Your Goals Are Sabotaging You — Here's How to Fix It

In this episode explore the reality of goal setting—unpacking the powerful difference between goals born from inspiration and those driven by desperation.

If you’ve ever felt drained, stuck, or disconnected from your “why,” this conversation is your wake-up call. Treveal challenges you to pause, reflect, and ask:
Are these goals really mine? Or am I chasing something I was never meant to carry?

Through bold truth and deep insight, he explores how stillness, self-reflection, and authentic alignment are the keys to setting goals that actually matter—goals that energize, not exhaust you.

This isn’t just about productivity. It’s about purpose. And it starts with trusting your inner voice

Se.9 | Ep. 161

Do you doubt yourself; struggling to move forward in life?
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Transcript

Treveal C.W. Lynch (00:05)
Hey, what's going on guys? Welcome to the I am the possible podcast experience. The place where possibilities become perspective. I am your host, Travail C.W. Lynch, and I help people move forward. In the next few moments, I'm going to be presenting a perspective that I believe will help you.

to see more progress in your life. Today, we are talking about something that I believe touches all of us in some form or fashion, goals. We're gonna be talking about goal setting. And if you are someone out there like me, who tends to get drained when it's time to set goals, when it's time to put pen to pad and

set a goal for myself of any kind, for some reason they just tend to drain me. I'm a creative and I like to dream, I like to imagine, I like to play in my sandbox. But when it's time to set a goal, I find it draining. I find it complex, complicated. I feel like it's taking life from me rather than giving me life.

And this has always sort of been a struggle for me and I don't know if you can relate to it. But if you can, I've got some good news for you today. Today we're going to be looking at a new perspective as it concerns goal setting. I was introduced to this concept that I'm going to be sharing with you today through a book. And I want to make sure that I get the title of this book correct. It's called Don't Believe Everything You Think.

by a gentleman named Joseph Nguyen. And he introduces this idea, right? Remember, information leads to inspiration that leads to innovation. All we're ever doing is innovating, taking old things and seeing them in new ways. As Myles Monroe once said, innovation, it's a collective of old things done, seen in new ways. And so if goals have been a struggle for you in the past,

Well, here's a innovative way to approach goal settings because goal setting is going to be something that's going to be critical in any of our lives if we're ever going to see progress, right? We have to have a target that we're aiming at. We have to have something that we're shooting for and striving for. That's what gives us the motivation and the inspiration. But like me, again, oftentimes these goals tend to drain me. So

This idea that I picked up in this amazing book is identifying where your goals come from. Sometimes it's where the goal comes from that is the biggest problem with our goals. This author introduces the concept of desperation or inspiration. Where's your goal coming from? Is the source of your goal desperation?

which means you feel that you have to do it. I have to do this. I feel pressured by life, by society, by the culture. Some way, somehow you're being pushed into doing this thing and it drains you. It drains the life out of you. And it's not that these goals are impossible. You can still accomplish these goals, but what's unique about these goals

is that they don't necessarily resonate. They don't emerge from within you. There's something that ⁓ something from the outside is putting on you. It's like a weight. It's something that you carry. It's something that you feel you have to do, not something that you get to do. That takes us to inspiration. Your goals can come from a source of inspiration. That means that's that

space and place within you that's like a wellspring. It gives forth an idea, a goal, something that you feel not pushed into, but pulled into. It's compelling, it's captivating, it's out of your creative space, it's the sandbox, it makes you feel alive, it doesn't drain energy, it gives energy, it doesn't drain life, it gives life.

And now let me pause before I get too far off into this, because I love that idea of finding goals that inspire us. This is not to say that there are not moments in life where, because we are a part of this thing called life, and we're on this thing called earth, and we're within this thing called the culture and society, that not every goal has to be inspiring.

You could be a father and your goal is to get out of debt so that you can maybe buy a house one day for your family. That's a pretty good goal and it doesn't have to come from this inspired space. It's just a part of the job. It's just a part of, know, as a father, that's just what you need to do or what you want to do. ⁓ Maybe you are, you know, trying to send your kids to college.

and you have a goal of saving, I don't know, $20,000 in the next 10 years. And that's something that's doable, but you know, it doesn't wake you up in the morning. It's not inspiring, but it's responsible. It's something that you have deemed necessary. What I'm trying to say is, and you fill in the blank, I'm not trying to force feed you anything, you fill in the blank. What I'm saying is, is that there is room for goals.

based upon your role in society that are just healthy goals to have. The context of what I'm talking about are those goals that drain life from you that you feel you must do and have to do that you are required to do because of these unwritten, unspoken rules that we're living by in this world. Well, you're a man, so you're supposed to fit in the blank.

You're a woman, so you're supposed to fill in the blank. You're a black man, so you're supposed to. You're this, so you're supposed to. That's the context I'm speaking of. Those life suffocating goals that you are all wrapped up in because you feel like you have to do those things. But then there's this thing called inspiration, this inspired goal, this thing that you feel calling to.

You feel that it's like a part of you. It's emerging from you. It's rising up from within you and it's calling you forward. And you feel like it's a part of your purpose. It's a part of your cause in life. So I just wanted to introduce you to that idea that there is a difference. And sometimes we're just not aware.

that there's any difference. Sometimes we see goal setting as one thing and goals are one thing and there's only one way to approach it. I believe that it's my job and it's what I feel called to. ⁓ One of my inspired goals is to share as many inspiring ideas that might inspire new ideas within you that leads to you in a way, right? In a sense, innovating.

Right? Your idea of things that may be holding you back and goals might be one of them. So hopefully just me exposing you to this information and this idea that there is a difference between that, is a goal that comes from a space of desperation. And then there's this thing called goals that come from a space of inspiration. Just that idea alone now equips you and it will empower you to now go back and

rewrite your goals and examine them and say, listen, is this a goal that came from a space of desperation or is this a goal that came from a space of inspiration? And if it came from desperation, is it still responsible? Is it still something necessary or can I X this one off because I'm wasting time and energy and I'm feeling depleted of my life source?

trying to accomplish and achieve this thing that has nothing to do with who I really am and what I really feel aligned with. It's not authentic to me. It's not truly a part of what I'm about in this world. So I can let that goal go and I can reallocate my energy sources. I can reallocate my attention, my focus to something that gives me life.

And in doing so, it will then give others life. See, for me, a part of this podcast, a part of this, this communication, this work that I'm doing, even in this moment, it gives me life. The idea that I might say something and present something to you that might help you to see progress in your life that might inspire you to give yourself what I'm, what I'm now calling the green light of life. Right. A new perspective, a new way of seeing things.

that energizes me. And so let me be an example to you. I'm doing this in my own life. I'm going back and I'm looking at all of my goals and I'm saying, which ones are from desperation, which ones are from inspiration? And it it helps me to assess things much, much better and better allocate my energy, my limited energy to things that matter most. All right. So again, these things that come from desperation,

or those things that are just a part of the things that you feel that you need to do because they're just responsible based upon your role in life. Those things, again, they're not impossible. They're just a little harder. They may take a little bit more effort. Maybe they're not as enjoyable, but they're still doable, right? They're still doable. But the things that come from a space of inspiration, right? The bonus to those things are they are enjoyable.

Time flies, right, when you're having fun. You feel connected to it. You feel a deep sense of connection and purpose and meaning. You feel like it's literally an extension of you, right? That's a great bonus, a great payoff. It feels like the work that you're doing, the things that you're involving yourself with, right? You feel a deep, rich connection. It means to you that what you're doing matters.

that you're making a difference, not only in the lives of others, but also in your own personal life. All right? So just wanted to make sure that I got those few things out. Let me just make sure I'm looking at my notes over here. One thing that I didn't want to forget to tell you, and it comes from this quote that I recently received from my mentor. It says, ⁓ the quieter you become, the more you can hear. The quieter you become.

the more you can hear. I think that's important. And that's a quote from Ram Das, R-A-M, Ram, and then Das, D-A-S-S.

I think this is so important and I'll end here. So many times, because we live in such a fast, cluttered, noisy world, society, culture, and that's not for everybody. That's not true of everybody. ⁓ But for some of us, for most of us, life is very noisy. It's the voices of everyone else around us, online, the news, television, media, ⁓ friend groups.

communities, wherever you are, you're always being inundated with other people's information, right? The inundation of information from other people's ⁓ opinion, other people's perspective, other people's ⁓ way of doing things. And so because we live in this highly opinionated culture and everyone with a smartphone is an expert now, ⁓ everyone with a smartphone is an authoritative figure.

Everyone's an influencer. All of these titles that we've given ourselves, right? ⁓ It's hard to hear your own voice. It's hard to hear the real. It's hard to know what's you, what's resonating with you, what's resolving within you, what's seeking to emerge from you, that you inside, that center, that core, that essence.

that authentic version of you, that authentic voice that is within you. It is so difficult to hear that if you're not quiet, if you're not still, if you don't have a practice of stillness and silence. So I want to encourage you to build a practice, one minute, two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever you can start with.

Each day, take a few moments to hear you, to listen to you, to quiet the noise, to cut the TV and electronics and unplug, You know, detach and just hear you. Hear your own voice. Hear the voice of inspiration within you. God's giving you a voice, the voice of God and the voice.

That is the extension and the expression of God, which is you also wants to speak.

but you have to be quiet, you have to be still, you have to listen. So sometimes we'll never hear that voice because it's always being drowned out by other people's voices. But I've just said what I said and you heard me say it. So now you're aware that it's there and that it's possible if you choose to listen to it.

to hear the real within you and to respond to it. All right? Desperation, inspiration. Where are your goals coming from? Yeah. Yep, that's it. That's the idea. That's the perspective. And I'm excited about it. I hope you are as well. All right, guys, that's it. Until next time, this is Travell CW Lynch.

This is the I Am The Possible podcast. Experience the place where possibilities become perspective. Love you guys. Praying for you guys. Believing in you guys. Take this perspective, put it to work, and see progress. Give yourself the green light of life. All right, until next time.