Next Level University

Here’s Why Goals Aren’t Enough (2087)

• Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros

Share episode

Are your goals truly aligned with who you are? In this episode, Kevin and Alan explore why chasing goal after goal can still leave you feeling stuck. They share how building a strong personal philosophy and aligning with your true identity is the real key to growth. Through relatable stories, mindset shifts, and powerful coaching insights, you’ll learn how to stop relying on willpower and start living in alignment. This one’s for anyone ready to stop grinding and start growing.

Free 30-minute Business Breakthrough Session with Alan -
https://calendly.com/alanlazaros/30-minute-free-breakthrough-session?month=2025-04
Free 30-Minute Podcast Breakthrough Session with Kevin -
https://calendly.com/kevinpalmieri/free-30-minute-podcast-breakthrough-session-with-kevin

_____________________

NLU is not just a podcast; it’s a gateway to a wealth of resources designed to help you achieve your goals and dreams. From our Next Level Dreamliner to our Group Coaching, we offer a variety of tools and communities to support your personal development journey.

For more information, please check out our website at the link below. 👇

Website 💻  http://www.nextleveluniverse.com

_______________________

We love connecting with you guys! Reach out on Instagram, Facebook, or via email. We’re here to support you in your personal and professional development journey.

Instagram 📷
Kevin: https://www.instagram.com/neverquitkid/
Alan: https://www.instagram.com/alazaros88/

Facebook ✍
Alan: https://www.facebook.com/alan.lazaros
Kevin: https://www.facebook.com/kevin.palmieri.90/

Email 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com

LinkedIn ✍
Kevin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-palmieri-5b7736160/
Alan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanlazarosllc/

_______________________

Show notes:
(3:29) Identity Vs. Outcome-driven success
(5:04) The power of personal philosophy
(9:21) At NLU, your success is our purpose. Join us every first Thursday for tools, insight, and the spark to move forward. https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/drNdstrXSt6d7q7NnHITgA
(10:40) Reprogramming beliefs through coaching
(14:14) How new identities unlock growth
(16:03) Life mantras that guide us
(17:41) Outro

Send a text to Kevin and Alan!

Kevin Palmieri:

How many goals have you had that you just woke up one day and said, eh, this isn't aligned, or maybe this isn't the person I want to be, or maybe I'm not willing to do the work or the effort necessary. Versus, if you've ever had a philosophy about life, if you've ever had a mission statement, a credo, is it called a credo? It could be. I think it might be called a credo If you've ever had that. It doesn't really change, it evolves, and I think those are very different.

Alan Lazaros:

I think that we can uncover what we believe and who we really are, and I think that that's the process of growth, and I always say this to my clients Make sure your goals are in alignment with your core essence.

Kevin Palmieri:

Welcome to Next Level University. I'm your host, kevin Palmieri, and I'm your co-host, alan Lazarus.

Alan Lazaros:

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

Kevin Palmieri:

Welcome to Next Level University, next Level Nation, today for episode number 2087. Here's why goals aren't enough. You know us, we're big on goal setting, we're big on habit tracking, we're big on all that. And what if setting the goal every single time or setting a new goal just isn't enough? So taryn and I were watching alone. I get a lot of ideas from alone. For those who don't know, alone is a show where you go out in nature and I think they pick 10 contestants and you got to survive longer than everybody else. What do you?

Alan Lazaros:

got. Do they sign a waiver of you might die? Do I have to? Yeah, this one's in Australia. So like there is a lot of, there's a lot of stuff in Australia, something crazy, like 80% of the population of Australia is all like on the side where Sydney is Interesting 5.6 million people in.

Kevin Palmieri:

Sydney. I did not know that. So this is actually in Tasmania, which I didn't realize I believe is an island south of Australia.

Alan Lazaros:

Total population of Australia 27 million. I believe it's a big place for 27 million. That's what I'm saying, not a lot of people. My point of that is that show is probably scary as fuck because Emilia, she used to travel there and there were caves that she went deep into and saw. I mean, she was in places where she's like I'm not sure that more than 100 people had ever been. It's a hard pass. Yeah, she's braver. There was villagers and villages and stuff she was telling me all about it Braver than I.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, sweetheart, that's kind of reckless but also kind of awesome.

Kevin Palmieri:

So here's the point. Okay, I have a delusional belief that I could stay out there longer than most people probably. Maybe delusional, maybe not, maybe we'll figure it out, I don't know. But taran and I are watching it and there was like three people who left on the second day and I was like what do you mean? Like didn't you you? You had to expect this was gonna be hard, right, like what? Well, you know, I couldn't get a fire started. It's like you didn't do more research on how to start fire. I don't understand. Like what? We didn't. We didn't come fully prepared here.

Kevin Palmieri:

The goal of I'm going to stay here longer than anybody else and get $250,000 is not as big as some of the people who have a philosophy of. I am somebody who figures out how to overcome and succeed, no matter what. There's a guy. There's a guy. He built a canoe. He brought a tarp. He built a canoe. This thing is world-class. He puts it in the water, he's floating out Thing sinks. He says, ah shit, saves his canoe, rebuilds it and goes back out and built a fishing rod and built a reel. This dude is a G. I think he's probably going to win Because his philosophy it's not about the goal it's. This is the type of person that he is, where I think some of the other people and again, would I last? Probably not. I probably would not last out there. So don't last longer than two days, man. I think I'd last longer than two days, but also, yeah, so, taryn. So my brother-in-law's wife's brother-in-law won a loan. Alan, he won the fucking show. That's awesome.

Alan Lazaros:

My wife's brother's uncle's cousin's nephew.

Kevin Palmieri:

I'm like it's kind of sort of not really related to him, but I met him at a wedding. Super cool dude. He won one of the seasons. That's awesome, and he was. I think he was out there of the seasons, that's all he was. I think he was out there for like 45 days and he was like I could have stayed. I could have stayed out there for a lot longer. It's like my goodness, but that's who he is. So, yeah, there's a difference between setting a goal and then creating a philosophy, and I thought it would. It would be cool to talk about that well.

Alan Lazaros:

We've talked about this in group coaching.

Alan Lazaros:

We've talked about this on monthly meetups. There's three main facets of all of us. There's the identity level. That's the deepest level. Then there's the process level. Results often come as a result of great process and then there's the result. The result is last. If you want a better result, you have to have a better identity At the beginning. When we did the embarrassment episode two or three episodes ago, we talked about the top 10 most embarrassing moments. The difference is Kevin back then had a very different identity than Kevin now, and this is fixed mindset versus growth mindset. This is so.

Alan Lazaros:

What is your personal philosophy about life, AKA, what's your personal philosophy about yourself? Are you someone who never gives up? I saw a video brian tracy. Brian tracy is in his late 80s. I want to say and by the way, I did look it up australia is 27 million people. I don't know why that's important to me. It's just I like to know stats about the globe. I'm a big fan. I want to understand how the whole world works and you got to know. So that means 5.6 million people are in one area in that whole continent. It's wild. That's crazy, right? Yeah? So AKA, this show is in the wilderness of the wilderness of the wilderness, right I mean. This is far from any.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, yeah, this is the no, this is. This is out in the middle of you. Got to get a boat to come get you, or a helicopter in some cases.

Alan Lazaros:

This is out in the middle of nowhere, yeah and you sign a thing that says, if you die, it's they don't?

Kevin Palmieri:

they don't really talk about that, but I have an assumption that they have to say look, if something bad happens to you, it's not on us, and this is nature.

Alan Lazaros:

Like we can't control this, I have to assume yeah, for sure, for sure, just like when I was almost cast for love island.

Kevin Palmieri:

Hey, just so know, if you lose your soul, it's not our fault If you come home with a giant cocaine habit. That's on you, not us. That's on you, not us, Seems fair.

Alan Lazaros:

Yeah, and if you lose and destroy all of your relationships and your future reputation, that's not on us.

Alan Lazaros:

Okay. So anyways, the philosophy, the identity, what's your belief about yourself? When we're little kids, we identify as a certain thing and this is really outside of our control, unfortunately. So let's say you're a little kid and you start playing sports and you suck. If you identify as oh shit, I suck, then you're not going to continue to get better, you're not going to continue to play sports. So for me, I was told I'm bad at English, I'm really good at math, so naturally I was drawn to math. And then I got better at math and then I just ran off to the races and I got straight A's in every math class I've ever done. I've never gotten a B in math in my entire history of my life. And the unfortunate part about that is, if you develop a fixed mindset about yourself, in any area, you're basically so. This is one of the problems about personal development and it honestly struggle. It's a struggle for me as a coach.

Alan Lazaros:

People's identity is so limiting. People be like well, I'm not that gritty, why the fuck not? What do you mean? Like you can develop grit. There's studies on this. I'm gritty, you're super gritty. It annoys me that you don't highlight that. You're like ah yeah, kind of Dude. You'd last more than two days. Of course you would.

Kevin Palmieri:

I don't know, man. My issue is again the being hungry and being cold part. Like I don't really worry too much about that, it's the. I don't know if I want to kill an animal to eat it. Seriously, Like it. One of the dudes judo chopped the fish to death. He caught a fish and he just, judo, chopped it to death.

Alan Lazaros:

I was like whoa, you have to man, you gotta survive.

Kevin Palmieri:

I don't know, though, but it's for a show.

Alan Lazaros:

Right, yeah, you watch. What is it? What's the guy? British ex-Special Forces goes out into the wilderness. Man vs Wild is wild Bear Grylls.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's like Bear Grylls, you didn't have to listen that whole show Fake. Yeah, yeah, that whole show. Dude used to sleep in hotels Fake.

Alan Lazaros:

No, I'm serious. The whole show is fake. It's like eating Taco Bell in a hotel. Yeah, yeah, the whole show is fake. After killing a 200-year-old tortoise, there was a scene where he, like, he's like found the.

Kevin Palmieri:

It's right next to the road. This is you can literally pull your car over and do the same thing that he did. The whole thing's fake.

Alan Lazaros:

Sorry, bear, you're a fraud allegedly, allegedly, allegedly allegedly nlu listener. What is happening? I just wanted to jump in here and let you know if you want to get to the next level faster. We have a free virtual monthly meetup at the first thursday of every month. You can connect with like-minded people and become a bigger part of this amazing global community. The link to register will be in the show notes.

Alan Lazaros:

So the point of this episode, though, is the identity level, and here's the thing. In my coaching, I'm always trying to and I said this to a client recently because I've been coaching with her for a long time I said I'm trying to reprogram you. You know and you're giving me permission to do that Like, everything we talk about is me just realigning your beliefs. So when we did the episode about the 10 embarrassing moments and you went back and told those stories, my brain had a lot of things come up of how fucking limited you used to think and I'm not trying to be unkind, I just this version of Kevin is so much more capable than that version of Kev, because this version of Kevin has a growth mindset and he's not limited by I'm not gritty or I'm not that smart. Like what do you even mean? I'm not that smart compared to who. What are we even talking about, right? So, unfortunately, when we're kids, we don't know about a growth mindset and we don't know about neuroplasticity and we don't know that you can change your brain chemically, functionally and structurally, and you don't know that you can.

Alan Lazaros:

Basically, I mean, you can become thousands of times better over time and anyone can do this, even if you're starting from a very, very, very low place. Cause a lot of people will say, well, what about mentally challenged people and all this kind of stuff? They can get a lot better too. They, everybody can get a lot better. Like there's no one who is like capped, you can't get any better.

Alan Lazaros:

And I had a client with no arms and no legs. It's unbelievable. Like, what people are capable of is unbelievable, but we limit ourselves with these fucking identities. So, anyways, my philosophy, my personal philosophy, is an identity that I think is empowering, and I used to have disempowering identities. Like you know, I'm really fun. That was a really disempowering identity for me, because I would try to be fun and that was really detrimental with the alcohol and the parties, and so the identity you hold changes everything, and I'm all about goals. I think goals is one third of the equation, I think goals, process and identity. But identity hands down is the most important because hopefully your goals are a byproduct of your identity.

Kevin Palmieri:

How does somebody make a philosophy? We only have like five minutes squad just because Alan and I are crunched on time today. But how does somebody make a philosophy? How does that happen?

Alan Lazaros:

Well, you and I I said this probably around episode 400 or something way back I said we're kind of modern day philosophers and you said interesting, how do you make a philosophy? It's a belief about life, it's a belief about yourself, it's a belief about your purpose, and all of those are made up Like you don't. You can choose. You didn't decide to speak English. You were born in an English-speaking country. You didn't decide to be jacked. You wanted significance and were short and girls didn't like short guys that weren't jacked.

Alan Lazaros:

I'm going to change my belief about myself and then you have to work on it or you have to have a coach who gets the aha moment for you. Emilia always jokes. She says you give everyone the goddamn fish. Like, let them learn to fish. Listen, I don't have time for that shit. Like I got to get this fish and give it to them because I don't. I'm not convinced they're going to go do this contemplation on their own.

Alan Lazaros:

And so, for example, I have one client who thought she was really unattractive and it's just wrong. You're absolutely wrong. I'm certain. No one else thinks that. I'm 100% certain. Actually, they fucking told me and you're just inaccurate. So you have to change your identity, and that takes a long time because inside she still feels like a three, even though the outside world sees her as a, as a ten, and that's really unfortunate because she's only going to do things that a three would do. She's not going to know her true value and I think it's really detrimental to have the wrong identity. So how do you do it? You literally have to like affirm, affirm, affirm, and this is why I think affirmations are good as long as they're not delusional. Affirmations are really important if they're accurate. Yeah, like you were not dumb. You thought you were dumb, I wasn't smart.

Kevin Palmieri:

Compared to who, what does that even mean? Compared to who I knew I needed to be.

Alan Lazaros:

I think that Kids or something.

Kevin Palmieri:

Well, I mean, when I was younger, yeah, compared to other kids, but when I started this journey, it was I'm not as smart as I need to be and I never will be, and that's the fixed mindset. No, no, I think that's a growth. I'm never going to be as smart as I need to be. Oh okay, yeah, yeah, right, it's forever it's gonna be before yeah for before, definitely super fixed mindset.

Kevin Palmieri:

Now it's like a growth mindset with the understanding that that is just never. It's never going to get to the place where it's enough. How did you change?

Alan Lazaros:

all because you changed your beliefs more than I did, for sure.

Kevin Palmieri:

I think I just I think I just handcuffed my beliefs to ones that were already somewhat positive and tell you, bodybuilding for me was like such a cheat code for doing this, because I expect to suffer. I know it's going to kind of suck and it is what it is. That's kind of. I mean, that is one of my philosophies If you want results outside of what you currently have, you must do and become something outside of what you currently are. Like. That's a. That is a massive philosophy for me. What's your?

Alan Lazaros:

identity now Give us a couple.

Kevin Palmieri:

I can figure out just about anything nice with enough time super empowering with enough time, I can figure out just about anything, which is great.

Alan Lazaros:

That's huge when you didn't have that before right no, definitely not.

Kevin Palmieri:

Yeah, no, no, no just that one shift in belief changes your whole life yeah, and it also potentially creates more pain, which you have to be prepared for too, because you're going to say yes to things that you might not have said yes to. So it's not always upside, but there can be upside at the end of it that I'm super consistent, like I'm a very, very consistent human being, for sure, I do the same shit pretty much every day, uh, what else.

Kevin Palmieri:

Give me one more. I'm really good at suffering, like that's a piece of my identities. I'm. I'm really good at suffering, like that's a piece of my identities. I'm, I'm really good at suffering and I just have to be honest, like honest with it. I haven't been tracking calories as well as I need to. Like I need to get back into that, kev. What are we doing here, man? Like you're going to be hungry. Just fucking deal with it. You want the goal or not?

Alan Lazaros:

for the listeners. There's such an interesting thing, cause are three. I know we got to go those. Those are really empowering, but they come with downsides because I'm really good at suffering. You might not take care of yourself as well as you could.

Alan Lazaros:

You're really good at figuring things out, but you might spend a lot of time with shit. That is not a great use of your time. And then what was the other one? I'm really consistent. Yeah, you might be consistently doing the wrong shit, for I remember kev would. I said this years ago. He'll run a system for years, but he will not improve it.

Kevin Palmieri:

Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. But you got to tell me to do it better. If you want me to do it better not not as much anymore like now I'm I'm at the place where I'm. I do better with that, I'm just. That's just not my natural. My natural tendency is not an improver, my natural tendency is a doer and I just hope it will improve if I do it enough. But it doesn't. That's not the way it really works.

Alan Lazaros:

Nice, so you wanted to give a personal philosophy is super fast. And then we got to go. Yeah, yeah, I got to go. Okay, quickly, what's your one sort of credo? And what we hoped is that everyone would have their own mantra about themselves. Highest self writing one sentence to your, to your lower self or to your human self, highest self. Writing one sentence to your lower self or to your human self, highest self to human self. What's your one sentence?

Kevin Palmieri:

I think if you are the type of person that you looked up to, that is a really good suggestion, that you're on the path. Nice, just be the person that you needed, and I'm pretty sure you're going to be way more successful. If you just did that, nice, I would say that's the simplest version.

Alan Lazaros:

Nice. Mine is to reach my own unique potential and help others do the same. Everything else is secondary. That's a mantra that I live by and that helps me pick my goals and do my processes and say yes and no. It's a filter. It's a filter.

Kevin Palmieri:

It is a filter. All right, if you need and you think it would be valuable for us to do a part two on this where we can talk more about it, because I know this one's a. This was a quick one. Just let us know and we will do a part two. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, grateful for each and every one of you and nlu. We don't have fans, we have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow keep it next level, next level nation thanks for joining us for another episode of next level university.

Kevin Palmieri:

We love connecting with the next level.

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 again and we will talk to you tomorrow.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Alan Lazaros

Host
Head Shot

Kevin Palmieri

Host