This episode reminded us that we all are struggling hitting our best life. There is so much to do and so much we need to get done. Putting our goals first is a big priority. However, we still missed them and did not get all done that we needed or wanted to. Good reminder on smart goals, and real life example of how it worked or didn't.
This episode reminded us that we all are struggling hitting our best life. There is so much to do and so much we need to get done. Putting our goals first is a big priority. However, we still missed them and did not get all done that we needed or wanted to. Good reminder on smart goals, and real life example of how it worked or didn't.
Are we sticking to a category or? A time frame, or, cause I'd like to have a million dollars here at some point, but.
Dad:Ooh, that's, I like, ooh, that's a good one, if I had a million dollars. If I had
Ashton:a million dollars. I'd be rich.
Dad:I'd buy you a pet monkey, but not a real pet
Ashton:monkey. That's cruel. That's cruel. Bare Naked Ladies, guys, check them out. The band, the band. The band. The Grammy award winning band. The Bare Naked Ladies. Grammy award winning.
Dad:I kind of thought this would be a fun idea because I struggle with writing down my goals every day. And I think it might be fun to check up on that as well as set some new goals and have the liability partner of everybody that listens to this episode. So I thought that might be fun. What do you guys think that you might you might set
Ashton:goals on?
Dad:Cool. Anyways, I thought it would be fun to write down our goals every day. And that mainly be the goal. The goal is to write the goals. Is to write the goals. Because as long as you're thinking about it, And it's conscious at least once every day, and then it drives, like, it drives you to, to try some more. So I think it might be interesting to check up on what we might be writing every morning. Just, maybe not some of the personal ones, but, you know, physical Maybe to help us and the listener know where we want to go with this, can you give us some background on writing the goals every day? What the strategy or, you know, what does that look like? Is it get up and write on, you know, like a whiteboard every day? Is it, you know, get up and write on a piece of paper? What, you know, and is it, is it like one minute, one goal? Is it, you know, just kind of give us some context.
Ashton:It's supposed to look like the Bart Simpson in the Simpsons every episode where he's writing it on the chalkboard every time it plays. I will not, I don't remember what it is. He writes so many different ones.
Dad:Okay, so What's important with goals that I've found in like in different media and books is to, one, write down goals that are achievable, like SMART goals, I think are important. I would like to, in my personal case, and this is totally up for debate and re discussion, I'd like to write at least like five future goals, like six months is future for me. Five future goals. And then 10 short term, 3 to 1 month goals I think would be fun. And yeah, make them smart.
Ashton:So do
Dad:a 6 month goal, like a handful of 6 month goals, some immediate goals, is that what you're saying? Yeah, so, I was thinking 5, 6 month dash long term goals, and then 10 short term. 3 to, 3 to a month
Ashton:long goals. You said SMART. Have we talked about SMART goals on the podcast? I don't remember if we have or not. Yeah, it's
Dad:been a minute, so it might be worth, worth digging into briefly to remind us.
Ashton:Can I? Yeah, go for it. You know, it's actually, I wanted to pick this one up because I just had a conversation with a student I was teaching. He graduated from high school and just got into college doing music degree stuff. He's still not 100 percent sure if he likes what he's doing he's trying to do what he's doing the best he can. And he asked me about like setting goals and stuff. I was like, Oh, have you ever heard of SMART goals? And he was like, no. So I got to walk him through it and it's pretty fun. But basically SMART is an acronym S stands for specific M is measurable. A is attainable. R is relevant and T is timely. You guys are looking at me like I messed one of them up. No, no, we're all on the same page.
Dad:Great. No, the A, the A is always an interesting one to me. Yeah. Because what is, what is obtainable, I don't disagree with smart goals. That's not what I'm saying. It, that was just the look as I'm thinking through to myself going, what's obtainable or right, which is funny because it's attainable and attainable
Ashton:attainable. Yeah. Well, it's, I, I agree with a being the hardest letter because it's like, that's, that's really the question always when you're setting a goal is like, can I do it? You know? So the other steps I feel like are. are built to try and help inform that one. But diving a little deeper specific, you just have to use, anyone should be able to read your goal and know exactly what you want to do. That's for me. That's what I think specific is. Measurable builds off of specific. So that goal should be able to be measured. So like in our case, we were talking about music and I was like, well, you can't just say, I want to learn some music this week. You should be able to say, I want to learn these measures of this thing or learn all of this piece. You know, that's something that you can measure at the end of the week. You look at the piece. Have you learned it all? Nope. Okay. Got to reevaluate. Have I? Yes, you did. Measurable attainable. This one learning music I use as a filter, obviously, cause that's my large experience, but like. Is it attainable to learn a three minute long solo in a week? Really depends on how difficult it is, but if it was a solo that I wanted to play at my level, not a chance. There's no way I could learn a three minute solo in a week on my current schedule. And so, for me, that's kind of a gauge for that, but like, I don't know how you guys approach attainable. Well, I think
Dad:that was wise, Ashton, because as you talked about it, you didn't say what's attainable, because you could learn three Three minute song at the level you want to in a week, if that's all you were doing, right? Yeah, maybe you can't I don't know but you you should be able to learn do something in a week But then you have to step back and go okay balanced against everything else that I have going on It's real. It's not realistic or or you know attainable, I think that's a good example of what that means as we're first starting out with goals I think it's okay sometimes to put something that we're not sure if it's obtainable Until we measure it and try it and right that's why it needs to be specific and measurable then you can say, okay Maybe it is maybe it isn't that's where having a guide like you for this student to turn to you and say action is this Realistic to say that I should be able to learn 18 measures? Yeah. And you're like, well, if you're willing to, how many hours do you have a week? Yeah, totally. And I could turn to Gideon and say, Gideon, is it realistic for me to put on, you know, two inches of mass on my bicep in a week? No.
Ashton:Oh, come on. What if I use
Dad:steroids? Yeah. Well, no, I don't know. I'm asking. Even then, it's probably not. Probably not. Okay, good. Unless you're filling with,
Ashton:gel. Oils. Yeah. You know, the attainable one too is, is like really big for me as far as morale. You know because, like, right now, I teach percussion at a local high school. And a lot of students have lofty goals of stuff that they want to play. One in particular, he's got two solos that he wants to learn. He's got a really big percussion ensemble piece that he wants to be a part of. He's got some chamber ensembles, which is like smaller groups of people. Playing stuff, and I was like, K, like, this is super cool. And I want you to do all of it. But at the same time Are you talking like
Dad:miniature people? Sorry I'm distracted. Smaller people? You said smaller people. What?
Ashton:You said smaller Oh, I think I meant, if I said smaller people, I meant a smaller group of people. Oh. So like a percussion ensemble would be larger than Not necessarily small people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. It's, percussion ensembles like seven or more people, and chamber ensembles anything less than that, until two is a duet. Okay. One is a solo. But so I just said to him, I go, make sure that understand that if I was doing what you were trying to do in college, that translates to about at least 15 hours of practice a week, at least. And so make sure you realize you're still going to seven hours of school every day. Plus however many hours of extracurricular plus however many hours of homework. So do your goals, but also understand. It's okay to take on a little bit less. And do better with what you want to do than taking on too much and and kind of missing the target on all of those and so like, but if you set a goal and it's not attainable or you don't think of it through the attainable lens, it lends itself to the possibility of of discouraging you from setting good goals in the future because you're like, well, I set the goal and it didn't matter. So here we are again, So
Dad:good. I think that answered my question. Gideon, any more thoughts on that one? I mean, I think it kind of leads into the relevant of it. Cause if you're spending, you know, if your goal is to in, in more of a financial sense, cause it's really easy for like everybody, I think to understand if your goal was to earn a million dollars in a week, it needs to be relevant. And you need to think like, what's the sacrifices needed to be made and is it relevant to my life at the time? Well, I could make a million dollars in a week. I think somebody would pay if I sold all four of you. Two hundred. Oh wait,
Ashton:you're not. I no one would buy me, let's be real. Well,
Dad:I mean, you got some valuable organs.
Ashton:Yeah, I mean, that's not me though. Me is deeper. No, it's not. Oh, ow. That's as deep as the organs get. Guys, this is my last episode on the podcast. Can you hurt my feelings? Ow. Oh, he's shaking him.
Dad:Yeah, that's gonna be hard to, get clear in the edit. Shank, shank, shank.
Ashton:Here, just say it in like big like shank shank shank and dad can like pull it over. There you go.
Dad:Shank, shank, shank, shank, shank, shank, shank.
Ashton:Okay, is it real, is that relevant to the podcast Gideon? Are you shanking me? Is that? I don't
Dad:think that's relevant to the goals.
Ashton:Let's leave it out. Let's leave it out then. But
Dad:yeah, so on a relevant, obviously it needs to matter with what you're trying to do, right? Yeah. And it's gotta be relevant to you as an individual or no? I don't know. I think so. And it depends on relevant would be your smaller goals relevant to your bigger goals. Smaller
Ashton:what now? Goals.
Dad:Sorry. Sorry. Anyways. Annunciation is key. If your big goal is to... Earn a million dollars your small goal of I want to let's say make enough money to take a girl out to lunch Okay, right anyways, If your small goal would be at least for me just an example I think of because that's just talking about music I have a guitar hanging up on my wall that I sometimes use a small goal would be hey I want to learn like half of this song then how is that relevant to my big financial goal? So maybe sometimes those smaller goals need to be toned down to
Ashton:your larger picture. And with some of those ones too, like that's, that's where for me, that's where some of that robot stuff comes in. Cause like if, if the playing the guitar is not like relevant to you as a person or to those larger goals, like, It might be hard to set like a goal to play it more like so if music's not everything you do It could be like, you know What one of my goals is to make sure I'm giving myself me time and on one of the things you can do is like play The guitar is me time. So then you're not putting in an Realistic heavy goal on yourself for learning so much on guitar, but really just saying hey I'm gonna pick it up for 10 minutes and as someone who plays music I can tell you You pick something up for 10 minutes every day, you're going to get a lot further than you think. And then it makes it relevant to you. And then the last one of smart is timely. So you put a time on it, and we've kind of just talked about that a lot already. But yeah, if you, that's part of measurable too. Is, is timely. And what time frame are you going to get your goal done? Yeah.
Dad:Cool. The other question I have for you getting is we're doing these goals, like a year goal, a 6 month goal. And in the next couple of week goal, do we want them all in the same area? Do we want to break them out over anything? And I used to think physical, mental, spiritual. Financial, you know, is how I used to really kind of break down my life. Yeah. And I don't know that that's still how I do it. I don't know. I don't break down my life, my life's breaking me down. No, I'm just kidding. Talk about lasting, I'm just kidding. You think that's relevant to the podcast?
Ashton:No, it's not. Hold on, hold on. We're dark. Your feelings, your feelings are relevant, okay? You're hurt, dad. And if you need a second to vent, the people here are afraid to listen.
Dad:I'm vented. I just got a text tonight. Just before we started, you're talking about getting paid and I'm talking about how I'm not getting paid for something.
Ashton:So yeah, well that's, yeah, that's part of life.
Dad:So yeah. So anyways, any criteria or any ideas, ideas, any ideas you want to give us on areas we should put it on or are we going to keep this kind of a free flow? Everybody do their own thing. And then come back and report how we did and how we broke
Ashton:them down and what we felt. Yeah, wait, so for clarity too, are we, to, to tag onto that, are we doing like a, like a challenge or some, like what, what if you alluded to us doing something? Can you get us a little bit more specific? I did, I did allude. There, measurable. Attainable, relevant, and timely. Can you give us some of those?
Dad:Goals and not goals. The goal of this week long experiment that I want to have. Oh, it's a week long experiment. It's a week long experiment. Seven days. So To answer your question, dad, from earlier, I think that the quadrants that we could split them up into is spiritual, intellectual, physical, and financial, and that could just give us a good basis of what to work off of. And then from there, I think most of it is personal. But for our challenge. Ashton, I think that we should, what I would like to do is to make sure to write down our goals at least once a day. I would choose in the morning just so I have it to think about throughout the day and I can continue writing throughout the day depending on what happens. And so just writing every morning and then checking back in a week and seeing what we accomplished and what we could maybe change for the future. And I think it's beneficial, because then we have us to work off of to make sure that we are, that we are keeping up with this challenge.
Ashton:Okay, so for me, the challenge is, is we are writing something in each of those quadrants. We're writing down a goal for something in each of those quadrants for seven days. And at the end of the seven days, we're going to report back on how those goals went. I think
Dad:that we write the mix of long term and short term. Okay. Goals for each of those quadrants and they don't necessarily have to be week long goals. Okay. I guess they could be if you wanted to. Like for me, I like to focus on social media, which I've been, I've been lacking in, which is another reason I want to talk more about goals and, you know, challenge myself to do more of that. I could set a seven day goal of I want to gain, you know, this many followers or this many likes. Two inches of muscle mass. Two inches of muscle mass on my biceps. Thank you. You know specific I want my right middle ab to stick out just a half inch further it already does. Oh, thank you No further than it. What if I just hit you really hard? Two, recap the challenge. I would like to set for everybody at this table and anybody listening that'd be cool too. I want to hear about it is to for all of us to write down our goals for seven days. And I think it would also be interesting to pick some specific goals that we can measure throughout the seven days and see what happens. Gideon, so as a listener, what is your, one of your goals is to write down your goals daily. What's the other two that you'd like to be held accountable for the next week to report back to us? I think for seven days I can, okay, I want to make sure I make this a SMART goal. Did I say it right? So, sustainable, wait. Specific. Specific. That's Ned's word too. Very good. Specific, I would like to, at the end of the seven days, there's a time, I want to gain 50 followers on Instagram. I think that's realistic. And attainable. I think that's one. So and I would also like to... I've talked a lot about social media, so I might as well keep on the train. I'd like to post every day, a post and then a story going along with it. Great. So I will accept your challenge of writing my goals every day. I think that's a good challenge. So I won't use that as my main goal, but I think I'll take that to try and drive to clarity. So one of my goals will be to set a sleep schedule. And follow it like a nighttime ritual. Like I have a morning ritual because I'm noticing I'm not sleeping as good. And I believe if I can get better sleep, if I have a better nighttime, not even schedule might be the right word, but a process, you know, turn off my phone and follow that kind of method and see if by following a set method of, of sleep, going to sleep, if that does not help me, you know, wake up more alert and ready to go. So very specific is a nighttime ritual measurable. How many days did I do it out of the seven days? I don't know if it's really obtainable. Why do I say obtainable for A?
Ashton:I don't know. What's the right word?
Dad:Attainable. Attainable. Is it really attainable? I don't know. Because it is hard. For me, but it's really relevant to what I'm doing and it's timely, it's measured. So seven days of following that after I established that tomorrow. And then the next goal that I'd like to set for myself would be to make sure that I stretch every day. And I don't mean like be doing harder things, but actually. One of my big goals for 2023 was mobility and I believe that I've got away from that a little bit. I know I'm more flexible, but I'm not in my daily habit of it. So I would say specific would be more flexible, measurable. I can go pull out some charts and really just quickly measure myself. Is it attainable? Yeah. I think so. Relevant. Yeah. To where I'm at and timely. I actually, I think for the measurable, I think I'll just say, did I do it every day for at least five minutes. Five minutes. Yeah, five minutes of stretching a day and that, that way it's not, I don't have to do anything complicated. Okay.
Ashton:Awesome. Yeah. So for me the two more short term goals, goals that I want to do is there's some specific admin paperwork that I have to do as part of my job that has been giving me some grief. So my goal is to have that done and dusted by the end of the week. That's one of my goals. There's some budget forms and then there's some scheduling forms that I've got to figure out and then my second goal is to keep my spaces clean and organized. So like struggle This is why it's relevant a struggle that I've been having is I've got some long days some days where I'm in and out a bunch And it's really easy for, like, me to just drop the things that I'm leaving, pick up the things I need and go, and then my space gets dirty quick. And so I just want to fix that. So we're gonna see how it goes
Dad:for seven days. How do you think you can measure the cleanliness in an organization? That's a great, that's a good question. Because I was trying to think about how you do it. Would it be like, your desk has nothing on it but your computer?
Ashton:I think, I think what I am going to do. Is I'm going to take a picture every day of the space and if I can send, if I could confidently send it to my mom and say, look how clean my room is, then I know my space is clean, but if I, if I feel like I'm not willing to send that picture, then my space isn't clean. So
Dad:I will want a picture every day. All right, you'll
Ashton:get a picture. I know what it looks like. You're going to call him mom. Hey mommy, I've got a picture for you. Thank you. Do you accept my picture, mommy? I do. Okay, you guys are
Dad:weird.
Ashton:Alright,
Dad:cool. Awesome. I love your guys goals.
Ashton:I love you too. I mean, your goals. I love your goals too. And your guns. Mommy.
Dad:Okay, now it's getting weird. Okay, done. Episode over. Cut. We will check back in a week. Yep. So, it has officially been over a week and we are back to check up on our goals. We are. So, who would like to start?
Ashton:I would not.
Dad:Well, I can. I out of the seven days, I looked at it earlier and realized that I hit it. Five days of written writing every day. My goals out of the seven on my, and, and that was interesting as I wrote, I got more clarity, like the, the hope was, and really what was interesting is that stretching and. Going to bed on time didn't keep it top, but I realized by not doing those two, one of my top goals was physically fit, to get more physically fit, live a more mobile lifestyle. As I'm getting older, I'm realizing that's one that I need to do I didn't hit that goal, that what I'm trying to say is it's part of the inside that other goal. So it's very relevant to what I want in life. Okay. And then the other goal was better sleep and I was struggling with that one a lot because I'm like, look, I'm really not right every day, why does it matter? But then something happened and I realized that our amount of sleep that we have really determined, can determine our mental health. You know, so, on those two goals specifically, stretching, I didn't realize that I committed to five minutes a day, so I don't know that I hit that. But I do know that out of the seven days four of them,, a good amount of time. And the other three I did stretch, it just wasn't as committed. So I don't know that it was a true five minutes. Some of them were probably longer, some of them were shorter. And then like I said, three days were kind of probably slack, you know, like, Oh, I touched my toes today. I'm good. So yeah, overall I thought it was a tough exercise and I think the biggest reason was because. Not in the habit of doing it. And so I think goes back to some of the stuff we talked to him about atomic habit. I haven't set myself up for that success, but it was a good call out to remind me of what I'm trying to do, where I'm trying to go and why I need to focus on writing my goals and not just even writing them, but actually looking at them and saying, okay, I'm going to accomplish this is how I'm going to accomplish it. And really work on more of the atomic habit type of stuff. Nice. I really like the insight. My goals were, you just heard them, I don't have to remind you, but I posted, I think, five out of the seven days consecutively. And I wrote my goals, I think, maybe three times. I wrote my goals clearly at least once or twice. And then another one, I wrote down post ideas. I got a whole lot of ideas because I knew that was something I struggled with, was being more creative with the post that I was giving out and not just that I was putting out something. And for the 50 followers, I realized that people don't like it when you post every day. So, I actually ended up losing some followers. So, that's a good learning experience and I know. That a lot more of the process is also DTE, which means Daily Targeted Engagement. So, I need to engage with the community that I want to be around and not just throw out not very worked on content. That's kind of what I learned.
Ashton:In music we call that the difference between microwave and, and crockpot. Like nuking
Dad:something versus slow cooking. Yeah,
Ashton:like, like you can microwave a piece and it will work. Or you can, you can crockpot a piece and it will be awesome. Like the two different thought processes there. With my goals, I did not write anything down at all for the past few days or week. Except for when we recorded the episode I wrote. Like a note down on my computer. It was interesting because I found Something as simple as that made me think about it more. I didn't even I didn't write it anymore But I was presently thinking about it. I said I was gonna send you a picture I didn't do that at all. You did follow up though. I asked so it's all on me. But then I also so my room is clean right now ish My desk is clean. I was very Aware of that this week. So I was very careful to keep trash and dishes and everything kind of organized and dusted. And then...
Dad:Yeah, go on. Yeah. I was just gonna say, I think that's a big part is being aware of what we want. Instead of just always being like, I need to be more, I need to do more. But actually know what that is that you, that you want to do and be. Right. And so just, like you said, having it be in your conscious mind.
Ashton:Right. Yeah, totally, totally. It definitely helped. Well, and then the other side of that coin, the other thing I said I was going to do in the week was submit a budget and calendar. I don't know if I got specific actually, I can't remember. But those were some important paperwork that I had to do for a program that I'm trying to start at this winter. And I got that done. So waiting for it all, they get approved, but. Got it finished. It took a lot longer than I planned. There's a lot that goes into a budget of a program the size that I'm trying to go for and then Scheduling like I'm scheduling stuff for April from now until April trying to figure out Spaces for rehearsals and all that sort of stuff. So push myself to that goal was presently think about it all the time But I've also found sometimes with my goals, I need a deadline that really helps me. And sometimes a self imposed deadline is not enough. Both of these ones were, and they worked. But I know some of my bigger accomplishments, I've had deadlines where I've had other people counting on me. And it's helped drive my goals. Yeah.
Dad:Thank you. You know, along those lines Ashton, as we're recording in the woodshed, there's a Norman Rockwell painting. It's a replica and it's called deadline. And I love it because it actually has him sitting there. Trying to design the Saturday post and he's got his clock next to him his watch like he knows he's got a time limit And he's going I don't know what to draw like it's half drawn and he's sitting there and you can tell he's just kind of Stressed because it's not a self imposed deadline, right? He's like creativity's got to happen and it's got to
Ashton:happen now And I found I found that sort of creativity like both a blessing and a curse because sometimes it's fun It like makes you make new creative things But with those sorts of things, when you get stuck with not knowing what you want to do, that imposter syndrome can hit hard too with that sort of thing. Sure. Sure.
Dad:somebody like Norman Rockwell that we all know and respect as an artist, obviously was still drawing what was going through his mind at that point in his life. So I think it's very appropriate and applicable that we all kind of feel that. Gideon's point, if it's not even in our consciousness that we need to do this, then we're not going to do it. I agree. And I think like, at least for me, this has been a really good learning experience, maybe not on like a hurrah of like,
Ashton:yeah, We did
Dad:it. This is awesome ending, but it's like, we learned some things. Yeah. That's really good.
Ashton:And yeah. Well, and I think, I think that goes along with the SMART goals like we talked about because it talks about oh, I guess SMART T because we talked about that as well, but evaluate after you're done. And you don't always have to hit it. You don't always have to do exactly what you said, but if you evaluate afterwards, you can know how to continue to work with your process as you go forward.
Dad:Yeah. And now I know what to do different next time. True. Yeah. That wrap up, wrap up,
Ashton:wrap up season six. I think
Dad:so. I think congratulations on season 18 episodes into season six. Well done team six years old. And we also hit our 10, 000 downloads in season six. So thank you audience for your support. We appreciate the listeners who tune in and for those who give us encouragement via text emails and reach out to us on Facebook.
Ashton:Yeah, we're looking forward to hearing from you and see you in season seven.
Dad:It might take a second for him to
Ashton:just make sure I get good questions so we have quality content. Yes. All right. Well I have pressed record if we're all ready or not or what, but now we have a conversation on the record. Congrats. One, two. Buckle my shoe. Three, four. Lock the door. Six.
Dad:Six. Six. Are we good to go? Whenever you, yep. Okay. So, on this week of Adults Encrypted, we're thinking about doing something a little bit different. An idea that I had, that I thought might be fun. Do you want me to start over? Cause you are just audio.
Ashton:No, you're good. No, you're chillin You're fine.
Dad:So, we talked about setting some goals for a seven day period and then checking back in, in a week and seeing how it all goes. So.