Resolution Revolution: Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail and How to Make Them Stick – Keith Kurlander & Dr. Will Van Derveer – HPP150

Keith Kurlander [00:00:00]:
Foreign. Thank you for joining us for the Higher Practice podcast. I’m Keith Kurlander with Dr. Will Vandeveer and this is the podcast where we explore what it takes to achieve optimal mental health. It’s New Year’s time, New Year’s time. You have any New Year’s plans?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:00:24]:
No, as a matter of fact, I don’t.

Keith Kurlander [00:00:28]:
I’ll be home with my kids. They got to sleep at 6:30. I’ll be asleep at 7:30.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:00:36]:
You only have five hours of sleep before the ball drops.

Keith Kurlander [00:00:40]:
Yeah. Well, talking about New Year’s resolutions, but probably taking that into different ways than normally thought of is my guess.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:00:54]:
Yeah, we have some habits, routines that we put in play at the end of the year. You want to share a little bit about yours?

Keith Kurlander [00:01:05]:
Well, before I get into the habits, I think a lot of people when they think of New Year’s resolutions, they, you know, they come up with some negative or perceived negative habit that they want to change. Typically, not always, but that’s like one sort of cultural way of it’s done. Right. Like I’m going to stop smoking or I’m going to, you know, whatever their perceived negative habit is, or I’m going to start going to the gym more. I’m not going, not exercising enough or I don’t know, there’s like usually like these things of like I’m going to do a better self improvement project. Right?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:01:45]:
Yeah. I’m going to actually listen when my partner speaks to me.

Keith Kurlander [00:01:51]:
Oh yeah, that one you’re working on, that one. Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:02:01]:
I’m going to try to be more present my family. Who are you sending a message to right now?

Keith Kurlander [00:02:11]:
I’m not. I’m actually looking up the rate of New Year’s resolutions failing, which is 80%.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:02:17]:
80%?

Keith Kurlander [00:02:19]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:02:20]:
It’s pretty high.

Keith Kurlander [00:02:23]:
Yes. I thought it was 85%. So I just wanted to verify before I say that to the world. So it’s 80% plus. So that’s where we’re starting here. Which is 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail within one month. So it’s high. So it’s hard to do and actually make it stick. So I think a part of that is the way that it’s culturally sort of entrained to do just like pick a, pick a negative self habit, you know that we think of self perception that we think is negative. A habit that’s bothering you and change it. And actually changing small habits like that is really hard. Like changing acute habits that are very defined. That’s super hard to do. It Takes time. And I don’t think that’s a great approach to setting yourself up for success to do something new in the year. Well, clearly it’s not.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:03:39]:
Trying to think about New Year’s resolutions I’ve made and how I did with them. I think it seems to work a lot better for me to set goals for the year that I’m going to spend a whole year working on.

Keith Kurlander [00:03:53]:
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, me and my wife probably spend 10 to 15 hours total in December talking about our shared and individual goals for the next year. So quite a bit. I mean, that’s not small, it’s not a lot. It’s not like crazy amount, but it’s a, it’s a not. It’s enough to really hash out things. So we do that too. And we obviously do that within these or with the organizations that we’re, you know, running here. We spend months talking about the following year.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:04:37]:
Right. What we’re going to try to do and, and, you know, building a plan to succeed in those goals.

Keith Kurlander [00:04:47]:
Yeah. So I think the first kind of start of the conversation is to reframe New Year’s resolutions to your New Year’s vision for the year and to, you know, then, then you could create a strategy. Resolutions are sort of proclamations like I’m going to do this and because I’m tired of doing this. But a vision is much more of a mapped out strategic plan based on a set of desired outcomes you want to see. So I think that’s a much different framework to start with, is developing a vision for the year that’s much more expansive. It covers different areas of life. And would you say that a part of that is you need to first review the prior year to know what happened in the prior year before you’re fully dialing in the new year?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:05:57]:
For sure. I think it also occurs in the context of knowing who you are, what’s important to you. Because as we’ve talked about before on this show, you. You have much harder time changing behaviors and habits that are misaligned with your values. When things are important to you, it’s way easier to establish habits that support you to feel inspired in creating the life that you want to be living things that are consciously or unconsciously perceived as obstacles to getting to live the life you want to live are much harder to. Much harder to maintain. For example, brushing your teeth. Right. This is something that I’ve had a journey with and I’m not perfect with it, but I’m better than I’ve ever been. What turned the key for me was because I used to perceive brushing my teeth as something that my mom told me I had to do as a kid. And I did it because someone told me I had to, but I didn’t actually. Didn’t work. Didn’t work well.

Keith Kurlander [00:07:19]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:07:20]:
And I was extremely inconsistent with flossing especially, but also brushing sometimes until I had somebody tell me that longevity and lack in coronary arteries in the heart are. Is associated with poor dental hygiene and inflammation in the mouth. And all of a sudden my priority or my desire to live a long time got connected with brushing my teeth, and that changed things for me. It’s just a simple example.

Keith Kurlander [00:07:53]:
Well, it hasn’t totally worked for me yet, but I guess I need another reason. Longevity.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:08:01]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:08:02]:
Yeah. I don’t know if my mom told me to brush my teeth twice a day. I don’t. I don’t remember this sort of like a lot of. Or my dad. I don’t remember that going that well. So it was definitely what, you know, habits are funny like that. It’s. It’s sort of what’s going to get a habit to stick for a person. Could be different from the next person.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:08:25]:
Yeah, definitely.

Keith Kurlander [00:08:27]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:08:28]:
Well, you might need to stack more. Stack more benefits to brushing your teeth.

Keith Kurlander [00:08:32]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, with that said, maybe my New Year’s vision is about teeth brushing. That’s enough for me. I think. I do teeth brushing. Okay. It’s flossing that gets me. Yeah. Well, that’s another story. But when we do visioning for the year, the first step we take is we review our prior vision for the year and we actually go through. So we get very detailed. We have categories of life. We look at career, we look at family, we look at trips, like travel. We. We have finances, spirituality, community. So we have kind of all these categories. And then we, we vision of like, what do we want this to be in this area for this year? What is it? What do we want to see different than the prior year? So we do all that and we list out very specific, you know, tangible things in each thing. Like community might be like host two meals a month, you know, with community at our house, that might be an example. And on and on. Health, we have a health category, might be like brushing Keith’s teeth, so on and on. And then. So what we do is we, we. We fill this out. We vision, we take our time. We also like to kind of create a theme for the year. So we come up with like, some words to represent the year for ourselves. And then at the End of the year. So I’ll get to the visioning. I mean, I kind of talked about visioning a little, but at the end of the year, right before we start visioning next year, we through the vision for the year. Well, we actually do it quarterly when we’re really on it. This year we were so busy with a newborn that we didn’t get in there quarterly. But usually we go quarterly and review it, but. And like set the more tangible goals for the quarter. But at the end of the year, we review it and we actually go through and we just color code it. We do all this in like an online software thing. Like, we use trello. We create like a board, like a vision board. And then we go through and we put greens for everything we attained and reds or whatever for things we didn’t like a marked up paper in school. And we tend to vision pretty realistically. So at the end of a year and we really want to have growth, so we tend to hit it at 85 plus percent. And we did this year. I think we got actually into like 90 plus percent of everything we visioned.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:11:45]:
Does that mean that you’re not.

Keith Kurlander [00:11:46]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:11:47]:
Does that mean you’re not visioning grand enough goals if you’re hitting 90% of your goals?

Keith Kurlander [00:11:57]:
I guess it depends on, you know, what mark you want to get at the end of the year. Yeah. If you’re okay with like a, you know, like a B minus, you go with bigger goals that you’re not going to achieve. Yeah, we stretch ourselves. I mean, we hit pretty big goals each year, honestly. I mean, could we go bigger? Yeah. And then we. And then we’ll probably be at like. We actually used to play with this. Like when we first started. We started doing this 12 years, 14 years ago. In the beginning, we would go too big and we would hit like 50%. And then we just got, like, learned more about ourselves and we got like, more accurate of like, what’s realistic that we’re gonna actually hit our goals anyways. I think it’s sort of.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:12:48]:
Yeah, I guess it’s sort of a matter of degree. Right. It’s like, what’s the thermostat that really inspires you the most? Is it, you know, hitting 90% or is it more inspiring to hit 80 or 70?

Keith Kurlander [00:13:05]:
I think when you look at the board. Well, anyways, we check that all off, then we vision. We refill out a new board for the year. And I think when you look at your board as you’re visioning and you’re done, you look at it. You got to ask yourselves questions of like, did we set big enough goals in this board? Like, are we. Are we resting in a comfort zone? Are we. Do we want to just rest in the comfort zone for some reason for the next year? Because there’s. There’s years for that too, right?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:13:37]:
Sure.

Keith Kurlander [00:13:38]:
So I think it’s really about that. I think there’s also something to be said of, like, if you set realistic goals and you only got to 70 or 60%, that’s a different thing to do at the review process. You know, why did you only get to 60% if your goals were realistic?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:13:56]:
Yeah, I think. I think one of the maybe more immediate questions that I can relate to personally, too, but I think a lot of people can relate to is, did I even remember what the goals were that I set at the beginning of the year? Like, did I ever review the goals? Do I even know where the document lives anymore that the goals are written on?

Keith Kurlander [00:14:22]:
Yeah. Was it like a. Was it like three lines in a journal that you just free associate in?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:14:30]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:14:30]:
And you never re. You never even read your journal. You just. You just reassociate, but you never read it.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:14:39]:
Maybe you dreamed about it in your head, but you never even wrote it down.

Keith Kurlander [00:14:42]:
Maybe you didn’t even. Maybe you told yourself you did and you never even dreamed about it. Right. No. These are good points, though. Right. Because I think there’s a lot of haphazard. I mean, when you look at that 80 plus percent number, I think a lot of it is sort of impulsive thinking and just haphazard and just like, oh, I’m going to do this thing, and like you’re in some quick conversation that sort of pops up with somebody and this is what I’m going to do this year. Or you write in your journal or something. But yeah, you don’t relate to it or you have no strategy outside of the first couple weeks of getting kind of high on it.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:15:25]:
Yeah. Or maybe your friend says they’re going to get a gym membership and you decide you’re going to do that too. But maybe you’re just comparing what your body looks like to what you see in social media and you don’t have any kind of plan or, you know, any kind of alignment with.

Keith Kurlander [00:15:43]:
You mean that’s not a good idea.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:15:47]:
Let’s talk about this, Keith.

Keith Kurlander [00:15:49]:
I don’t want to talk about that. I think keep that problem in the closet.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:15:56]:
Keep it in the closet.

Keith Kurlander [00:15:57]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:15:58]:
Well, I think that gym memberships probably are really good. Probably a really lucrative Business in January.

Keith Kurlander [00:16:14]:
Yeah. But to kind of land this a little bit. I think what we’re talking about here is we’re trying to break apart sort of this cultural concept, right. Of come up with some ideas, a couple ideas of something you want to change. And then like, I’m going to do this and you go strong out of the gate for a few weeks. And 80% of people who do that stop doing it by February 1st. So we’re breaking that apart and saying, well, it’s great to want to improve and grow. And there’s a way that actually works a lot better, which is you have to really get serious and establish a vision for the year. You have to have very set actually tangible, practical goal goals. You have to then have a plan and you have to have milestones along the way and review processes along the way. And if you don’t do any of that, you’re probably going to be in the 80% category, you know, unfortunately.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:17:19]:
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s works well for me to think about bringing my discipline and my intellect and my discipline to the process of establishing goals. And what I mean by that is the impulsivity you were talking about tends to be driven by impulsive emotion. Right. And there isn’t a lot of careful assessment going on of where am I. What. What are the places where I’m disempowered in my life? Where. Where are the places I feel inspired to get more empowered in my life? You know, is. Is. Is that around relationships I’m currently having with my family? Is it around my career? Is it around finances? Is it around wanting to. The lifelong desire to complete a creative process, like taking up an art form or writing a novel or whatever? The thing is, traveling to Timbuktu or. Where is Timbuktu anyway? Do you know? It’s. I don’t even.

Keith Kurlander [00:18:34]:
Good question. Is Timbuktu a real city?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:18:38]:
I think it is. You better look that up.

Keith Kurlander [00:18:39]:
Okay. It’s not a mythical city, right? No, I think it’s in China, but let me look it up.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:18:44]:
No, I don’t think it’s China.

Keith Kurlander [00:18:46]:
Let me get you an answer. You think it’s Tibet? Let me look this up. We don’t know. I can’t believe we don’t know where Timbuktu is.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:18:53]:
Kind of pathetic.

Keith Kurlander [00:18:55]:
Timbuktu is in. Is a West African country. Is the West African country of Mali.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:19:04]:
Okay.

Keith Kurlander [00:19:06]:
Does that mean it’s still called Timbuktu?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:19:09]:
Maybe not.

Keith Kurlander [00:19:10]:
Oh, let me look at that real quick. We’re On a tangent that matters here. It’s, it’s the city. The city is Timbuktu.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:19:23]:
Yeah. It’s a city.

Keith Kurlander [00:19:24]:
Okay. Okay. And it’s still called Timbuktu. I never knew that at all. Now, you know, that would have been one of the last place as I would have thought Timbuktu was. So if you’re planning on. Geography’s not Timbuktu next year.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:19:42]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:19:44]:
You, you know, now you know where it is. So you have a practical.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:19:47]:
That’s right.

Keith Kurlander [00:19:48]:
Way to get there.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:19:49]:
You can get the ball rolling.

Keith Kurlander [00:19:51]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:19:52]:
Now that we know what, what continent it’s on. So this, this sense that we can create and achieve goals, it’s not as exciting in a kind of impulsive way. It’s not as sexy. It doesn’t bring a huge rush of dopamine. It’s a methodical thing that, you know, takes months, years and decades sometimes to achieve. And it’s, it’s something that can easily fall away if we’re not operating, if we’re not using this incredible tool that we have of our disciplined intellectual mind in the front of our head, you know, and we’re totally.

Keith Kurlander [00:20:40]:
Yeah, yeah. And the thing is people who achieve a lot in their lifetime that, you know, they set out to achieve the next thing and the next thing into, in all areas of life, whatever it is like they tend to be doing something different than people who don’t seem to be showing new milestones in their life. It’s, it’s that they do something different. It’s not like typically random. And it’s like they operate and behave and think differently. Right. And one of the ways that people think differently is they, they’re way more strategically oriented typically. And they, and they actually take time to plan and think about their future and the goals that they want to achieve.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:21:25]:
Right. And then they review their goals to see if they actually did it. What needs to be adjusted.

Keith Kurlander [00:21:32]:
Right.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:21:33]:
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Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:22:37]:
I think for me it’s really useful to use a framework that covers all the areas of life and they’re arbitrary. There’s no like magic list, you know, but there’s something anti emotional about taking the time to actually look at all the different areas of life.

Keith Kurlander [00:22:57]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:22:58]:
And what’s my level of development in the different areas? I say that because if I only focus on one, then I’m going to choose the one that’s more of the shiny object or more of the thing associated with what I think is going to get me a quick dopamine hit of something.

Keith Kurlander [00:23:18]:
Well, let me read you out. I’m going to read you out our areas because it’s arbitrary and I think it’s really important. There’s so much. There’s a list of areas that you could pick from and they could be plenty. I want to read you mine and then, you know, and anybody can. I think it’s important, like choose the areas you want to pick, you know, and we sometimes change these areas, but mostly we’ve stuck with these now over a decade. So because we do this together, my wife and I, this might sound a little different if you’re single, but we have Emma’s career, Keith’s career. Then we have marriage, adventure, and then we have our nuclear family, and then we have our extended family, and then we have our kids. Activities. I don’t know what the hell Matai’s activities are going to be for next year.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:24:10]:
He’s standing out, man.

Keith Kurlander [00:24:12]:
Mommy at me. Or whatever the hell that. No, what is that? We sing class or whatever. You know what I’m talking about? Yeah. That’s where he’s going. We have finances, we have Keith’s health, Emma’s health, spirituality, community. We have lifestyle, social responsibility. And our house. We have our house. Cause we tend to like to, you know, do things in our house each year to keep making it feel more fulfilling for the family. So those are our categories. You know, we’ve developed this over time. We’ve. Do you guys have categories like that?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:24:51]:
We do. We don’t have them as broken out as yours. Ours are more based on the demartini, seven areas of life. You know, relationship, family, social relationships, career, finances, intellectual life, health. What else? We have a travel category because we’re interested in pushing ourselves to do that. We tend to be more homebodies, but I. I definitely have a bucket list of places and things that I want to see and do.

Keith Kurlander [00:25:34]:
Yeah, Timbuktu.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:25:37]:
Same. Same continent. I definitely want to see the animals.

Keith Kurlander [00:25:41]:
Oh, God.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:25:42]:
Safari.

Keith Kurlander [00:25:43]:
And I do, too.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:25:45]:
That’s a. That’s a lifelong dream. I. I haven’t been to Japan yet either, and I. I want to get there at some point.

Keith Kurlander [00:25:51]:
Okay. Yeah. Maybe you should put it on your 2025 vision board. Probably should. Those two things.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:26:00]:
It’s less likely to happen if it’s not on there.

Keith Kurlander [00:26:03]:
Well, that’s what we’re talking about. And it’s less likely to happen if you wake up on January 1st and be like, let’s go to Japan this year.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:26:11]:
Right. Totally agree.

Keith Kurlander [00:26:13]:
And it’s like 80% chance you’ll drop that idea by February 1st.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:26:19]:
It’s true.

Keith Kurlander [00:26:20]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:26:20]:
Yeah, it’s true.

Keith Kurlander [00:26:24]:
So. So. Okay. So you guys also do a process where you fill this board out.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:26:31]:
We don’t use a board. We. We make a document in Google Drive that we share with each other and we review at the end of the year.

Keith Kurlander [00:26:42]:
Cool.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:26:43]:
Look at what we did and what we. What we planned to do and what we did do. And I don’t think that we’ve ever looked at it quarterly, but I like that idea.

Keith Kurlander [00:26:55]:
When we were pushing big goals, historically, we definitely did quarterly reviews. And not only reviews, we actually. So when we were really pushing big goals for the year, we would actually set out sub goals for each quarter that tie back to the large goals. And then we would just, like, you know, check them off. And that’s a pretty intense process. Like, it might be too rigid for some people to go that deep. It’s kind of like running a bit your life, like a business kind of thing. And it. And it can be great. And it can also maybe feel rigid for some people. I don’t know.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:27:34]:
Yeah, I think that’s. That’s part of the challenge, I think, with getting, like I said, getting into these more disciplined, more strategic approaches can drain some of the dopamine and, you know, pleasure out of the process. So it’s definitely a balancing act for me, I feel, of not making everything all business and all discipline and all structure.

Keith Kurlander [00:28:04]:
Totally. Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:28:07]:
Maybe that needs to be a category in my vision is unstructured time or playtime probably for you. I Think for me that would be good.

Keith Kurlander [00:28:17]:
That makes sense for you. Mine would be the opposite. But I get off of my phone scrolling at night before I fall asleep. That would be habit.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:28:29]:
Why would you want to do that? Why would you want to stop?

Keith Kurlander [00:28:32]:
Well, I’m just kidding. I’m not going to stop. I think. I’m sorry. Ambitious. That I just need to, like, just like entertain and blow my mind out for 20 minutes.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:28:46]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:28:46]:
Well, sometimes it’s longer. But look at screen time. Do you know how hard everybody should look at their screen time once in a while on their phone? Because they’re not.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:29:02]:
Have you done that?

Keith Kurlander [00:29:02]:
What they see. I’ve done it before. I don’t like it. It’s very confronting, actually. Talk about New Year’s resolutions. Look at your screen time on your phone and see and it’ll show you where you’re spending your time on your phone, too.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:29:16]:
Yeah, it does. I’ve looked at that. Oh, yeah, Another. Another good tip. I mean, I think in regards to supporting people to, you know, be in the 20% and not in the 80%.

Keith Kurlander [00:29:29]:
On February 1st, go for the 20%.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:29:32]:
Let’s go for the 20%. And I’m going to give you another percent here to get you into the 20%, which is the number 10%. So if you, if you want to create achievable realistic change, making changes that exceed 10% per quarter is pretty hard to do. So you could apply that across the board. It’s actually probably even. It’s way less than that for weight, I would say, but let’s just say a 10% change in how much money you save in your paycheck, hopefully you’re setting aside some savings in your paycheck. If you’re not, then we should talk about that. It’s a good idea to do that. But increasing that number by 10% per quarter, a lot of people are. Most people, I would say, who are disciplined and committed to it can make an increase in 10% without a huge emotional obstacle to that.

Keith Kurlander [00:30:39]:
Totally. I’m going to come up with another statistic here. I have to challenge what I think it is. So let me just look.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:30:48]:
If you want to change your weight in a year, it’s probably 10% in a year. Would it be a really ambitious goal?

Keith Kurlander [00:30:56]:
That’s really ambitious.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:30:57]:
That’s ambitious.

Keith Kurlander [00:30:58]:
Yeah. Yeah. So what I was looking at, because you talked about savings now, I thought the number was 70%. So 78% of people live paycheck to paycheck in the United States and don’t Save right now. Now that’s one study, but it is pretty high. I did some deeper research on it. I remember finding 70% as a pretty solid number there. But yeah, that’s a good example. Like change that. Do you want to create a savings plan? And why? I mean, all these things. Weight loss, savings plan, places to visit, changing your lifestyle, getting a new promotion, opening a company, doing something in a partnership you’re already in. More. More time for quality connection, more whatever, better sex life, finding a partner, you know, on and on. Right.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:32:17]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:32:17]:
So we throw these things out. But just like you said, like the whole thing around savings, if you don’t have a plan that’s really well laid out about how you’re going to actually save money, if you’re living paycheck to paycheck and you’re in the 70%, which most people are, so your neighbors too, probably. It’s not. Not bad. You need a pretty really well thought out plan to do it, or you’re just not going to achieve that because it’s talking about a pretty significant change to do that.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:32:53]:
True. Yeah. And the more human error that’s inside of your plan, the less likely it is to succeed. In other words, having to make a trip to the bank every month in order to make that happen, or having to manually transfer it in your phone app. Much less likely to happen. So anything that can drain out the emotion out of these choices we make makes it less sexy and simultaneously makes it more likely to succeed if you can maintain the repeated behavior. You know, good things happen through repetitive action. Much more so than winning the lottery or something like that.

Keith Kurlander [00:33:49]:
Totally. And like we’re, you know, we’re ever evolving, like trying to train ourselves in new behaviors and new things that we weren’t trained to do. Like some people were trained, some of these things, but there’s always things we weren’t trained to do. And so that’s a part of this sort of evolution that we’re trying to do with ourselves.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:34:13]:
Yeah. And I’ve never met anyone who had a parent who taught them what we’re talking about right now. Right. I mean, have you met anyone whose parent had a. A clear schedule of goals for their year that they would review every year? Every year?

Keith Kurlander [00:34:33]:
Not where I grew up. No. I mean, that’s. I don’t. I don’t think that was going on. I don’t remember anything like that. I mean, I think there were people that had some goals when I was growing up, I remember of like trying to get something in the next year. But it was never like what we’re talking about now. Yeah, yeah, that’s not a common thing.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:34:56]:
It’s not a common thing. But you know, when I think about it, to me, it, it, it’s, it’s a way that we can actually honor ourselves and our lives, care for ourselves, make enough contact with ourselves to find out, you know, what if, if, if a human life is about evolving toward being more of who we are and expressing our gifts and talents in the world. You know, taking the time to ask yourself what’s next?

Keith Kurlander [00:35:30]:
Totally.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:35:30]:
What do I need to take? Do I need to take a training to accomplish the ambitious goal I have? Like, learn how to speak Spanish or you know, take a class on getting really organized around writing a novel? You know, taking it?

Keith Kurlander [00:35:51]:
Totally. And the, and the thing is, is that the, the, the fulfillment that comes later is, is amazing. I mean, you’re, you’re right, you don’t get the dopamine in the immediacy like you do with sort of fantasizing about an outcome and. Yeah, but you, but the long term gain, you know, you’re putting gold coins in the spiritual piggy bank. That’s what’s really happening. Because like the soul level fulfillment and the joy that comes from that way of sort of expanding into who you are more and more in your life, that expansion, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s wealth on a soul level. And it’s hard to achieve that without, I mean, without really, you know, at least on the horizontal path in this world, which is what we’re talking about right now, not so much critical.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:36:52]:
Whenever you trade out, you’re fantasizing about having a different life or having your body look a different way, or having a certain amount of money saved or, and, and you, and you go toward this less impulsive, less dopamine oriented choice. You’re, you’re, you’re, you’re trading out funny money for real money. You know, in, in a spiritual sense. Right. It’s imaginary coins going in and the real coins coming out. So yeah, it’s, I forget which person is some philosopher who said the unexamined life is the, is the life not worth living or something like that? I think that’s close to what we’re talking about here today is like, what, what does your examined life look like? Is your life worthy of your consideration of the value of your life?

Keith Kurlander [00:38:00]:
Yeah. And, and how psyched you gonna be if at the end of 2025 you’re looking back in your review process and you’re Like, I expanded more into my life and I’m. I’m now like feeling that expansion. It’s. You’re gonna be psyched, you know, and, and it takes work like we’re talking about. And. But you will be psyched. I know I am. And sometimes we don’t hit certain goals and we have to reflect on. Okay, like, what was that about? Maybe those goals weren’t really the things I wanted to achieve. Like, that’s always an important question too. When we set, you know, again, like, it’s typically talked of as resolutions, but when we set goals for a year, it’s like, are they. We got to check in. Are these really about me? Is this really about something that I see myself growing into?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:38:58]:
Right. Or was this more of a thing that I thought would help me get. Feel more safe or more secure or get more status or, you know, some of these more, you could say, maybe fear based motives that tend not to be sustainable over time. They tend to be a sh. A shaky foundation.

Keith Kurlander [00:39:23]:
Yeah, well, still working through those, but some of those things. Yeah. I come from status land, man. I grew up in central New Jersey. You should, you should see what that game is like down there.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:39:40]:
I’ve not, I haven’t spent much time there.

Keith Kurlander [00:39:42]:
Well, you went to school near there.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:39:44]:
I did. And there were some kids from Jersey there.

Keith Kurlander [00:39:47]:
You saw that kind of scene. A little bit.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:39:49]:
A little bit, yeah. But is that status? Is it for the sake of status?

Keith Kurlander [00:39:55]:
We just, There’s a lot of. It’s also like thriving on competition. I, you know, it’s not a bad. There’s like a really positive generative side to the vibe and culture. I grew up in, like a lot of competition and just, you know, people on the east coast over there, like, have accomplished a lot of things in the world. Like, there’s that too, but there’s, there’s also the status game and status for status. Like, there’s that where I grew up. I mean, everybody likes status in some form. That’s the other thing. Like, sure, there’s certain pockets like where I grew up where it’s more kind of exacerbated about cars or this or that, your house size, whatever. But I mean, everybody’s got some kind of status they seek. I think just depends on the form.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:40:48]:
I guess the question that I. The challenge I would give you is status for the sake of status, a sustainable generative desire?

Keith Kurlander [00:40:58]:
Yeah, I don’t think so. I don’t think if you’re just going status for the sake of status, I think you you get let down a lot is the problem.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:41:08]:
Feels like a kind of a roller coaster.

Keith Kurlander [00:41:10]:
Fickle.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:41:12]:
Well, there’s always someone who has more status than you, right?

Keith Kurlander [00:41:15]:
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Like, it’s. It’s a relative game, so you’re. But it’s also okay to, you know, look, we live in a material body, a material world. Like, it’s okay to seek these things and to. We’re all going to play these games to some degree, but it’s like, about mindfulness and awareness. And I think that bringing that to the process of visioning is important. Why are you saying X, Y and Z in my lifestyle, maybe set the goal to get a new car this year or something that’s elevated from the one you have in your mind. Or maybe you’re setting to go on a certain trip and feels like an elevation for you to go on that trip, to take your family on that trip. I think it’s just important to ask questions about the big why underneath your vision as you’re visioning. We do a lot of that of just checking in, what is this going to do for us? What is this going to do for the people around us? And then that question, I think is really key of is this putting money into spiritual piggy bank? Is your. Are you gonna feel more whole and a bigger version of you? You can collect objects, but you may not even feel. You might actually feel like a smaller version of you if you just collect objects. Going back to what you’re saying, like status for the stake of status.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:42:44]:
Yeah, I think I use the word status specifically to point toward rank, social rank, and, you know, keeping up with the Joneses versus, you know, choosing to.

Keith Kurlander [00:42:59]:
To.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:43:00]:
To buy a really big or expensive house because I like to host my community or. Or I get a really nice car because of the comfort. That stress reduction that comes from, you know, spending time in a really comfortable environment. That to me is not status. That’s more like something deeper than status that’s driving the decision.

Keith Kurlander [00:43:28]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it’s always good to look at oneself there for sure. Especially in this process for a year ahead. What are you seeking? Why are you seeking it?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:43:45]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:43:48]:
Should we start to wrap up here?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:43:50]:
Sure.

Keith Kurlander [00:43:51]:
Okay. So status symbol. I still like status a little. So.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:44:03]:
Yeah, we can have different differences on that. Yeah, we. Yeah, we could. I think I’m gonna get you a gym membership for. For your. For the holidays. How’s that sound?

Keith Kurlander [00:44:17]:
I’ve got my gym membership, so you might want to get me some status symbol. I don’t know. It’s funny. I don’t like brand names or anything, but whatever, we’ll figure it out.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:44:33]:
Well, we wish everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday season can be a little complex to navigate sometimes with memories and feelings and family and so on.

Keith Kurlander [00:44:52]:
Yeah, and a wonderful, bountiful, expressive year ahead.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:44:58]:
Yeah, yeah, sounds good.

Keith Kurlander [00:45:00]:
Okay. We look forward to connecting with you again on the next episode of the Higher Practice podcast, where we explore what it takes to achieve optimal mental health.