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Transcript: Why Big Goals Fail
Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Welcome to 2026, everybody. I will bet you because it is January 2026 that somewhere in the last few days, you have been thinking about taking care of goals or resolutions or something like that. And certainly this is not the first time that I have talked about how to do those and why to do them properly. And you may, if you’ve been around for a while, recall that my take on resolutions and goals is a little different than most people’s.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:48]:
To put it simply, I’m not a fan of traditional resolution and goal making. I’m really, really not a fan of big pie in the sky traditional goals, where you set yourself this lofty, lofty end destination and really don’t come up with any idea for how you’re gonna get there or the steps that you’re gonna take to get there are enormous and things are just magically going to happen, which don’t look at me that way. Every business that I’ve ever worked for, that’s pretty much been the plan. And then you wonder as you go why you either lose interest, lose capability, or just plain fall flat on your face. Couple of years ago, I talked about this and I said that I had heard someone who I could not identify and still haven’t been able to that expectations are planned disappointments. When I looked that up just now to see if I could figure out who said it, I saw it reframed as expectations are premeditated resentments. I think they’re both true, but I would submit to you in light of the second that they are premeditated resentments and the person that you end up resenting more than any other is yourself. Now, if you’re okay with that, by all means, go on and do it the way that you’ve been doing it.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:11]:
I’m going to bet though, wild guess, that most of us are not okay with ending up presenting ourselves and would like a better way. So if that’s you listen on. So here is my wild unexpected out of left field, but not really suggestion that is based in actual brain science. It’s for how to set a goal and actually get yourself there without hating yourself by the end or wishing you had never started. I know that sounds like a lot, but it’s actually really, really simple. The first is keep your expectations low. Because then you are not planning your own disappointment or your premeditated resentment of yourself. Keeping your expectations low does not mean that you’re not hoping for excellence.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:59]:
It means that you’re being realistic. Having super high expectations is often really, really unrealistic. Let’s face it. Most of us are not superheroes and we’re not going to suddenly wake up with a cape and a mask and the ability to fly and expecting that we are going to be able to miraculously, just because it’s January, do things that we’ve never been able to do before is a recipe for disaster. But if we give ourselves realistic expectations, we’re much more likely to be able to keep them. Not rocket science. I know. And yet at this time of year, you would think it was.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:36]:
Now, the other thing is to figure out how to take small steps so that you can stay consistent with them. And also to forgive yourself when you’re not consistent with them. Life happens. People get sick. You have a bad day, stuff happens. And if you miss a day, it’s not the end of the world. Pick up and keep going. And if your steps are small enough, that’s not a problem.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:57]:
People get confused about what a small step is. So I’m going to tell you my favorite small step story, and I’m not going to lie. It’s my favorite small step story because it’s mine, but it also really illustrates how this works and how small the steps need to be. In two words, they need to be “stupid small”. Now, many years ago, when I started going to the gym, I had a personal trainer who scared the absolute living crap out of me on one of my first visits by taking me to the rowing machine. The rowing machine had scared the living crap out of me for a very, very long time. And I was convinced that it was going to kill me because in my mind, that machine was for football players, not for somebody who was horribly out of weight and had never been to the gym before. So I played along because I was not going to embarrass myself in the gym, got on this machine and he showed me how to use it, even though I was convinced I was going to die right there on the spot.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:54]:
And after I suffered for a minute or two, he said, that’s great. I want you to keep doing that. Okay. Fine. Maybe maybe I can do this. I didn’t die. And then he said, I want you to add a minute every week. And I thought death, death, pending death, going to die, going to be humiliating end of world.
Nancy Norbeck [00:05:13]:
But again, I was not going to embarrass myself in the gym. So I heard myself say, okay. I may have also said, I think you’re going to kill me, but I did say, okay. And then I was left with myself wondering how on earth I was going to add one solitary minute every week, because that solitary minute felt to me like saying I needed to climb Mount Everest by six o’clock that night. But then fortunately for me as a creativity coach, and I knew something about small steps and that part of my brain kicked in and I said, self, I know just what to do. And I did. Here’s what it was. I was in that gym pretty much every day, at least five or six days a week.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:02]:
What’s a minute divided by five or six days a week? Anywhere between ten and fifteen seconds a day. Could I add ten or fifteen seconds a day? I sure could. That didn’t seem very big at all. In fact, I was pretty sure that I would not notice an extra ten seconds a day. So that’s what I did. I added ten or fifteen seconds a day and I really barely noticed it. And before I knew what happened, I was rowing ten minutes, fifteen minutes, eventually half an hour, forty five minutes. And unexpectedly, I fell in love with the rowing machine.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:36]:
Now that is how you use small steps. And that is how small they need to be. And if you’re thinking that is ridiculously small, any idiot could do that. Yes. Yes. That is the point. Any idiot could do that is exactly how you know your step is small enough. If your step is bigger than that, it’s too big.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:58]:
Those tiny little steps add up over time and they add up a lot faster than the bigger steps. Ask me how I know. So as you think about your resolutions, if you want to do resolutions or any goal ever, think about keeping your expectations realistic, maybe even a little bit on the low side and think about how much you can break them into the smallest steps possible. So small that you would just have to be, you know, on life support, not to be able to do them. And I say that not to be dismissive, but to be realistic, that is how small they need to be. Because then your own brain will not get in your way because you will shrug them off and say, duh, of course I can do that. And that is the brain science of small steps. So here we are in January, go out, have a great year whether you do resolutions or not, and we’ll see where things go.
Nancy Norbeck [00:08:03]:
We’ll come back to this in January. Enjoy. If this episode resonated with you, or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at the spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage. It’s free, and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there, and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Nancy Norbeck [00:08:44]:
And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.