91% of Goals Fail: A Stoic Philosopher Explained Why 2,000 Years Ago

Most resolutions fail because they are built wrong, not because you lack willpower. Epictetus worked out why 2,000 years ago.

In this episode I break down three tests from Stoic philosophy that expose whether your goal is real or just fantasy dressed up with good intentions: Control, Cost and Consistency. Then I take six of the most common resolutions, get fit, save money, get promoted, be happier, quit social media, read more, and show you exactly how each one fails and what the Stoic fix looks like.

At the end there is a simple scoring system you can use right now to test whether your goals will actually stick.

Free 7-Day Stoic Challenge: stoicchallenge.co

The Stoic Vault: stoicvault.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

91%. That's how many people fail their New Year's resolutions. That's 9 out of 10. I don't know if you've set any New Year's resolutions, but if you have, or any goals at all for this year, the chances are you've probably already failed. But here's the thing: you didn't fail your goals, your goals failed you. These types of New Year's resolutions are designed to break from day one. And 2000 years ago, a philosopher called Epictetus figured out exactly why. My name is John Brooks, I teach Stoic philosophy, and I like to focus more on the practical side of this ancient philosophy of life. I've seen the same painful cycle over and over again. You have this big ambitious goal, you set it up on your habit tracker, your fancy notion template, you have all of this motivation, you're sharing your ideas with your friends, you're getting excited about the progress you're gonna make, the person you're gonna become at the other side of this life-changing experience of ticking off all these boxes and achieving your goals. And then, two weeks in, nothing. You're done. And the research actually says that it's about two weeks until most of our goals start falling apart. You tell yourself you're gonna go on a diet and get a six-pack, and then two weeks later you're finding yourself binge eating, take away your chocolate. You tell yourself you're going to stop scrolling so much on your phone, and then two weeks later you find yourself as addicted, if not more addicted, than ever before. The self-help industry will say that it's your fault. You lack willpower, you need to build atomic habits, you need to increase your discipline. But all of this is nonsense. The problem is most of us create goals backwards. We say we want to quit smoking or lose 20 pounds or be happier or get promoted. These rely heavily on externals, and it's very much like buying a lottery ticket, hoping that the plan that we've got will get us there. Epictetus was born a slave, and then he later became one of the most influential Stoic teachers of all time. And he had three tests to determine whether the goal you set is legit or if it's just fantasy. Control, cost, consistency. The first test is control, and this comes down to the very first line in Epictetus' Stoic handbook, The Enchiridian. In it, he writes Some things are up to us while others are not. Up to us are our judgments, our choices, our actions. Not up to us are our body, property, reputation, and office. Think about that for a moment. Your body not completely up to you. Your reputation not completely up to you, which includes job promotions and everything in between. That already just blows up most of the resolutions that we set. The goal of losing £20, your body's involved. Sleep patterns, metabolism, genetics, hormones, relationship issues, so many variables outside of your control. What about getting a job promotion? Someone else could have been promised a role. Depends how the person deciding the job promotion feels on that day. Budget cuts, company policy, so many things outside of your control. What about be happier? Well, that's a feeling. We can't command ourselves to feel certain things. We can't just push a button and be happier. So when we set these types of goals that are not completely within our control, they're not completely up to us, as Epictetus would say. And then we do everything right and we fail, we feel like we're to blame. We feel like a failure. When the goal was broken from the start, it was always, on some level, determined by fortune, by luck. Epictetus would tell us to stop doing this altogether. Stop setting goals that are down to chance, that are not completely up to you. And instead start setting goals that you are responsible for, that you can practice, that you can hold yourself accountable to. So when we think of the goal of losing 20 pounds, we split it. What can I control in that and what can't I control? Well, I can control my decisions and my actions and my impulses. So I can say to myself, I'm going to move every day for 30 minutes and eat according to a plan that I set. That's the goal. We take away the 20-pound outcome. If you have a goal to get promoted, instead shift it to something that is up to you. I will prioritize doing excellent work, I will work with integrity, I will keep showing up, I'll accept whatever happens. Instead of having a goal like be happier, which again has a thousand different variables, you can say that I'm going to watch my negative thoughts for the next 30 days, or I'm going to keep a morning gratitude practice, or I'll meditate every day. Things that are within your control. And you just let the outcomes either happen or not happen. It's fine if they do, and it's fine if they don't. You are putting your happiness ultimately in the things you can control. So by doing this, you're taking back control. Whether the outcome happens or not is a bonus or not, but it's not the point. The point is you're doing things on your side of the line, things that are up to you. Epictetus says in the Encaridian, you will never be subject to force or hindrance, you will never blame or criticize anyone, and everything you do will be done willingly. That type of freedom is not freedom based on I got everything that I wanted externally, but it's the freedom that comes from nothing external can destroy me. It's a very different type of freedom and arguably much better. Now, test two, cost. Epic Tetis tells a story about an Olympian in the Encayridian. He says, Do you wish to win an Olympic victory? So do I, by the gods. But consider what comes before that and what follows after, and only when you have done that put your hand to the task. And then after this, he lists all of the things actually required to be an Olympic champion. The humiliation, the failure, the lessons, the injuries, the diet, the hot, the cold, the getting up early. Just think about it. Think of all the steps that it takes to become an Olympian. Just look at the daily routine of an Olympic athlete, the starvation they have to put their bodies through to make weight, the sacrifices they have to make with their friends and family to put the time in to train. We see the happy end result, the podium, the gold medal, but we don't think about the cost that it takes for them to get there. And Epictetus is saying, that cost, that is the job of an Olympic medalist. So before you sign up for a goal of any kind, ask yourself that sobering question, what is this going to cost me? I want to run a marathon. Okay, then be prepared for being shattered in morning runs, having sore legs, struggling to walk up the stairs, blisters on your feet, leaving the house to run when your partner is at home, watching TV, having ice cream, spending hours and hours with the repetitive thud of your feet hitting the ground, wanting to cry because it's so hard. What about starting your own business? Some people they want to start a podcast or a blog, which is great. Highly recommend it, but as long as you know what goes into it. Creating content that nobody reads for a long period of time, getting feedback that is critical, imposter syndrome, people saying that you're not good enough, other people working real jobs, and then you're struggling barely making ends meet, financial stress, potentially years wasted. That is what goes into creating a business of any kind. Learning anything difficult like a language or Brazilian jujitsu or something, you know, it's when I first started jujitsu, someone said to me in my first or second session, you're not going to know anything for the first six months. Everything will be invisible to you and you won't know what you're doing. But just keep showing up. And after those six months, you'll probably have an understanding of what's happening. That wasn't comfortable. You know, we have these images in our minds of the martial art movies and the flamboyant flips and kicks, and that's the person that we want to be like. That's exciting for us. And then someone tells us on our first day, yeah, you just won't know anything, and you're going to be pulverized for six months. That's the reality. That's the cost of learning. The same for language. Learning a language requires daily progress, one step forward, two steps back, stalling, frustration, not really getting it and struggling with it and procrastinating and wanting to do all these other things, but you stick with it. So, what I encourage you to do is ask, what is the cost of whatever goal you want to achieve? Be really precise with that. Write it down. What will this cost me? Because if you haven't done that, you don't have a goal. You just have a fantasy. And when you've looked at what this goal costs you, you can just ask yourself the question, am I willing to pay that price? And if you're not, that's fine. You just pick a different mountain to climb. The problem is, is when you tell yourself you want to achieve this thing, you haven't looked at the costs, and then two weeks in, you end up quitting because you just weren't be honest with yourself. You weren't aware of what it would cost you and you weren't willing to pay the price. Test 3. Consistency. Epictetus has this passage where he calls people out and compares them to playing dress up. Quote, at one time they play as wrestlers, then as gladiators, then blow a trumpet, then act a tragedy. You are at one time a wrestler, then a gladiator, then a philosopher, then a rhetorician, but with your whole soul, you are nothing. Ouch, that hits hard for many of us. Right? We're jumping around these different goals and ambitions and occupations. January, we want to be a runner. February, we want to quit alcohol. March, we want to start our own business. We jump around. We're not settling on anything. We're just playing games with ourselves, lying to ourselves. So you're not failing because you lack talent or intelligence. You're failing because you're trying to be 12 different people at once. And the stoic move is to pick one or two things that actually fit your life. Something realistic, something that works for you. Not what other people say you should be, say you should do, but something that feels aligned for you, feels authentic for you, and something that works within whatever routine you have. And also you need to contemplate what you're going to say no to. For every big yes, there's ten little no's. So write down all the things you're okay giving up. You don't have enough time to be an expert on the guitar, an Olympic athlete, speak seven languages, have a happy, healthy family, have a thriving relationship, be a great parent, be an incredible entrepreneur, master philosophy. You can't do it all. So what are you going to choose? One or two things and say no to the rest. Okay, so those are the three stoic tests from Epictetus. Control, cost, and consistency. Now I'm going to take some common goals that people set and show you how to think of them as a stoic, how a stoic reframe would work with these specific goals. Okay, so the first one, losing weight. So the typical way people set this goal is I want to lose 20 pounds by the summer, or I want to be toned for my holiday. What they're doing is they're saying, I want to give my peace of mind over to a reality or an outcome that is not fully up to me. So we've got to take back control and say, well, what can I do each day? I can come up with very simple rules that I can stick to, like 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up. I want to do some form of exercise every day, even if it's for 10 minutes. And I'm going to focus on cultivating discipline and, very importantly, self-acceptance and self-compassion. If I miss a day, I'm not going to blame myself or punish myself if that happens. And I'm going to focus on cultivating these virtues alongside these simple rules. If the results come, they come, and if they don't, they don't. The only goal I'm looking for right now are the rules when it comes to eating, and the rules when it comes to moving, and the rules when it comes to building my character. If I can do that, I've won, regardless whether I lose 50 pounds or one pound. What about the goal of getting promoted or growing your business? A lot of people screw this up because they're focused too much on what other people can or can't grant them. Are they noticed by their boss? Are they approved by their team members? Can they get people to like the work that they're doing? They get performative and resentful, and they focus so much on how the world sees them. The stoic reframe here is to do the work as well as you can, speak up, be honest, treat other people fairly. What this might look like in actual practice is simply admitting when you were wrong. Own up to mistakes, ask other people for feedback. Maybe have the goal of one uncomfortable conversation each week. Set aside a time every day to do some deep work. You may already be doing this. It's not about reinventing the wheel and doing practices that you might not have been doing previously. The goal is to stop putting your happiness in the externals and to instead put it all, all of it, on the things you can actually do, on things your side of the dichotomy of control, your side of the line, things that are up to you. Another big goal I see is when people want to become voracious readers. I want to read 52 books this year. That relies on a lot of motivation. You want the identity of being a reader, you want the identity, as Epictetus would say, of being a gold medalist without putting in the reps. Instead, the goal of one page a day or one chapter a week and one note in my notebook about what I read. That brings together the control, the consistency, the cost into something you can do without fail, although obviously life can sometimes get in the way because that is not up to you. But if fate allows you to, you can do that most of the time. So can you see the pattern here? Every single goal that is dependent on an outcome, the fix is to convert it into a practice, something that you can control. That's the whole game here. So let's make this tangible. Think of one of the goals that you have right now. And let's run it through those three tests from Epiketus. So the first test is the control test. Can you still achieve this goal even if nobody else cooperates you and even if the world goes against you? If you can, it's passed the control test. If not, it has not passed the control test. The next test is the cost test. Have you thought about and written out all of the things that this goal will cost you? If not, you need to do that. That's part of the cost test. If you don't do that, it's just a fantasy and you don't have a realistic map of what you're trying to achieve. And the third test is the consistency test. Am I trying to become five different people with this goal or my ambitions right now? Or is it a singular, efficient process or practice? If you're trying to do too many things or you're bouncing around too much, then it has not passed the consistency test. So I'm going to set you a challenge so you can put all of this together. Take whatever goal you have right now, and then I want you to rewrite it so that it's 100% yours. It's less about an outcome and it's more about a personal standard. And then I also want you to create the lowest standard you're okay hitting. The lowest standard is there, so you can still do this even on a bad day, even on your worst day, it's still possible. And then I also want you to do the cost analysis. What are all of the things, big and small, that pursuing this goal will cost you? And then when you review this list, ask yourself very honestly, am I willing to pay that price? If you're not, you can just discard the goal. And if you are genuinely okay paying that price, then you know that you can continue to pursue the goal. And so that's it. For the next seven days, you follow this. And you can ask yourself a few questions as well each day to review at the end of the day a classic stoic evening review. Where did I blame externals? Where did I choose wisely? What can I improve tomorrow? Just a two-minute review each day, and just commit to doing this every day for the next seven days. And if you found this practice, these tests useful, let me know in the comments. And I'm also interested to hear some of the goals you've rewritten. I read everything. And if you want more practical stoicism, zero fluff, then you can subscribe. I make videos every week. And yeah, I hope you enjoyed and good luck creating goals that you can actually keep.