Hello and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Sharina. I'm your host. I'm your partner in change, personal and collective transformation, and just someone who is really passionate about personal and collective growth, our evolution, doing our best and creating more positive impact. And just seeing what we are capable of. Today, guys, is another AI experiment where my AI co-host will walk you through my daily blog and this approach that I've learned through 18 years of coaching that will help you to achieve and overachieve your goals without stressing about them, without feeling pressured, and very often, to be honest, dissatisfied and demotivated by not meeting your targets. It might sound contradictory that what I'm telling you is start forgetting about focusing on your goals, which are not in your control, and instead focusing on what is in your control almost entirely. That is your daily actions. So without further ado, please tune in to today's conversation between my AI host, which are taught to have a conversation based on my daily blog, which where you will learn again what to focus on, how not to set the goals. So you have the motivation, the energy, the happiness, the no pressure while achieving hard goals. So how to set the goals right, so you get to overachieve them without feeling demotivated, pressured, or like you are falling behind.
SPEAKER_02You know, we all share that impulse. It's it's just human nature. Absolutely. Whether it's, I don't know, the turn of the year, a big birthday, or just that feeling when you realize you're in the final stretch.
SPEAKER_01Right, like the last month of 2025 is suddenly staring you in the face.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And boom, we instantly fixate on these huge, flashy outcome goals. I'm gonna make three times my salary, I'm gonna lose 30 pounds, you know, the drill. We just we worship the destination.
SPEAKER_01We do. It's the magnetic pull of that finish line. And I mean, it's understandable, our whole society rewards outcomes, not effort. But the thing we've learned from our sources today, which by the way, drawn almost two decades of intensive coaching, is that focusing on that result is probably the number one reason people get stuck.
SPEAKER_02It's what keeps them stuffed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they create this massive anxiety because they're obsessed with something they can't actually directly control.
SPEAKER_02And that's the crucial insight we're really diving into today. Our mission is, well, pretty simple to stop chasing that outcome and start mastering the only lever we actually have, our behavior. Right. Because even if you're looking at the calendar right now and thinking, ah, it's too late, the source material reminds us that, you know, one twelfth of a year is a surprisingly generous amount of time.
SPEAKER_01It is, if, and it's a big if.
unknownYeah.
You shift your focus to the right mechanism.
SPEAKER_02It's that profound difference between, say, staring at a leaderboard and just concentrating on the quality of your next move.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell Exactly. And we have to define this core idea really clearly. On the one hand, you have outcome goals.
SPEAKER_02The flashy stuff.
SPEAKER_01The flashy stuff, the weight loss, the revenue, the praise. These are results, they're what we call lag indicators. Okay. And then you have behavior goals. And these are the actual repeatable actions, the consistency, the frequency, and the effort you apply right now, today.
SPEAKER_02Okay, let's unpack this because the central argument here, the thesis, is that real sustainable transformation never comes from an obsession with the destination. It comes from this simple, relentless commitment to, and I'm quoting here, doing as many quality reps as you possibly can. And I have to say, that sounds a lot more achievable than, you know, trying to magically manifest a million dollars.
SPEAKER_01It is so much more achievable. And the reason we get stuck chasing those big, shiny targets is because they all suffer from the exact same fatal flaw. Which is what's they're all lagging indicators.
SPEAKER_02Let's get specific. Let's detail those classic offenders. The targets that feel like goals, but are really, according to this philosophy, just measurements.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Think about the big ones, the ones everyone sets, how much money you'll make this year. That's a huge one.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_01Or for entrepreneurs, how big my business will get. In the creative space, it's always how many likes, shares, or you know, positive comments I'll get.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's a dangerous one.
SPEAKER_01It is. And of course, the perennial favorite in fitness, the specific weight I'll hit, or my dream body composition.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so those sound like perfectly good goals. Right. But you're saying they are lagging indicators. What does that actually mean in practice?
SPEAKER_01It means they are results, pure and simple. They can only reflect the work you've already put in. They can't drive future action. I mean, think about your bank balance or the number on the scale or your follower count. They're just mirrors. They reflect yesterday's effort or, you know, lack of effort.
SPEAKER_02Trevor Burrus, Jr.: They're the scoreboard at the end of the game.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Not the strategy you're executing in the third quarter.
SPEAKER_02The psychological danger there seems immediate. If I'm just obsessing over that mirror and the reflection doesn't change for a few days, I feel like a failure.
SPEAKER_01You do.
SPEAKER_02Even if I did all the right things.
SPEAKER_01Precisely. And that feeling leads to paralysis or burnout. The whole coaching rationale is this outcomes are just not 100% in your control.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01You can control the quality of your product, but you can't control a sudden market shift. You can't control a global pandemic that shrinks everyone's budget. And if you tie your self-worth to that uncontrollable outcome, you're basically setting yourself up for emotional whiplash.
SPEAKER_02So the only lever you can pull, the only thing you can really rely on is the action itself. The only thing you can schedule, track, and I guess guarantee is the quality, the consistency, and the frequency of your behavior.
SPEAKER_01Yes. You have to distinguish between leading indicators, your behaviors, which predict the future, and the lagging indicators, the outcomes, which just measure the past.
SPEAKER_02So if my goal is to grow my business.
The lagging indicators revenue, sure. But the leading indicators. That's stuff like making 15 cold calls a day or publishing one really well-researched article a week. Things you can actually do.
SPEAKER_02If we connect this to the bigger picture, then it sounds like we have to stop letting ourselves get emotionally paralyzed by these targets that are just inherently out of our immediate reach.
SPEAKER_01That's the truly liberating step.
SPEAKER_02You can only grab the next action, the next behavior. You can't just reach out and grab a million-dollar outcome right now.
SPEAKER_01Not at all. And we spend so much energy worrying about it. Instead of stressing about your target weight for next month, just focus on the behavior you can literally schedule for 6 a.m. tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02Like a 45-minute workout.
SPEAKER_01A 45-minute strength training session, whatever it is. The source's philosophy is you have to accept the randomness of the world and anchor your effort in things that happen on your calendar, not things that depend on, well, luck or external validation.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell This moves us into what the source describes as this really profound internal change that happens when people finally make this shift. There's a moment when your attention moves from the anxiety of getting something to the clarity of doing something. The source says something just settles.
SPEAKER_01It creates a powerful psychological anchor. I mean, when you stop chasing success, chasing validation, chasing applause, that whole chasing mentality, and you start focusing entirely on just executing the task in front of you, the creating mentality. You become radically grounded in the present. You're not waiting for luck anymore. You are generating reality with your own effort.
SPEAKER_02Here's where it gets really interesting for me, at least, this creation mindset. It forces you to ask new, better questions. So if my outcome goal was, say, be a famous writer, I might spend all day just checking my stats online. But if my behavior goal is write 500 words of new fiction today, what question does that force me to ask myself?
SPEAKER_01Well, the primary question immediately becomes how can I do more quality with every single rep I take? Yeah. You're not focused on some distant lottery win anymore. You're focused on mastery, on process. You're asking, how can I make these 500 words better? Did I use my best energy for this task? It grounds you in reality because your measure of success becomes your commitment, not your conversion rate.
SPEAKER_02Okay, but I have to challenge this a little. We're human, right? We need motivation. If I completely stop thinking about the outcome, the dream bus, the freedom that more money provides, how do I stay motivated through that, you know, boring middle?
SPEAKER_01That is a critical question.
SPEAKER_02Where the behavior is tedious and the results haven't shown up yet.
SPEAKER_01And the source argues that, yes, the initial spark, that activation energy, does come from the vision. The outcome goal is the North Star.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so it has a purpose.
SPEAKER_01It has a purpose. But your long-term momentum is maintained by tracking your progress in behavior, not just results and outcomes. When you finish that 45-minute workout, you achieved 100% of your behavior goal.
SPEAKER_02Regardless of what the scale says.
SPEAKER_01Regardless of what the scale says tomorrow morning, that daily guaranteed sense of accomplishment, that is the true fuel for the boring middle.
SPEAKER_02So it forces a more rational allocation of time and energy. It kind of strips away the magical thinking that if I just wished hard enough for that business, it'll just appear.
SPEAKER_01Precisely. You have to look at that ultimate goal, that health goal, that revenue target, and strip away the fantasy. And you have to ask yourself, what actions does this goal rationally systematically require?
SPEAKER_02That's the key question.
SPEAKER_01For anyone listening right now, take your biggest aspiration and define the three essential repeatable behaviors you need to do this week. That's the real assignment. The outcome is the reward for doing the behaviors, not the thing you chase.
SPEAKER_02This brings us to a really crucial clarification, though. Does this mean outcome goals are just useless? Do we just abandon having a vision or a target altogether?
SPEAKER_01No, absolutely not. And the source is very firm on this. Goals and vision matter enormously. Okay. They give you direction, they're the compass, the North Star. Their whole job is to provide the context for why you're doing those daily behaviors in the first place.
SPEAKER_02So a tool for direction, but not the engine itself.
Right. They're not, as the source puts it, God's handing out blessings that will reward you just because you asked nicely. If you worship the goal itself, the revenue number, the specific weight on the scale, you become inflexible. You risk taking shortcuts.
SPEAKER_02And you become brittle.
SPEAKER_01You become brittle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01When life inevitably throws you a curveball, the idea is you check the compass every so often to make sure you're still heading north, but you have to keep moving your feet by taking that next step.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so let's get practical. Let's talk about the method the source recommends for actually integrating both of these things, the long-term vision and the immediate effort. It's a two-step process.
SPEAKER_01It is. Step one is what's called the realistic assessment. You have to look at your outcome goal and determine the required commitment. You ask the question: given my goals, realistically, what actions, how much effort, and how often do I need to show up to reach them in the time frame I've chosen?
SPEAKER_02It's a sober, objective analysis.
SPEAKER_01It has to be. If you want to run a marathon in six months, you need to commit to a real training schedule, not just, you know, wish for better cardiovascular fitness.
SPEAKER_02And after that assessment is done, step two is maybe the hardest part psychologically. It's called the release.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Once you've defined the necessary behavior, you let it go. You stop fantasizing about the outcome and you commit 100% to scheduling and executing the effort.
SPEAKER_02You prioritize the behaviors.
SPEAKER_01You prioritize the behaviors you can control and you accept up front that the outcome will never arrive exactly when or how you want it to. Your only job is to show up and do the work.
SPEAKER_02Well, let me push back on that though. I mean, in a professional setting, releasing the outcome goal seems almost impossible. My boss, my shareholders, my clients, they all demand results. If I truly release that revenue target, how do I maintain the professional rigor I need to actually hit it?
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell That's a brilliant point because we do live in a results-driven world. And the source addresses this by saying the release is internal, not external. Externally, you manage expectations, you report on lagging indicators, you do your job. Internally, however, you hold yourself accountable only to the behaviors you identified in step one. The focus shift is your psychological shield against stress.
SPEAKER_02So if you miss the target.
SPEAKER_01And if you did execute the process perfectly and you still missed, it means your assessment in step one was wrong, not your effort.
SPEAKER_02Wow. That reframes failure completely. It totally changes the internal dialogue when that inevitable moment comes, when the outcome doesn't show up on schedule. Yes. It turns it from a moral failing into just data.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell It fundamentally changes judgment into feedback. When you're only committed to the outcome, missing the target feels like you, as a person, failed. It triggers self-judgment. It makes you want to give up. But when you're committed to the action, a missed target just becomes pure, invaluable feedback on how effective your plan was.
SPEAKER_02So it's no longer I failed, I'm quitting. It's okay, the data is in, my plan needs an adjustment.
Exactly. This whole behavioral shift replaces that self-defeating spiral with three really powerful self-reflection questions. It creates a continuous learning loop.
SPEAKER_02What are they?
SPEAKER_01One, did I actually do my best on the behaviors I committed to, be honest? Two, what did I learn about the relationship between my actions and the outcome I wanted? And three, what will I do next now that I have this new information?
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell That feels like a much more powerful sustainable growth engine than just raw willpower.
SPEAKER_01It is. The summary statement is this outcomes report back. Actions move you forward.
SPEAKER_02So what does this all mean for you listening right now?
SPEAKER_01It means that your precious time and energy needs to be spent entirely on the things you can control today. Your company may not secure that huge client this month, but you can definitely commit to scripting and delivering two perfect sales presentations every single week.
SPEAKER_02Your fitness level might not jump by some metric tonight.
SPEAKER_01But you can absolutely commit to 10 minutes of recovery stretching before bed.
SPEAKER_02So this whole deep dyes really is giving us permission to stop obsessing over the anxiety of the future and to commit fully to the process of the present. It's about focusing on the doing of things we already know are important rather than just hoping for the getting of a result.
SPEAKER_01That is the essential call to action for this final stretch of the year. It's time to define those actions. What specific measurable doing goals will you commit to for the rest of this time frame?
SPEAKER_02Not the fantasy outcome.
SPEAKER_01No, the concrete behavior.
SPEAKER_02And the source insists that the most important part of this is making that commitment tangible. Otherwise, it's just more magical thinking.
SPEAKER_01You have to put it in writing. Define the commitment clearly, using the structure we saw in the source. This month I commit to doing daily weekly. And this commitment, it isn't just about achieving some short-term target. It's about what you practice repeatedly, deliberately to grow the person you want to meet on January 1st.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So the true outcome.
SPEAKER_01The true outcome, the most valuable long-term result is the evolution of yourself. And that is driven solely by the quality and the consistency of the actions you choose to take today.
And that concludes today's episode, which I recorded on December 1st in aspiration to help you focus on the right kind of lever, on the biggest lever to grow the person you want to see on January 1st and beyond. Thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in. Don't forget to share, to spread the podcast to my ears so we all get to grow more consistently, the best version of self, which creates amazing things in the world and just has extraordinary life. So thank you for tuning in. Thank you for working on yourself and keep growing.