Next Level University

What Most People Don’t Get About Setting Goals (2050)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

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In this episode of Next Level University, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros share why setting goals is more than writing dreams on paper—it's the art of building belief, shaping habits, and discovering who you’re meant to be. If you've ever felt lost between where you are and where you wish to go, this conversation will light the way.

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Show notes:
(2:58) How to break goals into action steps
(3:48) Surprising goal-setting statistics
(5:20) Living life without clear goals
(6:29) Financial freedom is a byproduct
(8:38) Why awareness matters before goal setting
(12:21) Next Level Dreamliner: The planner, agenda, journal, and habit tracker to rule them all. Get a copy: https://a.co/d/9fPpxEt
(17:08) Why do we owe people the truth about careers
(22:36) Setting better goals
(24:13) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Kevin Palmieri:

There is plenty of information out there on how to set goals. There is plenty of information on how to get your goals, but why do most of us struggle? It's not the fact that maybe we don't have the information, maybe we don't understand how to connect it all together. Maybe we need necessity, accountability, whatever it is, that's what we're going to talk about.

Alan Lazaros:

Kev asked me why do you think? What's your takeaway for this episode? My takeaway, right up front here I think that we underestimate number one, the importance of setting goals. And number two it's actually a process that has to be done over and over and over again. You have to set and reset goals. It's not a destination, even though it seems like it is.

Kevin Palmieri:

Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, kevin Palmieri, and.

Alan Lazaros:

I'm your co-host.

Kevin Palmieri:

Alan Lazarus At NLU. We believe in a heart-driven but no BS approach to holistic self-improvement for dream chasers.

Alan Lazaros:

Our goal with every episode is to help you level up your life love health and wealth.

Kevin Palmieri:

We bring you a new episode every single day, on topics like confidence, self-belief, self-worth, self-awareness, relationships, boundaries, consistency, habits and defining your own unique version of success.

Alan Lazaros:

Self-improvement in your pocket, every day, from anywhere, completely free. Welcome to.

Kevin Palmieri:

Next Level University, next Level University, next Level Nation. Today for episode number 2050. What most people don't get about setting goals. I was not intending on telling the story, alan, but I remember very, very, very early in my coaching career I had a client who wanted to be a personal trainer and I said I was a personal trainer. This is what I would suggest. This is the organization I would suggest. Let me know how I can help NASM NASM, national Academy of Sports Medicine, even though it's not that so I don't know how they can even legally say sports medicine. I don't think that's what it is really, but sounds good, sounds really good. I remember saying I said well, what can I do to help? How can I help you? How can my coaching help you become a personal trainer? And they said I don't know. I feel like it's going to be impossible for me to study this whole book and then take the test. And I said, all right, cool, let's figure out a date. So I said when's the latest you can take the test? And they said, oh, you have six months, I think, from the time you buy the book. I said, all right, cool, you think you're going to need all six months? No, I think I probably need like four months. All right, cool. What's four months from today? All right, that's our goal. Cool. Now let's work backwards. So we have let's say we have 120 days is 480 pages. Awesome. You need to read four pages a day and you'll get through this entire book. Obviously, we want to do it a little bit faster than that, so why don't we plan on reading 10 pages a day? You'll get done on this date and then you'll have all this time to study your flashcards and review and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Kevin Palmieri:

Here's why it's so challenging setting the goal of becoming a personal trainer. Setting the goal of becoming a personal trainer is not necessarily the hard part. Becoming the personal trainer is. It's going to require you to adopt a bunch of habits, work on a bunch of skills that you haven't acquired yet, have some level of the understanding of time. So I think, from my perspective, one of the most challenging things about setting goals is it's not the goal, is just a bunch of things added up. It's not just one thing. You don't just become a personal trainer. You study and then you make flashcards, and then you have the right websites you go to and you have all this other stuff, you have accountability. I think that's one thing that most people don't get about it want to ask kev about this.

Alan Lazaros:

First I'll read some stats. I I did a presentation for toast masters last week and I did the deep research function on chat gpt about goal setting and I went through a lot of the data and three stats that I pulled up for my presentation was this Statistic number one little picture of goal setting notebook Only 3% of people have clear written goals for their future. Statistic number two 13% have goals but not in writing and often lack follow-through. Statistic number three the remaining 84% have no specific goals at all. One of the reasons I want to ask you about this is because all of us are weird in things. All of us are different in certain things.

Alan Lazaros:

When I was a kid, I was always goal-oriented. I always had a goal, whether it was a video game or a certain academic goal to go to this college to do this thing, to become an engineer, whatever it was I was always goal-oriented. So I don't know if I'm the best person to answer this and I'll definitely give my take, but I want to understand from you, as someone who didn't really have goals early on or maybe you did, but they were maybe not that clear or way in the future you think it would just work out. Can you describe what it was like?

Alan Lazaros:

to live life without goals Because, okay, as pretentious as this is going to come off, I actually don't have any idea what it's like to not have goals. I've never not had goals.

Kevin Palmieri:

It was easier. For sure, alan and I always have these conversations behind the scenes because it was normal, because I didn't ever have goals. I never set goals. I didn't feel like I was lacking anything other than results. It wasn't like if you said what's the biggest issue, kev, it would never have been that I didn't have goals because I didn't know how important goal setting was. I didn't. I didn't set a goal to hit a certain weight for the way I looked. I just I wanted to look better, did you?

Alan Lazaros:

set a goal for bench press or squat or anything Nope.

Kevin Palmieri:

No, no, it was. I want to do better than I'm doing.

Alan Lazaros:

I figured this just came to me and production team. If you can do anything about my throat, I keep coughing and if you can't do anything about it, listeners. I'm sorry. I'm doing my best here, but this just came to me.

Alan Lazaros:

What people want is a byproduct of goals. I really want to try to explain this. If you want financial freedom, that's not a goal. Financial freedom is a byproduct of a bigger goal. Let me explain is a byproduct of a bigger goal. Let me explain If you want to build an investment nest egg of $1 million in your lifetime, which is mathematically doable for I'm not even kidding most people, assuming you start now and do it long-term and I can break the numbers down then financial freedom is a byproduct and I don't think this is explained well. But if you take 8% of 1 million, that's $80,000 a year. So it grows by 8% and you can siphon that off. So now you don't have to work are lower than that $80,000. So eventually you get to a place where you don't have to work anymore. But the only way you do that is by working and putting away money in an investment portfolio that eventually yields an average of 8% year over year. So financial freedom is not a goal. It's a byproduct of a goal, just like laughter.

Alan Lazaros:

I tried to explain this before. Laughter is a byproduct of a great joke you don't kind of laugh at my joke, that's dumb. Fulfillment and fun and laughter are a byproduct of a goal. If the goal for a comedian is to get the place laughing, they have to go work on their craft and perfect joke after joke after joke after joke. And if their goal is to get the place laughing, they have to go work on their craft and perfect joke after joke after joke after joke. And if their goal is to become a successful comedian, there's a there's, and that's why I think it's so wonky is because you don't just have to reverse engineer the finish line. So she wants to be a personal trainer? Okay, boom, that means you need to get certified. Okay, boom, nasm, boom, test Four months out. Okay, break it down Ten pages a day. But what's the goal of the goal? Just be a personal trainer. Does she have a goal for a number of clients? Does she have a goal for financial freedom? It's just to be a personal trainer.

Kevin Palmieri:

Where does that even come from? That's the start. That's the start. That's where it starts. I don't, I think it's really you can't, I don't think you can really set a goal beyond your awareness.

Alan Lazaros:

I mean, you can, but it's how, though? But everyone's setting a goal beyond their awareness, Like when you decided you wanted to be a podcaster, you had no idea what it would be like to be a podcaster.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, but I had an awareness of what a podcast was. I didn't have. I didn't never said I wanted to make money with it in the beginning because I didn't know by that rationale no one would ever invent anything new people that invent stuff are people with super high self-belief.

Alan Lazaros:

I would go, and that is a hill I'm willing to die on okay, what comes up for you when I say just because it's never been done doesn't mean it can't be I.

Kevin Palmieri:

That's not the way. I think that's a high self-belief thing, brother. What? What is the who created the fucking light bulb and they had to fail 10 000 times. You think I'm failing, sir edison. You think about you're failing 10 000 times?

Alan Lazaros:

we've failed 10 000, we've failed 2 000 times, for sure yeah, I know, but it's different, why?

Kevin Palmieri:

it's the exact same process.

Alan Lazaros:

I'm not trying to build a thing we are building a thing that's I know, but not a, it's not. A podcast has never existed.

Kevin Palmieri:

I know, but it's not a thing like there will be no final form but next level, live 2025.

Alan Lazaros:

That presentation will never exist again in that form and that was the accumulated compound effect of eight years. But that wasn't the goal.

Kevin Palmieri:

The goal was the light bulb no, or maybe it wasn't well then, why make a light bulb? What?

Alan Lazaros:

was the? Okay, what was the?

Kevin Palmieri:

goal, the goal of the goal to bring light, to, yeah, accessible light to replace.

Alan Lazaros:

The goal was to solve the problem people's houses burning down because there's candles all over the place I'm obviously joking. You ever see an old period piece movie where there's candles everywhere and it's how did you guys not?

Kevin Palmieri:

you think I'm out here watching period piece.

Alan Lazaros:

Gone with the wind, you got a period piece means, I mean, even if you watch. You watch old movies, movies. What's the one?

Kevin Palmieri:

you want me to see. It's not the one I want you to see, based on the last episode. It's the one you need to see. It's called it's a Wonderful Life.

Alan Lazaros:

Okay, that's a period piece. I suppose it is Okay. Anyways, the point is, if you ever see a movie that was historically placed in a time before electricity, the goal was to solve the fact that we were killing whales for lamp oil. There's always a problem. Inventions are a byproduct of solving a problem.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, but think of the amount of self-belief it takes to be that person.

Kevin Palmieri:

Doesn't land at all, okay, cool, got you the NASM certification, national Academy of of sports medicine, I believe. It has a 75 failure rate. Okay, all the people that set that as a goal 75 out of 100 of them do not accomplish the goal. Would it serve them if they were thinking of how many clients they wanted to have? Or they wanted financial freedom through personal training? I don't know, I don't think it helps you pass the test. I think you've got to get through a checkpoint to see the next. Like I know we can get to 4,000 episodes, but I didn't think we'd get to 2,000. In the beginning I wasn't even aware of how much would have to change. It was always possible.

Alan Lazaros:

You do know that you just couldn't see it. Yes, yes, yes, okay, it was always possible.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yes, but I wasn't aware, kevin and I are.

Alan Lazaros:

We always do this self-belief discussions. We do several episodes several times. Hello, hello, hello. Nlu listener, thank you, as always, for listening to Next Level University. Real quick, I just want to jump in and let you know about the Next Level Dreamliner.

Alan Lazaros:

This is a journal that I use every single day. Achieve your dreams 90 days at a time. It breaks down your dreams into goals, milestones and daily habits. We hope you enjoy it. The link will be in the show notes. So the goal of the goal I think everyone's goal of a goal is to feel better about themselves. I'm not even kidding, this is going to be a bold statement, but I've been mentoring for 10 years, coaching for eight. Everyone really just wants self-belief and self-worth and self-esteem and self-confidence. That's the goal of every goal and significance. You have higher yeah, of course you have higher self-esteem, self-confidence, self-belief, self-worth and self-respect. Why? Because the goal forced you to grow into a man that you actually respect. Like, the goal is never to get the goal, it's never actually to get the goal. Who cares about the goal, like these trophies don't mean anything. It's who I had to become to achieve them that matters, okay.

Kevin Palmieri:

Trophies don't make me feel good. Well then, what? Somebody would say. Why are they there then? Because it shows that I have credibility. Okay, All these awards are for credibility, because I look 15. I threw my when, when I moved, I threw my trophies out.

Alan Lazaros:

I also believe in accomplishment. I believe in goals. I believe that they mean something to me. I'll also give you that. But let's be real. No older businessman wants to learn from someone who looks 12. I have to show credibility. That's why these certifications and degrees and all that exist. Well, it's part of the goal.

Kevin Palmieri:

There's a lot of really successful people who don't have a degree. Right, what's the goal? Okay, what's the goal of the goal? I got my bachelor's degree in. Quote me on this because I'm literally saying it's probably incorrect. 74% of people never use their, the degree that they get.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, that's probably accurate. So, and again, these are all built on studies and the studies are either credible or not right, Even the trash. Cpt research. Like I looked through different studies.

Kevin Palmieri:

That was a hard one.

Alan Lazaros:

Let's say it was 50%, though study that was let's say it was 50, though let's say 50, let's say it's even 25, but that's my point. That actually proves my point. There's no point. Getting a degree is learning how to learn. It's not to actually do the thing.

Kevin Palmieri:

I know but I, it's all. I think it also is my point of it's. That's where it starts, though. 25% of people did not not do it because they knew exactly what they wanted to do after this is why it's so hard.

Alan Lazaros:

It makes perfect sense. It is no one has any clue. When you're a kid, no one has any clue about anything. You want to be an astronaut, but you have no idea what that's going to be like. And then you get into space. You're like fuck this. Right, I can't even imagine At the end of the day. This is actually side tangent here.

Alan Lazaros:

Quick, conversations Change Lives is the YouTube channel, was going to be a podcast that I had Kevin on and that's when we sort of teamed up and he had the Hyperconscious podcast. I had Conversations Change Lives. He was my first guest, I was his first guest. You want to know the point of that podcast?

Alan Lazaros:

Back in the day, I wanted everyone to be a fly on the wall. I wanted to interview an engineer and say, hey, what's your life actually like versus what you thought it was going to be? I wanted to interview a nurse and say, hey, what's your life actually going to be like versus what you thought it was going to be? Cause I had a girlfriend in the past who wanted to be a nurse. She would, that was her dream and she ended up a nurse per diem at multiple hospitals, er. I mean. She did it all. I was proud of her. She's like this is fucking terrible. If you had known that, you probably wouldn't have put in all that money and effort to something that ends up being and again, it's not all terrible, but I mean it was way worse than she thought. I remember I wanted to go to the hospital and punch some patients because they were being so disrespectful to her, like they were calling her all kinds of names and stuff and of course I would.

Alan Lazaros:

You know it is what it is, but that's a travesty to invest a decade of your life to something you don't even want. But you don't know that until later. What, if? What if she had listened to a podcast where a nurse was interviewed and I asked hey, what? What did you think it was going to be like, versus what it's actually like? That's why I'm always the weirdo guy at the high school saying hey, by the way, we went to a career day once for podcasters. Hey, by the way, you need to know what's beneath this iceberg, because you're going to go try to be a podcaster and you shouldn't. It's fucking terrible, but you don't know that. And again, it's not all terrible, obviously, but I know that's my calling.

Kevin Palmieri:

We know that most of them aren't going to do it anyway that's not that's.

Alan Lazaros:

That doesn't change the fact that I mean you can be anything you want in the world. You gotta pick wisely I agree you can't pick wisely without awareness and everyone's making it seem like their thing is the best thing ever. Yes, yes, and you and I don't do that, which is one of the fucking challenges we have it's definitely a piece of it.

Kevin Palmieri:

I don't. I think you and I are always not on different pages with this. I think we're on different side. We're on different sides of the same page. Don't you wish you knew what this was going to be like? I wouldn't have done it. No, that's my point. No, but I I'm glad I didn't know, because now I have all the reasons. No, no, no, I don't I still would have done it.

Alan Lazaros:

I still would have done it for sure, I'm sure I didn't know this is a little worse than I thought, for sure, but yeah, I don't know if I would have done it.

Kevin Palmieri:

I don't know if I would have. So no, I don't, because I'm glad I did.

Kevin Palmieri:

Ah that's what it wasn't. You guys are gonna do an episode every day and, honestly, like it's not gonna be that hard, like to do an episode every day. Again, with everything else it's nearly impossible, but just seven episodes wouldn't be that much of a challenge at this point. How hard it is to explain at this point it's so hard to explain. Then I also want you to know that there's going to be like several times in this journey where you're not only doing seven podcasts for you oh, by the way, you have another podcast too, so you do eight episodes a week for two podcasts, but then, like at some point, you're gonna go on like 20 other shows for like back-to-back weeks. You'll probably do like I don't know, almost a couple hundred podcasts in one month. Not, oh, okay, cool, thanks, no, no, that's not gonna ever happen. Look at me, I can't even. I can't even put a sentence together.

Alan Lazaros:

I think that's why, yeah, I don't know, man, when we go give speeches at high schools, do you know that I'm overdoing?

Kevin Palmieri:

it always, okay oh man, always all right, but you love it. One person who loves it there is, there's always one, but you love it, you love it, and that's, I think, to your point. That's who you're supposed to be, and I don't think I'm supposed to be that guy.

Alan Lazaros:

Right, I'm supposed to dial it down a little, maybe, but I do think people need to reveal more than what's true. Uh, more than what's true, more than what most people do. Yeah, I think people are dialing down too much. I genuinely. For me, people didn't tell me like no one told me what being an engineer was going to be like, until I'm sitting behind a desk designing circuits. That's fair and I'm grateful that I did it, don't get me wrong, but like I could have done anything else.

Alan Lazaros:

Esports if you had known esports, video gamers, I mean talk about an industry where you can win, yeah, globally, holy shit. Look at the stats. If I I will be brief about this. Yeah, we do have to hop in two minutes. I know I had one of me and my one of my best friends growing up. We played, I mean, halo 1 and halo 2. We were halo 1 in particular. We were one of the top 2v2s in the freaking world. I'm not saying that to put like it's true facts. Okay, this is before the internet. This is when you had to connect to your computer through X, something called Xbox connect, before Xbox live was even a thing. We were one of the best two V two teams in the world and we went to tournaments and we would crush it.

Alan Lazaros:

And there's a guy named McGavern or whatever who went down and blah, blah, blah. His parents wouldn't let him play because they thought you need to get outside and you need to get a career and you need to get a job. And I was like no, you don't, you need to play, like we can make millions doing this. But his parents had no idea. They were like what do you mean? You need to go get a job? And I was like no, we don't, we can, we can be. There are people making tons of money doing this, we can win. But his parents were ignorant. His parents couldn't see the future. They couldn't see esports as a thing. They had no idea that online gaming was going to be so big and those people that we used to play with some of them are multi, multi, multi millionaires from playing video games. So ignorance. It bothers me so much because he easily could have been one of the best in the world if he was allowed to play, but he wasn't allowed to. Instead, he was flipping burgers at at some and there's nothing wrong with flipping burgers, that's not what I'm saying. But they had him working a dead-end job instead of actually doing something that had a very promising future, out of their own ignorance.

Alan Lazaros:

And so, at the end of the day, I just I think we, I owe it to the people to share the truth of what's possible for you and what comes with it. So, if you have a goal and you want to set a goal, I'm going to help you understand like what this is. Goal is doable. Here's the process. You need to want both. You got to understand the pros and cons of both so that you don't I mean, how many people have midlife crises going? What the hell happened Like I. This is I'm married, someone I shouldn't have married. I'm in a career I shouldn't have been in, like I wish I knew well, we could have taught people things. I feel like we can teach people things, things. I feel like we can teach people things. That's why I say and that's why Kevin doesn't like to speak at high schools with me Cause I'm basically saying, hey, I what I wish someone told me was oh, I don't mind it from that part.

Kevin Palmieri:

I'd mind it because most of the kids are taller than I am and it's just makes me insecure. That's real, I'm not kidding. That's these kids. I don't know what the what the hell they're feeding these kids, but they are giants. What's your takeaway? My takeaway is I I think goal setting is really hard, and that's my takeaway.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's. It's hard as shit because it's not it's. You have to factor in so many things. You have to factor in your self-belief. You have to factor in your history of setting goals. You have to factor in what we're going to talk about tomorrow community. You have to factor in your history of setting goals. You have to factor in what we're going to talk about tomorrow community. You have to factor in so many things. It's almost like you set a goal and then you should give yourself five reasons why you can do it and the five reasons why you couldn't do it and mitigate the couldn'ts and lean into the coulds. That would be mine. Boom, all right, my next level lesson. I thought you already gave my next level lesson. Yeah, I thought you already gave you. You just gave your next level lesson. I'm going to give two next level lessons.

Alan Lazaros:

Make it concise, real quick, concise. What's the goal of the goal? I want to be X. What's the real goal for why you want that? And I think, deep down, what you really want is self-belief and self-worth and self-respect. I think you want to feel good about you and maybe there's a better path.

Kevin Palmieri:

And that's why setting an appropriate goal is so important, because you do not get self-belief if you set it in a misaligned goal Agreed. Then you just get shame cycle. It's a whole freaking thing. Okay, if one of your goals is to read more books next level books with next level people, every single Saturday, 1230 Eastern time, alan runs the next level you book club. They're reading reset by Dan Heath. You do not have to have read the book, you don't have to participate. It is like a mastermind, it's a. It's a deep talk session called a brainstorm. Call it a brainstorm, that's what that is. And then, if you're looking for a different community, we have a private Facebook group called Next Level Nation. So if that is one of your goals to get around more like-minded people we'll have the link in the show notes for that.

Alan Lazaros:

As always.

Kevin Palmieri:

We love you, we appreciate you, Grateful for each and every one of you. And at NLU we don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.

Alan Lazaros:

Stay Next Level, next Level Nation.

Kevin Palmieri:

Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level University. We love connecting with the Next Level family.

Alan Lazaros:

We mean it when we say family. If you ever need anything, please reach out to us directly. Everything you need to get a hold of us is in the show notes.

Kevin Palmieri:

Thank you.

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Alan Lazaros

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Kevin Palmieri

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