Episode 87: The Power of Setting Meaningful Goals in Life and Business

What’s a game without keeping score? As Avram and Rachel found out in the latest episode of the Babies and Business Podcast, it’s not all that fun or fulfilling. While playing a casual game of Qwirkle without keeping track of points, they realized something deeper: without a goal, every move felt aimless, just like life without direction.

Goals give us something to strive for, whether it’s running a marathon, building a business, or simply spending more time with loved ones. When you set meaningful goals, even your everyday decisions gain purpose and impact.

Catch more insights on goal setting and personal growth with Avram and Rachel over at the Babies and Business Podcast. Tune in now!

 

Show Notes

Key Highlights from this Episode:

• How Rachel reconnected with her competitive side—and why that’s not a bad thing

• Avram’s half-marathon journey and how having a clear finish line gave every workout purpose

• The trap of chasing “should” goals that don’t actually align with who you are

• A conversation on why some people feel stuck—and how the lack of meaningful goals plays a part

• The way goal-setting shifted their business momentum (especially during seasons of burnout)

• How writing down personal goals brought clarity, energy, and better decisions

• Why they aim to be done with work by 1–2 PM—and how that goal helps them stay present with their kids

• The connection between tracking progress and building self-trust

Mentioned Episodes

• Babies and Business EP 28 – How to Turn Goals into a Strategic Plan: An Inside Look
• Babies and Business EP 66 – Rethinking New Year Goals
• Babies and Business EP 80 – Real vs Aspirational Goals: What’s the Difference?

Episode Transcription

Below you will find a transcript of this entire podcast episode. Enjoy!

Avram: We were gonna record this podcast while we were headed to the pool today. There was no chance in heck that was gonna happen.

Rachel: Yeah, that’s too much conversation on the way down. And we’re with our kids, so we wanna make sure that we’re with them anyway.

Avram: Yeah, we, uh, we have typically a backlog with recorded podcasts. And today we gotta make sure we get this one over to the team so that when they come in that there’s stuff for them to work on. And, uh, yeah, so like Rachel said, not gonna work on the walk, but they’re in bed now and we have a fun little story for you, something happened last night. Simple thing give us a message for you today.

Rachel: But it was pretty profound. You know, you say simple, but I think that the lesson that we learned was pretty profound. We played this game, one of our very favorite games, Qwirkle. And if you don’t know this game. It is like, uh, what is that game?

Avram: Scrabble.

Rachel: Scrabble. Instead of with letters, it’s with colors and shapes.

So you can combine things, you make lines. Within the rules, you make different combinations that work and then you get lots of points and you score it and you see who wins by the end of the game, but you wanna get the most points.

Avram: Yeah. Rachel and I have been pretty competitive with this in the past.

Rachel: Oh, I trounce Avram because I count cards.

Avram: So she counts tiles in this game. And so she knows that like, what’s in my hand, what she’s sandbagging, all this kind of stuff to block out.

And vice versa. Right. I dish it too. Um, but Rachel typically wins this game

Rachel: But it’s a really chill game, even though we’re competitive with it and we keep points, all the things around the game. It’s such a fun, enjoyable game because it’s never the same.

Avram: Yeah, we played this like dozens of times on the first camping trip that we ever did, which was you know, like seven years

Rachel: Yeah, it was like July, middle of the year.

Avram: We ended up having to take our dog with us and we didn’t realize the implications that that would have on our trip. Like there were, there were national parks that we couldn’t go into ’cause we had the dog.

Rachel: And we wanted to go hiking, but she can’t handle really long hikes.

Avram: We couldn’t do that. So we, we spent a lot of time on that, like six day camping trip, hanging out in, in camp, playing Qwirkle.

Rachel: That was one of the games that we had brought brand new game to us, but we have such great memories around it.

Avram: So last night we’d had a pretty long day with the boys

Rachel: Yep.

Avram: And Rachel’s like, I just want to play this game after they go to bed.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: So we sit down and she’s like,

Rachel: and you asked the question. Okay, so are, are you gonna keep track of your points on your phone or you know, are we gonna

Avram: are we gonna,

Rachel: track separately? How do we do this? We normally get a piece of paper and then we’ll, you know, do the little tick marks and that’s how we track it.

Avram: And this time she was like,

Rachel: and I was like, eh, no. Let’s just not track it. Let’s just play because the trouble of finding paper in this house where I try to hide it from my toddler.

Avram: And pens.

Rachel: And pens, oh my gosh. Pens.

Avram: Pens are dangerous.

Rachel: He knows how to click them on and off. Now on is the most important thing that he knows.

Avram: Yeah.

Rachel: But anyway, the trouble of finding paper and pen was just not worth it to me. So I just thought, eh, let’s just, let’s just play and it’s gonna be fun.

Avram: Yeah.

Rachel: And indeed it was fun.

Avram: It was fun.

Rachel: but we learned something about well, life.

Avram: Life. We’re laying the tiles down and we were remarking about how the way that they were getting laid down we’re like, we’d probably never lay them down like this in a
real game.

Rachel: Well, like two, one tile would go down, or two tiles would go down, and there was no effort to get a Qwirkle, which gives you 12 points if you are the last person or if you were the person to complete a line of six, regardless of how the combinations work, if you complete that, you get 12 points, very few Qwirkle scored in that game, like three.

Avram: Right.

Rachel: And normally that’s really what you’re working towards.

Avram: Yes.

Rachel: And you want to make sure when you place tiles, if you place two tiles and you get like 10 points, that’s a really great score. And there are ways to combine it to get that. But what we found with not tracking the points, it was aimless.

Avram: The whole game.

Rachel: Yes. It was fun. It was just kind of like a mindless, Hey, we’re together. We’re, we’re more talking and chatting, chatting than we are playing a game.

Avram: And we realized that not only did it completely change the game, but but every move and the the reason for even playing it had no meaning.

Rachel: It really did. I found myself thinking, hmm, I mean, I did get what I wanted. We’re not scoring the points, but we’re also, competition is great, and I have fooled myself in the past saying that I don’t like competition. That’s a lie. I do. And I think that I thrive in competition. Um, but it looked a certain way to me and I was made to feel like that wasn’t a good thing when I was growing up.

And I, I adopted that in my life and I realized that, you know, it doesn’t actually apply to me. I do like competition. And I like to know that I whooped you in that game.

Avram: Hey, now you’re telling everybody about it. Okay. And I don’t know how I feel about it yet. We were just chatting though after, like it’s interesting that when you don’t have an objective and you don’t have a goal in mind that things don’t have meaning.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: And when things don’t have meaning, you have no direction.

Your choices also have no meaning or less meaning because they’re not aimed in any particular direction.

Rachel: Right.

Avram: And you think a lot about how, I mean, reflect on any, you know, pick a person in your life that’s stuck. That person that’s stuck is stuck because they don’t have anything that they’re actively working towards.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: Or if they do it, it. It’s not congruent with who they are and where they want to go. So there is no meaning to it. Like I’ve picked goals before that were arbitrary or they were somebody else’s goals. We’ve talked about this in their podcasts.

Rachel: Oh, yeah.

Avram: And you, you pick them out and then you wonder why you’re not taking action.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: That goal doesn’t, doesn’t do anything for you.

Rachel: Well, and, and you know, we’ve talked about the other thing it’s like, about goals is sometimes it’s not your own goal, it’s actually someone else’s goal. Maybe you saw it on, on some kind of social media platform and you think, oh, that’s a great goal that I should have.

Avram: Right

Rachel: You know, and anything that comes after should is probably not yours ’cause you like you know someone else is putting it on you when you really investigate. Uh, but yeah, about the game and life, just the, the parallels from not having, not, not keeping score on the game actually changed the, the actual game and how it was played and here we are after the game just talking about all the ways that it applies to life.

Avram: Yes. So we got that out of it. We were, we were also chatting about like like fitness in the gym.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: And so, yeah, I remember last year when I trained for my half marathon, the moment that I signed up for the race and I picked that goal, there was so much meaning behind every single class that I went to, to, to train between there and the event

Rachel: And then also you picked specific days that you were going to train on the flat ground, like not on a treadmill, so that you got some experience like that.

There was a lot of stuff.

Avram: Otherwise it’s like you’re just going to the gym day in, day out, and without a goal, it, it can feel monotonous. You could, you could get bored.

Rachel: Sure, but it can also feel like a checklist. Like, yay, I went to the gym, but you’re not really, you know, moving forward or changing what your body looks like, if that’s what you’re there for. Um, and for me, I noticed that me going to the gym, my journey has been just understanding that, that I’m so much more capable than I ever thought I was physically and pushing myself. So I recognized that when I was involved in some kind of sprint at the gym, like some kind of competition I think of, uh, transformation challenge that I had purpose and I also had goals that I wanted to meet and that I actually lifted heavier than I otherwise would, because I was challenging myself.

 We had done a body scan at the beginning and then a body scan at the end, and I was going to be able to see the results, and it was really cool to show myself what I was capable of because of tracking.

Avram: Yeah. Yeah. We think back frequently on two, two pivotal points in our business where we realized that we needed to reach certain income goals to give us the ability to, you know,

Rachel: It was something personal.

Avram: personal that, that mattered and it was like the moment that we wrote those things down, everything started to shift.

You know, we had been previously stuck for months or in some cases a year or more, and you choose that new goal and then suddenly you show up different and, and you’re making different decisions and choices because it’s so clear.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: Where you’re headed. Otherwise it’s like day in, day out just feels like the same grind.

You know, you wake up and you’re like, do I really want to go to work? Do I really wanna you know, do the things today. We felt like that. I think every business owner can relate to feeling like that going through seasons. And we’re, we’re entering another season right now. We’re gonna be chatting about that here in the next podcast or two.

An experience that we just recently went through that’s kind of, um, you know, upleveled our focus and direction. It’s given us a new goal, new purpose. We feel more connected to it and it’s bringing more meaning to our life and what we’re doing every day.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: We were out with the boys, uh, yesterday, uh, before playing the game.

And we were, we were remarking about how this is what we, this is what we like. This is, this is the point, this is the goal. This is why we want to be done with work every day by one, maybe two o’clock. And then we just get to come out and hang out with them at the park and play and.

Rachel: Well, and then when I’m playing with my boys, I’m not thinking about the things that need to be done and oh, my day ended sooner than I was able to get all of the things done that I wanted to do, that I know that I will be able to work and get the things done and that it, I don’t have to rush or be in a hurry, that I can really drop in and be present with my boys when I am not at work.

I can be present with my boys.

Avram: Yeah, yeah. Goals bring meaning to everything. Direction brings meaning to your life. I think if you’re stuck, it’s time to choose another goal. Something that means something to you. It could be as big or as small as you want. Sometimes the small ones are fun because you know you can knock ’em out and you can, you can get after it and be there in a couple weeks or a month.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: And it’s worthwhile.

Rachel: And it can be, and it can be something as simple as, you know, I wanna change my, my, my financial stuff. And it can be as simple as looking at what you’re spending your money on. Start keeping track of that. Get real with yourself. Where are you spending your money in places that you just don’t even question, you know, you can choose what that looks like, but, um, that could be a good first step.

Avram: Yeah.

Rachel: Maybe what you’re struggling with.

Avram: Yeah. I think that a goal that most people have and aspire to is a happy and fulfilled life, but haven’t given that any definition or real thought or put pen to paper on what that looks like. And you don’t have to figure it all out to start choosing a direction to move in. And then you start moving in that direction you find out real quick, do I, do I truly want this? I want more of this? How bad do I want this? But you don’t find it or discover it without choosing it. It’s really easy to spend days and days and days in your evenings just watching TV and then going to bed.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: Because you don’t have something else that’s that’s driving you. But when you pick the thing out, you find yourself moving towards like the greatest version of you.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: You gotta declare it first. That’s the fight to find clarity. You start taking steps and before you know it, you wake up and you’re like, wow, life’s great.

Rachel: Yep. Well, and then,

Avram: you gotta call your shot.

Rachel: yeah. Yeah. And you know, you get to get strategic about your life. You get to start, uh, keeping track, if you will, keeping points, score on the different things in your life that matter, and start measuring those things. What are you doing? What is the effort you’re putting forward forth to something that you say matters to you?

Are you actually putting forth any effort towards it or not? You know, does our effort and our money where we spend our time and where we spend our money, tells us what matters to us? So you could do simple stuff like looking at, okay, does my family really matter to me? Well, how much time do I put on the calendar for them?

 How much money do I set aside money for trips or whatever that looks like for you to spend with your family and those things, and, uh, get real with that.

Avram: Yeah, so we’re gonna have some show notes. You go to babiesandbiz.com/whatever this episode number is, you can type in the number. I think we’re at like 87, I don’t wanna misquote right now. We just kind of decided we wanna do this one today on the couch while the kids were sleeping. And so go check that out because we’re gonna link up some past podcasts one specifically Rachel just mentioned about your real priorities versus

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: Um, your aspirational ones. We’ve got some podcasts we’ve done a little over a year ago about strategy and goal setting and in tracking your progress. There’s a four part series that was really powerful. It’s one of our most listened to episodes.

Some of them are like most listened to of all time. Uh, and then anything else goal related? We’ll, we’ll stick ’em here in the show notes ’cause, ’cause goals pop up in our conversation a lot and let this one be the call to arms for you to get serious about some of them. Or, you know, especially if you’ve felt stuck in any particular area of your life, you have to declare something new and that will bring purpose and bring meaning to your everyday and we want that for you.

Rachel: Absolutely.

Avram: Because you deserve it.

Rachel: Yeah, you do.

Avram: You do. So with that being said, we’d just appreciate you for tuning in. Um, if you have something you’d like to hear about an upcoming podcast, you can email us hello@babiesandbiz.com. We read all those inquiries and questions.

Maybe we’ll feature your question soon if there’s a topic you’d like for us to explore. Uh, so with that, we’ll catch you on the next episode.

Rachel: Bye for now.