By kierandonaghy / January 11, 2026
Lesson Summary:
This Advanced (C1) to Proficient (C2) ESL video lesson plan is built around a thought-provoking short video titled I WAS WRONG – How I Set Goals. The lesson explores different ways of thinking about goals and how goals and systems work together to shape purpose and success. Learners develop key language skills through viewing, discussion and creative activities including quotation analysis, critical thinking tasks, roleplay and an in-depth article reading.
Learning Objectives:
• To introduce students to different ways of thinking about goals.
• To explore how goals and systems work together.
• To expand vocabulary related to goals, systems and purpose.
• To develop students’ viewing, listening and reading comprehension skills.
• To improve speaking skills through discussion and roleplay using new vocabulary.
• To develop students’ writing skills through creative tasks and use of new vocabulary.
• To improve students’ visual representing skills though multimodal composition homework tasks.
Lesson Activities:
• Activating prior knowledge about goals and systems.
• Discussing quotations related to goal-setting.
• Predicting and viewing a short video.
• Completing comprehension and analysis tasks.
• Reading and discussing an extended article.
• Writing reflective responses.
• Performing a structured roleplay.
Learner Type:
Advanced (C1) to Proficient (C2) mature teens and adults.
Language Focus:
• Vocabulary related to goals.
• Vocabulary related to systems and habits.
• Vocabulary related to purpose and success.
Benefits for Teachers:
- Save hours of preparation with a fully developed, flexible lesson plan
- Engage students through compelling stories and real-world themes such as emotional intelligence, character, values, empathy, personal development, identity, relationships, global issues and social issues
- Build classroom routines that integrate multimodal literacy naturally and progressively
- Foster more inclusive and differentiated learning by using varied modes of input
- Promote social-emotional learning (SEL)
- Rely on a trusted methodology backed by educational research and grounded in the theories of Vygotsky, Kress, Mayer and Krashen
Benefits for Learners:
- Develop communicative competence and confidence through integrated skill-building
- Expand vocabulary and improve listening and reading comprehension through repeated, meaningful exposure
- Think critically and creatively while exploring powerful social and emotional themes
- Strengthen emotional intelligence and intercultural awareness through affective engagement with multimodal texts
Watch the short video.
3:00 yeah with no schedules on nothing
3:03 scheduled on my calendar could be a goal
3:04 like it could be you can pick the goal
3:06 you want like any goal
3:08 is a valid goal if it's what matters to
3:10 you so if you just want to have a chill
3:11 life
3:12 yep frame that is a goal this is really
3:14 important it's like
3:15 technically traditionally we're supposed
3:16 to think of goals as specific
3:18 measurable achievable realistic time
3:19 boundaries and all that stuff but what
3:21 orchestra's saying is that we actually
3:22 don't have to think about him in that
3:24 way
3:24 a goal of having a peaceful life or
3:26 having an empty calendar or is this
3:27 like completely legit to have as a goal
3:30 three we all have goals even if we're
3:32 not articulating them
3:33 this was where august called me out on
3:35 my bs when i said to him that well
3:36 august i don't really think i've got any
3:38 goals
3:38 first of all i suspect i don't know you
3:40 that well but i suspect you have some
3:41 goals you just haven't articulated them
3:43 but instinctively there are certain
3:44 things you want
3:45 clearly you're a hard-working ambitious
3:47 person building interesting things
3:49 that doesn't happen randomly by accident
3:51 like whoops
3:52 i built a million plus youtube channel
3:54 how'd that happen
3:56 no you had some things you were reaching
3:58 for and so
4:00 it's helpful to be explicit and
4:02 intentional about them
4:03 i think i i don't believe you don't have
4:04 goals i i do believe you might not have
4:06 clarity on them but i don't believe that
4:08 they're not in you this was a really
4:09 good point like i could convince myself
4:10 that i didn't have goals but actually
4:12 it was probably a failure of my
4:14 imagination to actually articulate the
4:15 goals that i did have
4:16 four all our behavior is outcome
4:18 oriented so in philosophy there's a
4:20 concept called teleology
4:21 and basically it's the idea that every
4:23 human action is to create an end so like
4:25 you and i right now
4:26 we're both actually trying to create an
4:28 outcome we're having a conversation
4:30 which might be just the outcome is for
4:32 us to learn from each other
4:33 or it might be to produce this video
4:34 every human behavior is to produce an
4:36 end
4:36 in psychology it's called perspective
4:38 but basically perspective is the idea
4:40 that
4:40 the thing that makes us conscious human
4:42 beings is that we can
4:43 imagine a future and so for me when i
4:45 say that i don't really have any goals
4:47 for my youtube channel because i don't
4:48 care about the numbers i just want to
4:49 upload
4:50 one two or three videos a week ben hardy
4:53 is saying that that is actually a goal
4:54 itself
4:55 everything you're doing right now is in
4:56 my opinion to achieve goals even if
4:58 you're not admitting at their goals even
5:00 if you don't want to call them goals
5:01 you're getting up to produce youtube
5:02 videos you know and so to me those would
5:04 be called goals but what's
5:06 in my opinion more exciting about that
5:08 is the idea that you get to choose
5:10 the future that directs your present and
5:12 that's called living consciously
5:14 five be honest about what you want i get
5:16 the idea that goals can be limiting
5:19 but the idea is that everything you do
5:21 is to create an outcome anyways and so
5:22 why don't you just be honest about what
5:23 the outcome is that you want this is
5:25 what i want this is what i'm going for
5:27 it's okay if i don't i mean you can do
5:29 whatever you want psychologically to
5:30 make yourself
5:30 feel better if you either achieve it or
5:32 don't but the point is just to be honest
5:34 and blunt that
5:35 you know motivation is a lot more easily
5:38 created if you're clear about the
5:39 outcome you want and if you're explicit
5:40 about it
5:41 and flow is a lot easier if you're just
5:44 if you're just focused on one thing at a
5:45 time
5:45 i think the whole argument against goals
5:47 goes against human nature to be fully
5:49 honest with you one issue that i've
5:50 always had with goals is this niggling
5:52 feeling that if you set a goal
5:53 then you're just unhappy until you hit
5:55 it like my goal is to become a gymshark
5:57 athlete and so in a way i am
5:58 actively choosing to be slightly less
6:00 happy because of the fact that i'm not
6:01 yet a gymshark athlete but when i said
6:03 this to ben he again called me out on my
6:05 bs because this is totally wrong
6:06 six goals don't have to make you unhappy
6:09 my major goal is to
6:11 sell millions of copies of this book but
6:13 that does not make me unhappy in the
6:14 present
6:15 and actually dan sullivan has a antidote
6:19 for this as well he calls it measure the
6:20 gain not the gap and it's an ebook i
6:22 would recommend everyone read
6:23 it's free he gives it away but basically
6:25 he says rather than measuring yourself
6:26 against your ideal you measure yourself
6:28 against your former self you measure
6:30 yourself against where you were
6:31 so if you measured yourself against
6:33 where you were three months ago
6:34 you probably have made progress towards
6:36 whatever goal you've made and if you're
6:38 measuring yourself against your
6:39 former self rather than your future self
6:41 then you're always going to be
6:42 recognizing progress and you're always
6:44 going to be feeling good seven
6:45 goals give you purpose this is one of
6:47 the key ideas in man's search for
6:49 meaning which is a book written by dr
6:51 viktor frankl who was a
6:52 psychiatrist who was in the
6:54 concentration camps and survived and he
6:56 wrote about the experience of his life
6:58 and the life of his friends
6:59 in the concentration camps in world war
7:00 ii the thing that he figured out is that
7:02 if we don't have a purpose towards our
7:04 future like if we're not striving for
7:06 certain goals
7:07 then our present doesn't have any
7:08 meaning either he said that what man
7:10 needs is not a tensionless state but a
7:12 striving and struggling for a worthwhile
7:14 goal part three
Part 3 - Yin and Yang
7:16 yin and yang so after all that i
7:18 realized that i was wrong about goals
7:20 i used to think that if you set a goal
7:22 you're going to be unhappy in the
7:23 present and if you hit the goal then
7:24 whatevs and if you don't hit the goal
7:26 then you're going to be sad about it but
7:27 now i've realized that goals are
7:28 actually useful for all these different
7:29 reasons and it's really about the yin
7:31 and yang balance between
7:32 self-improvement and self-acceptance
7:34 like it's totally okay for me to be
7:36 fully satisfied with my life right now
7:38 which i am but at the same time having a
7:41 goal
7:41 of becoming a gymshark athlete or
7:43 whatever and this tension between these
7:44 two states of self-improvement and
7:46 self-acceptance
7:47 we don't have to resolve it and
7:48 apparently this is one of the key
7:50 differences between
7:51 eastern and western styles of thinking
7:53 like in the west we are very keen to
7:51 have a logical conclusion to every point
7:57 and this is how i definitely think where
7:58 it's like okay well how do i reconcile
8:00 this idea that on the one hand
8:02 goals are kind of legit but on the other
8:04 hand i want to be happy with where i am
8:06 and i used to think that i had to
8:07 resolve this conundrum if we think about
8:09 it more like yin and yang as like
8:10 apparently
8:11 eastern philosophers and eastern things
8:12 would think about it it's like on the
8:14 one hand you've got self-improvement
8:16 on the other hand you've got
8:17 self-acceptance and the two
8:19 can coexist in harmony and it's really
8:21 just about navigating a balance of the
8:23 two
8:23 rather than trying to solve the equation
8:26 and come to the bottom of it all so
8:27 moving forward i am definitely planning
8:29 to set goals for the new year in terms
8:30 of
8:31 having this self-improvement aspect so i
8:33 want to become a gymshark athlete
8:34 i want to train in emergency medicine
8:36 and maybe work abroad outside of the uk
8:38 i want to get married and have four kids
8:39 probably not this year but maybe at some
8:41 point but the point is that all of these
8:42 goals are just
8:43 directions like if i actually want to
8:45 hit them then yes the systems and the
8:47 habits are what is important
8:49 but if i don't have the goal then i
8:50 don't have a direction to go in in the
8:52 first place
8:52 in fact one of my goals for the new year
8:54 is to understand a lot more about how
8:56 computer science works now when i was
8:58 applying to university i was torn
8:59 between applying to medicine and
9:01 applying for computer science i went for
9:02 medicine in the end which was actually a
9:03 great decision and one that i don't
9:05 regret but
9:05 i still like computer science and i want
9:07 to kind of take it a bit more seriously
9:08 so getting more pro at computer science
9:10 is the goal
9:11 and the system that's going to help me
9:12 get there is by taking online courses
9:14 over at brilliant who are very kindly
9:16 sponsoring this video if you haven't
9:17 heard brilliant is a fantastic platform
9:19 for online courses on maths
9:20 science and computer science their
9:22 courses are fun interactive and engaging
9:24 and they teach stuff in a really first
9:25 principles way that really helps you
9:27 understand what's going on
9:28 these days i'm taking brilliant course
9:29 on cryptocurrencies which builds it up
9:31 from the ground up and
9:32 teaches you about things like
9:34 cryptographic signatures and how this
9:36 sort of stuff applies to currency like
9:37 bitcoin
9:38 and actually i lost about i think it was
9:40 30 000 pounds
9:42 in 2017 on bitcoin and i'm hoping that i
9:44 don't make that mistake again because
9:46 now i actually wanna
9:47 i'm you know understanding how bitcoin
9:48 actually works if like me you're also
9:50 interested in learning how to code then
9:52 brilliant has a fantastic introductory
9:53 and advanced course on python which is
9:55 the world's most popular programming
9:56 language if that sounds up your street
9:58 and you want to join me in leveling up
10:00 our collective knowledge and
10:00 understanding of math science and
10:02 computer science concepts then head over
10:04 to brilliant.org forward slash ali and
10:05 the first 200 people to hit that link
10:07 which is also in the video description
10:09 will get 20 off the annual premium
10:11 subscription if you like this video
10:12 about goals and you want to build better
10:14 systems and habits which are the things
10:15 that will ultimately help you hit those
10:17 goals
10:17 then you should definitely check out my
10:19 video over here which is all about
10:20 my summary and discussion about james
10:22 clear's fantastic book atomic habits
10:24 thank you so much for watching happy new
10:26 year and i'll see you in the next video
10:29 bye