In 2022, Harvard Business Review revealed a shocking statistic: 92% of people fail to achieve their goals because they skip a step that Elon Musk calls “resetting the matrix.”
Coach Tony Robbins told Forbes: “Goals are garbage. The secret is in how you package them.”
We are talking about the "3D rule": Distort, Destroy, Delight. What is it and why do motivational gurus hide it?
A Stanford study found that our brains sabotage goals that sound like "I want to be better."
Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman explains: "Abstractions don't activate the prefrontal cortex. You need destructive verbs." For example, instead of "lose 10 kg" - "break the couch I'm sitting on."
It sounds crazy, but an experiment from the University of Toronto proved that participants with “aggressive” wording achieved their goals 3 times more often.
Elon Musk's example confirms this. In 2008, when SpaceX was on the verge of collapse, he set a goal: "Blow up the rocket to save the company."
The talk was about a Falcon 1 test launch that attracted investors despite the explosion. “If your goal isn’t scary, you’re not dreaming, you’re complaining,” Musk said in Ashlee Vance’s biography.
Psychologist Jordan Peterson writes in his book 12 Rules for Life: “They choose goals that their mother will approve of, not those that will cause a storm in their soul.”
The story of Sophia Amaruah, an immigrant from Ghana, became an example: instead of “finding a stable job,” she set a goal “to humiliate everyone who laughed at my accent.” Five years later, Sophia is the owner of a chain of restaurants in New York.
Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb warns: “If the goal is based on revenge, success will not bring happiness.”
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard suggests adding a "fun bonus" to each goal, such as "breaking a couch and buying a plane ticket to Tokyo."
In 2023, blogger David Goggins launched the Killer Goal Challenge: 2,000 participants reformulated their dreams in an aggressive form. 48% achieved what they wanted, but 12% ended up in therapy due to burnout.
Your goals are not a plan, they are weapons. Who will you aim your sights at?