If you want to achieve your goals, don't focus on them. That goes against everything we have ever said abut goals, right? Everything everyone ever talked about goals, is you pick out what it is you want to do, you set your goals, you write them down, you stay focused on them, you check your list over and over again, you come back to it, and that's how you achieve your goals. What I have learned over the coure of my life, and watching other people, and studying other things is that that's not the way to achieve goals. We all talk about setting goals, but we don't talk that much about how do you actually achieve goals. So I started learning this lesson with my first girlfriend in life. Her name was Lasandra Johnson. Yes guys, who has never seen Lasandra, you have to take my word for it, she was the most beautiful 6th grader God has ever created. And for the record, I was in the 6th grade too. I used to look at this girl and think every day, "I would love for LaSandra to be my girlfriend." But I was young, and I was afraid, so I don't go to say anything to her. But one day I was standing on the playground during recess, I don't know where the courage came from, but I decided today is the day, I wasn't going to wait another day. I turned to my buddy, John Statura, and I said, "John, go ask LaSandra to go with me." So he goes walking over to her, and he poses the question, her little group of friends giggles, she says something back. He comes walking back to me , he says, "Reggie, LaSamdra said, if you want her to be your girlfriend, you got to ask her yourself." But I am 6th grade, I sent my best man. What does she want? But there was no way I was going to ask her myself, so I continued to think about her for the rest of that school year. Summer brake came, and I thought about LaSandra Johnson every day of summer brake. The next year was 7th grade, and at my school, you had a different class every hour, and lockers between classes. For the first hour I had Woodshop. LaSandra had Home Economics. At my school, you're allowed to change one class as long as the class you are moving out of met at the same time as the class you're moving in to. So, I walked into the principle's office and said, " I'd loke to change from Woodshop to Home Economics." I walk into a Home Economics room, there are 22-23 girls in this classroom, one boy named Jurgen Kuhn and now, me. I asked the girl named Tara Virgamini to move over so I could sit next to LaSandra Johnson, and that day I asked her to go  with me, myself. She said, "No." That was my first lesson on the prerogative of women that would be many more but, making a long story short, LaSandra did end up becomong my girlfriend for two weeks and three days later in that school year, but I tell this story because that's the first time in my life that I can say that I purposely focused on the part that was in my control and ignored the part that was outside of my control; that was the first time in my life that I purposely focused on my behaviors rather than my goal. We set goals for ourselves, but our goals are things that are ouside of our control. Whatever it is you want to achieve in your life. If you are a student and you want to get an A in a class, that's outside of your control,  you don't get to write A's on all of your papers, you have a teacher who is going to grade these papers, give you assignments, somebody else is setting the curriculum, somebody else is grading you, you don't control what your grade is. If you want to be the world's best salesman, you don't get to make all the sales yourself, you don't get to do both sides of the transaction, you have to recruit customers into your life. Goals require you to have the participation of other people, therefore, they are outside of your control. So, if you spend too much time focusing on your goals, you'll never achieve them. Behaviors, by contrast, are things that you alone can do, it doesn't take a parent, a teacher, a coach, a friend, a neighbor, a spouse, a child; it doesn't require anyone else, you alone can do behaviors, and behaviors are the things that you focus on in order to achieve your goals. And looking at the situation with LaSandra and I: when I focuse on my goal, which was to have this girl to be my girlfriend, I couldn't speak to her if I was walking past her in the hallway. In my head all the time it was, " Lasandra is cute, I want her to be my girlfriend."

 

如果您想實現自己的目標，請不要專注於它們。這與我們曾經說過的關於目標的一切背道而馳，對吧？每個人談論的所有目標，是你選擇你想做的事情，你設定你的目標，你寫下來，你專注於它們，你一遍又一遍地檢查你的清單，你回到它，這就是你實現目標的方式。我在人生的道路上學到的東西，觀察別人，研究其他事情是，這不是實現目標的方式。我們都在談論設定目標，但我們很少談論你如何真正實現目標。所以我開始和我人生中的第一個女朋友一起學習這個課程。她的名字叫拉桑德拉·約翰遜。是的，伙計們，從未見過拉桑德拉的人，你必須相信我的話，她是上帝創造的最美麗的六年級學生。為了記錄，我也在六年級。我過去常常看著這個女孩，每天都在想，“我希望拉桑德拉成為我的女朋友。”但我還小，我害怕，所以我不去和她說什麼。但是有一天我在課間休息時站在操場上，我不知道從哪裡來的勇氣，但我決定今天就是這一天，我不打算再等一天。我轉向我的伙伴約翰·斯圖拉，我說：“約翰，像拉桑德拉一樣跟我走。”於是他走到她身邊，提出了這個問題，她的一小群朋友咯咯地笑了起來，她回了一句。他朝我走來，他說，“雷吉，拉薩姆德拉說，如果你想讓她做你的女朋友，你必須自己問她。”但我是六年級，我派了我的伴郎。她要什麼？但我不可能自己去問她，所以在那學年剩下的時間裡，我繼續想著她。夏季剎車來了，我在夏季剎車的每一天都在想著拉桑德拉·約翰遜。第二年是 7 年級，在我的學校，你每小時都有不同的課，課間有儲物櫃。第一個小時我有 Woodshop。拉桑德拉有家政學。在我的學校，只要您要搬出的班級與您要搬入的班級同時滿足，您就可以更改一個班級。於是，我走進校長辦公室，說：“我想從 Woodshop 轉到 Home Economics。”我走進一個家政室，這個教室裡有 22-23 個女孩，一個叫 Jurgen Kuhn 的男孩，現在是我。我讓名叫 Tara Virgamini 的女孩搬過來，這樣我就可以坐在 LaSandra Johnson 旁邊，那天我讓她自己和我一起去。她說：“沒有。”那是我關於女性特權的第一堂課，但長話短說，LaSandra 確實在那個學年後的兩週零三天內成為了我的女朋友，但我講這個故事是因為那是我有生以來第一次可以說我有意識地專注於我可以控制的部分，而忽略了我無法控制的部分；那是我有生以來第一次有意識地專注於自己的行為而不是目標。我們為自己設定目標，但我們的目標是我們無法控制的。無論你想在生活中實現什麼。如果您是學生，並且想在課堂上獲得 A，那是您無法控制的，您無法在所有論文上都寫 A，您有一位老師將為這些論文評分，給您作業，別人在設置課程，別人在給你評分，你無法控制你的成績。如果你想成為世界上最好的推銷員，你不能自己做所有的銷售，你不能做交易的雙方，你必須招募客戶進入你的生活。目標要求您有其他人的參與，因此，他們不在您的控制範圍內。所以，如果你花太多時間專注於你的目標，你將永遠無法實現它們。相比之下，行為是你一個人可以做的事情，不需要父母、老師、教練、朋友、鄰居、配偶、孩子；它不需要任何其他人，你一個人可以做行為，而行為是你為了實現目標而專注的事情。看看我和拉桑德拉的情況：當我專注於我的目標，就是讓這個女孩成為我的女朋友時，如果我在走廊裡從她身邊走過，我就無法和她說話。在我的腦海裡一直是，“拉桑德拉很可愛，我想讓她做我的女朋友。”