Jordan Peterson: How to Set Goals the Smart Way 

Uncle Jordan always makes me feel good about life. I love this man.

6:06 You need a goal, but we don't want to let your distance from the goal crush you. 6:15 Break the goal down into parts, so that you can move towards it and you have a fairly high probability of success.

1. Set the ideal aim. 2. Break it to simpler goals you can do right now to get you moving towards it. 3. Struggles are unique. Every people in their life has different set of struggles, which may affect their life path. 4. Who can you compare yourself the best? Yourself. Do it. 5. Incremental improvement helps to make it continuous.

"Incremental improvement is unstoppable." Beautifully true.

Use you as a control... Have daily incremental changes... Be a little bit better than you were yesterday... Well put

Summary: incremental improvement is unstoppable. Pareto distribution and the power of compound interest is amazing. Start small and shitty then build up. Those who have more get more, those who have nothing everything will be taken. You need a goal but do not let the distance from the goal crush you. So you need to differentiate it down and make the steps difficult enough to push you beyond where you are but also where you can do it. Break into smaller steps difficult but proximal. Aim high but compare yourself with yourself yesterday just try and make yourself a little bit better. Gets the ball rolling you get momentum and starts to compound. You’ll progress pretty rapidly. JBP sees this in people’s lives all the time.

"He who has a why can bear almost any how"

THANK YOU! for 1: taking the work to make Peterson's wisdom more accessible in the form of these shorter clips (to thousands of people) and 2: for always quoting the full video, so we can dive deeper in his lessons. WE APPRECIATE YOU!

I kid you not, the "be a tiny bit better than yourself yesterday" thing I was just telling myself that the other day, and now just hearing it again here is like .. wow, amazing

It's not just goals, it is strategy. As I told my own subscribers this week. I have known people who fail at everything they attempt. Repeatedly begin start ups that go under. Pursue visions that never materialize. Many times this isn't because the person is a loser--they just have bad strategy. They leap off the cliff with self belief, having no idea if there is water below or if they will land face first into the jagged rocks. They just think things will work out. Careful planning far in advance is the key. Where is the location of your business going to be? How many competitors are there? Is your degree marketable? Is it only marketable in the city and you want to live in a small town? People who don't think about these things are the ones who will continually think the universe is against them as they fail over and over. As the saying goes: the war is won before the battle even begins. Hope this helps someone out there--Charles.

“All we have to do is be better than ourselves, yesterday”. Beautiful.

I have just always loved how Jordan Peterson thinks and speaks. He brings in so many fundamental concepts and ties it in with humanity in ways I had never thought of. I enjoyed this!😊

this video was very useful and of course when you have such a figure like this man, you are motivated to get started right away. (Most people that clickes this video is because they want to improve their life). This doesn’t mean you will achieve your goal or that you will not find difficulties, YOU WILL. I’m very young and what I’ve found that has been working for me is that, after I already set my high goal, I would not focus on that as i’m working my way up, I would be present day by day, making slight adjustments to the things I was doing wrong yesterday. Example: reading a long 1200 page book. Is true that it can be painful to just think of finishing the book and even gettingstarted, but I trick my mind to actually get started by focusing on reading one page at least, maybe even one paragraph, this automatically cuts the long-time that you think in your head is ggoing to take to finish it, I enjoy it. This is what Jordan Peterson means. The other thing is once you achieved your goal… what did it teach you? Are you better person? How are you going to help others? We really have to appreciate those that are there along the way and that facilitate your opportunity to even have access to that book or whatever is that you are after. If your goal is to travel to china, make sure to be grateful for the pilot, the airplane company, and other members that helped you get to your destination. This was longer than expected but I’m really happy we have RU-vid for free to watch and learn from wise people like this man!!

His ability to maintain and articulate factual truth is a beautiful appreciated gift....thank you Dr P.

When this guy speaks gold comes out of his mouth

I really took away how when you're setting a goal - you make your next step attainable - but you also have to make the next step challenging enough to where you have to push yourself. Good stuff!

Wow. I've never heard the concept of goal-setting explained this way. Usually it's always about schedules and S.M.A.R.T. goals, which are great advice. But the words Peterson uses just somehow _inserts_ directly the knowledge needed to progress.

This man never ceases to inspire me. A good soul

Matthew McConnaughey's Academy award speech stolen from right there! "You see, every day, and every week, and every month, and every year of my life, my hero is always ten years away. I'm never going to be my hero. I'm not going to obtain that and that's fine with me because it keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing."

Clearly one of the best advices for goal setting. For anyone who wants to set goals, use his method and add just one thing. Try to set the goals specific, measurable, acchievable, reasonable and timebounded (SMART).

If the true inequality is not of diversity, but of competence, then the solution is to distibute the means of compentence, which is self-knowledge. That is perfectly congruent with Dr Peterson's public speaking in general, his Future Authoring Program more specifically, as well as my own project to democratize competence through coaching. Massive kudos!

Wow! This video is like a treasure chest! Once you find it, understand it, apply it, it will truly make your life better! I will start to apply this very important learning, Mr. Jordan. Amazing! 👍👍👍

*Burrito distribution*

Whenever I listen to a Peterson video, I just start cleaning my room without consciously thinking about it. Such an incredible influence.

Great 👍Would happily watch the whole lecture

It's refreshing to hear thought on issues that can't be boiled down to "X is bad, so what we need to do is Y and that will end X. or just think about stopping X because it's so very serious and urgent."

You really are one of the most well read orators and motivators for 10000s of people WHO REALLY WANT A GOOD LIFE. not the ones who think life is about constant pleasure

Dr JD is a gift to humanity

I love how he always gives credit to the people he’s learned from

Real practical advice based on fact. Thank you so much.

Thank you for sharing this snippet.

"...otherwise you'd droop around like a number ten lobster, you know, that's just not good..."

Its all in your mind- Set your goals close enough so you can see your own progress- Be you!! Only you know!! You can only use your mind to set your goals- Someone can't give you your own thoughts, dreams or in this case your goals!! Do the best you can do with only what you got and not what you haven't got- I believe in those people who did not make their goals- Get up and start again.

Ive prayed for something to happen thatd help me out with my problems years ago and we were all given Dr Peterson

Wonderful, useful insight.

It’s actually a distributional law. Called, pareto’s law, And it fits to any kind of supply and demand distributions far outside economics. Gets super interesting when you look at how it applies on social scales between men and women etc

I'm glad I watched this. Been in a serious rut for two weeks, I have goals but it looks like absolute torture to achieve and I always seem to return to square 1. I'll give this a try, I have done amazing stuff in my life but myself yesterday is a lot more relatable than myself years ago when I was a lot more hard working

Every human being needs to know this truth!

Damn, that really put my brain in a good place!

Peterson... You are a hero!

Like it best when JBP discusses his experience working in his clinical practice with women.

Thank you for sharing

Important sharing! Amazing experimentalist science-based argumentation

5:05 “i’m gonna make a real lateral move here.” ive never heard him say that or anything like that it was funny. i’m going to start saying it lmao

It’s a natural law 👏🏼👏🏻

Jesus this is such spot on wisdom.

incredibly intelligent person……Jordan Peterson is amazingly smart, i hope he keeps these youtube videos coming and sharing his knowledge with us. It’s great being a recipient on the other side of this, thank you so much.

Intersesting how Peterson considers the "Pareto" principle as a natural law!

Lastly, your reaction to difficulties determines your succes and your character. Today I was punched in the face really hard from behind playing soccer, a normal reaction would be to punch the guy back and get revenge, but instead, I managed to keep calm, stay in the floor while I let my mind cool off a little bit. Let life ‘punish or pay’ for his wrong act. You are not a coward by not punching him back, you are smarter and know which battles are worth your time. (Obviously there are limits to everything). The point is, if a coworker insults you or throws you an indirect intentional comment, instead of losing your patience, go to the bathroom and think twice. Life is hard enough already, you don’t need extra problems

Thx Dr. Peterson. I really needed that speech.

THANK YOU

Jordan Peterson is incredible

Great video

Good one.

Jordan Peterson for President!! 👏🏽

I often forget to compare myself to my past self. This leads to disorienting myself from my goals, and I am a worse person in every metric when I forget to do so. This video is exceptional advice. I will follow it daily. Thank you

Bravo!

6:27 - how to achieve a goal

Absolutely true!!! Lovely as well! :-)

Excellent

Thanks

The add for this video was so no expected! Anyways... Go JBP

So, you're saying I'm a lobster?

This is the exact comparison I made with myself (with Elon Musk). So, this is super relevant to me.

7:58 So who should compare yourself to? (Points to someone in audience) You! (who did he point at and how can we compare ourselves to them???)

Pareto distribution in action: 1500 Likes vs. 33 Dislikes

Every one needs to be educated like sir Peterson if we want to get rid of a bit ridiculousness in society.

There will always be someone out there who is better at it then you are what you choose to do with it is up to you. :)

I wouldn't say that he found a satisfying solution to the problem of keeping the benefit of a high ideal without the soul-crushing judgment from it.

yeah that was great

10 mins video summary is present in the comments. Which hardly takes 2 min. Still I'll watch the video 🤝

💙💙💙💙 thank u

What Peterson is referring to with square root doing half is not the Pareto distribution, it’s prices law

I love it when he tells us about the lobster :3

7:26 Stop comparing yourself to other people [because] 7:56 you don't know all the details of their life 8:17 Make today some tiny increment better than yesterday

4:02-4:10 OMG Jordan Peterson is Alan Watts REINCARNATED.

The perato distribution also apply to the number of people listening to this that will actually apply this information that’s why there’s no cure for inequality because everyone is different and everyone makes different choices because everyone has there own emotions

Goals are not goals if you don't take action- Don't wait until that date on your calendar to make and stick to those goals- Don't set them if your not going to do them- Those long term goals you shouldn't even worry about until you get close enough to it- Get up get your shoes on and get to work-

thanks，

OK, that's interesting, but I have some follow-up questions: If 3 out of 10 employees do most of the work and 100 out of 10,000 do most of the work, then does this say more about each one of the 10,000 (or 10) employees or does this say more about the opportunity distribution? After all, the qualities that enable those more productive humans are normally-distributed. And of course, does it mean that 9,900 employees should really be fired? Or, what does it mean, really?

Set big unreasonable long term goals and take small daily steps towards them

Chapter 4, man

Physicis call it the "power law". th size of stars and Income distribution in the US both follow the power law.

80/20 pareto principle , pareto distribution and , matthew principle . Means there are always going to be around us , so we cannot compare ourselevs to others or succesful people because then you then have nothing to aim at and move towards it ? we need a ideal to aim at , but not a ideal which is too distant from oursleves because that makes it dificult to move towards it and take action . [ an ideal is always a judge ] benefit of having an ideal + also not letting the distant from the goal{ideal} to crush you = make a big goal goal , then break it into actionable steps and make the coming step a little hard that it compeles improvment in you but not that much harder that you lack motivation to do it . you cannot compare yourself to others because the details of your life are different and you don’t know in detail about thier life. the best person to compare to is you yourself yesterday [ it make you able to start and get the ball rolling ], goal is to make some tiny increment better than yesterday , learn and implement something new daily or do something extra daily , or break your limits daily . incremental improvment is incredible , it Compounds , it start to generate pareto distribution consequences

9:36 "He who has a Why can bare almost any amount of How" F. Nietzsche

In the end he said "This is chapter 4". From which book is he talking about - anyone knows?

Great book on this principle is James Clear’s “ Atomic Habits” Get 1 percent better each day and truly change your life!

Stopniowe zamiany uczą. Dla celu w celu uzyskania etc...

It's very hard to stick to goals you've set for yourself. I've made in my eyes fantastic weight lost progress this year but my progress has slowed drastically and at times even reversing because my outdoor job isn't nearly as strenuous during the fall months which I have attributed much of my weight loss, but also my cheat day(s) get really out of hand at times. Monday morning my weight is completely shot up on the scale and it takes all week to get back down, but I keep rewarding myself for little to no progress each week and feel bad about it afterwards. I've gotten to my goal weight of 200 lbs but was disappointed to find out that even dropping 75 lbs wasn't enough to look the way I wanted. I've gotten to 198 but I'm currently 214 as of writing this, and it's really discouraging. I can manage to maybe get back down to 205 by Friday but I know I'm just gonna gorge myself on pizza and ice cream...

This sounds like the Objectives and Key Results framework.

summary: Have ambitious goals to keep your self busy. little steps goes a long way day by day...

Great speech! I love Peterson and everything... BUT... Isn't that Price’s law instead of Pareto distribution?

What book is this talk from? He mentions "Chapter 4"...

This lobster is going to watch this video every day.

Profit is the cost of productivity

Wow

The man talked about in the beginning is ask yourself’s grandfather

Babysteps! :D

Is he referring to the book "12 rules of life", or some other book?

Isn't Peterson mixing up Pareto (20/80) and Price's Law (the square root of)?