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Look of everyone to deep into the pages
Um before we really plunge into our source material
Today i just have to take a moment
Yeah
There's something to celebrate
First there is it's a huge milestone for us
And really for this entire community
We just hit ten thousand subscribers
So that's incredible
It is
And it's entirely because of you the learner for you know for trusting us be your guide
So from both of us
Thank you so much for being here
It's truly a privilege to see this community grow
And i mean what better way to mark the success
Then by diving into the very mechanics of success
Itself exactly today's deep dives all about the art of follow through it's a subject that helps us understand not just how you start your goals
But um how you make sure they actually cross the finishline
Absolutely we are getting into the uh the architecture of intentional ality and goal attainment
And we're drawing heavily from chris baile's research in this book
Intenseal and the core message is just so powerful
It's this idea that intentional ality it's not a soft skill
It's not just a motivational cept t
Not
It's the fundamental operating system
You need for any kind of long term goal success and the book starts with this
This perfect took for our current moment
He talks about this acquainment team man right a friendly guy who basically admitted he'd stopped reading books completely and his reason
Why i mean it's is so relaable
Right now he said
In the age of generative ai
He just couldn't trust
If the ideas were truly human anymore that anxiety is everyone you know
Are you reading a human thought or just something an algorithm synthesized
It really gets to the heart of why we value human effort
It does in the official response
It wasn't the defsisive books in general
It was an insertion of the value of human intention
Yeah
He says intentionality is not only beautiful
But also profoundly powerful
And he didn't just say it
He
He lived it with the book itself exactly he put his money
Weeas mouth is he said this explicit intentional commitment
He made it still clear
That every single part of the conceptual and creative work
It was all his all human and a eyes role
A eyes role was just would called the dredery
Not the art
I love that phrase
It's perfect right think about things like formatting references
Generating an index
Cleaning up data
All the stuff he loves doing
But the core insights
The stories
The intentional ality that had to remain human
That think that sets up our mission for today
Perfectly we're going to unpack this idea of human intentional ality to understand the mental structure of our actions
And more importantly how our deepest values fuel them
And we're going to get tactical will explore specific strategies
You can implement right away to make sure
You follow through
Even when that goal gets you know boring or frustraating or just overwhelming
Okay
So let's start
Where we all start with the problem had dreadgogograve yard
We all have one
We all have one
You know we start with this huge momentum m learning the guitar
A new diet plan
That side project you were so excited about we are great
It's starting a clasastic psychological trap and the other points out
When he looked back at his own grave yard of abandoned goals
The pattern wasn't a lack of initial motivation right wasn't
Even that he couldn't mamatain tain progress for a few weeks
No
The failure was always specifically tied to completing that long term sustained commitment
It was always a problem of follow through
And this is where he brings in this analogy
That so memorable the golf follow through
You have to tell about bob the structure okay
So when the author started learning golf
He was like every other beginner
His entire mental focus was on one thing
The moment of contact just hit the ball
That's the goal
That's the goal
Anything that happened after that was just you know in nsha
He was relieved to have made contact at all
But that focus led to total inconsistency
His shots were all over the place
Which is such a great metaphor for goals
We focused on the initial launch writing the first plan at the chapter
The first day at the gem
Where was just hamred we started exactly
But his instructor bob he just hammered this one point home
He said
The true art of golf
The source of all consistency is focusing on what happens after you hit the ball
After contact
After contact
You aren't aiming for the ball
You're aiming to create a uniform committed arc pass the ball
That whole quarter poawet swing you see golfers do it isn't just for show
It's the whole point
It's the whole point by concentrating on maintaining that arc through the follow through
The entire swing becomes dramatically more consistent and uh and more powerful
So the lessness in about the moment of impact
It's about the sustained commitment after the impact
So the tentenally
And there's a spoiler for the whole book
Really the path to finishing
What ststart is simply
Becoming more intentional okay
So we need to define that term really precisely what exactly is tentionality in the simplest terms
It is the mental process that proceeds action
It's the conscious decision
You make about what to do
How to do it
And why you're doing it all before you actually move that seems almost too simple
I mean we make decisions all day along why is giving this process
The label intentional ality so important for getting things done
Because without it
The action doesn't happen delibrary
Tely you acachieve a goal
It's never because motivation just andandomly struculate lining
It's because a mental blueprint
The intention was set first ah so we confuse motivation with action all the time
Motivation might get you to think about running a marathon
But intentional ality is the mental commitment that actually gets you out the door for that first run the stronger
The intention
The higher
The probability of successful action
It really shift the entire locus of control you stop waiting around for motivation to strike
And you start engineering the inputs that create the output
It's like that famous waane
Gretkey quote
You miss one hundred percent of the shots
You don't take exactly in hockey
Gretzkey said
The probability of scoring might only be what one to five percent on any given around
But if you never set the intention to take the shot
The probability drops to zero and in our daily lives
Intentional ality gives us a way higher probability of success than one to five percent
The goal isn't perfection
It's to set so many strong intentions that success becomes um as statistical inevitability
Which means we need to get really good
It's saying where our intentions are coming from the first place
And then learn how to upgrade them
That's the next step
So now that we know know intentionaliis the starting line
Where do these intentions even come from where does that mental energy originate
I thought the synthesis in the source material here was uh incredible blends research
And even some boods
Principles
It really creates a
It's a picture
He identifies six key sources
That are constantly generating our intentions
Whether were aware of them or not let's break those down okay
So the first two are the most immediate in physical
Number one is just our biology hunger thirst meeting the restaurant
Exactly the basics
And number two is the immediate influence of our social environments
This drives intentions like you know joining friends after a stressful week
Because you're seeking connection or checking a notificance
Because of that fear of missing out
Then we gin to learn the behaviors right
Number three is conditioning from our family or our culture
This stuff is fascinating
Because these intentions are so deep but often totally invisible to us
Like how quickly we eat a meal or whether you reflexively apologize on someone bumps into you
That's all conditioning okay
What's for for is the fundamental human drive our desire to find happiness and avoid pain
This intention is always running in the background
Driving everything asking someone out on a date to avoiding a difficult conversation at work
And five is lessons learn in the past
So adapting based on feedback right deciding to communicate more clearly after a misunderstanding is a perfect example of that
And then there's this six source
There's the one that gives leverage ing
Control our self reflective capacity
This is the absolute game changer for personal growth
Self reflect tive capacity is our ability to look inside ourselves
Assess our situation
See how we're doing relative to what we want
And then actively considered the best way forward
So it lets us set intentions that are different from our biology or our conditioning
Precisely if the first five sources are defaults the six one gives us ownership
And that ofnership ads right to this critical split in our daily lithat defaut t intentions
Versus delibrate intentions
If we're not actively using that self reflective capacity
How much of our day is just running on autopilot a huge percenent we're operating on default intentions about forty to forty five percent of the time forty to forty five percent that's nearly have today did is these are the autentions tions driven by our neural autopilot mode
There are habits
And habits are simply intentions that we've outsource to an automatic process
And we know these habits get triggered by those five environmental queues right
Yeah
Time a day your location would just happen your motional state or who you're with right like that mid afternoon coffee is triggered by time entering the kitchen
Triggered snacking finishing a meeting triggers checking your email
It's all automatic
Which saves cognitive energy
I get that yeah
We don't want have to decide how a tire shoes every morning
Exactly it has its uses
But as powerful as habits are there inherently incapable of helping us achieve complex new or challenging long term goals for growth
For real change
You need deliberate intentions
Which are the ones we construct ourselves the ones that let us take control and break out of old conditioning that's the other fifty five to sixty percent of our behavior
And to connect these different levels from the immediate action to the long term goal
The source introduces this concept of the intention stack visualizing this is so essential
Because it shows how our actions are nested inside each other
And how that context cretes meaning it's basically a hierarchy of purpose
So the very bottom you have the tiny st actions
Present moment intentions
Daily actions like i will open the document now or i will drink glass of water
And those tiny actions are nested inside the middle layer
Which is plans
Goals and priorities things you want to achieve over weeks or months
Like finishing a quarterly report or saving a thousand dollars
And then towerabove it at all
At the very top of the stack are our values
These are our longest term intentions
The ultimate guiding principles and the entire stack gives meaning to the action below it if my present moment intention is just to sit and start the screen
It's meaningless
But when you connected up the stack
I'm staring at the screen to finish a report
Which is part of my goal to advance my career
Which allies with my value of say achievement
Suddenly that small action has purpose the more consistently you check up and down that stack connecting the why to the what the more motivation
You have which brings us back to activating that self reflective capacity
Yes
And here's the canterinintude apart
When we feel stuck
We think we need to focus harder
But the research suggest we should do
The opposite we should practice intentional mine wandering what the officals scatter focus great
Why are 're taking a shower or going for a walk
So productive
It's because when you let your mind wander intentional ally your brain shifts into this mode of processing and consolidation
It's starts solving problems that are important to you and the data
This is just stunning random sambling studidies that when your mind ind is woning youyou spend forty eight percent of that time thinking specifically about the future and your goals forty eight percent it's not random noise
No
And here's the kicker
You think about your goals fourteen times more often when your mind is wondering
Compare to when you're intensely focused on a task
It seems so backwards
But that deliberary mental drifting scatter focusing here how you force yourself reflective capacity to come online
You let your brain sort through your priorities with out your terecct supervision like delegating the big picture strategy meeting to your subconscious mind
Yeah
You're telling your brain okay
Take a break the details and just figure out what really matters here
Let's zoom out to the very top of that intention stack values
If we don't aliline our goals with these core principles
We're just
We're building a house on sand
Completely the source material defines values as broad transituational desirable goals
That because is guiding principles in people's lives through the motivtional bedrock
Exactly there are longest term intentions
When a goal feels in trinsically motivating that because it's deeply aliline with one of your values
It feels less like work and more like an expression of your true nature
And the researarure is so robust
Is built on decades across cultural psychology and it identifies twelve basic ffundamental human values that are supported premuch everywhere in the world
Right across hundreds of thousands of study participants
Which should probleous them out
But do it ok
So we have conformity security
Tradition
Self direction
Stimulation
Pleasure or hedinism
Achievement
Power
Benevolance
Unionsalism
Humility and face
Which is the need to prespreserve your public image
That's a powerful liace
Which what's more useful is understanding how these values interact
Because they're ccture around two opposing polarities
This is where you start to understand your deepest internal conflicts
Absolutely
The first polarity is all about your relationship with change are you driven by conservation or by openness to change
Okay
So conservation values would be things that maintain the status
Qual right
Safety
Predictability
So conformity security and tradition follow that camp on the other side
Openness to change values are all about growth novelty
Self exploration
That's self direction and stimulation
So if you're choosing between going back to school versus staying in your stable predictable career
That's a classic value clasherate there it's a perfect example
And the second polarity dictates
It's your focus of concern gaes is it self enrichment or other enrichment
Or self enrichment being personal game
Yep things like power
Achievement and face
That's other enrichment is focused on the welfare mother
So that's benevlance universalism in humanity
It makes so much sense
That the strongest disagreement both inside ourselves and in society happen
When these opposing values collide tradition
Verse s progress personal power veris the common good
And it explains why some goals feel exhausting and others feel effortless
If you find yourself consistently sabotaging a goal
Chances are that
That al al is highly aligned with a value
That opposes a value
You hold even more deeply do you're fighting yourself
You're fighting yourself for instance
If you deeply you benevolence
But you're trying to chase a purely self enriching al like popower emomotional system is going to fight that goal every single step the way it feels like a betrayal of who are so where do these founddivalvales es even from from is it nature is it nurture
The book posiits that our values are the some of our defaults
They're constructed from one
Our genetic preticipositions to the social environments we grew up in especially parents and three are crucially our active selection process are self reflective capacity
So we don't just passively absorb them
Eventually we choose which ones to adopt reject
Exactly
And there's the surprising study that shows the inner play between our conditioning and our choices
So beautifully
It's about the value of security
And how it shapes political attitudes this part was fascinating
It's really interesting researchers took participants who identified as politically exerative and in a controlled setting
They asked them to do this highly imaginative exercise
It's about to imagine waking up with an invininiability superpower
So they were completely invulnerable to physical harm
Totally no knife could cut them
No bullet could penetrate them
The fundamental human value of security was hypothetically and instantanououly satisfied
Okay
So what was the result was the outcome
The researchers found that the people in that invincisiouly group reported being significantly less socially exerative
Right after the exercise
Wow
Now the effect was tempfication
But after the implication is profound
The source suggest that
When i found dibiolological intention
That need to feel safe inseure ure satisfied your entire intentional tional ramework can shift it can free you up to be more open to progressive attitudes
That's powerful
It suleads us some some of dedeest st orientabut might not be rooted in logic
But in the most basic biological drive for security
And this leads us to the authors really compelling redefinition of success
Which moves away from all the external metrix switches right like money
Your status
He tells that great story about training for a marathon
Yes
The fact that he stopped training
Once he knew he could do it
It's completely counterintuitive to how we normally think about achievement
He put in all the work
The gruelling wledge to complete the full twenty six point two miles
But once he hit that distance in a practice run he was done
He was satisfied
And people were baffled
Especially people who really prioritizthe value ue achieement
Ment course they'd say
But you didn't get the metal
You didn't finish the race
But for him the goal was never just about the external metric of the metal
His driving values were self direction exploring his own capabilities and pleasure
The joy
He got from the process
So once he proved himself that he could do it
The rest of was just been for the achievement value
Which wasn't his top priority exactly for him that was a lower priority than the pleasure
He got from the initial exploration so true success isn't crossing some finish line
That society sets for you
It's living a life
That's aligned with what you value most
And if you chase that alignment first for filmof just ort of at lows
And we should aim for values
Energy
The most meaningful actions of the ones that satisfy multiple values at once think of someone who uses their skills
Which is achievement to mentor others
Which is universalism and benevolance
First action is so motivating
Because it has multiple high points on their intention stack
Okay
Let's move back down that intention stack
And talk about goals the vehicle for our values
Because if you structure your goals poorly doesn't matter how strong your values are you're just inviting for crasstination
And this is where the source material challenges a framework that has been dominant for what forty years the smart goal model specific measurable
Achievable
Realistic time bound it's everywhere it is
But it came from a nineteen ty eighty one business paper not from scientific theory and the research says it's often unhelpful
If not tottoneor productive for ambitischools
But wait if it's unhelpful
Why does it persist so much especially in big companies right
What's the psychological purpose of making a goal achievable or realistic
It serves the purpose of risk metigation
It's about managing expectations in a corporate environment
So you don't fail publicly
But the problem is that goal research strongly recommends setting challenging difficult goals
The ones that scatutuyour ababilities
Exactly people achieve significantly more
When the target is high smart by favouring realistic targets actually leads us to settle for making less progress than more capable of so we need a better framework one that allous for high ambition
But also gives us the structure
We need to follow through right good goals have three core components
First the outcome goal that's the result you want to if fifty thousand of years for a downpayment
Second the process school these are the action steps transfer fifteen percent of every paycheck automatically to savings and third the rate of progress
The timeline or the pace achieve the downpayment target in three years
The process goal is where we live day a day
But even the best process goal runs head first into our biggest enemy a version procraststation ation
Procrastination is what separates an intentional from an action and the critical reframing
Here is that procrastination is not a time management problem
It is an emotion regulation problem
That refraing is so important
It's an irrational emotional impulse
It's a battle between your logic that abstract future reward and your emotion
Which is the immediate desire to avoid negative feelings
Right now
So we delay tasks because just the thought of starting them triggers
Negative feelings like board and more frustration
And we give in to feeling good in the moment by scrowling social mediinstead
It's an escape mechanism
And it's incredibly common fifteen to twenty percent of adults or chronic crassinators and university students report spending about a third of their day putting things off
So how do we fight it
That delay is always triggered by one or more of the six characteristic of a version
A task is ugly innoversive
If it is bororing unpleasant frustrating far off in the future
Unstructured or meaningless you have to systematically can interact each one okay
Let's get into the tactical fixes lestart with the first one
The task is just boring
If a task is boring
The fix is to make it more challenging
You inject difficulty to make it more engaging
Instead of just clean the kitchen
You said an artificial time limit it i twenty
Twenty minutes get get this whole place
Spotless you turn it into a game
You turn into a game
The challenge makes this whole and engaging
And it counteracts that passive feeling of boredom okay
Next up unpleasant tasks
The ones we physically recoil from for these you have two great strategies
The first is a version
Journling you just pause before the task and write down
Exactly why it feel feel so verversive
You confront the emotion
You confront it that small act of reflection
Often demystifies the fear
Unless you find a more positive way to frame it
The second strategy is taspapairing
Which is also called temptation bommbling right
You combine a low desire activity with a high desire reward
And you only allow your ourself to have that reward
While you're doing the unpleasant thing
You only listen your favourite podcast
While you're at the gym
Exactly you're briving yourself into doing the action by making the reward conditional on the tore
That's a genious way to regulate emotion
Yeah Okay
What frustrating goals oyou kekeep itting setbacks
And you feel that sense of failure creeping in frustration
Often means you're using the wrong framework
You need to shift from a high stakes performance goal to a learning goal
That's a genious from its goal is lose ten pounds by the end of the month
It's an absolute outcome right
And if you fail the frustration is high
A learning goal is focused on competence for example educate myself on nutrition principles to live a healthier life
That leads to sustainable weight loss
So the actions might be the same eating better exercising
But the cocognitive frame is totally different
The sebbks are no longer failures
Thethere just data points that inform you're learning you lower the frustration
Because the goal is about building competency
Not just hitting a number okay next up is goals
That are far off in the future
The reward is so abstracit feels unreal to make it feel salient
Right now you need to define and track a target pace
This means setting benchmarks that make the distant goal feel present and tangible
So if you're writing a novel
You track your current workout against the pace
You need to hit your deadline
Exactly that constant comparison keeps the finish line in view and maintains your momentum
Okay
The fifth one is a big one for me
The big messy overwhelming casask unstructure to go
Goals and structure is the anidote to complexity
Here you use implementation intentions the classic
If situation exerises
Then i will perform response y plan so an remove the decision making from the moment
It becomes automatic
If i finished dinner
Then i will immediately spend ten minutes planning my next days top three priorities no thinking required
This is also where the habit point system comes in which is such a unique way to handle these kinds of goals
It's an internal gaamified bribe system
The author for example had these fit schools
That he kept putting off like tracking calories and his step count
So he integrated these process goals right into his personal budget spread sheet
So he had to earn fit points by hitting his health targets
Yes
And here's the genius part
He had to unlock his discretionary spending money
His fun money for hobbies and entertainments
By achieving those fit points
So there were real consequences
Real consequences he even introduce penalties
If he missed a crucial target
He lost points
And that would restrict his access to his fun money for the week
He was bribing himself toward the necessary proceschools turning a chore into a game
That is fantastic system design okay
Finally
How do we fix meaningless tasks
A meaningless task just means the intention isn't connected high enough up the intention stack
It's not a line with your values
So the solution is a values at you have have to rerame it
You have to reframe it
So what aligns with what you truly care about instead of i must read ten pages of this dense textbook
You reframe it too i will read ten pages daily to become a more informed mentor for my team
You connect the tore to a value like benevolance meaninglessness is always cured by purpose
We spent a lot of time on minimizing aversion which is critical
But let's flip the coin talk of maxmizing desire and one of the strongest forces
That influences our desire is totally external our social environment
That social contagion and it is profoundly powerful
We're so sucepceptable to the habits and attitudes of the people closest to us
The data is just presriking
Ah
If a friend becomes obese
You're likelihood of gaining weight goes up by forty five percent
And if a friend smokes
Your likelihood of smoking increases by sixty one percent
And it spreads beyond your immediate circle
A friend of a friends still increases your odds of gaining way by twenty percent
Even if you really see them
So the tactical approach is simple
But it requires constant vigilance
First you have to be aware of negative contain
You know the people are groups
Whose habits are counterproductive to your goals
And second you have to actively embrace positive contaon deliberately seek out people who acready have the habits
You want to adopt
Exactly you want to run ning marththon join a running club nneralithe desired behavior
And that naturally accelrate it's your desire to do it
We also have to talk about values like pleasure or stimulation
Which are often culturally discourage
This can lead to guilt and self satosh right
If you highly value hedinism in society makes you feel guilty for it
You often end up indulging spontaneously and guiltily it's less satisfying
So the fix is inintional intelgence
What does that mean
It means you carve out specific guilt free time blocks for indulgence
You plan a relaxing
Evening you schedule luxurious bath by making in a delibrary and scheduled you remove the guilt
It shifts from a weak imppulsive moment to a purposeful value aligned choice and what about for people who highly value stimulation
The ones who get pulled into multtasking in doomes growing what you call the empty digital calories for them
You practice selective stimulation
Instead of the shallow focus destroying digital hits you choose challenging
But rewarding activities that aliline with your growth like learning a new language or a complex video game
Exactly something that requires planning and strategy
The key is choosing stimulation that supports your growth and focus
Rather than ererring it all of these tacticthey lelead up to goal of syystiizing our follow through
So we're not just relying on wheelpower
And the author has this perfect story about his logistics expert francis
Right
He was having this busy press day
And he had outsource all the logistical overhad to francis
She managed to travel
His schedule
His food everything
And he said he felt this profound sense of freedom and confidence
Because he never had to think about what to do next
That administrated burden was just gone
It was gone
And that feeling of effortless progress is what we're aiming for we need to use intentional rituals to become our own francis
Our own logistics manager
And that starts with our daily routines
Right
We have two very effective instistial techniques for bridging the gap beprevenen one task in the next
The first is the quantial productivity that's just always knowing the current task in the next
Test it's that simple
You always have a two item mental list
It prevents that costly mental fog of finishing something and wondering kay
What now and for those was with a manager schedule days that are all chopped up with meetings
Time blocking is probably better fit
Time blocking is just predetermining
Exactly when you will work on tasks in specific non negotiable blocks of time
And it gives you huge confidence
Because you know that what you're doing
Right now is by design the most important thing you could be doing
But there are best practices
Here you can't just block eight hour street for one thing
No you have to respect your bodies
Natural energy
Rhythms
Work blocks should be a maximum of ninety minutes
Followed by a refreshing break many minutes is about the limit of our peak focused concentration and the most productive people actually take a lot of breaks
They do research shows they allocate about twenty to twenty five percent of their day to genuine rest not just switching to another task
And for listeners who resist that kind of rigid structure
There's a modification called rolling time blocking
Rolling time blocking maintains your autonomy while still ensuring alignment
You predetermine the blocks
The tasks you will work on
But you choose which block to start next as the day progresses you get the freedom of sequencing without losing your intentional ality
Finally we need a simple high level prioritization ritual the rule three
It is deceptive in its simplicity for any time for him
A day
A week
A month
You just ask yourself what three things what i want to have accomplished by the end of this period and limiting it to three forces you to cut through the noise
It forces you to focus on the most important impact ful intentions that support your goals and values
It's the ritual of sharpening the acts before you start shopping
And all of these elements
Our values are
Goals are
Versient strategies are rituals
They have to be connected by one overarching ritual the goal review this should be a weekly touch point a moment
Where you review your entire goal invantory
You update your outcome and process goals you check your desire curves
You see where a version is creeping in
And then you plan your next steps
You have to be dynamic
You have even be dynamic
You can even use techniques like mental contrasting
Where you actively anticipate future obstacles to prepare yourself for the reality of follow through
Not just the phmacy of it
So intentionality isn't a one time deciit through to continue ous process predicting acting and editing
It's a messy ongoing thing that requires to engage that self reflective capacity
Constantly all the time we have covered so much ground today from understanding that the true swing goal attainment is the follow through to the need to become your own logiss manager with these intention rituals
Yeah
The overwriting thetheis is just undiably clear intententionthat mental tal process comcomes proacis is the single greatest vever we have for achieving our malls and living
A life that feels authentic to us
It is
And when you deliberately align your daily actions
The very bottom of the intention stack with your deepest values at the top of the stack
You just unlock this profound sense of motivation in meaning
You stop relying on a fickle nature of will power
Exactly yeah
You start designing systems that make success feel frictionless and yeah and almost inevitable
And you realize that you're this complex valuable product of both your conditions and your choices
You can change your course at any time
But only if you 're truly intentional about how you spend your time
Your attention in your energy and as a final provocative thought for you to carry forward
Well we all stve to break out of our habits and achieve more
We should also maybe take a moment to marvel l and
And appreciate our ffaults
Your current default intentions and values
The things that make up nearly half of your day are already shaping who you are
So before you decide on everything you want to change
Take a moment to notice and enjoy the wonder of the intentions
That already define the person you are
Today
That's a wonderful thought to leave us with thank you for joining us for this deep dive into the pages
Thank you and thanks for listening
What's talked you next time