with getting better? And what if along the way of this becoming we also get to bless the world a little bit too. So, if we go back to Moroni's example, like what if the point was not to be a better version of himself, or to make his thirty-six years better, or bearable, or even to have other people someday acknowledge his work. But what if the point was who he became in the struggle, and in the isolation, and in the obedience, and who he became as he exercised his agency to do what God asked him, even though his brain didn't think it was worth it?

What if the point was the skills he developed, and the power he had access to as he became a person who didn't give up or give in to his brain day after day after day for 36 years? And as a side benefit to all that becoming, he also got to bless the world a little bit, too. He got to bless my life six-hundred years later, and make my Earth-life experience a little less painful, and a little more bearable after that. Thirty-six years, he was a different man, not a better man, but one that was more like the ideal that he was striving for, one that was more familiar with discomfort, one that was more familiar with his savior, and what it means to suffer so that others can be blessed. And what if that was the whole point, to use the years he had on Earth to become as close as he could to that ideal, as close as he could, to having the skills of loving and being the way Christ loved, and lived his life?

You have been given your time on Earth, your time in the ultimate learning environment, and you get to use it not to become better, but to develop more capacity, and exercise your own agency over your brain. To develop more capacity to love, when the alternative is so much easier. To develop and become more like the ideal you are striving for. And as a side benefit to that becoming, you get to bless the world a little bit too, and make Earth-life a little easier for another of God's children.

So, I want to give you a little example of this, and then give you a few things to think about as you go to set your goals for next year. So recently, my coach had me do an evaluation of the last year in my business, and she asked me some questions. She asked me, "Okay what was the goal at the beginning? What was your result?" She asked me like, what worked? Where did you see your growth? She asked me what didn't work, what do you want to do differently? And then she said, "If you had paid fifty-thousand dollars for everything you experienced in your business in 2020, what would be the lessons that you learned that would make that worth the money?" And so, I took some time and wrote those lessons. And as I wrote those lessons down, I had this powerful realization, and realized that it's never actually about the goal. It's never about how much I made, or whether or not I even hit the goal. It's always about what I learned, and who I became as I pursued that goal. So, in this case, I learned that my thoughts create my results, not my actions, right? Like I had spent so much time focused on the action line, and this year I learned to put all my focus on what I am thinking, and really concentrate on my beliefs, and the actions I need to take just flow naturally from those thoughts, all my work is always in the T-line.

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I learned that the work on myself-concept, what I think about myself never ends. There are always challenges to my beliefs about myself. My business shows me where I'm not believing, where myself- concept needs work, and it's a privilege to be able to work on those. I learned that I can't grow in my business, and tell my belief does, right? The universe won't let me progress until my belief matches my desired results. And I learned that I have a work, right? That is just mine. And having that work doesn't take away from anyone else, but I have found my work. I have been given gifts, I have a work, and I am not done doing it. And it wasn't easy to learn those lessons, right? I remember one time just like sobbing during a coaching session because I was just so sure I was failing, and I just wanted to give up. And I remember my coach saying, "I am so glad you are having this experience. I am so glad you are having this moment to be able to see your doubts, and be confronted by them." She said, "They were always there, right?" Those secret thought you had about your abilities, and your worthiness, they were always there. But because of your business, and where you are right now, they're coming to the surface, and you have to face them. You have to look at them, and decide to believe new things about yourself. You can't move past here until you clean this up, and think differently. There is no way around. And that is the point, right?

I don't become better if I build a business, or I bake cookies, right? But when I do things that I already know how to do, my doubts don't come up. My beliefs don't have to be questioned, I don't have to become in any way. There isn't any growth there for me now. There is no better path for any of us, right? There is nothing that you will choose that's better, or more noble, or more superior, right? There is no goal that is more worthy than another. But when we set goals, and choose to do things outside of our comfort zone, our brain protects our brain, puts up a fight. And that fight, is the one that we came to fight, that battle in our own brain. The battle of choice. Where we get to choose the way we think about ourselves, and the more that we do that, the more capacity we have to do that. And as a bonus, we also get to bless the world a little bit to whatever you choose to do, whatever way you want to grow, and stretch, and become. It is worth doing because you will have to confront your own brain and your own doubts, and your own vulnerabilities, and insecurities along the way. And this is why I think it matters to set goals for who you become, and the things you have to choose to think, and the things that you have to stop thinking about yourself in order to achieve them. And that, my friends, is why you came.

You were purposefully put in a body with a brain that would only point out your faults, and tell you how impossible things were, and tell you how you certainly can't do that thing, and you're never good enough. You are put in a body with a brain on purpose, because in overcoming it, you become more like Christ, who overcame every impulse of his human brain, and won every battle his brain ever offered him. This is why the scriptures call him the Mighty God, because he won every time. And what's amazing is that if you have a desire to follow him, that work is done within the confines of your very own brain, right? In the smallest of ways with every single goal we set, we are simply practicing following him.

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So, for a moment, I want you to think back to your goals at the beginning of this year, what did you want to accomplish, and what are your results? And then, without any condemnation at all, but just with like an utter curiosity, I want you to notice all the ways in which you made choices that helped you become more like him, by taking charge of your brain. And also, notice the places where your brain got in your way, and I want you to think about the lessons that you learned, and then I want you to think about what you want to think differently next year. Not to be better, and not to make your life better, both of those are impossible. But just to make the most of your time on Earth, to use these days, given you to learn the lessons you can learn in no other way. To learn the lessons that only come by having a human brain, and overcoming it one choice at a time. One thought at a time. What do you want to learn? Where do you want more skill, where do you want to do some growing, and leaving your comfort zone? Because that is your privilege as a human, and as a child of God. And no matter what your goal is, or what your path is, the point is not what you do. It is who you become along the way, because of what you will have to think
And I just want to tell you that if you want help on that path, if you want help to go after your goals, and create something amazing, you should hire me to be your coach. I credit coaching with all the growth, and becoming I've been able to do, because coaching always reveals my thoughts to me. The thoughts that are getting in my way, the ones that are stopping me from taking action, the ones that in subtle ways are sabotaging me, right? Like my brain is serious about avoiding pain, and effort. My brain is serious about avoiding criticism, and exposure, and other people's negative opinions. My brain is serious about wanting to stay the same, and wanting to escape when things are hard, and so is yours. That's all that's happening. If you aren't reaching the goals you want, if you aren't becoming in the ways you want, your brain just has the upper hand right now. And that's why I have a coach, because if I don't look at my thoughts, and question them, they start running the show, and then I stop achieving my goals. But more importantly, I stop becoming, and growing in all the ways I came to become, and grow. And that is just not how I want to spend the rest of my time here on Earth.

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So, my group coaching program starts the very first week in January. We will meet every single week for six months. We're going to question your thoughts. And because it's in a group setting, you'll also be able to see other people's thoughts. And it's so amazing when you can see other people's brains doing what brains do, you will understand your own brain so much better, and be onto its lies so much faster. So, decide that you are worth it, invest in yourself, invest in coaching, and spend the next six months with me. We'll confront, and question the thoughts that are preventing you from having all the growth, and experience, and skills that you want to get while you're here. Your brain is always just interested in your survival and it's awesome in that, but you were made for so much more than that. And if you are interested in getting more than that, you have to stop taking your brains word for things, and decide to think differently about yourself in your life. You can apply for my group program at aprilpricecoaching.com/madeformore

I love that changing the way you think will change what you do. It will and that will change the experience of your life. But more importantly, changing the way you think will change ultimately who you become. And that is the work that you really came to do. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome! I love you for listening and I'll see you next week!

Applications for my group coaching program Made for More are now open in aprilpricecoaching.com Your brain was program for survival, but you were made for more than that. You were made for more love and more accomplishment and more joy right now. And I can show you the simple way to get all of that. Join me in Made for More, where we will spend six months coaching, and reprogramming your brain so that you can get the most out of this life, and the next! Go to aprilpricecoaching.com to apply, and I'll see you there.