Episode 17 – Why Setting Singing Goals May Backfire

In this Episode I discuss the potential negative impact of setting singing goals from the wrong place.

Consider this quote from Einstein: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

That should give you a hint.

My experience was setting goals (actually almost unconsciously) based on wanting to sing like the wrong singers which was based on my old beliefs, wiring and programming.

I was actually trying to be something that I’m not and trying to match 2 of the most incredible opera singers that ever walked the planet.

Enough said. (-:

Please listen and enjoy.

There are some important ideas in this one!

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The Inner Singer Podcast

Episode 17 – Transcripts

Why Setting Singing Goals May Backfire

You’re listening to episode number 17.

Welcome to the Inner Singer Podcast, providing tools and techniques to strengthen your inner singer, your beliefs, your confidence, your mindset. And now, your host for the Inner Singer Podcast, Mike Goodrich.

Hey there, and welcome to the Inner Singer Podcast. This is Mike Goodrich. Thanks so much for listening.

This one is going to be a little different. I hope you can bear with me on this.

I had an idea. And as I usually do when I have ideas for podcasts or any other ideas I have, I speak them into my iPhone.

So the other day, I took my little boy to a class and I was waiting outside for him in the car and I took out my iPhone because I had an idea about a podcast. I started talking, and after about 10 or 11 minutes, I stopped and I thought, “Okay. Well, I like that. It was good.” And what it is is on goal-setting.

And so I listened to it again today to get the idea so I would know everything that I wanted to cover. I thought, “You know, I don’t think that I can really do that any better.”

Now, the problem is, I did it on an iPhone in a car. So it’s not the greatest sound in the world. And when I put it into my editing program and tried to remove the sound, I could get a lot of the sound gone, a lot of the excess noise, but then it sounded like I was speaking into a tin can. I think it’s actually better with the background noise. I think it’s more listenable.

Just to warn you, there is noise there. This is not the normal audio quality that I like to put out. But it was a fun podcast. I didn’t realize I was doing a podcast. But it came out really good. And so I figured I like to do these things on the fly. I don’t want to script it. I don’t want to write this down. I don’t want to be consulting an outline.

And it’s totally understandable and I think the content is really good. So if you can bear with me with this one, then hopefully, even if I do this again, I’ll figure out a way to make the quality of the audio really, really good.

So here we go. And this is on goal.

So what I was doing, I’m writing a book called “The Inner Singer.” I don’t type that well. I type okay, but with two fingers, so it’s slow. So often times, what I do is I speak something into my iPhone, and I send it to a gal that does transcribing for me.

So that’s what this was going to be. But then I thought this came out really good and I want to share with everybody else in a podcast. So there you go.

So when I start speaking, that’s why it may not sound like I’m really doing a podcast because I didn’t really know that I was. But the content is, I think, important.

So without further ado, here we go:

This is what the Google Docs, the Inner Singer Google Docs talking about what I did when I was a kid to get good at baseball, guitar, drums and ultimately, singing pretty fast.

It’s a part that I haven’t written down yet. And that has to do with getting good at singing pretty quickly with the mirror neurons and the listening and the imagining and the visualizations and the daydreaming and the desire really. And I really did love it.

Now, I didn’t write down goals. But here’s the problem with what I see in retrospect. I developed a talent of now, in retrospect, what I would think of is a little bit more mimicking than anything. And it was mimicking two great singers, Franco Carelli and Mario Del Monaco, both of whom I love, both of whom I have no – not any voice at all like theirs. And it’s not belittling myself. These are two of the world’s greatest tenors that have ever lived on the planet ever – huge voices, phenomenal, unique, unbelievable, unbelievable voices.

So they were my idols. I actually very quickly went from not being able to sing any high notes at all to being able to sing some pretty staggering As, B-flats and even at times B naturals just out of the blue, isolate notes, like a fourth, but way up high and real strong.

I couldn’t put these in anything. I couldn’t sing a song. I couldn’t put them in anything. And it turns out, in retrospect, that it really was a little bit more imitation than anything. It wasn’t my authentic voice. But the point is, I was able to accomplish it very quickly with all the work that I was doing with visualizations and mirror neurons and listening to them all the time and just really, really feeling into it.

Now, the problem is I was doing this – and let’s just say I had set a goal because I didn’t write anything down, but I certainly had a goal to sing like Del Monaco and Carelli. That was my goal. I want to sing like that. I even said one time when I was young, “If I could only sing as well as Placido Domingo, why would I even bother?”

I can’t even believe I would repeat that to anybody because it’s probably the stupidest thing anybody has ever said on the planet. But nevertheless, that’s where my head was. I was very rigid in terms of what I wanted to sound like.

Now, this had nothing to do with what my voice actually wanted to do. And yet still, I was able to accomplish some pretty great feats in terms of my imitation. I didn’t know I was imitating at the time, but the point of this whole thing is, the goals that I set even though I didn’t write them down, but the goals that I had were really based on something that was completely inauthentic, that was based on a story that I had running, a program, a wiring that I had running, of which I was completely unaware.

And this is a problem. This is what I see as a challenge with the whole goal-setting thing.

The only moment is now. The only time is the present moment. So the goals that we are setting now are not done. If they’re not done in an authentic way, they’re going to be a continuation of the past.

So the wiring that got us to this moment, the programming that got us to this moment, the consciousness that got us to this moment in time is the same one that we’re using to set the goal. Does that make sense?

So how can we even be sure that the goal that we’re setting is even good for us, if it even serves our highest good? How can we be sure the goal that we’re setting serves our highest good if we’re setting it from a potential program that we’re not even aware of. We’re not even aware this program is running. And yet, we’re setting a goal based on what this program is telling us we will like and be happy with if we achieve.

And so we get very linear in our focus to achieve this goal that may not even be in our highest good. It may not even be what our authentic self wants for us. And yet, we set it and we get very linear at following directions to try and reach it like a dangling carrot that we think is going to bring some joy and happiness to us once we fulfill it.

Now, what might we do instead? Well, instead of setting a goal based on our current wiring, what if we just decide to be in the present moment and enjoy the process unfolding? What if we just enjoy singing? What if we just love our voice and enjoy singing and open up into that unknown mystery and see where that leads us as our consciousness shifts, as our programming or wiring changes and see where that leads us in a very non-linear way?

The way a plane flies, visually, it looks off course. It doesn’t go linear, it doesn’t look straight. It doesn’t go as the crow flies. It zig zags, high, low. It’s going wherever it needs to go. But it gets there. If it insisted on being linear and said, “No. I’m in LA. I want to go to New York. New York is where I’m pointing this way,” boom! You’ll probably never get there actually. And even if it got there, it would be a fight all the way.

Isn’t that interesting? Isn’t that interesting that if we got rigid and linear with our flight to New York and said, “No, New York is that way. I’m going straight to New York,” it would be a real fight to get to New York.

So that if we get real rigid with our goal, “No, I want to sing this music. I want to sing like this person. I want to be able to sing this song this way. If I can’t sing like this, I won’t be happy,” very linear, then it’s a real fight. We may or may not reach that. And we may or may not be happy once we do.

But what if we say, “What’s the fact here? I love to sing. What can I do with that?” I can stay in that joy and in that love of the process and expand into more of myself consciously. I can use this singing as a way to learn more about myself, as a way to go deeper with myself, as a way to explore more of myself and see what unfolds and be surprised in the light of the mystery of what may unfold with my voice including the music that I may love to sing and the way that I will do it.

Setting goals from our present state, the state that got us where we are, is not a place to make plans from. It is a place to realize now is the time to open into more of myself and see what this divine play has, what this mystery has, what this unknown has, how things unfold, how things got co-created.

What a delightful surprise life is then? What a joy versus the linear experience of manifesting and trying again and trying to achieve and setting goals. Boy, I don’t know about you. I don’t like saying it that way, but that just feels terrible to me. That’s not my way. So I just offer a different suggestion.

As a matter of fact, there have even been some tests. I don’t know who did them. But I recently heard at TED Talk about this, how setting goals can actually be counterproductive because once you actually set the goal, your brain relaxes into a state of feeling as if it’s already been reached. That satisfies it. The brain is now satisfied. You wrote it down, you set the goal. “Cool, okay. It’s done. That’s great.” And that’s before any action is taken to achieve the goal.

So rather than setting goals from my current state, why not open to a shifted consciousness?

So there you have it. I hope that you found that interesting. I didn’t say this, but as I was listening back to it, I thought, “The whole setting goals concept, setting goals from the wiring, the programming, the belief systems that basically have gotten us our current results, may not be the most efficient way to do it.”

And what came to me was the Einstein quote. I was just looking this up now and I have it. Here it is. “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” So taking a little page from Einstein, it does seem like setting the goals from the same wiring, programming and belief system that got us our current results might not be the best idea in the world.

Anyway, food for thought at least, as I hope are all of these Inner Singer Podcasts, at least bringing to light the fact that we have an inner singer and it is really important to pay attention to it and getting good food.

So hopefully, this is satisfying a need out there. I would love to hear your feedback on this. Again, I apologize for the audio quality. I’ll try not to let that happen again, but I thought the message was good enough to go ahead and release it.

So I’d love to have your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. I will talk to you in the next podcast. Bye.

Thank you for listening to the Inner Singer Podcast. And please share this with all of your singing friends. And head on over to iTunes and subscribe. If you found it a value, give us a nice rating. Thanks so much.