Goals
We will talk about goal setting today, but I will avoid the happy, wishy, manifesting, fairy tale bullshit that most goal-setting gurus preach. If you’re looking for that, plenty of resources are available for you elsewhere. For me, most of my goals resonate with the photo above: keeping one step ahead of Will to keep Will from fucking up Will’s life.
Our focus here is on goal achievement, not goal setting. It’s a subtle but key difference. It doesn’t matter what your goals are, and I know you have them; you may not think of them as such. Losing weight, doing a strict pull-up, getting a new job, buying a home, and getting a new relationship all count as goals. So what are the key components that distinguish goal setting from goal achievement?
Clarity, specificity, balance, and time.
I asked the Genie for $1000 per day for the rest of my life. He handed me $3000 and wished me luck.
Clarity
It’s important to be clear on what the “goal” of this goal is. If your goal is to make more money, why is that important to you? What problems in your life will be solved by having more money? What additional problems will you have as a result of having more money? It’s important to think these through to ensure you’re chasing the right goal. Oftentimes, we spend a tremendous amount of effort chasing a goal that could have been more easily obtained by clarifying the end result in the beginning.
For example, if your goal is for more money, why?
Because having money means freedom.
What is freedom?
The ability to do what I want, when I want.
What do you want to do that you currently can’t?
…
Continue this process until you are very clear on what your actual goal is. It may take days or weeks to work through this process. That’s ok; you’ve got your entire life.
Once you’ve clarified your goal, it’s time to get specific.
Specificity
What will your life look like when you achieve your goal? Be as specific as possible here. Imagine what a day in your life will look like. If your goal is a specific event, imagine what the weather will be like. Feel the sun or rain on your face. Who is there with you? Picture their faces. What are you wearing? What can you smell? What do you hear?
The objective here is to engage as many of your senses as possible, to build a realistic picture of what achieving your goal looks like. Each of your senses is controlled by a different part of your brain, so by tying your goal to multiple senses, you actually store your goal in multiple parts of your brain. Think of it like saving a document to the hard drive on your computer, then putting another copy on a USB stick, copying it to your Dropbox account online, then emailing a copy to yourself, all to ensure that you don’t lose this document. When you engage all of your senses, your brain starts to get the idea that whatever this is, it must be really, really important.
And then, we have to consider the other parts of our lives.
Balance
In my experience, this has been one of the major causes of failure for my goals in the past. We often set a goal but fail to consider its impact on other areas of our life. For example: making more money. It can come in the form of a new job that requires long hours. Those long hours mean less time with our family, skipping days at the gym, and possibly eating less healthily because we are always at the office (assuming this goal takes place in a non-pandemic environment where interaction with people is allowed 🤣).
Thinking about your goal’s impact on the rest of your life allows you to overcome these obstacles before they become problems. It may cause you to rethink your goal entirely, or it may cause you to add more clarity to your goal. For example, a new job involves longer days at work. To prevent sacrificing quality time with your family, you set up a specific time dedicated to family time each week, and everyone participates. To avoid missing the gym and sacrificing your fitness, you get up at 4:30 am to work out before you start your day. What are the major areas of your life? Well… they happen to be represented by the five spinning plates we cover in this challenge: nutrition, physical, mental toughness, community, and financial.
Getting up at 4:30 may sound horrible to you right now. But if your goal is big enough and important enough, you’ll find that you actually look forward to it. Each morning when you wake up, you’re energized and excited because this is the path to your goal, and everything that achieving your goal brings with it.
Time
Achieving your goal requires an ongoing time commitment from you, and not in the way you think. Sure, if your goal is to lose weight, there is a time commitment to the gym and preparing food, but there is an additional time commitment to maintaining and grooming the goal. Review what you’ve read here today: the time it takes to clarify your goal. The time it takes to make your goal specific. The time it takes to balance your goal with the other areas of your life. And you can’t do this once and forget it. You need to write your goal down.
Every.Fucking.Day.
Never allow your brain to second guess if this goal is still relevant. Write it down daily to tell your brain it is. Incorporate this into your morning or evening ritual. If you’re not committed to doing this, you are likely working on the wrong goal.
Today’s Tasks
Don’t forget to complete today’s tasks for the challenge.
- Drink 1 gallon of water
- Workout for 45 minutes
- Read ten pages from your book
- Stick to your meal plan
- Meditate for 10 minutes
Once completed, head to the tracking site and mark them as completed to track your progress for the challenge. Tomorrow we will talk about the tasks you do each day, specifically how those tasks relate to the goals you’ve identified today and how to approach those tasks with intent.