Setting Big Goals: What’s in the Way and How to Get on the Way – Keith Kurlander & Dr. Will Van Derveer – HPP146

Keith Kurlander [00:00:06]:
Thank you for joining us for the Higher Practice podcast. I’m Keith Curlander with Dr. Will Vanderveer, and this is the podcast where we explore what it takes to achieve optimal mental health. Okay, here we go again.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:00:25]:
Here we are.

Keith Kurlander [00:00:26]:
Here we are. A topic about goals, how to do goal setting, how to actually achieve them, and also for the people out there that are scared to set big goals, what gets in the way?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:00:36]:
I don’t know anybody who’s not scared to make big goals.

Keith Kurlander [00:00:39]:
That’s a better way of saying it. I’m scared of every big goal I set. Every time I set a big goal, there’s a rush of fear in my body.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:00:46]:
I remember when you and I got started and we, you know, began the practice of making annual goals for ipi. We. We were learning. Is it Jim Collins? Who? Or, wait, is it. Or is it eos? I can’t remember who you mean.

Keith Kurlander [00:01:02]:
Traction.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:01:03]:
Traction. It might have been. I think I read about it in a Jim Collins business book. First, the concept of big, hairy, audacious goals. Bhags.

Keith Kurlander [00:01:10]:
Yeah, right.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:01:12]:
And it really helped me overcome that fear of making big goals. To have stratified goals, you know, realistic, unrealistic, and then the bhags. Because if there’s only a bhag, it starts to feel like a fantasy to me. Too far out of reach.

Keith Kurlander [00:01:30]:
Yeah. I mean, I think there’s a good starting place, which is, like, difference between the fantasy. Why don’t we start with what’s the difference between a fantasy and a vision?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:01:38]:
Nice.

Keith Kurlander [00:01:39]:
That’s a good starting place.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:01:40]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:01:41]:
Well, when I fantasize throughout the day, many days of the week, about the most random shit in the world, that’s a fantasy.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:01:54]:
Can you give us an example?

Keith Kurlander [00:01:56]:
Oh, gosh, you don’t want to know my fantasies.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:01:59]:
They might be nightmares. I’m not sure.

Keith Kurlander [00:02:02]:
My. My fantasies are always a little bit of both. I don’t know what a good example of that is. I think I used to. I still fantasize, but I think I actually, in terms of goal setting, I think I used to fantasize about wealth quite a bit when I was younger. Had, like, kind of a big split in me of not wanting wealth and wanting wealth. And so sometimes I would just fantasize that it would happen overnight, whether it’s like the lottery or meeting somebody with a lot of money or just because it was like a pain point for me, felt stressed about money. So there’s a lot of fantasy about how to bring wealth into my life. I think when I was younger, Yeah. I think there’s fantasy about becoming a person of influence in the world and like, how am I going to help? And people know me. And a lot of fantasizing, though, historically about that. I think in terms of goal setting, I could say one difference between fantasy and vision is fantasy doesn’t get past thinking about it.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:03:00]:
Yeah, I remember. Interviewing I think it was Joe Satriani who said some kid came up to him after a show and said, I really wish I played guitar like you. And he said, no, you don’t. If you did, you’d be practicing five hours a day for 10 years or your whole life. Yeah. So, yeah, I think, I think one of the big differences between fantasy and vision is if you’re actually making a plan, like, do you actually have a plan or.

Keith Kurlander [00:03:29]:
And acting on it. Yeah, Plan, strategy and, you know, behavior. Fantasy typically doesn’t get past thinking about it. A lot of hopes, wishes. A lot of hopes and wishes.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:03:43]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:03:43]:
Not a lot of strategy and not a lot of acting on it. And we all fantasize. That’s okay. But when you’re setting goals, it’s good to distinguish. I think another thing with fantasy for me and vision is for me, when there’s. When I’m goal setting and I. And of course I could set goals I don’t meet. But with vision, I feel like it’s attainable. Inside my nervous system, something about it feels true.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:04:07]:
There’s an intuition there.

Keith Kurlander [00:04:09]:
There’s like just like a knowing of like I may not achieve it, but it feels right. Something about the idea feels simple, even if the pathway feels hard.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:04:20]:
That’s interesting. Yeah, that makes sense. I think for me, the goals that ultimately I end up doing behaviors and creating strategies to achieve are the ones that feel like a fulfillment of my destiny’s kind of a loaded word. But giving the gifts that I carry inside myself for the world, like there’s, there’s a, a feeling of. I guess fulfillment is the word that comes to me, but it feels in alignment with what I’m carrying inside myself that could be of usefulness to other people or that carries the, the mission of my life. For example. For example, like right now, a big focus of goals is longevity for me, like so that I have decades to carry out what I think I’m capable of doing in the world. And so when it’s linked to that for me, it, it, it makes it easier to remind myself when I get up and I don’t want to do a particular thing to support my longevity. Go to the gym, do My exercise, whatever. Oh, wait a second. Do you really care about that? You really care about impacting the world and having, you know, five more decades to do that?

Keith Kurlander [00:05:31]:
Yeah, I think that’s right. Like the reason is also a difference sometimes in fantasy and vision, like having enough reason, it’s important enough to oneself. I mean, I think the reason is more of a bridge for me to actually acting on it. And then when I think about fantasy, I think it’s, you know, with fantasy it’s like I don’t want to do the work.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:05:53]:
Right.

Keith Kurlander [00:05:53]:
And there’s some way to tell, I think. Like, I think this is important because like when you’re setting goals, it’s important to know what’s a fantasy so that you don’t just ruminate on that all the time. But I think you could tell. Like I feel like I can tell when there’s a thought process in myself that I feel like I’m probably not going to act on because I’m just sort of getting high off of the process of thinking versus like a visionary process. For me, it’s like it actually, it gets me excited to go do something about it. Like I’m like, I can’t wait to go do something about it when I’m actually in a visioning process. Like, I can’t wait till the next day starts again from that vision. And that, that goal, that’s a part of that vision. So I think that’s different. And, and we can get stuck in periods of our life where we’re in a lot of fantasy and not a lot of vision.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:06:47]:
That happens for sure.

Keith Kurlander [00:06:49]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:06:50]:
I mean, I think children fantasize quite a bit. Um, yeah. And there’s nothing wrong with that. For me personally, I think fantasy as a child often solved a problem of creating a vision of what was possible outside of the suffering or the family system that I grew up in.

Keith Kurlander [00:07:09]:
And so that kind of fantasy.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:07:10]:
Yeah, I think that can be a, that can be a root of this quality you’re talking about of getting kind of addicted to the idea of a family different from yours or a family that had more fill in the blank than what you’re experiencing as a child. You feel helpless to create those steps to go get that, to build that thing.

Keith Kurlander [00:07:32]:
Because you’re a kid, you’re a kid and maybe you’re a kid where you’re in an overwhelming situation often and you feel even more helpless to go create that thing or to feel like you have self efficacy. I mean, it depends what age we’re talking about. But you know, a 10 to 15 year old kid that is like trying to go actually master tasks and start to create things and in the world outside of play and yeah, I think fantasy, it’s good you brought that up. Like, I think we can get stuck in fantasy processes that are rooted in childhood where we use fantasy as a means for imagining a reality that’s different than the one we’re in. Yeah, I did that. Did you have fantasy as a kid?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:08:19]:
You know one, one fantasy I had as a kid was that someone would discover how great I was.

Keith Kurlander [00:08:25]:
Yeah. In what way?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:08:27]:
Great in what way?

Keith Kurlander [00:08:29]:
Yeah, like intelligence or what?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:08:31]:
Yeah, intelligence, emotional intelligence, mental intelligence, Value as a human being, like to be valued. And I think underneath that was really just wanting to feel secure and so.

Keith Kurlander [00:08:46]:
You mean I shouldn’t be doing that anymore? I thought that’s how I was supposed to do it.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:08:55]:
Yeah, I know, I was just kidding a little bit. No, it’s true. I mean it’s. I think there was a lot. And to this day I can still relate to the themes of like social anxiety and like inclusion and exclusion and you know, am I referencing off of the outside too much, let’s say for self worth or you know, a sense of security in myself?

Keith Kurlander [00:09:23]:
Yeah, well, I mean I think these fantasies that do start in childhood and again, it’s not all, it’s not just bad but like that don’t lead to goals with action is like a lot of people are like, I’ll go through my day and it’s like you might start fantasizing about a person you want to meet or a celebrity or like, you know, whatever the big sort of hot topics are inside your own mind. Money or status or everybody’s got something that they’re fantasizing about that they don’t want to talk about and tell the world about. Whatever the list is, it might be about a partner that you don’t have. Right. Like a relationship you don’t have. You’re fantasizing about that person you’re going to meet, but it’s not, it’s not leading to action, it’s not leading to meeting the person. So we all do this process and I think really the key. Yeah, go.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:10:12]:
Or having meaning in your life that you don’t have. You know, having meaningful work, career.

Keith Kurlander [00:10:18]:
Right. Fantasizing about the job or the promotion or switching jobs or now all that’s fine. But I think when we talk about goal setting, it’s really important to be able to recognize what’s fantasy. That’s like the cloud that’s going to pass through your mind and it’s not ever going to stay there as something tangible that you’re going to act on. And what’s vision? Right. I think that’s the starting point of how to set goals.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:10:43]:
Really important to distinguish those two.

Keith Kurlander [00:10:45]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:10:46]:
Because if you can’t, then it’s going to be hard for you to move out of fantasy and into goal setting. That’s. That’s, you know, grounded in action and strategy.

Keith Kurlander [00:10:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. I. For. I don’t know, I think it’s different for everyone. Again, for me, one of the big keys for me is like, when I’m not fantasizing, I’m already thinking about what’s the first step I’m going to take. Like, I’m already thinking about what the outcome is going to look like. What’s the first step I’m going to take to get there. It’s like a whole process is just happening. It’s like I see that it’s already going to come true, even if it doesn’t in the form that I’m imagining. It’s just like. It’s like the horizon is much further away from me. It extends into the future. Whereas fantasy, for me is more like an obsession in the present of just like, it feels narrow to me. I feel actually very constricted and stressed when I’m fantasizing on some level. So stress might be an indicator that you’re fantasizing?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:11:42]:
Well, I think that leads into, you know, for me, this. The stress that I feel around that is how big of a gap it feels like the end result is versus where I am today. You know, so there can be like a hopelessness or a kind of a collapse around the perception that there’s. It’s like a night and day difference how I am in this particular area of my life and where I want to be. So I think. I think that’s. I can relate to that stress that you’re talking about.

Keith Kurlander [00:12:14]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:12:15]:
And that starts to get alleviated when I start building steps to get there.

Keith Kurlander [00:12:19]:
Yeah. And I think for me, with goal setting, like, I think you can set goals around something obviously that you want changed in your life. That’s totally doable. But for me, like, with goals and vision versus fantasy, like, I’ll often fantasize about things that’ll bring me relief, but my real goals don’t tend to be about relief in my life.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:12:43]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:12:43]:
Which is interesting. They might bring relief as a result, but the goal itself is not built around the need for relief. Those goals don’t tend, I don’t tend to act on those actually. I tend to stay in my habits there. You know, like, for me it might be about like you’re saying like longevity stuff. Maybe it’s about food for me, probably is where I’m constantly trying to get better with how I eat based on everything I know, which is a lot now about longevity in my own body. Personalized medicine stuff and. But yet I can fantasize about eating differently a lot because I actually don’t change how I eat that often.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:13:27]:
It sounds like you’re talking about the difference between like a short term gratification and a long term fulfillment.

Keith Kurlander [00:13:33]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:13:34]:
You know, if you’re, if you’re going for relief, you’re most likely you’re in a short term mindset, right?

Keith Kurlander [00:13:40]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:13:40]:
You’re not going to make a lot of progress toward long term goals if you’re, if you’re relating, you know, to the topic that way.

Keith Kurlander [00:13:48]:
Right.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:13:49]:
Choosing to go for relief consistently.

Keith Kurlander [00:13:54]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that kind of blends into some other aspects of like we’ve kind of, we’ve hit on just the kind of highest level which is, you know, fantasy versus vision in terms of setting big goals. I think the next level down is, well, let’s say you, let’s say you are more in vision. You are wanting to set these goals, but then there are things that can get in the way. Right. There’s fears that can stop a person from acting even when you feel like this is really the thing that you need to act on. And it’s true for you.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:14:34]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:14:34]:
I mean, there are fears that just stop people.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:14:37]:
There are fears and I mean, I think even prior to that, there’s just acknowledgement of the reality that changing your life is hard. We, we, we have a nervous system that wants to keep recalibrating back to the status quo. I mean, that’s just human nature. Right. We, we have certain experiences in childhood. They establish a certain set point about maybe the kind of risks that we’re willing to take or the kind of goals that we’re willing to set. And then we keep, you know, being unconsciously driven back to that status quo. So just, I think it’s important to acknowledge that, you know, setting any kind of goal for change is, is a big thing for people to do if they’re going to carry it out.

Keith Kurlander [00:15:20]:
It’s a big thing. And behavior change is difficult.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:15:24]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:15:25]:
Like you’re saying. And I think there are fears that can get in the way of that behavior change. And I think a Lot of, you know, a lot of what’s in the way is fear of failing or fear of succeeding. And, like, what is that going to mean if I fail? What is it going to mean if I succeed? What does it mean about who I am if I fail?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:15:45]:
Absolutely. What are the downsides of succeeding in your goal? What are the drawbacks, for example? Common ones. You know, if I succeed, I’m going to exit from the circle of my friends or my family who have struggles in their lives that are similar to the ones that I have now that they haven’t overcome. And so if I overcome mine, then I’m outside of that tribe now.

Keith Kurlander [00:16:12]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:16:12]:
What does that mean? I lose relationship. I lose connection. That’s a common one.

Keith Kurlander [00:16:17]:
Well, is that what happened to you? That happened to you a little bit.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:16:21]:
I mean. Yeah, it’s definitely. It’s a thing.

Keith Kurlander [00:16:24]:
Yeah, it’s a thing. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a thing. You know, feeling like if you fail, then you’re worried that it will reinforce a story that you’re not capable. Like, you don’t want to reinforce the story. Some people just feel not capable, and then if they get failure, they’re just gonna be like, well, see, I’m not capable. And we’ll get into failure in a different way in terms of mindset, but I think in terms of fears. Like, a lot of people are afraid of failing. A lot of people are afraid of judgments, which is similar to what you were talking about. How my friend’s going to judge me if I succeed in this way. How am I. How am my friends going to judge me if they hear me talking about a big goal? That, to them sounds unattainable. Right, right.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:17:09]:
Yeah. Maybe Keith is just a dreamer.

Keith Kurlander [00:17:11]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:17:12]:
He’s deep in fantasy land over there.

Keith Kurlander [00:17:14]:
Maybe Keith is psychotic again. Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:17:21]:
Yeah, maybe.

Keith Kurlander [00:17:22]:
But, you know, maybe he’s not.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:17:25]:
Well, maybe. I remember, I’m reminded of there’s a Tom Robbins book called Even Cowgirls get the Blues. I don’t know if you know that one. No, there’s a psychiatrist in that. In that novel who calls in. Well one day rather than calling in sick because he’s sort of like. So it’s like, did the psychiatrist go crazy? You know, he’s. He’s lost his mind. He’s changed his values. Right. He’s. He’s not in the same conversation. Maybe that is a comfort zone for him.

Keith Kurlander [00:17:58]:
I mean, I think big goals, really, it’s scary to a lot of people around us, you know, whether that’s in spiritual goals or Financial goals, career goals, family goals, whatever it is, lifestyle goals. When we start talking about big goals in these areas that feel unattainable to the people around us and to ourselves. Yeah, we’re going to get judged if we talk a lot about it. There’s so much there make it judge as narcissistic or crazy or silly, whatever. Right. And it also might just be again the vision moving through a person that they want to set up a goal in some area of their life. You know, this is where it’s really good to have good people around you cheering you on.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:18:45]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:18:45]:
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Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:19:49]:
I think it’s really critical to have a support system to cheer you on. And then the other side of it is also the accountability.

Keith Kurlander [00:19:58]:
Right.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:19:59]:
So that when you say you’re going to do something, it’s not just between you and your own mind that is tracking that.

Keith Kurlander [00:20:06]:
Yeah. Well and also could then stay in fantasy when it doesn’t, you know, it can go into fantasy without a good accountability system. Yeah. There’s a lot here around goals like you know, there’s also some spiritual messaging that material goals of any kind is bad or inherently a self negative fulfilling loop. You know and I’m. When I say material I don’t just mean objects. I just mean like doing anything in the world about, you know, where you’re, you’re increasing more of something whether again it’s money or you know, anything in the lifestyle or career that you’re an ego. Right, right. And that there’s something wrong with That I think a lot of us do use that sometimes to tell ourselves why we’re not going after things like, oh, well, that’s, you know, that’s ego talking.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:21:04]:
I can relate to that. I mean, I spent the first part of my adult life in that fantasy that I was doing spiritual growth in this lifetime and that all of this horizontal Samsara stuff was just a bunch of bullshit and there was.

Keith Kurlander [00:21:21]:
Pulls you from the vertical.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:21:23]:
Yeah. If you’re. Yeah, if you’re a spiritually evolved person, you don’t attend to any of that stuff.

Keith Kurlander [00:21:29]:
Yeah, I did fail at that. I tried. I. I did try, but I failed.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:21:36]:
Well, luckily, I mean, fortunately, you kind of went crazy and it didn’t like you couldn’t actually do that. I mean, that’s true.

Keith Kurlander [00:21:45]:
You know, a little bit of a crazy gene was like, hey, we need you here. Come back.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:21:51]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:21:51]:
They’ll just float around saying things don’t matter. You know, I think that’s the other thing. Like when we set big goals, hopefully these goals are aligned because we feel like things matter. You know, things really matter. And there’s. It’s important to impact, it’s important to grow, it’s important to be abundant. These. That things matter and that it’s. That’s a hard confrontation, though, for someone who’s struggling with setting goals of, like, if things really matter to you and you’re not setting goals and going after them, you’re faced with a pretty big feeling, usually a shame. And like, what’s going on? Like, I don’t know. I can’t break out of this cycle. I know things matter and I’m stuck. Right. People can get stuck in that process.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:22:35]:
I mean, the spiritual ego is a very tricky thing to gain competency and recognizing. It’s, it’s. The arguments are very convincing sometimes.

Keith Kurlander [00:22:49]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:22:50]:
Yeah. I think it, you know, it. It took a while for me to realize that there were areas in my life that I was really underdeveloped in.

Keith Kurlander [00:22:58]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:22:58]:
Um, and, you know, I think for me personally, there was this growing sense that people with something to say about how to overcome trauma and integrate chaotic, scary childhood experiences need to speak up and help other people with that. And in order to do that, as you, as you’re pointing out, um, at least for me, it seemed like I needed to get my act together on the relative truth level, on the physical, human, world level. Worldly level.

Keith Kurlander [00:23:28]:
Yeah. I mean, for me, which, you know, we had similar sort of trajectories in terms of going more vertical early than horizontal in some ways. And I think for me, a lot of what was getting in the way of me going after big goals on the horizontal plane was I, my, my comfort zone was so narrow, you know, it’s like I was pretty uncomfortable in myself. And like, the, the thought of stretching was like, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to have to stretch myself here. Like, I’m already stretched. Um, I, I can’t get beyond what I’m doing already inside myself or outside of myself. I remember in my 20s, I used to think a lot about, I was like, am I lazy? Am I? If I was just more disciplined, I feel lazy. I’m not disciplined. I’m in a lot of sort of addictive behaviors. I felt lost, like, didn’t know where to point the compass. But I was anxious all the time, you know, and so like, breaking out of that, thinking of breaking out of that was hard. I was like, I just want out of the whole game. Which was meditation for me. Just get me out of this game. Because it’s like, I don’t see how to do something different in this game. I can’t stretch beyond what I’m doing already. But over time, I, I, I showed myself that wasn’t true, actually. Staying in my comfort zone was actually causing me a lot of discomfort is what I realized. Not setting goals was actually way more uncomfortable and way more draining than when I started actually going after goals, big goals. It wasn’t like there were no goals. It’s just.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:25:02]:
Yeah, yeah. I have had a similar experience where there’s a very surprising but nevertheless very powerful relief of that comfort zone. Discomfort in the comfort zone by going after big goals, setting big goals and going after them. There’s something very relaxing about having a strategy and a plan. And it’s inspiring to have a big goal to go after.

Keith Kurlander [00:25:28]:
Right?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:25:29]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:25:29]:
The horizon so much wider. And you change a lot when you’re going after a big goal because you’re, you’re, you’re walking towards something that’s so far away. Right. So the path is changing a lot. The, the, the path through the forest, it’s like so far away. You’re making turns all over the place. So you have to adapt a lot when you have a big goal. And I think, you know, that was a mind set shift for me when I realized that setting big goals and achieving big goals, which, you know, you and I are achieving some big goals, relatively speaking, we set goals all the time, whether it’s our personal life or at ipi and like, we Know how to achieve many of them. We failed some. And a big shift for me, it was a mindset shift that took some time, which is like I had to get adaptive, way more adaptable, way more flexible and adaptable. Being willing to change and let go of some idea or strategy or process that’s not working and learning from the feedback of what’s not working, the failures. Right. That mindset shift is so key though, because it’s like it’s so easy to go lose that mindset and get stuck and absorbed inside the thing that’s not working and go into like self doubt or shame or frustration versus like a whole different mindset more than this growth mindset of like, bring on. Bring on the, the information, bring on the things that aren’t working so I can figure out what is working.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:26:59]:
Right.

Keith Kurlander [00:26:59]:
Right. That was a big shift for me. It took. It took me many years. I feel like I’m mostly in that most of the time, not all of the time.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:27:06]:
Yeah. It’s one of the. What you’re describing reminds me of a part of my childhood that was really valuable to me. And I know that there’s a lot of problems that have been identified with the Boy Scouts, but having said that, for me, it was a huge opportunity to get my feet wet with what you’re talking about around. I remember challenges. It doesn’t be. It. It doesn’t happen at the beginning of the Boy Scouts, but when you get older and you’re more advanced in your skills for survival skills, you can have experiences where they put you in the woods with a flint and you’re out there for 24 hours and you might be able to build a thing that you sleep under. Or maybe you don’t figure that out. You might be able to start a fire. Maybe you don’t figure that out. And going through experiences like that give you a resilience. Right. It gives you a trust in your capacity to be resourceful, to learn things, figure things out in the woods. So I’m just talking about glimpses that I had in childhood from experiences that were challenging at the time, but that were instilling me with some kind of belief deep down that I could go do things that I didn’t believe I could do.

Keith Kurlander [00:28:15]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where’s your Eagle Scout badge?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:28:21]:
You know, it might have burned down in one of the fires.

Keith Kurlander [00:28:24]:
Oh, I see.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:28:25]:
I don’t remember. My mom might have it.

Keith Kurlander [00:28:27]:
But it’s an old part of yourself that burnt down. One of your houses that burnt down.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:28:35]:
Yes.

Keith Kurlander [00:28:36]:
All your childhood memorabilia yeah, you have any left? You better just go burn it because I don’t know, I want another house to burn down.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:28:43]:
My mom has boxes of stuff that’s all blackened and charred that didn’t disappear. So I should probably go look at that at some point.

Keith Kurlander [00:28:52]:
I think there’s also a process with, you know, I mean, setting goals. And when we go after goals, there’s a strategy is such an important process, and it’s not something a lot of us are trained in as kids. And like, how do you build a strategy? And like, what’s the method? How do you do it? Right, right. And, you know, in career, it’s like you can. You can set a goal and think about what you want next in your career. And then it’s like the strategy is, is harder than the goal setting. I mean, the strategy, you have to, like, get in there and you have to be like, this is what I’m gonna do. First, second, third. This is what I think is the most likely thing that will get me further along. This is the lowest hanging fruit to do that. And that, that process, like, it’s just. It’s just not really the default, I think, is strategizing.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:29:40]:
The closest thing that ever came to that for me as a kid was sports, you know, but that was like a game by game, you know, hey, let’s figure out if we can win this game. But it wasn’t like, okay, let’s. Let’s figure out how we can be champions in the league this season, you know, and I don’t remember any coach ever having that kind of vision.

Keith Kurlander [00:30:02]:
Right.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:30:02]:
And we never won any championships, so.

Keith Kurlander [00:30:04]:
Yeah, there’s some coaches that have that vision. Yeah, but for sure, wasn’t my coach. But there are some coaches that have that vision. Of course.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:30:11]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:30:12]:
I mean, my wife and I, you know, we strategize a whole year in advance. Like, we. What are we going to do this year with our lives together, with our family? What are the trips we’re going to go on? When are we going to see our, you know, our extended family? What do we want to do that’s new? Do we want to meet new people? How are we going to do that? And, you know, we map it all out. And on our better years, we fall through on the map. Um, and, you know, but it’s a game changer.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:30:39]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:30:39]:
I think some people might resist that and feel like, oh, that feels robotic or contrived or something. But I think, I mean, I don’t know if you feel the same way. I just feel like, as I keep getting older, I’m learning more and more that without applying myself to setting goals that are achievable and then creating a strategy and then knowing what I’m going to go do to achieve it, like, without doing that and breaking that down, I just don’t really get it done.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:31:03]:
Oh, yeah. I mean, there’s no. No question. I think for me there’s a too tight and too loose quality to that of like, the sweet spot of like, having structure, having goals, having strategy and the steps to fulfill the goal. But then, you know, not having every. Like, for example, having a really detailed budget is not something I’ve ever been able to do to.

Keith Kurlander [00:31:28]:
Yeah, me too. It’s never worked for me either.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:31:30]:
You can relate to that.

Keith Kurlander [00:31:32]:
Yeah, but I have an internal budget. Like, I have an internal mechanism. I mean, I can track the flow of money, but I don’t stick to a budget. Like you’re saying, I’m not. Like, I’m going to spend, you know, $10 on this meal and this on this. Like, I don’t do that. It’s never worked for me. It’s felt too rigid. But I have an internal knowing of, like, if I bought this thing, it’s. I’m spending too much money. But that doesn’t work for everyone.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:31:58]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:31:58]:
But I can’t stand budgets, man. Budgets drive me crazy. I. I don’t like budgets. I feel like it’s too tight for me.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:32:06]:
Yeah. And at the same time, you know, obviously you could get into big problems if you’re not paying attention to the ins and the outs of your finances.

Keith Kurlander [00:32:13]:
If you’re not paying attention, then you better create a budget. You better create a budget and stick to it. If you don’t track that well.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:32:22]:
Well. And for what it’s worth, I don’t know if other people can relate to this, but one thing that really helped me a lot with that, with budgets, is this system that you and I learned from John demartini about forced accelerated savings. So without going too far down the rabbit hole of personal finances, the idea is that you pick an arbitrary number that you can, without stress, without anxiety, put away every month from your paycheck, and then every quarter, you increase that by 10%. It doesn’t matter where you start. That could be a dollar to start, $5, whatever. And. But you stick to your system, and every quarter you increase it and you just keep going. And the idea is that a 10% increase is something that your psychology can tolerate without getting too freaked out. So that imposes a Certain mentality inside of my. You talk about like an internal budget, like thinking about, like, okay, well, this percentage of my paycheck is going to savings every month. And I love that because it’s planning for my future. And I would pers. Personally, I don’t struggle with questioning whether I’m going to do that every month. It’s just like a thing. It becomes an automatic thing.

Keith Kurlander [00:33:32]:
Yeah. And I think what we’re talking about is systems, you know.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:33:35]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:33:36]:
The more systems you bring in your life to different areas of life, and that’s many areas of life. That’s not just finances. More systems you bring in, the more you can achieve your goals. Because now you’re inside of a system that you’ve created to get there. So if you have a financial goal of saving X amount a year and you do forced accelerated savings, you’re way more likely to achieve it because you created a system that you’re sticking to. And I think that that does apply for any type of goal. Maybe you have a goal of meeting a partner. You’ve struggled with meeting that partner for 15 years and you’re like banging your head against the wall. And it’s like if you create a system to meet that partner, you will more likely to meet that partner.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:34:19]:
Absolutely. And you know, in that case, I mean, we could. This is something Kristen and I talk about a lot in our art of we. But this. How essential it is. I mean, it really worked for me to draw up a very detailed list of the qualities of the relationship that I wanted to find in my life. And, you know, it was. It sounds corny, but it was quite magical to see how after I had done that, it didn’t take very long for that person to show up who could. Who could do that with me. So that’s part of maybe a longer conversation about how to find that mate that has been elusive to you.

Keith Kurlander [00:34:55]:
Yeah, that could be a good episode. The elusive mate is right around the corner.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:35:02]:
Exactly.

Keith Kurlander [00:35:04]:
The elusive mate is right in front of you. If you just open your eyes. Yeah, my mate was elusive, but I solved that early. I was blessed there. You know, I was 30 years old. I felt like that was pretty early to solve that.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:35:21]:
Very early, in my opinion.

Keith Kurlander [00:35:22]:
Yeah, yeah, very early. Yeah. So I think one last piece to cover is just, you know, as. It’s sort of a tier thing. Right. It’s like you need vision versus fantasy to set realistic goals. You need strategy and then creating systems and then you need to turn this all into behavior. Right.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:35:44]:
Well. And there’s this Other piece that you mentioned that I think is so important is the mindset, Right. The resilience and the willingness to be on a journey and say, look, this isn’t about me staying in my comfort zone. It’s about having an adventure. I’m like a hobbit leaving the Shire. I’m going to have to figure this out.

Keith Kurlander [00:36:09]:
Got to keep Sam fed along the way.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:36:13]:
Sam’s going to eat your cookies.

Keith Kurlander [00:36:15]:
That’s right. You gotta, you gotta handle Sam, so you gotta pay attention to that. What’s the little goblin’s name? The ring.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:36:25]:
Dobby.

Keith Kurlander [00:36:26]:
Dobby?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:36:27]:
No, that’s not Dobby. No.

Keith Kurlander [00:36:28]:
Dahvie, is it?

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:36:29]:
No, Darby’s in it. I know, it’s. That’s driving me crazy.

Keith Kurlander [00:36:34]:
Yeah, I don’t know. Anyways, you get those characters running around when you’re trying to get things done in the world. They’re stealing your ring. Got monsters to deal with monsters anyway, so you need a powerful, growth oriented mindset to look at all those obstacles and learn from them and not get scared and pull the covers over your head too many times in a month and you’ll be fine. But then you need to be able to act right. Motivation. And I think that’s a, that’s, that’s key. Which is like this whole concept of extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation. I’ve always found for myself, I’m way more. It’s intrinsic motivation is, goes way further for me. Like I have to just really, if I’m acting on something, especially a big goal, like, I have to fully see the value of why I’m doing it. If I don’t fully see the value of why I’m doing it, like, it’s just. I’m not going to get it done. And it has to be a pretty far reaching value for me in terms of like. Brings a lot of meaning.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:37:41]:
Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:37:41]:
Into my life and the people around me. If I don’t see that, I don’t. I just get in like a lot of cycles of false starts and trying things and, you know, went to the gym for three weeks and then I stopped for three years. That’s not what’s happening now. But that’s one of the examples. Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:38:00]:
Yeah. I mean, yeah. I, I was dealing with this yesterday with you about our newsletter and I was like, man, is this really doing what it’s supposed to be doing? You know, and, and you’re like, no, it is. And then I was like, oh, okay. Because it’s, it’s, it’s fulfilling a value that I Have of, you know, people finding out about integrative medicine and psychiatry, you know. Yeah, but when I’m doing activities that cost me a lot of time and they. And my perception is they’re not advancing my highest values, man, is it hard to do.

Keith Kurlander [00:38:36]:
It’s hard. And that’s why it’s so important to link these behaviors to the larger vision of everything. You know, coming back to what’s most important and just to remember that. Or else we could have this great vision. We have a mindset for it, and we bring it down to a strategy, and we have a plan, and we have. We have small milestones that we’re going to hit and all that could be totally there. And then, then when we see ourselves in these cycles of procrastination, whatever, you know, you feel like your thing is laziness or. And you can’t get unstuck. And it’s often because it’s like the motivation isn’t linked up properly to the reason. The reason of why to go do this behavior right now when I could just scroll and see some cool stuff in my Instagram feed, right? That might bring a little smile to me, a little.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:39:29]:
Little hit of dopamine when my daughter’s.

Keith Kurlander [00:39:32]:
On the other side of the room yelling at me for not paying attention to her, right? And then I have to remember, wait, she’s actually more valuable to me. And I get my ass off the couch.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:39:42]:
Right?

Keith Kurlander [00:39:43]:
So, yeah, I think that’s a big part of it.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:39:46]:
I think. You know, I also want to put a plug in as we begin to wind down here, that the power of habit, right? The power of routines and habits. I, for example, I’ve. I’ve had a habit of drinking coffee every morning for, I don’t know, 30 years. Maybe 40. Maybe 40 years. Yeah.

Keith Kurlander [00:40:03]:
Yeah.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:40:04]:
And your adrenal glands love it.

Keith Kurlander [00:40:09]:
They just told me yesterday how much they love that you’re doing that.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:40:12]:
They’re. Yeah, yeah. Speaking of longevity, right?

Keith Kurlander [00:40:17]:
So maybe it’s a fantasy.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:40:19]:
For the last couple of years, I’ve been making my espresso in the morning and noticing, okay, maybe only a year. I’ll give myself a break here. Maybe it’s only a year that I noticed that I would go grind the coffee for my espresso, and then I would turn around and notice that my wife was grinding coffee for a French press. Because she likes French press. Different grind, right? So after about a year of noticing that she was feeding the dogs, and then I was making my coffee while she was feeding the dogs, and then she would have to go make her own coffee. After that, I established a new habit that I’m proud of that has been going on now for, I don’t know, maybe three weeks pretty consistently where I punched the grind button on her. On her coffee while I’m making my coffee.

Keith Kurlander [00:41:07]:
Nice. It took you a year, but it’s good stuff.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:41:12]:
Took me a year to observe that I had.

Keith Kurlander [00:41:14]:
So you better keep linking that to a value that’s intrinsic, or it’ll end like my gym escapade ad did in the past, after three weeks. And you won’t grind her French press for three more years.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:41:27]:
She really appreciates it.

Keith Kurlander [00:41:29]:
Right, well, so it’s good for everyone to go set a goal to grind their partner’s French press beans.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:41:38]:
Whatever version that is in your.

Keith Kurlander [00:41:40]:
Yeah, whatever version that is in your life, go grind someone’s beans. All right, well, let’s end there.

Dr. Will Van Derveer [00:41:51]:
Okay. All right, well, thanks, Keith.

Keith Kurlander [00:41:54]:
Yeah, thanks. 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.