The Uneducated PT Podcast - EP 111 – Goals & Connection Solo Episode

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

EP111 – Goals, Connection, and Why Relationships MatterIn this solo episode, I dive into the deeper side of goal setting—why it’s not just about ticking boxes, but about uncovering the hidden pursuit of connection behind so many of our ambitions. I explore how easy it is to get caught up in the grind and lose sight of the bigger picture (the forest for the trees), and why prioritizing relationships is essential for meaning, growth, and long-term fulfillment. Whether you’re chasing personal, professional, or health goals, this episode is a reminder to pause, zoom out, and remember what really matters.

Okay, welcome back to another solo episode of the uneducated PT podcast with me, your host, Carlo Rourke. If you've been enjoying the episode so far, if you've been enjoying the guests that we've had on, and to be honest, I think we've had some great guests on of, like, Sophia was really good, Connor Harris was really good, like, I really enjoyed that episode with the relationship coach, Laura. So I'm trying to get a wide range of guests on, diving into different topics, and just being curious. about different people and different people's expertise and learning as much as I can from other people. So if you have been enjoying them, make sure you're sharing it on your social media. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube.

And if you're on Spotify, make sure you are also following along so you'll get the latest episodes. We're trying to be consistent with the episodes and bringing out one or two every week. And I'll also throw in a solo episode every now and again because it's just kind of a good way for me to kind of, I don't know, explore different ideas that I'm kind of learning about or trying to understand a little bit better. And obviously, the most, um, the most interested topic I am in involved in right now is obviously social health and social connection and relationships and, um, understanding why they are so important to everyday life and how we consistently forget that like, you know, when all of said and done, um, um, understanding why they are so important to everyday life and how we.

you know when all of said and done that is going to be the the most important thing at the at the end of your day is is the relationships that you either invested in or or didn't invest in and like while i think it's great to have ambition while i think it's great for you to chase after your goals to pursue your goals to get rich to get in shape and to build a business um like whatever that goal is for you um doing so doing so on your your own or neglect them the relationships around you to achieve them things. I think that's the biggest failure in life because that's it. I think it's the saying where it's like the greatest, the greatest failure isn't to fail.

The greatest failure is to achieve everything you want and still to feel unhappy because you've missed a forest for the trees essentially in terms of what's important at the end of day. Pursuing goals is great. but you know who is with you while you're while you're doing them things and then I also love that that meme that I always share and it's like what's more important um you know the journey or the destination and it's neither it's the company it's the company that you spend the time in I think that's just fantastic so in in respect to that I'm going to talk a little bit today about you know pursuing weight loss and pursuing goals in general and how

A lot of the time when we are pursuing them things, like whatever that goal is, whether it is to, you know, lose weight or build a business or get stronger or earn more money or speak confidently on stage, you know, beneath the surface of all that, all them pursuits. I think, you know, we are, we are driven by this deeper, universal human need, which is to feel connected and to feel like we belong. and like you can you can you can take that with any goal I think like if you look at all right obviously I'll use I can use weight loss because that's something that I'm I have a lot of I have a lot of knowledge in so it's like I want to lose weight and look better or I want to get fitter and I want to get stronger they are great goals all right they're fantastic goals to have to lose weight to look better to get fit or to get stronger they can all really really improve the quality of your life but there's a hidden design

behind that right and anytime that someone comes to me and asks you know that they want to lose weight they want to lose 10 kilos I'm always very inclined to ask why why do you want to lose 10 kilos what's this going to do for your life like what why are you pursuing this what are you willing to give up for this what are the sacrifice you're willing to make and why are you willing to make them like what's what's important at the end of this goal that you're trying to achieve because you are going to have to make sacrifices if you want to lose weight way you are going to have to change up your lifestyle and it is not easy weight loss is a very difficult goal to pursue that's why most

people end up putting the weight back on after they lose it. It's very, very normal. So we have to understand what them hidden desires are, you know, and when people say that they want to lose weight, it's rarely about the scales, you know, they think about the compliments that they're going to get if they lose weight. They think about the confidence they will have if they walk into a room. You know, they think about how easy it is to join social activities now because they don't feel embarrassed or judged. You know, they even think about dating and the confidence that can come from, you know, being a couple of kilos lighter and that, well, now that I have the confidence to go and date, I can finally meet someone. You know, so they want to feel accepted and admired and attractive

to others, you know, and that all comes from connection. Like the healthier and the fitter they feel, the more likely they are to engage socially without shame or self-consciousness. You know, have that fit body and that fit body is you know you know a representation or or a bridge to create more meaningful relationships and social confidence so like as much as we talk about it's about losing weight and it's about feeling healthier it's also about having a life where you know you can really um you can really enjoy other people's companies company without feeling like you're in your head and hopefully that can improve the quality of them relationships or create new relationships. You know, it might be that you want to improve the relationships around you or it might mean that

you want to to make new connections with new people that, you know, you're walking into spaces that you wouldn't have walked into before because, you know, you feel confident to do so. And that's not to say that you shouldn't, like, that doesn't, like, that doesn't mean to say that you, if you're overweight, you shouldn't, like, you don't belong in certain. spaces you do but it's very difficult for people to not be in their head and to be like oh you know if you don't feel confident if you don't feel confident in your body then it's very difficult for you to sit into a new room of people and you know just be yourself and be confident in who you are it's difficult thing so it's it's ourselves we get it we get in our own head we get in our own way

from from creating them connections and maybe it didn't have anything to do with with the weight that you had on you or didn't have on you, but in your head it did. So that makes it more difficult. So, you know, we start exercising and eating better and, you know, we feel energy, we feel confident, we feel in a better mood. So we're more outgoing, you know, so we might join a group class where you'll meet people. We might post our progress online. You know, we might receive compliments, compliments that gives us feedback, whether that's a negative or a positive thing that, you know, we're complimenting people for lives and weight or not. It is a reality of life. and we go on dates and you know we we accept social invitations that we would have avoided

before and because we felt like we weren't worthy of of going to them things or we just felt like we were going to be judged so we would rather avoid going to them things like i i know so many people who have told me over the years that i you know i didn't go out on the weekend because you know i just did i didn't feel i didn't feel happy in myself and you know it would i would just ruin the night out for myself. So I rather just avoid it. So that's what weight loss can do. Weight loss can be that kind of, you know, connector where it's like, you know, I feel like I can walk into spaces and not be in my head. And that's going to create more opportunities and shared experiences. So, you know, think about it. You lose 15 pounds. You feel great. You start hiking

with your friends. You say yes to beach trips. You start enjoying connections without shame. which is really, really important. But then, again, it can obviously go to the other side of that as well. So, like, I like to think about it as that's your healthy pursuit, right? You lose weight so you can enjoy experiences with your friends and feel more connected to them. That's great. You lose weight so you can go on a day and meet someone and fall in love and feel connected to someone. That's great.

But then, you know, when you push weight loss too much, let's say it's like a moderate pursuit where, you know, you want to be a little bit more disciplined. a little bit more structured, you know, meals become a little bit more planned. You're starting to track your calories. Workouts are a little bit more rigid. Now you still might enjoy social benefits, like you might not say no to everything. You might have a pizza and a drink,

maybe every now and again, so you're still connected, but you're starting to kind of trade spontaneity for progress. So like you might be bringing, you know, your tub, aware to a party where you're still, you know, eating your chicken broccoli and rice. Now, you're still attending the party. That's great. But it feels a little bit different. It feels a little

bit separate from the group vibe. You're not like just enjoying a few drinks and having a, having, you know, freedom of food and, you know, having the cake and having a pizza and not really thinking about it, not really thinking about your calories. You're just enjoying being in the moment. So like, that's the case where it's like, well, yeah, that's cool. Like you have goals that you want achieve you're taking them more serious that's absolutely fine and you have every right to do that but there will be a little bit of a different and separate kind of feeling to them and social occasions that you're going through and then it can go into this like extreme pursuit where like you're completely disconnected and that could be because like you're i don't know you're prepping for a photo

shoe or you know you're doing or you're doing a bodybuilder competition or you just are trying to get really really lean maybe like you've lost a lot of weight and you don't know where the where the where the happy medium is where the middle spot is and you're thinking to yourself well you know i've lost i've lost 10 kilos and i feel great so if i lose another 10 kilos i'll feel even better which isn't the case because you know more of a good thing isn't always a good thing you have this law of diminishing returns where you start to get less and less from the thing that once you know gave you a positive feedback so you know in that pursuit of leanness and, you know, perfection of, you know, having, you know, dick skin abs where, like, everyone can see how lean you are.

You start to decline social occasions and social invitations. You know, you say no to the Saturday night drinks and a pizza with your friends. You say no to a coffee and a croissant with friends. You know, you're constantly in the gym. you know, food starts to become a source of stress rather than joy. You're stressed out because, oh, I can't eat this and I can't eat this because this doesn't fit my macros and this doesn't fit my calories. So ironically, the more you succeed physically, if you can even say that,

because I don't think that losing more and more body fat is succeeding physically. But you feel, let's say you are achieving your physique that you want in terms of you're dropping more and more body fat. but you feel more and more isolated socially like you haven't been able to go out with your friends you haven't been able to um you know you're in bed early early at night every night um you're in a very very strict routine because you know the leaner you want to get the more you have to give up so what started out as a goal to feel more connected to people and now it flips into disconnection because you've become obsessed and like hyper obsessed and focus

on just getting as lean as possible, you know, avoiding birthdays, skipping holidays, you know, won't eat out, and you feel alone in your pursuit. And even though you might look ideal externally, like you look like, you know, you're in great shape, you look like you think you wanted to, you're absolutely miserable. And that's the, that's the thing about bow extremes, whether or you're getting really, really lean or you're really, really overweight, boat will impact your social connection and boat will impact the quality of your life. So it's about finding that middle spot and not like losing the forest for the trees because you lost weight because you wanted to

feel more connected to people and you achieved that. And then you wanted to lose more weight, and then you felt disconnected to people because you were had to sacrifice everything you wanted in order to achieve that ideal physique. And we have to remember the bigger picture. The bigger picture is health. The bigger picture is joy. The bigger picture is shared meals with friends and family and quality relationships.

Like that is literally the key to life. And I've spoke about this multiple times with multiple different studies on how, like when all is said and done, what you will remember and what will determine whether you had a good life or not, good life or not is the quality of the relationships around you. That is most important.

So we need to find this balance of you being able to pursue weight loss because it makes you feel better and it makes you have more energy in a better mood. But not getting so hyper-focused on it that you forget that health is more than just your calories and your macros and your train and it's also your relationships and the quality of them relationships. And this goes for any goal as well, right? You want to make six figures or you want financial,

freedom and you know so you start saving and you start focusing on you know status and security and all this stuff and you do that because it helps you earning that money help gives you the ability to care for the loved ones right it gives you the ability to look after your circle it gives you the ability to look after your family you know it gains respect from you know your peers you know this is someone who can build a business and look after people and look after his staff and you know you can use money as a tool for experiences like traveling with friends and taking family out for dinner and giving back to your community and you know involving yourself in charities and throwing parties and buying gifts like that's great like money is great for doing all them things and that strengthens bonds

and gives a sense of of worth uh to you and you know that can also help with connection. But then, right, you start to try and make more and more money and more money than you actually need. And it's like, now you're just ignoring your partner and, you know, not seeing your kids because you're spending extra hours in the office and, you know, you're starting to sacrifice your weekends

that you usually spent with friends because you have a big meeting coming up and stuff like that. And then you miss your fucking kids birthday party and all these kind of things. Like, that's when the goal goes to an extreme. And again, you've missed the, the forest for the trees you wanted to make more money so you could have financial freedom so you could help out the people around you so you could help out your relationships so you could look after

people but now you're trying to make so much money that you have no time to spend with them people and obviously that's there's a there's a balance to that right because there's plenty of people who make loads of money and barely work four hours a day and spend loads of time with their their friends and their family and you know them people then people probably have it have it worked out and that's a great thing um but there's There's also a lot of people who got rich at the expense of everything else. And then you don't want to be the, you don't want to be the rich person in the MD mansion, essentially.

That is, I think, the biggest failure in life. So I think you can take this with any sort of goal, whether you're speaking on stage, whether you're building a business, whether you just want to make more money. It all comes back to connection. You know, at a biological levels, at a biological level, we're all wired for social survivors.

You know, we know that being in a tribe and being in a community, that's what helps us to survive. That's what helps us to thrive. And, you know, that wiring hasn't gone away, even though it isn't really designed in this modern society. So I think we have to be more proactive in terms of understanding how important that, understanding how important relationships are and how actually. any goal that we want to achieve, we do so in the pursuit of improving them relationships and improving them connections. That's my thoughts on it anyway.

You might disagree. I don't think you do. I think you know deep down that, you know, being out with your friends is great and feeling connected to your family is great. And, you know, having someone who loves you and, you know, wants to be with you is great. and although like I'm a big fan of things like solo travel and stuff like that and figuring out who you are and there's nothing there's nothing better than sitting down and chatting about life experience with people that you spent that life way I think that's great all right so there are just my thoughts

don't lose the forest for the trees understand that weight loss can be a great tool to improve the quality over your life and improve the relationships in your life. But like anything more is not always better and there is the law of diminishing returns. And if you try to lose weight more and more and every kilo, every extra kilo you lose, you have to sacrifice a lot more to lose that kilo and you have to ask yourself, is it worth it to lose that extra kilo? You know, is it worth it to be an extra two kilos lighter but having to sacrifice dinner with my friends and my family, or tracking my calories every day, or bringing, you know, tubberware

to chicken and broccoli to a wedding. For me, the answer is no, but I'll let you make that decision for yourself. Folks, I've been done educated PT, Carla Rourke. Thank you as ever for listening. Time is the most valuable asset that we have, so I appreciate that you've spent your time with me today.