Why Most People’s Goals Are Actually Other People’s Goals — And How to Find Your Own

Well, hello there, my friend.

Jonathan Doyle with you once again.

This is the Daily Podcast.

You are very welcome.

I'm glad you are here.

One of my favorite speakers used to say that you don't need a whole bunch

of great ideas to change your life.

You just need one good idea that you're actually prepared to use.

Isn't that good?

Sometimes when we wanna change or grow, we're like, "I've gotta build a system.

I've gotta change everything." And what we actually need is just one good idea

that we go, "Yeah, that's a good idea. I'm gonna try that." So that's the

purpose of this podcast, each day to bring you one or two, we, we could even

try two, good ideas that are useful.

So let's do that.

Today's topic: why most people's goals are actually other people's goals Let's begin.

It is a relatively not talked about concept that often in our lives and over

the course of our life, we can make this mistake of what another speaker once

called shoulding all over ourselves, which is like, "I should do this.

I should go to university.

I should start this career.

I should marry this kind of person.

I should drive this kind of car." Very subtle, just below

the level of consciousness, we're shoulding all over ourselves.

Why?

Because if we're honest and if we're paying attention, it's very possible

that we can fall into the trap of living other people's goals, what we

think other people want us to do or what would validate us in their eyes.

Now, let's do this very carefully.

We wanna honor our parents.

We wanna honor the people that care about us.

We don't wanna be narcissists.

We're like, "I'm just doing this." But ultimately, each one of us is given

this one unique, precious individual life, and part of the mystery and the

mastery of a great life is working out what is really significant for us.

You know, I used to say that we're not human beings,

we're human becomings, right?

We are human becomings.

We have this, this ontological pos- this potential to become more than

what we are, and we shape that through our choices along what sometimes I've

called the vector of aspiration, the, like the rocket path of our life, the

general direction that we are trending.

What is important to us?

What is our one unique, precious life meant to achieve or realize?

Some of you might think, "Well, not everybody gets to choose that." I think

in some dimensions you definitely can.

Yeah, I understand that there are places in the world and systems and

structures that make it hard for everybody to just pick and choose

exactly what they want in life.

But even at the simple, small level of daily actions and choices, we have to pay

attention to not building a life around what we think other people want of us.

Now, that doesn't mean that, say, for example, again, our friends or parents

or colleagues want us to be virtuous.

They want us to be honest.

Those, those are different things.

That's a good thing That we know that the people around us want

us to behave in certain ways.

You know, one of the great things about the classical Western liberal

tradition was that it built something called high trust societies.

Not perfect societies, but one of the great things about Western

civilization was it kind of built these broad pillars of reality.

A lot of it was Christian, right?

Ten Commandments kind of stuff coming through that, you know,

you couldn't steal from people.

You couldn't randomly murder people, and this kind of built these high

trust societies where, yeah, stuff happened and it was never perfect, but

you kind of walked around thinking, "Most of the people around me roughly

believe the same kind of things," so you acted in a certain way.

So it's okay for us to choose certain ways of being, honesty,

trustworthiness, dependability, because yes, other people want them from us.

But that's not really what I'm getting at today.

What I'm getting at is the person who spends their life trying

to make their parents happy.

"I'm gonna go to this university" or, uh…

Look, I'm at a stage now with teenage kids where I'm so awake

to the massive psychosis, like mass hypnosis of our society.

You know, the whole go to school, study hard, get a-- go to university, get a good

job, which is just massively breaking down under AI, the same way that things broke

down under the Industrial Revolution.

So for my younger listeners, I'm not saying, I say this really carefully,

but you've got to start to think very deeply about what do you wanna do,

what's significant for you, because the world around you is shifting so

fast, we've gotta be careful we're not living the goals of a whole way of being

that's getting phased out super fast.

Make of that what you will.

So I wanna give you a really interesting quote from Søren Kierkegaard, the

existentialist philosopher who said this: "The most common form of

despair is not being who you are".

The most common form of despair is not being who you are.

Now, let's do that carefully.

That doesn't mean becoming an indulgent narcissist.

"Well, I'm gonna be authentic. I'm just gonna do whatever I feel."

No, that's narcissism, and it's self-indulgent, and it can be

really dangerous and destructive.

What you want to do is live up to the beauty of the

potential that is within you.

As I said in a previous episode, to make manifest the glory of God that is within

you So often, some of the depression, the exhaustion, the sadness in our life

can be because at some level, usually just below our conscious awareness,

we are living so far beneath what's possible for us, and it leads to this

kind of existential sadness in our lives because we're like, "Something's off.

I'm not living the life that I should be living." You know, in many ways, I

get-- I just love the work that I get to do at present, like being here in

this studio, 'cause I'm like, "I wanna give you everything I've got." I'm not

doing this to make anybody else happy.

I'm not doing this to impress anyone.

Like, you know, you could give me a billion subscribers, and I don't

think it would change much for me.

It would be like, "This is great. I get to serve more people," 'cause I'm not

trying to live someone else's goals.

I'm trying to be a good steward of the gifts and talents that have been given to

me and my particular life story and its highs and lows and sufferings and wisdom

and losses, so I can bless people with it.

That's the game.

It's such a great game to be in.

And your game could be structured differently, but the game that you don't

wanna be in is a game that's constructed on somebody else's desires for you.

All right?

One more time.

Søren Kierkegaard, "The most common form of despair is not being who you are."

So don't live somebody else's dreams and goals, my friend.

Get quiet.

Get a journal.

Listen deeply to yourself.

What is on your heart?

What has God put in your life to do, have, be, or become?

Who does God want you to serve?

What could you do with this time that you've got left?

Who could you reach?

How could you bless people?

How could you bring all your energy to bear on great and

noble problems and difficulties?

Seriously.

Why not you?

Someone's gotta do it.

Someone's gotta do it.

So don't waste any more time living someone else's story.

Live yours.

All right?

Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast.

Come and join me on Instagram, jdoylespeaks, one word.

I'm on YouTube at JDoyleSpeaks.

You can find everything else on the website, jonathandoyle.co.

Share this with some people.

Make some time to sit quietly with yourself and ask yourself, in

partnership with God, what are you here to do, have, be, or become?

What are the unique goals that God wants to put on your heart?

God bless you, my friends.

This has been The Daily Podcast.

You and I are gonna talk again tomorrow.