Big Goals

In this week's episode of Therapy Natters, Richard & Fiona explore the benefits of thinking really big when setting personal goals, even if those goals seem unrealistic at first.

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Transcript

Richard: 0:10

Greetings, fellow folks. It's another episode of Therapy Natters. The podcast series where two psychotherapists do our best to guide you through the world of personal development. I'm Richard Nicholls, and as always, I have Fiona Biddle alongside me. What are you up to, Fiona?

Fiona: 0:29

Oh, um, not a lot, just, well, a lot of this. A lot of, Therapy Nattering and Evolve to Thriving, or Evolving to Thriving. Evolving to Thrive. Yes. That. A lot of that. That's what I'm up to. What about you?

Richard: 0:47

I am, oh yeah, what am I doing at the minute? Oh, I'm preparing for a play. At current time of recording, it's not for another week or so. But when this comes out, because we're recording a few in advance, aren't we? By the time this comes out, it'll have long been done, so I can tell you all about it. It's a comedy version of A Christmas Carol. And I play a snowman a bloke called Gordon, who is the stage manager of this play within the play. And Mrs. Cratchit. Oh, and Fred, which is Scrooge's nephew. I, I play Fred as well. Humbuggle Uncle Lumbuggle Lunk

Fiona: 1:24

Okay, wonderful. Do you have, do, are they all speaking parts?

Richard: 1:30

Yes

Fiona: 1:30

Even the snowman?

Richard: 1:31

I get knocked over

Fiona: 1:33

Oh, you poor thing. So it's a tragedy.

Richard: 1:38

Oh, oh, absolutely, it's tragic, I'll tell you that.

Fiona: 1:43

I was wondering if you had different voices for each of them, because

Richard: 1:46

Mrs. Cratchit, definitely, she's, um, she's from Birmingham, my Mrs. Cratchit. Here it is Bob done to a turn

Fiona: 1:54

Oh dear.

Richard: 1:55

She's sort of a Beryl Reid character.

Fiona: 1:57

Okay, I'm listening to a book on Audible at the moment and it's, it's the one narrator and when he does female voices it's really painful. Yes.

Richard: 2:08

Yeah, you know, when I was younger, because I've always been interested in voice work, hence becoming a hypnotherapist, that attracted me, which was how I got involved in hypnotherapy. I was working as a volunteer for a hospital radio station when I was 16, 17, having some fun chatting to old ladies on the wards about their favourite music and stuff, and I found I was getting a lot of, well, I guess pleasure, I suppose is the right word for it. Pride, I suppose. I quite enjoyed sitting talking to people when they weren't very well, and they needed a distraction. And just sitting talking to them sometimes could help them with their pain. They were distracted and they'd be okay until I got up and walked away. And then they called the nurse for the pain relief. Well, that's interesting. There was one time when I knew that the, the nurses were on a shift change over. I can't remember what time it was. But I knew that no one's going to come for a bit because there's one random nurse just wandering about looking after everybody. So I noticed that this lady that I'd been talking to was struggling after I'd got up and walked away. So I went back and said, oh before I go, I notice you press the button for the nurse. I just want to check, is anything, do you need a glass of water? I can get you that much. She went, oh no, I'm just after some pain relief because I'm struggling at the minute And I said, oh well, I'll wait while the nurse comes. I'll wait with you And distracted her and she cancelled the nurse call. And then I got up and walked away, and she pressed it again, and I'm like, Meh. I can't do this all night, I've got things to do. I've got to get back to the studio with my Jim Reeves requests. Always Jim Reeves! Old ladies used to really love Jim Reeves. I think they probably still do

Fiona: 3:46

Years ago when I used to do a disco we used to put Jim Reeves on at the end to People go out!

Richard: 3:51

was gonna say Jim Reeves at a disco?

Fiona: 3:54

No, it was to get them out of the door.

Richard: 3:56

Distant drums? He'll have to go that'd work

Fiona: 4:00

Yeah. Anyway, we've gone slightly off topic but I'm interested in what you were saying then about how you got into hypnotherapy. When you did, what did you hope to achieve in your career?

Richard: 4:15

I, uh, it was kind of on topic cause I've just gone off on a tangent again. Um, but I've always been interested in, in using my voice. And I did think that maybe I'd narrate audio books. That's what reminded me of that. And I've kind of lost that goal really. That's not so important to me anymore. Narrated my own, feel free to go and buy that. Absolutely fantastic. It's narrated by me, available in all good online audio bookstores like Audible. And I think that's probably all that exists nowadays, but you can get a CD version of it. What was my big goal when I became a hypnotherapist? Ooh, it was freedom. It was to have flexibility that if I wanted to start working 10 o'clock in the morning, rather than eight, I could. No one wants therapy at eight o'clock in the morning anyway. So that felt good for me It was to have more daylight. I know that sounds odd, but when I was a manager in a civil engineering firm, I really used to enjoy doing the stuff that the other managers gave to somebody else to do, which was going out, and pushing the notes through people's doors to say that we're going to be turning off their gas supply for one day while we replaced it. I'll go and do that. I'll go and have a nice walk in the spring around the centre of Birmingham or something like that and I'll just go rolling around the streets of wherever. And I enjoyed being out in the sunshine and seeing daylight. That's why I love my little office here, because I've got this great window here that puts a lot of light in. I like the daylight. So that was my goal, I think, when I decided to become self employed. It started off being, this is going to make me feel good. And I've got some flexibility and control. over my life.

Fiona: 6:05

I find that a fascinating response which, if any therapists are listening, this is a great example of why we should not presume what people's goals might be. Because I don't think getting more daylight would be on the top of things we would expect people to be wanting to become a hypnotherapist for. Because same, same sort of thing, not the daylight, but the same sort of thing applied to me because I started when Jack was a little bubba. I didn't have any Big goals. it was just a, this sounds like a good thing to do. This would meet the needs, and so I did it. But the reason we're talking about this, of course, is that we are moving on to the podcast episode to parallel week one of Month Two of Evolve to Thrive, which is where we're starting to look at who, you want to be. Or who I want to be, depending on which perspective you're looking at it from. So we've done who am I in month one, now it's starting to look at who I want to be. And today we thought we'd discuss the benefits of starting with really big goals. Having just said that neither of us had them when we started our careers, But I have done it since. I don't know if you have, Richard, but I've done this sort of exercise myself and, and had gone through and, and created big goals.

Richard: 7:32

And that's where Evolve to Thrive kind

Fiona: 7:33

it's where, it's where it came from.

Richard: 7:35

that was a big goal. That says, we want to get more out there to people. I want to reach more and more people, which was a goal of mine when I first saw an advert for Train as a Hypnotherapist. I went, oh, that ticks every box for me because of using my voice, helping people. There was all the quit smoking, lose weight, all that sort of stuff. I want to help people. Well, the idea of making Evolve to Thrive, which came out of Therapy Natters, which came out of me making a podcast, starting that in 2010, 2011 and so on, was all about reaching people, as many people as possible. And doing that with Evolve to Thrive, that's a big goal of ours. Well, it's a big goal of mine.

Fiona: 8:17

Yeah, definitely. but it started from that need to get things out of heads and out into the world. Because as therapists, we can only work with, usually, one person at a time. Some of us work just with couples and some do groups, but basically it's one to one. So there is a limit. Some people watching or listening to this may have seen our advertising where we have a number of the positive lives we've impacted, which we do break down a little bit. And of course, we do recognize that it's an estimate. But, this is what we were wanting in terms of the big goal. And, for anybody and everybody, pretty much, thinking as to, what you might want in your life if there were no limits at all. It's a really useful task because you'd learn so much about yourself. And you actually learn what the real barriers are to achievement rather than the imagined ones.

Richard: 9:20

Yeah, and I know we've spoken about goal setting and so on before, and, and we have spoke about, look at your big goal very, very briefly, we mentioned it. But I, urge people to really, really lean into the, the fantastic. Not just, oh, okay, I want this size house. Okay, maybe, why not go for a bigger one? What's wrong with a mansion? For example, because it doesn't have to be that small. Well, I want to be able to, I want to, I want to feel strong. Well, how strong? I want to be able to lift the moon. Okay, go there. Go to the extremes, the absolutely, ridiculously, fantastical extremes. You know you're never going to reach that goal, depending choose

Fiona: 10:11

it does depend on what you choose. Lifting the moon, I think we can probably say that nobody is going to achieve that one. But some people do live in mansions, so that one is not completely unrealistic. it's within the bounds of possibility. But some people, when they're encouraged to do the really big goals, actually don't come up with things that other people might consider to be really big. You say about the size of a house, I had a client once who, when I encouraged him to look at his big goals, He wanted to own a semi detached house and to have a wife. Those

Richard: 10:49

is a very very realistic goal

Fiona: 10:51

seemed to him to be huge

Richard: 10:54

and fantastical. And if that is genuinely the limits of, well this is the most enormous goal I can think of, it is worth playing with that to go, how is that going to make you feel? But it be nice to go to the really big stuff? Even if you then break it down and go, oh, I don't need that after all. Because you might not, but you need to go there first. I say need It can be helpful to go

Fiona: 11:21

It's, it's a great thing to do, but, it's not the only thing, and I think that's, that's important. But just, just, I'll just finish off that, that client, because There was another part to it which I'd forgotten when I said the two parts. There was a third which he wanted to, get a job in the local garage because he quite liked cars. But when he told me this, I didn't get what I'm looking for. Now, I don't know if this immediately is apparent to you what I'm looking for, but I suspect it is when I say it. I'm looking for a glint in the eye.

Richard: 11:59

yeah

Fiona: 12:00

That look of excitement. and the tone of voice when stating these big goals. I remember somebody one time that their huge goal was to run a bar in the Maldives. Tone, the excitement was like somebody saying, I've just won a holiday to the Maldives. You know, it was the, it shows, it comes through. With this guy, it didn't. It was, the tone was flat. There was no affect.

Richard: 12:29

So, making assumptions, but what he was looking for was some sort of safety. And having a house, and being in a relationship, and having a job. That makes me feel safe. Well, you weren't looking for what makes you feel safe. I want to look at what makes you feel fantastic. I want to find out what makes you feel really enthusiastic and happy. And find that, and then we can work out how to make it happen.

Fiona: 12:55

In that session, for whatever reason. And I can't remember what it was, but for whatever reason I didn't feel that it was appropriate to be pushing him. But the next week, he came back, and he said, I've realised I don't want to work in the garage. I want to be a taxi driver. And then

Richard: 13:16

A glint!

Fiona: 13:17

The glint!

Richard: 13:19

Nice

Fiona: 13:20

And I don't think I saw him again, maybe once or something, but he basically, he went off to do what you need to do to become a taxi driver. I can't remember what that was. I do not know what that is, but that's what he did. So the huge varies. The, what you are looking for from it, varies. You said safety there. When you were talking about yours, you mentioned freedom. There can be any sort of, is it nominalisation, things like freedom, no, not quite nominalisation, any high level of abstraction, so freedom, safety, power, uh, control, people can want control, if they don't have any, not in a nasty way. Although that might be their huge goal, they might want to be a dictator. That's you know, because you can allow anything in these, in these sorts of things. And then, then what you need to do, of course, is, you know, somebody says, right, I want to be the dictator of an island country somewhere. You don't say, great idea, right, okay, so, you first need to get citizenship of that country, and then you need to arm yourself, and you need to get a militia behind you, now, we don't, we don't sort of have those steps to meeting the goal, we look at what it is that the person needs. I haven't thought about this goal before, by the way, but if somebody has that need, you look at what it means. And, in this case, it's going to be, there's something lacking.

Richard: 14:53

Oh, yeah. somebody says, I want to be world king. Okay. Well, how is that going to make you feel to be king of the world? Powerful. feel powerful. Okay. So what you want is to feel powerful. Um, psychoanalyzing from afar here, Boris Johnson, by the sound of things, cause that was something that he said and look what happened because what he should have

Fiona: 15:20

Well, he said he wanted to be king of the world. Or that he wanted to be powerful.

Richard: 15:24

world king

Fiona: 15:25

Oh, did he That was his first Oh, right, Okay

Richard: 15:29

And so, did what he did to become as powerful as he could. And Probably didn't look at how it would make him feel, which is what we want our clients and our Evolve to Thrive members and all our podcast listeners to think about. How would that big goal make you feel? And we'll work out a realistic way of making that feeling happen

Fiona: 15:49

And there's also the feeling that sometimes that feeling that you're striving for is a compensation for something that you're lacking.

Richard: 15:57

Yes, hence Boris Johnson and his atrocious childhood, more than likely. We're also analysing Donald Trump here as well, aren't we?

Fiona: 16:03

Well, we could get into that as well. But, let's say that somebody Who is wanting to feel really powerful probably is lacking in the feeling of having power. Most people don't have an awful lot of power. I mean, if I think about what power do I have? Not a lot of it, but I don't have a particular need for it. So it's a sort of combination, isn't it?

Richard: 16:29

It is. It is. And I'm aware that This could open up a lot of questions for people to go, Oh, am I compensating for being neglected as a child? And I doubt that Donald Trump or Elon Musk or Boris Johnson are listening to this, but if they are, give that some thought. You know, have a little look as your phrase goes and have a think about maybe the goals that you've got do come from a painful place. What is it that you really want to feel? And let's work out a way to make that happen. It might be that the ability to feel that is already there.

Fiona: 17:05

But if you don't start from the big goal, because, you know, if you go to a management seminar, leadership or any sort of seminar pretty much seems to happen all over the place. It's smart goals and Maslow's hierarchy. It seems to be the two boxes that every seminar is mandated to cover. And there's nothing wrong with either of those things. Of course, there's

Richard: 17:33

They've stood the test of time for a reason, But you don't learn much, do you, setting SMART goals.

Fiona: 17:38

But smart goals without a context. I was doing a thing, um, the other day, where I was asked what my goals were. And because I'm in the middle of doing this Evolve to thrive program and all the rest of it. And so in that world, I gave crazy goals because I'm just in that mode

Richard: 18:03

We'd like million people to sign up for Evolve to thrive.

Fiona: 18:07

It was that sort of thing yes and and the guy sort of said whoa and I said no it's okay it's okay is it I know that we have to balance these things so we balance our optimism You know, not just go absolutely crazy, as in, going to be world queen in my instance. We can allow ourselves to go off on crazy flights of fancy. And that's really rather a nice thing to do. I'm sure you know the term property porn.

Richard: 18:43

Yes.

Fiona: 18:44

Yeah,

Richard: 18:45

I've, I've, I've, I've, yes. I moved house a few times and kept my Rightmove account going because it was just nice to be nosy.

Fiona: 18:51

I did this with Greg the other day. We were sitting there, I think Rory was asleep or quiet anyway. And we were just scrolling through, we sort of put into right move, you know, minimum two million, no maximum, and

Richard: 19:09

How the other half live?

Fiona: 19:11

what about this one? And you know, Greg says, well there's a granny flat, you can live in that bit, you know, and it's, it's great fun. So,

Richard: 19:21

It is,but they're a bugger to keep clean

Fiona: 19:22

Well, I did do those sorts of things, which cost a lot to heat that room. Um, and that, that swimming pool, gosh, that would be difficult to keep clean. Um, so I did do those sorts of things. But there was still in my head, well, let's be practical here. If I could, if I could buy that, I could afford the cleaner. Anyway, anyway. You can have flights of fancy in whatever, it's called daydreaming and it's, it's fine and it tells you, again, it tells you a lot about what you would like because I might daydream about a house but I don't daydream about becoming a Formula One driver because why would I daydream about that? So whatever you are dreaming about tells you something about yourself. Which is useful information.

Richard: 20:12

It's vital. We can't develop without it. We can't thrive without it. And this is different to the sort of standard goal setting you might have if you've got a project on the go or a qualification that you're training for or something like that. Sure. Think about that end goal. It's not necessarily motivating. That's what I need to add on, that it's not necessarily going to motivate you to study. If you focus on getting the degree, there's this myth that if you can see it, you can be it. And that doesn't work for everything. Some things, taking, you know, a golf shot, fine. If you can see it, you can be it. Close your eyes. Imagine where you want the ball to go. You're more likely to take the right shot. But when it comes to other things? We have to say there are no rules. The common one that's quoted is the problems that can come from students who only focus on passing their exam. If you focus on passing the exam, if you really think about it, step into that feeling of passing the exam, it will not motivate you to study to pass the exam because you've just tricked your brain into thinking you've already passed and so you're less motivated to study. And when students have done that, They are more likely to underperform in their exam. So focus on the steps in between in those cases. If you want to pass an exam, you think about the work you're going to do. So you think about studying. You step into that thought. You imagine the work you're going to put in that will soak up the information that allows you to pass the exam. You do that! Because just the end goal, it's not particularly motivating. So we can't have the one rule for everything. But these fantastic goals, they tell you so much about who you are, your wants, your needs your desires. And then you can tap into that.

Fiona: 22:11

And using the goal of getting a qualification, I mean, the education system has changed, even in my lifetime, to be about getting the exam to actually, amazingly enough, to learning something. Because in my day, it was all about, you know, you get these O levels and A levels, and everything was about, learning the stuff so that you could regurgitate it in the exam. And then most of it falls out of most people's brains afterwards. Whereas my sons, when they were at school, they were learning things to understand them. Very different, and I expect it's moved on still further and will keep doing so I still, you know, you still need to pass the exams, obviously, because there has to be a measure. Well, in the way that our education system works, you still have to do it.

Richard: 23:12

So, yeah, if anybody's got any, um, homework this week in between their podcast listens, think about your big goals.

Fiona: 23:21

Just to say, I'm not really want, I'm not, because we don't want this to be selly, but in Evolve to Thrive we do have the process for doing this, so it's, it's laid out for you as to how to do but you don't have to do that. You can just think about it.

Richard: 23:38

What I I really want to urge people throughout, not just the Evolve to Thrive programme, but just whether they're a podcast listener, or a client, or just somebody in the pub. Learn about yourself. Get to know who you are, and who you want to be. it should be our only goal, really.

Fiona: 24:02

I had a client recently who, came into therapy having been working towards meeting their huge goal and it wasn't working because it was too big. Now, what it would have been better for this person to do is look at the huge goal and what it was going to get for them. This was about moving to a different country. They had moved to said different country and it was too complicated, too difficult, all sorts of issues with relationships, with family and kids and schools and all sorts of stuff that weren't working out because it wasn't ecological. It didn't work in practice. The idea, great, but if they'd been able to go through the process of seeing that's the big goal, what does it give us?

Richard: 25:01

Yeah

Fiona: 25:01

and then work back to find a way to get that in an ecological way that wasn't going to cause these problems.

Richard: 25:10

Yes. we can easily think in a very narrow, dichotomous, polarised, black or white, this or that way if we're not careful. It's just what humans can do. It's a bit of a defence to try and help us to understand the world that go, well it's this or nothing. Well maybe there's a grey area between the black and white, but I've got to emigrate in order to be happy. I cannot be happy here. Well, what would migrating to another country feel like? What is, what is the benefit that's gonna come from that? Let's find a way in the middle. Maybe that's more realistic of, of getting that feeling. If what you want is more sunshine, then it might be cheaper just to go on holiday a bit more often. Yeah.

Fiona: 25:56

Jack, when he was coming up to the end of his A level time, I remember saying, you know, what what do you want? And he said, I want to be anywhere but here.

Richard: 26:08

What Loughborough?

Fiona: 26:08

Yeah. And he went to I mean, he said it was very nice, you know, there wasn't any issue with this, and it's, well, you know, he'd been going through school, and, you know, living here, and not a very exciting place, and all the rest of it was fine, but,

Richard: 26:23

Well, you were the

Fiona: 26:24

just,

Richard: 26:24

Maybe it was that.

Fiona: 26:25

it was, it, yeah, I just don't want anybody to think that there was a problem, there wasn't a problem. Anyway, he went to Australia from his gap year, and After a while in Australia, he kept phoning up saying, Can I come home, please? Can I come home, please? So I was saying, You need to stick it out a bit longer. You need to stick it out. You need to stick out. And then,

Richard: 26:49

He went there for a a full year.

Fiona: 26:51

that was the plan.

Richard: 26:52

I say I don't remember it being that long.

Fiona: 26:54

It wasn't. He went in October, he came back in January, because it was, the final straw was when Greg went to see him, in Australia, and then Greg came home, and then he was I've got to come home. And at that point I was not saying you need to stick it out any longer, because he really needed to come home. Since then, he's been absolutely fine. But it needed that to help him to really understand what well, what the world's like, really. Yeah. And where he, what, what matters and, you know, the, the values and so on. Um, and he, he l he learned how important family was primarily.

Richard: 27:35

Wow.

Fiona: 27:35

By doing that. So, I remember Alan, who he stayed with some of the time when he was there, saying it was too early for him to do that. I don't think it was too early for him to do that, I think it was a very good time for him to do that. Got a lot from it, even if it wasn't exactly what was intended. So, sort of big goal, didn't meet that big goal, mm met other of it as well. He in the learned about himself.

Richard: 27:59

And that was the point. Yes. Yeah.

Fiona: 28:01

Amazing what you can learn sitting on a sofa watching cricket drinking beer. Sounds jokey but it's true, actually, in that context, that's what he was doing. Yes. Yeah, in 30 degree heat because it was the sunshine coast in December. You couldn't get any hotter. When it is beautiful there. I did go for a month and I did think, yeah, I could live here. I really could. So why aren't I? Because actually, although I did enjoy it and appreciated the time there, I do value my friends and family even more and yeah, I was ready, was I ready to come back? I could have done another month But I like, I like to visit places. I love to visit other places, but I like home.

Richard: 28:57

Oh, I was also missing my clients rather bizarrely because I mean, I wasn't, I could have seen them, but I was, the time difference in Australia was

Fiona: 29:05

makes things tricky.

Richard: 29:08

So yeah, I value, value where I live. I like this country. I know the winter can be a bit gloomy, but today bright blue sky, absolutely bright blue sky. It's gorgeous Anyway, We've rambled, haven't we? We have,

Fiona: 29:24

We've nattered we have nattered. Yes. Not rambles. We don't ramble, Richard. We

Richard: 29:29

I edit out the rambles

Fiona: 29:31

Well, you can keep it in for your Patreons.

Richard: 29:34

Yeah, I will. I'll keep some of the rambling in, but to get it down to 30 minutes, I have to cut out a bit of rambling.. Shall we love them and leave them?

Fiona: 29:42

We shall indeed.

Richard: 29:44

Alright

Fiona: 29:44

See you next time.

Richard: 29:45

Absolutely, you know where we are. We've spoken about our contact details. They're scattered all over the internet through our social media. Hey, follow us on Facebook. We don't have as many followers on Facebook as we do on Instagram. No one seems to use Facebook like they used to. Follow us on Facebook. Link is in the show notes. Have a lovely week, everybody. Speak to you soon. Bye

Fiona: 30:03

Bye!