I learned about goal setting when I was a young teenager. My grades weren’t the best, so my mom got me this program called Where’s There’s a Will, There’s an A.

Part of the program taught how to set goals in school. Did it work for you? It kind of worked. My GPA actually went up at least enough to consider it a success.

What it did do was open me up to a world where setting goals was everything. I became obsessed with setting goals in all areas of life. I also fell down the rabbit hole of self-help programs. For decades to follow, I read a ton. From Tony Robbins to Deepak Chopra to Wayne Dyer, I gobbled up books and programs, desperate to find any and all ways to better myself.

Then came The Secret. And yes, I drank the Kool-Aid. I drowned in it.

From my tone, you might guess that I am not a fan of any of these folks, or any of their ideas. Well, it’s more complicated than that.

I’ve been through a lot of phases. One of them was to completely reject, with extreme prejudice, any and all self-help ideology. But, that was a phase. My feelings toward it have shifted. I don’t read those books, nor do I subscribe to the ideas pushed by these folks. Yet, I don’t hate them. Nor do I judge anyone for following them. Heck, if their stuff helps you live a better life and be a better person, who am I to tell you otherwise?

If you are what I once was, an avid reader of any new self-help work, then you’re probably about to check out. That’s OK. I’m not here to bash anyone. I am here to share a different perspective.

George Carlin was not wrong though. There is no self-help.

Let me begin by saying that if you’re struggling with mental health issues, then think about getting professional help. My biggest gripe is that most of these so-called self-help coaches are not qualified in the least to help you with whatever emotional challenges you’re facing. They’re salespeople pushing product. Did you notice they’re all using the same sales pitch?

“I was like you. Living in my apartment, fat, lonely, and broke. Then one day, I found the solution, and I want to share it with you, for a price.” If you’re always buying the next book, the next program, ask yourself why. Didn’t you get everything you needed from the first book? Didn’t the first program help?

Look, for most of my adult life, I was searching for the next book, too. I once went to a seminar for one of these self-help guru types. I won’t mention which one, but let’s say it’s one of the big names. It wasn’t cheap, even though I was in the cheap seats.

Yes, I left there feeling very motivated. But, having played sports as a kid, I know that motivation is brief, like a quick shot of adrenaline. To achieve great things in life, we need discipline, desire, and patience. I can motivate myself, but that won’t last. It’s not my ultimate goal.

One of the things that really bothered me about the experience at this particular seminar was the sales pitch. During the many breaks we got to take (the event lasted two and a half days), there were endless pitches to sell products. The one that really got me was their push to sell the other seminars, the longer ones that cost a small fortune.

Let me get this straight, I spent a lot to come to this seminar to better my life. But, if I want to really change my life, I need to go to the next one that is bigger and more expensive? By the way, there were four tiers of seminars, with one of them being a week-long event costing almost twenty thousand dollars.

Be honest, again, short of dealing with a serious mental health issue, should making your life better cost that much? Think about it for a second. What exactly are these folks teaching you that you can’t figure out for free or on your own?

You can go online right now and find out what all of these books, programs, and seminars teach because people are posting their experiences for free. Also, AI can summarize a bunch of it in far less time.

All I’m saying is save your money. If you want to find a way to make your life better, you are already halfway there. Do you want to be healthier? You know that it requires a healthy diet, good sleep, and regular exercise. There. I saved you a bunch of money. Also, they’re just gonna pitch you a bunch of health products that you don’t need. Do you want to make more money? A better question is, how are you with money? Learn how to save. Pay off your debts as fast as possible. Don’t buy a bunch of dumb stuff, like their programs. Do you want to make your dreams come true? Well, what are those dreams? What are you doing to make them manifest? I have always wanted to be a published author. Do I need their programs to teach me anything? No. I know that I need to write every day. I need to send my ideas to agents. I have to face rejection. Do that until I make it.

Something I’ve learned in my fifty-plus years of life is two things: one, we’re setting the wrong goals; two, we’re focused on outcome when we should be chasing experience.

Think about that thing they teach in The Secret, setting up a vision board. When I was deep into The Secret, I also created a vision board. I placed images of all the things I wanted, like a big house, nice cars, perfect health, lots of wealth, perfect relationships, to travel the world, and a bunch of other stuff.

It didn’t take long before I noticed something, actually two things. My vision board looked a lot like everyone else’s. Also, my vision board was a dumping ground for my ego. Nothing on that board spoke to me. It didn’t motivate me.

Let me just say that what I’m about to share isn’t the end-all, be all almighty wisdom that you need to follow. This is just my take on goals and how I approach my desires in life. You have to find your own path. Dare yourself not to listen to those folks and find your own path.

One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies was when Neo (Keanu Reeves) meets the Oracle (The Matrix). She points to a wooden plaque above the kitchen door that reads. “Temet Nosce,” which is Latin for “know thyself”.

If I had one mantra in life, it would be that. Whenever I’m feeling lost or just a little discombobulated, I ask myself the question, Who am I? When I can answer that, then all is right as rain.

I don’t make vision boards anymore, but if I were to, I would start with one thing. In the middle of the board, write the words Temet Nosce, followed by the question, Who Am I?

There’s nothing wrong with wanting stuff. The problem I see, and I struggled with, was thinking that having all that stuff was going to make you happy. I know you know, on a deeper level, that the material is only going to get you so far.

What I’ve learned after all these years, when I set goals, I chase experiences, not things.

Here’s what I mean. For years, I had the goal of being an author, not just any author. Oh no. I wanted to be a best-selling author, making millions and having the admiration of millions. I wanted my name up there with some of the world’s biggest literary minds.

Whoa, that’s a lot of ego right there.

That kind of success won’t come from setting goals, dreaming of success, and visualizing it on a vision board. Nope. A lot of that is straight-up luck.

What I learned from years of doing the same stupid thing was the fact that visualizing and daydreaming will NOT get you anywhere near your goals. Most of life is having the goal, daring to chase it, and persevering with the patience needed to achieve it WITHOUT any guarantee of success.

I actually came up with an equation for success. (Humor me.)

D is Dream. Add that to B, or Belief. You have to have a goal, or a dream, and you must believe that it’s possible. Then multiply that sum by W, or work multiplied by T or time. All of that is divided by X, and then you get Success with a question mark.

What’s X? Yeah, you see, that’s the thing. X is the unknown variable. Some people call it divine intervention; others may call it luck. Either one is right. It’s the thing YOU have NO control over. No amount of dreaming, visualizing, or vision-boarding will change the X.

Also, what is the question mark behind Success? Earlier I said there’s no guarantee that having a goal, believing in it, working hard, and being patient will ever guarantee you will succeed.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

Years ago, I was on assignment as a reporter to cover a story about baseball tryouts. It was the Minnesota Twins’ official tryout in Fort Myers, Florida. Long story short, professional teams from time to time will hold an open tryout. Basically, anyone can go out and try to prove that they may have the potential to one day be a professional baseball player. A couple of hundred young men, mostly between the ages of 19 and 23, showed up to try and take a shot, perhaps their last shot, and fulfill their dream. I met a young man in the parking lot who was gathering his equipment from the car with help from his mother. We struck up a conversation, I told him I was a reporter doing a story, and he told me a lot about himself. He was currently going to community college part-time while working. In between all of that, he was training to stay in the best shape he could and practicing his fielding and hitting.

When the tryouts began, all of the athletes had to do sprints and were timed. Basically, if you came in over a certain time, you were pretty much done. Then they divide all the players into the positions. Pitchers and catchers went to one field, outfielders went to another field, and infielders went to a separate field. The coaches ran drills and every player got at least a half a dozen or so tries to show that they had the ability to play this game at a very high level. One thing that stood out for me was the fact that you only had a half a dozen or so tries, and if you were not on your game that day, if for whatever reason, you just didn’t feel confident enough, your shot was pretty much shot.

The young man I spoke to told me that his strength was hitting. He said, if they can just see my power, I think I have a chance. Later that afternoon, I stood behind the fence and watched that young man take about a dozen attempts at hitting some pitches. One of them actually went pretty far, but none of them went over the fence. That day was just not his day. When the tryouts were over, the coaches called up 22 of the more than 200 who showed up. The young man I had spoken to was not on the list of the 22 chosen. I followed him to his car and asked him about the experience. Of course, he was disappointed, but his mother said “You just have to keep working and be patient.”

I have never seen that young man in Major League Baseball. It almost never happens that someone will go through one of these open tryouts and eventually work their way up through the minor league system to get to the big leagues. That young man had a dream, because he told me he did, to become a major-league baseball player. He believed in himself. From the looks of him, I can tell that he was working hard to stay in the best shape possible, and from his mechanics on the field, he was certainly practicing hard to stay on top of his abilities. But here’s the thing: the X eventually becomes part of the equation. As hard as he tried, on that particular day, he just could not connect with the ball the way he usually does. Even if he did, what if the scouts just weren’t convinced? They are human, which means they have bias. What is X in this equation? It doesn’t matter. As hard as we try, we are not in control of everything.

Did he fail by not making it to the big leagues? I don’t know where he is today, but I’ll take a gander at the idea that perhaps he found another path, and along that path, he found happiness. I’ll refer to the character of Archie “Moonlight” Graham from Field of Dreams. Remember how his character had to step off the field to save a little girl’s life, but was reminded that if he did, he would never be able to return to his dream of being a baseball player? He happily took that step because he had no regrets about the life he had lived. Please watch that movie because it’s worth it.

You see, you can have dreams, and you can believe in them, and you can work really hard over a long period of time, but there is no guarantee that you will achieve everything you want. And truth be told, your life will actually be better for it. Our egos can be very useful in our lives, but they can also be an incredible hindrance to our happiness.

I know you might be saying, so does that mean that I shouldn’t have goals if there’s no guarantee that I could be successful? That’s not at all what I’m saying. I think we should have goals, and we should strive to be the best we can be. What I am saying is we are chasing the wrong goals more often than not. We’re letting our ego take the steering wheel instead of our soul.

I said earlier that I’m no longer chasing things, but instead I’m chasing experiences. Let me elaborate.

About 10 years ago, my grandparents were in their final year. They were living in a nursing facility because my grandmother had Alzheimer’s, and my grandfather was unable to do much of anything at that point. Each was in their early 90s. I tried to visit them as often as possible, but there were never any conversations. It was just a lot of me sitting there and watching them as they slept. The last visit that I made got me thinking about a lot of things. I thought about my grandfather, who was a very successful man all of his life. He was a ranked officer in the United States Army, with a doctorate from MIT, and a successful career as an engineer. His family was always well taken care of. He was also someone who was well respected in his field and in the community. But here he was in the final months of his life, and where was all of that achievement, especially all of the things that he had accumulated?

At the end of his life, my grandfather only had some clothes in a closet, his toiletries, and photos that my mom had placed in different parts of the room of every member of the family. All he had left were his memories.

That hit me like a Mac truck on a rainy night on a lonely road. We spend our lives trying to achieve as much as possible and accumulate as many things as we can. But in the end, what happens to all of that stuff? Unless you think you’re an Egyptian pharaoh and you can bury it with you, it’s not going to go anywhere except perhaps the trash or somebody else’s house. What I learned from that moment was the fact that the most important thing we have is our memories. Because when you are in those final moments and you could barely move or barely speak, but your mind is still operating at full capacity, what will you have except a lot of memories of the life you live?

Ever since that day, all I keep asking myself is, have I lived the best life possible? Do I have enough memories to enjoy when that’s all I’ll be able to do?

Chase experiences, not things. Things come and go. Experiences, memories, they are truly eternal.