Here’s Another Thing They Taught You Wrong at School: Goal Setting
At school, they teach you to set goals like:
“I will get 800 points in 3 months.”
“I will become fluent by the end of the year.”
But have you ever noticed…
those goals never happen?
You’ve probably set goals like that before.
You might even be setting one right now.
And yet, the more you focus on the result, the further away it feels.
Here’s why:
School taught you to chase outcomes.
But it never taught you to build processes.
So you end up obsessed with numbers you can’t control,
while ignoring the actions that actually produce results.
It’s like being told to grow a tree, but no one teaches you to plant seeds.
The “Outcome Goal” Trap — Emotional Failure Loop
When you set goals like “800 points in 3 months,”
you’re not setting a goal.
You’re setting a daily failure test.
Every day becomes a check-in:
“Am I closer?”
“Am I good enough yet?”
Most days, the answer feels like no.
The result?
You lose focus.
You feel stressed.
You burn out.
And the score doesn’t move.
It’s not that the goal was too high.
It’s that the goal was the wrong kind of goal.
What Think and Grow Rich Really Teaches — Process is Everything
Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich isn’t a book about sitting and wishing for success.
It’s about persistent, daily action.
But it’s not about working yourself to death.
It’s about short, intense, focused actions that compound over time.
At MTC, we don’t coach you to study for hours.
We coach you to win small, daily victories.
For example:
“I will do 20 minutes of focused mistake analysis every day, correcting my weak points with full attention.”
“I will practice listening drills for 15 minutes with total concentration, reacting to every sound immediately.”
“I will solve 3 reading problems under time pressure, driving my reaction speed.”
It’s not about studying longer.
It’s about studying with more focus in shorter, sharper bursts.
You Don’t Get Results. You Become Someone Who Gets Results.
Outcome goals make you think you’re chasing a score.
Process goals build the version of you that earns that score.
When you shift to process goals:
You measure success in actions, not emotions.
You stay in control.
You build habits that outlast the test.
The score is just a checkpoint.
The real victory is becoming the person who can create results on demand.
REMEMBER — The Number Is Not the Goal. The Process Is.
Outcome goals trap you in emotional failure loops.
Process habits build steady momentum.
Short, high-focus sessions beat long, unfocused marathons.
Think and Grow Rich is about daily deliberate action, not wishful thinking.
At MTC, we don’t teach you to “hope” for a high score.
We coach you to become the person who produces it, one focused action at a time
Want to Learn More?
Our blog is full of practical strategies that help test-takers like you build better habits, overcome common blocks, and improve TOEIC scores through smarter, easier methods. Try our free TOEIC Block quiz now!
