Talks to Motivate You Playlist (10/10): Why you should stop setting goals (yes, really) | Emmanuel Acho
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Hey everyone, you're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Thank you for listening to today's podcast playlist, 10 Talks to Motivate You. Today, we have dropped 10 talks from our archive onto the feed all at once. to motivate you to keep you going when things are hard to inspire you as the weather shifts to help kickstart that new project or idea or if things are feeling good for you right now just to offer a different perspective whatever type of motivation you might need we have a TED talk for that To wrap up, we are bringing you former NFL player, author, and TV sports analyst, Emmanuel Acho. In athletics, in business, in life, everyone seems to set goals.
Surprising though it may seem, that might not be the way to excel. In his 2023 talk, Emmanuel offers some thoughts on how to get better, push forward, and do more by explicitly not setting goals. It's coming up right after a short break.
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And now, our TED Talk of the day. I do not suppose to know everything. And those closest to me, they might say, I don't really know much at all. But one thing that I know to be true, beyond the shadow of a doubt, is this. The surest way to fail in life is to set a goal. Now, unfortunately, I found this out through excruciating pain, but hopefully in the next nine minutes, I can convince you, too, that this is true, without the pain, unless, of course, you consider listening to me painful. Okay. The year was 2011. I was seeking to become a multimillionaire by the age of 21. So how was I going to do this? It was simple. I was going to leave college at the University of Texas one year early. I was going to leave after my junior year and declare for the National Football League draft.
In order to do this, however, you have to submit your resume to the NFL. A resume in football, it is your highlight tapes from your years playing prior. So I submitted my football tape from my freshman, my sophomore and my junior year. The NFL sent me back a letter. It's simply read, Dear Emmanuel, you will not be drafted in the first three rounds. Excuse you? I won't be drafted in the first three rounds? So what did I do, TED audience? It's simple. I set a goal that day. But you know what they say about goal setting. You got to write it down, commit it to memory.
Why does Emmanuel Acho believe setting goals can hinder success?
So I highlighted the sheet of paper, Dear Emmanuel, you won't be drafted in the first three rounds, and I put it above my bed in my condo in Austin, Texas. Every morning I woke up, I looked at it. Dear Emmanuel, you won't be drafted in the first three rounds. Every night before I went to sleep, I looked at it. Dear Emmanuel, you won't be drafted in the first three rounds. I worked tirelessly my senior year in college with one goal in mind. be drafted in the first three rounds of the NFL draft. Those are the most prestigious rounds after all. 6 a.m. workouts in college, study hall, class, I'm doing it all with one goal in mind. Well, fast forward one year later. I'm at the NFL Combine. The NFL Combine, it is the job interview.
I'm in front of 32 billionaires, 32 of the richest men in America, if not the richest men in the world. They are the owners of every NFL team. I'm running the 40-yard dash. The 40-yard dash is one of the testing metrics you use at the NFL Combine. With millions of dollars on the line, the faster you run, the higher you get drafted. I take my mark. I proceed to run. I hear pop, pop, pop. I keep running. I think my heels are clicking. Pop, pop, pop. I clutch my quad, I fall to the ground.
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