The Dead Man's Rule (Podcast 118)
Avoid dead man goals; define goals as positive, observable actions.
It's common to set goals by saying what you want to avoid: Don’t snack late. Don’t check my phone in bed. Don’t snap in meetings. But goals that ask you to NOT do something aren’t goals for the living- it is dead man's goal.
A dead man could crush those goals. A dead man can’t eat, scroll, or argue.
That’s the Dead Man’s Rule that I often apply with clients, especially when we figure out coaching goals: I know it's a bit morbid, but if a dead corpse could “achieve” your goal, it's not good enough. In this case, reframe it into visible behaviors a living person can do. Don’t define progress by absence. Define it by the next small, concrete action you DO perform - on purpose, in the moment.
In this podcast episode 118, I cover this in more detail:
➜ If a dead person could do it by doing nothing, it isn’t a goal—rewrite it as an action you can perform.
➜ Positive, specific behaviors beat “don’t” directives because they tell your brain what to do instead.
➜ Tie actions to triggers or moments (“When X happens, I will Y”) to make them repeatable.
➜ Measure what you do, not what you avoid - observable behaviors make progress trackable.
Enjoy the episode!!