Why Your Goals Fail (And How to Fix It in 2026)

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Automatic transcript, lightly corrected for names, with profanity masked. Some passages may contain transcription errors.

Welcome to The Inner Circle with Kevin Dahlstrom and Mike Brown. And the whole idea of the show is just diving into the conversations that Kevin and I are having anyway. So, you're going to get a true inner look into the inner workings of our mind, spoken out loud, bouncing ideas off of each other. Hey dude, how's it going? Good man, great to be here as always ready to dive into some juicy New year's topics. Yes, I'm very担 excited about this one because it's a topic that everyone's thinking about right now. You know, it's as we record this, it's December 27th, the New Year is upon us. And everybody, you know, as is human nature, everybody's thinking about all the great things they're going to do in the year ahead. And I thought maybe we'd start, you posted yet a

cool post a few days ago around this idea of choosing a single word that sort of represents what you're going after for the year. Maybe you can expand on that a little bit and body's multiple concepts into like a single theme of the year.- So my word for 2025 was purpose.

And that word to me acted not only as inspiration to do my best to live into my purpose, but also as a decision making filter. Is this aligned with my purpose, right? And I actually wore it as a as a bracelet around my wrist. I could look down and go, are my actions aligned to my purpose? And the my word for the year of 2026 is devotion. And I think this is the natural evolution of purpose. So last year was about expanding into my purpose and really trying to live into that. Devotion for me is the opposite side of the coin of discipline. So discipline

every day and just being as present as I possibly can. And I know if I do those things 365 times, there is no way that I won't end up exactly where I'm supposed to to be.- I love that. And after reading your post, I chose a word word that now that I hear you explain devotion is actually like a different spin on that. But I think it has everything to do with the seasons of. The word I chose is manifest. The reason I like the word manifest is because it implies accountability. I feel like in the past year or this year 2025 was a year of transition for me. I wound down anything that you would probably call a job. And this year by the way

it will be by far, probably by 80% reduction, the lowest income I've had in a long time. But it's been a fantastic year and in some ways a year to recover from running hard for a really long time. But I couldn't help myself. I've planted a lot of seeds in things that I'm very interested in, things that are aligned. But honestly, now is the time to start for those seeds to sprout and start bearing fruit. And I want to hold myself accountable to real results, like real fruit, which is why I chose the word manifest because it's turning things into reality. And so you and I were were talking right before we hit the record button that in some ways you and I are

headed slightly different directions because you're in many ways, you've said that you want to do 30% less this year, I think is what was your the quote. You're shrinking and curating and focusing. And in a way, I'm in that season where I've been ruthless about minimalism and less more. And now I want to be a a little bit more is more like I want to just go do the work. and I want to hold myself accountable to that. And this is sort of the nature reality, right? Is we're always in a cycle of expansion and contraction or the Buddhists would say birth death and rebirth, right? From morning and night to each individual breath, right? Everything is expansion and contraction and birth death and rebirth.

And this is, I think, really interesting when it comes to goals. And you and I talk about goals and outcomes a lot, right? And so, you know, when I think about setting goals, I think of two things. Number one, I want to process oriented goal, not an outcome-oriented goal, right? So, you know, if I say, I want to grow my following on Twitter, right? Well, I can't actually control how many people follow me on Twitter. What I can't control is how do I show up and post every single day with my best work? But if I do that 365 times, if I build a process where I, I show up every day and post my best work,

the outcome of growing my audience is inevitable. So, number one, how do I make a goal inevitable, from process? And then two, how do I build the process so that the life that I live in service of that process is such a great life that the outcome doesn't actually matter, right? And so, I enjoy a process of writing. It helps me force clarity of thought. It helps me, tap into the creative side. And so, will I have lived a great life this year if I write every single day? The answer is yes. So, the outcome actually doesn't matter, right? The outcome becomes irrelevant. So, how can I create a goal that makes the outcome both inevitable and simultaneously irrelevant? That's my single favorite thing that you say.

By the way, and, you know, you often describe it as like, it's two opposing thoughts that you can hold at once by, you know, building a process that you love, that you, you're devoted to the you're making the outcome inevitable, but you also care less about the outcome. I would challenge that a little bit for myself because, you know, I agree with you 1000%. Like, like, I'm very, you know, process oriented. We were talking about writing earlier and, you know, it's just my joy, my morning writing pride and my joy. And I write for an audience of one, which is me, and it turns out that over time, people find it and it resonates with them. And, you know the whole thing unto itself is, like, having a following. But tell me how you would, how would you

counsel me on this? Because I'm all about the process, but there are some very specific outcomes that I want to hold myself accountable to in this year. And I'll be very specific and vulnerable. I started a business in June of 2025 called Bolt Health. It's a men's health business. We won't get into the details, but it's off to a good starts going well. The opportunity is unlimited. And it sounds like a clever line, but it's the truth. The biggest risk and limitation for the aves of business is me. And specifically, my willingness to do the things that I don't want to do. I have I have no problem doing the things I enjoy, the writing and the evangelism and I'm passionate. It's a line. It's part of who I am. But there is also like building involves doing hard things.

And I have to consistently do the hard things that I don't want to do to achieve the outcome I want I want. So what's your reaction to that? This is I actually think the center of where self-sabotage comes from. And I think it comes from dissonance. Dissonance is saying I want this outcome, but not being willing to sacrifice or put in the work or do the hard things to create that outcome. And the problem is most of us are totally fine to live in dissonance. We say we want to make a million dollars, but we're not willing to do the brass tacks of what it actually takes to make the million dollars.

So what I I would say is how do you collapse the dissonance, get really clear on what you want. And then ask yourself like, do I want this outcome bad enough to do the things I don't want to do? If no, that's totally fine. Right. You don't let go of the outcome. The the dissonance comes in pretending that you can get the outcome without the input. I love that. And you know what bothers me a little bit about that is this is where like the hustle bros were right. You know, Hormozzi for example, who is a really smart guy. I disagree with I think he's misguided in many ways. But his core message is success in anything is a direct function of effort. And that I totally agree with. Like,

you can you can call it grinding and we dismiss the idea of grinding and then enlightened guys like us refer to it as like increasing your surface area for serendipity, which is just another way of saying like, doing hard things to make the outcome inevitable. But there's just that's kind of my mantra for this year. And the reason I chose the word manifest isถ I really want A hold myself accountable to this notion that the success will be a direct function of the effort that I put in. I think you nailed it is like, how badly do I really want it because the I'm a firm believer that people do things that are important to them. And so if you're not doing the thing, you have to ask yourself,

do I just need to show more discipline and that's entirely possible. I think, in my case, that is at least partially true. Or do I need to let go of this outcome that I don honestly really want. Yeah. And. And neither of those is wrong. Right. The only thing that's wrong in that is lying to yourself or saying I really want this thing, but your actions aren't aligning with what you say you value, right? How do I live in alignment? Yes. And where I see this happen a lot is this misalignment is it's very common. It's very common. Who have had big success in their career, like a big exit. And then they say, you know, their natural tendency is to go on to the next thing,

then building something else. But what they find in most cases is, they don't really want it anymore. They've lost the hunger and they're there. They're kind of kidding themselves about it. And probably in many of those cases really need to pivot to something else that they do care about where they are hungry. And honestly, for me, for a period of time, when I kind of punched out of the corporate world, that was rock climbing. Like I had this burning passion still do for rock climbing, which is, you know, simultaneously pointless and the most meaningful thing I do. But I went and pursued that full tilt. I feel like now Mike, I just became an empty nester. I'm entering a season, where I kind of want to get back to work.

And yeah, you know, a lot of people when they come to me, you know, exploring working together, ask a question, you know, if I dive into this work, will I lose my edge? And my answer is, like if your edge is driven by darkness, like probably like you, that, that edge will soften over time. But then the thing that you get to replace it with, right, is so much more expansive. It's so much lighter, but it may not necessarily propel you to the same heights, right? Because darkness is a really effective driver, but at what cost? Let's hold ourselves accountable here. So let's, let's be maybe wrapped by being really specific about, you know, what those words mean. mean for us and what 20-26

means for us. And I think the simplest takeaway for me is, I've got to build a process that includes a good bit of stuff that I don't enjoy in the present, but compounds that contribute to the outcome I want to mean to, to be very, very specific. Like right now, I need to write like 15 pages of website content. And that's not the type of thing I naturally enjoy. But it's got to be done. And I think it needs to be done in the service of the bigger goal, what. I do feel is pure, which is building this into a book, building bolt into a great business. So I think it's, for me, it's about like that, that process that ultimately makes the outcome inevitable and also less meaningful does need to include a bit

of the stuff I don't enjoy, or more of the stuff I don't enjoy. You know, there, there is a balance there, right? Which is, look, you know, I think a really damaging concept is like if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. Like I leap out of bed, I love what I get to do for work. And some some days it feels like f****** work. That's the missing, that's the piece a lot of people miss in that, you know, love what you do discussion. Yeah, totally. But, you know, for me, and this is back to my word, which is devotion, which is, you know, I don't feel like meditating every single day. Right? So, do I force myself to do something I don't want to do, or do I look at the bigger

picture and go, Hey, I know a, if I just sit on the cushion every day over time, like the results, the fruits of that practice will be so much better than, you know, always living in this single moment of like, what do I want to do right now? Yeah. And that, that really is like, how do I take care of future me while also honoring current me? Right? So to me, that's an incredible way to the stuff you want to do is honoring the current me and the stuff that's maybe hard feels hard is really about playing the long game and long games are the only games we're playing.

How we're feeling about the words that we chose and kind of how the year's going, maybe you check in at the end of March or something and revisit this topic. Yeah. And here's what I'll say. For anybody thinking about selecting their word, make sure the word both inspires and challenges you. And you can tell by Kevin and I both of our words in this conversation, like there's some challenge there to the word that were picking, right? Can devotion means can I show up to the thing I know serves me even when the one I don't want to? It will be, really interesting to see how I'm feeling about that in three months. So I'm up for it. Awesome. And last thing I want to say is I love this episode, Mike, because this conversation we just had is literally the exact same conversation we would have if we weren't recording, if we were in your sauna or something. And so that's exactly

what we were aiming for with the inner circle is just like a glimpse into two guys trying to make their way through these challenges. Yeah. I mean, it's literally thinking out loud and having the conversations that we'd be having anyway. So if you're listening this far, thanks for joining us and we'll see you next time. Awesome, dude.