- A lot of people ask me about goal setting.
And what they really wanna know behind that question is,
how do I stay motivated in professions in which
you're performing in front of audiences
and professions in which you handle
a lot of high pressure from day to day.
There's also a high degree of burnout
and surgeons will come to me all the time and say,
I've got junior colleagues, they're burning out.
How do I prevent that?
Maybe we should set different goals.
And my answer often catches people off guard.
I say, throw goal setting out the window
and let's do some dream setting.
When they ask me well, what does that mean
to do dream setting?
What I really mean is ask the question, why?
why do you perform?
Why is it that one day you picked up a task,
One day you experienced this field which you're in
and you liked it and said, you know what?
I wanna do that again.
Oftentimes with athletes, I say, think back
to the very first time that you went out
to play little league baseball.
And you rode home with your parents and you said, yeah
I wanna go back and do that again.
I think about the very first time
you picked up your instrument
or the very first time that you acted on stage.
There was something thrilling about this,
there's something about it that you really connected with.
Oftentimes always we say, there's something
that gave you resonance.
You felt there was a fit between what you were doing
and who you are as a person.
And that answer that why question that's real motivation.
Well, for most folks when I ask why?
I'll get the superficial answer
or I'll get the American capitalistic culture answer.
Why is it that you're trying to be a professional musician?
And they gave me something that has to do with money
or fame or recording records or status all the outcomes
the products of being successful at your field.
But they're not real why answers.
That's not why people really intrinsically perform.
And so if you're struggling with what your dream is,
what is it? And by dream,
I'm not talking about being the lead chair
for the New York Philharmonic.
And with that dream, I'm not talking about
making a million dollars in Hollywood
or recording a soundtrack for the next big Tom Cruise movie.
Those aren't dreams, those are goals.
And that's why I said, throw goals out the window.
Dreams, the way I define dreams are a feeling
you wanna capture every day of your life.
And we talk about living your dreams
not really pursuing your dreams.
Because the dream isn't something that happens
in the future, a dream is a connection between who you are
and what you do and allowing yourself to feel that
and letting that be the motivation for why you continue
day after day to do the hard stuff.
Because every career, if you wanna be good at it
it's gonna come with obstacles and it's gonna come
with setbacks and there are gonna be hard times.
And in fact, the better you wanna be
the more you're gonna have roadblocks
the more you're gonna have failures along the way
and to tackle all that stuff we need to maintain focus
on what's really important.
And the real reason we got into it, this real why?
So I'd say one strategy is ask why?
And then whatever answer you, give yourself, ask why again.
Well, why is that?
And then whatever answer you get to that, ask why again
and maybe ask why three or four or five times.
So what you're doing is you're peeling away
layers of the onion to get to the real core
of what's important to you.
And when you get to the point where you ask why
and you're sort of stumped and say, gosh, I'm not sure.
Then you're really getting into the dream realm
and you've gotten away from goals.
And in my advice for people who are struggling
with motivation, who wanna maintain motivation
that's the most powerful tool you can use.
Really get into dreams and get past this goal setting stuff.