Journey of The White Bear #13: Goal setting works... sometimes

You'd think an old school, has been, BMX guy like me would show some amazing BMX feat as an example of goal setting.  But this amazing move by Kyler Storm sums it up better.  I worked on the crew, I was one of the guys in the black shirts and shorts with the big pads, like those you see in the background.  I saw this happen live.  Kyler spent the night before visualizing this move over and over and over in his head.  I know this because he told me.

Life Lesson: Goal setting works, but not every time

In my four seasons working on the crew of the American Gladiators TV show, I met a wide variety of people with great athletic ability.  But Kyler Storm stands out among them.  He was a good athlete.  But he was also a guy who was really into using goal setting and visualization to achieve an amazing feat.  In his first season on the show, Kyler pulled off this crazy move on our Hang Tough game, where the contestant swings across rows of rings and attempts to get past the gladiator to the opposite platform.

For us working on the show, especially my crew of spotters who actually practiced the games with the contenders, we spent several days working with them.  Most of the contenders, and the Gladiators themselves, trained hard at weight lifting and other athletic pursuits, in order to win the weird games on the show.  But Kyler Storm stood out as a person who took visualization and goal setting to a much greater level.  He told us this as we practiced with him.  I remember him telling me, the year before about trying the flip over the Gladiator like in the clip above.  It wasn't a spontaneous move, he spent a long time visualizing that particular move until he felt he could pull it off.

So in the course of competing on the show, Kyler pulled a couple of the most amazing moves in the whole eight years of the show.  He set very specific goals, he visualized these particular goals over and over and over until he was able to pull them off.  It was a great example of the power of setting a goal and visualizing that goal until it was achieved.

Every human being has the power to set very specific goals, visualize those goals over a period of time, work towards achieving those goals, and ultimately succeed.  But there's another part to goal setting, and that's deciding if your goal is truly worthwhile.  Over the course of my adult life, I've seen entrepreneurs on TV infomercials, and now on the web, talking about how they can help you get rich and live your dreams.  Then these guys take you on a video tour of their huge, but empty, house and garage full of Lamborghinis, Ferraris and other expensive cars.  Those guys have achieved their financial goals.

But, are they better people because they have achieved their goals?  Is the world a better place because they have achieved their goals?  Maybe, maybe not.  It's easy to judge these guys and say they're just materialistic and shallow.  But maybe they're donating to a good cause and just not telling us.  Maybe they're teaching other people new ways to make a decent living and that leads to positive outcomes for a bunch of people. In most cases, those "get rich quick" guys come across pretty materialistic and the world's not a much better place because they have a Lambo for each day of the week.  But they do show us that goal setting can work, like Kyler did for us on the Gladiators set.

Just because some dorky guy makes a fortune in real estate or affiliate marketing, and spends the money on a big house and fast cars to attract women, doesn't mean that goal setting and visualization are bad things.  Each of us can learn these skills practice these skills, and use these skills how we want.  Or we can not use them at all.  We can use them in the ways we think can have a positive impact on those around us and the world, or we can just try to accumulate lots of stuff.

Goal setting, visualizing, and achieving goals are a set of skills.  A big part of that set of skills is stepping back and considering whether that particular goal is really worth achieving.  I've spent much of my life struggling with self esteem and self worth issues, and was afraid to set big goals.  I'm now, finally, starting to set some pretty big goals again, but I'm carefully evaluating whether the goals do some good for more than just myself.  It's hard to achieve a goal if deep down you don't think you deserve it.  Dealing with that and other issues is one part of goal setting.

Goal setting can work.  But it's a skill that you spend a lifetime working on.  Goal setting, whether they're written down, thought out goals, or more intuitive goals, is probably the main thing that sets apart people who achieve a lot from people who cruise through life but don't get or give much out of it.