13176: Ruts and Goal Trauma
Hey there, hero!
It’s easy to get into a rut. You get used to doing something, you’re not challenged any longer, and it starts feeling monotonous.
Even if your goal was to create a reliable ritual. It just gets old. You get stuck.
Then Ajarae Coleman jumped in with a new concept.
You try to shake things up, and strike out for something more challenging. Something new.
And it doesn’t quite work out.
The feelings you have when you try something, fail at it, and reflect on the process can range from the thought that you learned something to “meh” to disappointment to outright sadness to…”goal trauma.”
(Yeah, I didn’t know what that meant either, until I used the google to find out what Ajarae was on about.)
Please discuss, once you’ve watched the episode. What’s your go-to reaction when you try something and fail? Let me know in the comments below.
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Raw transcript:
Raw transcript:
a couple of things came up for me this
past week that I wanted to share with
you because they’re kind of interrelated
and they kind of support each other I
read a quote from an inspirational
speaker and an author by the name of
Todd Henry and he said don’t allow your
rituals to become
ruts and then I was introduced to the
concept of goal
trauma let’s talk about both of these
things in this episode of the vo Heroes
podcast
so Todd Henry said don’t allow your
rituals to become ruts and this kind of
landed for me because you can’t walk 5et
in any direction on the internet without
somebody saying oh you need a morning
ritual you need to set up your yoga and
your meditation and your journaling and
your your exercise and and your uh you
know your crazy coffee con coction
whatever you’re doing and get your
morning started at 4:30 and all okay
it’s a little a little crazy for some
people to even consider because
everybody has a morning ritual whether
it’s random or organized it’s something
that we comfortably do when we first get
up in the morning and rituals aren’t
limited to mornings they can be closing
down rituals at night or lunchtime
rituals when you’re in between sessions
or session rituals there’s all kinds of
things that can happen but I think what
Todd’s warning is is that you could end
up just going through the motions of a
ritual and relying on the fact that a
ritual just exists and not really
getting the benefit from doing something
on a regular basis creating good habits
creating something that if you do it day
after day after day Builds on itself it
just kind of happens and there you can
get stuck in a rut where you’re doing
the things in your ritual but it’s not
very effective in helping you change
your life so um you know just be careful
about that and examine what your ritual
is composed of and how it uh it’s
Landing for you as you’re doing it is it
something that’s a chore or is it
something that you actually look forward
to and tied in with that uh AER Coleman
my my my friend and peer and and awesome
actor uh and person who coaches people
like I do um she introduced me to the
concept of uh goal trauma and that is
when you start down the path towards
accomplishing something you have a goal
in
mind and you don’t get it you don’t
reach your goal when you thought you’d
reach it or how you’d reach it or or in
a way that you thought you’d reach it um
and it doesn’t happen once it happens a
number of times like you’ve tried to get
this one thing done and you don’t make
it over and over and over you start to
suffer some Trauma from that you’re like
what’s wrong with me why am I not able
to do this what’s what’s the problem and
there may be no problem whatsoever but
there might be it might be your approach
it might be your level of of training it
might be um the way you’ve defined the
goal what it is you’re actually trying
to do there are people who make a goal
of booking a job as a voice Talent or as
an audiobook narrator or as an actor on
camera they make that their goal and
that’s kind of an impossible goal to set
and be successful at even though others
do get booked on jobs you get booked on
jobs the goal itself of getting booked
on a job it’s an event not a goal you
know and if you don’t get booked on a
job welcome to this the world I mean
that’s exactly the way all of us exist
you know we usually don’t get the
job but you can start to lay uh
assignment of why and how and where and
what’s wrong uh and it starts to really
eat away at you and eat away at your
confidence and your soul and and that
trauma that you feel when you’re not
meeting what you’ve decided is a goal
can be very real it can be a mental
trauma it can be a physical trauma it
can you know depress you it can put you
in bed for a while um know that that
exists and just understanding that goal
trauma
exists can go a long way towards you
going huh okay well let’s examine this
maybe it’s not me maybe it’s just how
I’m defining this or uh maybe I need
some new tools or I need a new way of
going about it maybe the idea is it’s
not ready to be uh achieved yet but it
will be soon so both of those things
together don’t allow your rituals to
become
ruts and the concept of gold trauma and
how to deal with it just to accept that
that you’re not going to get everything
that you set up as a goal right away but
you might someday you know that both of
those things seem to be tied together if
what we’ve been talking about in this
episode uh lands for you I’d love hear
your comments about it because people
often look at how they try to achieve
things and don’t necessarily do so in an
ideal situation and it can really affect
them I’m wondering if it affects you and
how you deal with it let me know in the
comments below hit the like button if
you like it’s that little button marked
like right there on your screen yeah go
ahead and do that that’s fine uh you can
subscribe to the channel you can hit the
notification Bell and be told when a new
episode is coming out I’d love for you
to do that I’m David H Lawrence the 17th
I thank you so much for watching and for
listening and I will see you in the next
episode of the vo Heroes
podcast
(from YouTube)
The timing of this was just great! I do have a morning routine when I am working from home. And I love my morning routine! So my challenge can be being willing to change that routine on days where it doesn’t necessarily serve me best. Today was one of those days. I had stuff going on in the afternoon and evening and so I realized I would need to be willing to adjust my morning routine in order to get something else done earlier in the day. I was so proud of myself for observing this and embracing it. Then I watched your video. Oh the glorious validation! Of course, then the afternoon thing got cancelled suddenly and I found myself needing to adjust again. But that’s good. Our business provides for constant change and we have to be flexible and just go with it sometimes.
Ruts can be good or bad. They “pre-plan” your schedule so you don’t face a blank agenda each day. For me, it’s yoga and exercise in the morning and writing in the afternoon. I enjoy yoga (and the women in the class), and it helps my neck and back with “chair fatigue.” I’m free to vary it sometimes, though, so it’s not a “bad” rut. Sometimes, if I don’t have the word in my brain, I’ll take a break from writing, but very soon, I feel restless if I don’t write, so I get back at it. Sometimes, you have to force those words out!
Goals can be very frustrating (and traumatic), so it’s important to make them realistic. I don’t set a goal of talking about my books on Colbert (I can’t control that, and it’s probably pretty unlikely), but I can set a goal to finish a book and then start another one. And maybe I’ll even set crazy stretch goals like learning how to narrate audiobooks!
Good timing for me as well. I can become so disciplined about my routines that I become numb after awhile from the monotony of them. Honestly, I just had an “awakening” about this recently so your topic just affirmed what I have come to believe. Thank you!
I have a somewhat unusual approach to goals. morning rituals, etc. I used to beat myself up a good deal for “failing” to do things the way, what seemed like, everyone was doing them. So I have to come to realize that, I am exactly where I need to be and I am doing what I am meant to be doing. This is not to get out of things like writing, practicing, reading to inspire, looking for auditions, classes,…. rather, sometimes I have to let things percolate for me. And once I have owned as much of the lesson as I am able at that point, I move on.
Yes, goal trauma has definitely effected me at times. Probably everyone at one time or another.