Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Welcome to the Happy Stack Podcast, where we explore the science and strategies behind creating a happier, more fulfilling life. I'm Teriann Richards and I partner with organizations to address the root causes of burnout, disengagement, and stress, equipping leaders and teams with the tools they need to thrive, both organizationally and personally. Each episode we dive into practical habits, insights, and strategies to help high performers like you level up from the inside out. Let's get stacking.
[00:00:33] All right. I want to start with a belief that guides a lot of how I live my life and how I work with the people that I work with. I believe you should create goals that stretch you. Not just goals that look good on paper or make you look, you know, quote unquote successful. Not the ones that are grabbing everyone else's approval. Not the goals that help you stay, you know, comfortably competent, goals that stretch you, like, fricking stretch you into the next version of you. Because stretch goals don't just change your outcomes, they change who you become. And the data backs this up. But before I go all science, I want to normalize something.
[00:01:21] Stretch goals are actually supposed to be uncomfortable by design. If your goals do not make you nervous, even just a little, they're probably not growth goals. They're probably maintaining or maintenance goals. And let's be clear, like, maintenance has its place, maintaining has its place. But growth requires friction. And this year, like 2026, I chose goals that were going to stretch me in so many different ways, right? I stepped in or onto the TEDx stage, something I dreamed about for years, but avoid it because it required memorization and a focus and a precision and a vulnerability in a way that I couldn't improvise my way through, which is one of my strengths. I signed up for, or I should say I'm signing up for guitar lessons with the intention. My goal is to do an open mic night at the end of this year. Not because I'm trying to be a musician or anything like that, but because singing publicly exposes a part of me that I can't intextualize. Like, I can't do it intellectually. I gotta go into my soul. And I've also recently applied to do spoken word poetry. So not a keynote speaker, not as an expert, but as a human telling the truth in an embodied way.
[00:02:44] None of these goals are about productivity or optimization. They're about capacity. And that's where the science comes in. So I want to talk about what happens in the brain when you set a goal that genuinely stretches you. When you pursue something just on the other side of your current comfort zone. Your brain enters what psychologists call the zone as proximal development. It's the sweet spot where challenge is just high enough to demand growth, but not so high that your nervous system shuts it down. So in this zone, you get accelerated learning, you build confidence faster, your identity expands, neuroplasticity increases.
[00:03:35] And in contrast, when goals are too, too simple, too easy, the brain stays unchanged. It stays efficient, but unchanged. So you might execute, you may act, you might perform, but you don't grow and evolve. So stretch goals activate dopamine in a different way. So not that quick hit of dopamine, of achievement that we're also excited about, but the anticipatory dopamine that's tied to effort and persistence and progress and meaning. This is where grit is built. And this is why working towards a challenging goal often feels a lot more energizing than simply achieving something that's easy. It's the pursuit of it that becomes the reward, if you will. And so the distinction here that I find a lot of folks miss is that confidence, it doesn't come from success. It comes from evidence. Evidence that you can stick it through when it's awkward and it's hard, that you can tolerate discomfort, Evidence that you can fail and get back up and remain intact. Stretch goals generate evidence. And it's not because every time you do it, you succeed.
[00:05:01] It's because you show up and you remind your system, your brain, your nervous system, that I can do hard things, I can be stretched, I can stay when it's awkward.
[00:05:13] And, you know, I think about when I prepared for my TEDx, there were moments that I was like, what in tarnation are you doing? Like, why am I putting myself through this? Because memorization's not really a skill of mine, right? It's. Well, I mean, I guess I could say it wasn't a skill of mine. Although I learned pretty darn quickly that I actually can memorize stuff. But there were moments where I thought, I'm not built for this format. Like, this is so outside of my comfort zone. And so there was a lot of self doubt, it was super loud. But every single time I practiced, it added data, it added evidence that I could memorize that I could be uncomfortable and I could sit in that discomfort and that I can learn a new way of speaking and presenting and that I don't have to be perfect, right? And that's how confidence is built. And that kind of confidence transfers once your nervous system learns it can Survive the stretch, it stops panicking at growth, it stops sabotaging your growth. And so why do so many people not do this? Right? It's not lack of ambition, it's not laziness, it's identity protection. And I speak about this in my TEDx talk, right. Stretch goals threaten who you think you are. If you have built an identity around being competent, stretching outside of that means risking looking like a beginner. If you've built an identity around being articulate, stretching might mean you're gonna stumble around your words a few times. Or if you've built an identity around control, it might mean that stretching introduces uncertainty. And so instead, people very regularly set goals that keep their identity, whatever the identity is that you have then taken on, it keeps it intact. And so on the outside looking in, you may look at those individuals and say, wow, they're super ambitious. But if they were to be honest with themselves, if you were to be honest with yourself, it might actually be the opposite. You might just be playing it safe. And so the reality here is that goals that only protect your identity will show, slowly shrink your life. And so how does that tie to happiness? Well, research consistently shows that meaning, not comfort, meaning is the strongest predictor of long term fulfillment. And meaning comes from growth, it comes from contribution, it comes from self expression. It doesn't come from the easy stuff. Stretch goals do something important for happiness because they expand your sense of self. They remind you that there's still more to be done, that you can still continue to become, that you're not done here. And this is so important as we age. I don't like saying it that way as we mature, because novelty, challenge and learning are linked to higher life satisfaction, better emotional regulation, lower rates of depression, lower cognitive decline. So stretching literally keeps you alive internally. And I want to be clear, I don't pursue all of the stretch goals to prove anything.
[00:08:32] I pursue them to stay honest with me, right? The moment I stop stretching, I start hiding behind my complacency and my current competency. Right? The TEDx talk stretched my discipline. Guitar lessons will stretch. Actually, I should say guitar lessons. And then the subsequent open mic that I'm going to do will stretch my vulnerability. Spoken word stretches my emotional exposure. Each one works a different muscle and that's intentional because growth, no matter how we look at it, is not one one dimensional. And you know this, like, you can be brave in one aspect of your life and you can be avoidant in another aspect, right? Like you could be strong in leadership and really shy, timid Avoidant in innovation or creativity, confident in one room, silent in another. Stretch goals reveal where life still wants you to grow into the next version of you. And when you think about stretching, there's this discomfort that comes with and there's also this feeling about pressure. But stretch goals are not meant to add pressure to our life. They're more about creating voluntary discomfort. Like you're actually leaning into the muscle of discomfort. But there is a way to do it that is sustainable, right? So first and foremost, stretch in your identity, not your workload. So a stretch goal challenges who you are being, who are you are becoming, not how much you're doing. We're not trying to put more into our capacity. So think about it like this. So when I think of like my TEDx talk, or wanting to do open mic public expression, or learning a new skill like memorization, getting up and sharing your voice, maybe you're pretty quiet in boardrooms, but maybe, you know, you don't speak up as much in the workplace. Sharing your voice and your opinion is stretching that identity, but it's not adding all this other workload, right? So being able to walk into a room and allow to be seen differently. Second is choose goals with process based success.
[00:10:51] So if success only is dependent on the outcome, a lot of times that's where like that fear stuff starts to come up. So rather than defining success as some outcome over here, define it as being consistent by practicing, by showing up and playing all out, like participating. What that does is it allows you to keep your nervous system, which is the thing that throws a lot of us off, regulated. So, you know, if the outcome you want, you know, for in terms of health is maybe a pant size or a certain number on the scale, that's an outcome. And I get it from a measurement tool. It matters potentially. But maybe really what you want to be doing is defining success on a weekly basis as showing up. So maybe it is going to the gym five days a week or practicing rest when your body says it needs it, or inputting your calories into my fitness pal. Right? And so the goals are process based versus outcome based. Number three, expect awkwardness and don't interpret it as a mistake or failure. So I think when we're going after those stretch goals, there's a whole lot of awkwardness, There's a whole lot of like, I don't know what I'm doing, this is very awkward and discomfort, it's breathing down my back.
[00:12:18] And so embrace the fact that you're learning. Growth kind of feels clumsy. It's not an easy like it's not a straight hill. It's it's bumpy and you sometimes take a couple steps back. Sometimes you need to stop for rest. And so growth is awkward and just accept and expect that that's what it's going to be. Number four, Let the goal that you create for yourself, that stretch goal, change you, but not define you. The point was never the stage or the book or or the mic or the promotion or the result or fill in the blank. The point is who you become on the way, all of those parts of you that start to upgrade because you were willing to lean into the awkwardness of a stretch goal safe goals ensure you stay in maintenance mode. And you know there is a time and a season for that, but not an always. Stretch goals help you to to expand and to grow and to learn. And the expansion doesn't just happen at the end game. It's something that happens all along, but especially shows up in the moments where you want to quit, but you don't.
[00:13:35] This is not me challenging you to try to go out and stretch in all areas of your life, at all times, all at once. That is not the game here. The game is if there is any area of your life where you could just lean into some uncomfortable stretching, you will give yourself the opportunity to witness the beauty of everything that you can become. So my challenge is just choose one stretch goal for the next 90 days that makes you feel a little uncomfortable, a little exposed, if you will, a little nervous, but also like a little alive, a little excited. And you're not doing this for anyone else. You're not doing this for the accolades. You're not doing it to impress anyone. But you're doing it to build the muscle, but also to remind yourself that there still is growth in front of you, regardless of your age, regardless of everything you've accomplished, and also everything you failed at. Because each and every one of us have this opportunity to continue to grow. And I think at some point some of us just think there's nothing left. And I'm here to tell you that there's a heck of a lot of cool things that you could start to stretch and yourself into and witness the beauty of who you become along the journey of awkwardness.
[00:14:51] I wish you the best of weeks. Have an amazing day, folks.
[00:14:56] Hey, thanks for listening to the Happy Stack podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could use a little extra happiness in their life. Let's keep stacking those wins together. See you next time.
