Do You Have Goals For Your Life?
One year goals? Five year goals? 10 years goals?
Setting Goals have never worked well for me.
Has anybody had my experience with personal goal setting?
I did the 5 year and 10 personal goals things many times. By the 3–6 month point I was already way off track.
I’ve tried the goal setting methods of Napoleon Hill, W. Clement Stone, Brian Tracy, Stephen Covey, Darren Hardy, Tony Robbins, various articles and videos on the internet, podcasts, and even the well known SMART goal setting method.
I’ve read my goals daily. I’ve posted my goals around the house and in my car. I’ve read through my goals daily every morning. I’ve written my goals first thing in the morning. None of this worked.
Kept thinking, “I must be a failure. Because all successful people are goal setters and goal achievers — I’m told. Successful people are goal drive people.” But, I can’t seem to get the hang of it. It’s not working for me.
Besides, if you’re following God can you really know your 5 and 10 year goals anyway? How does that work when God only gives me a fuzzy vision to start with. Without providing specific details and benchmarks. That’s for another discussion.
What I do know, is that I need some help with organizing my day-to-day.
I seem to be better at big picture visioning. Seeing what can be that presently is not. And believing it is absolutely possible.
I’m not so good at staying consistent with the day-to-day that’s moving me toward the big vision possibility.
Well … If you relate with any of this …Then I have some good news that might help you.
In my goal setting method search I stumbled on a guy named James Clear and his book Atomic Habits.
{Confession: I have not read his book. But I have listened to many interviews with him}
Here are four key takeaways from what I learned:
1. Goals (or big picture vision in my case) are good so that you have a direction you’re wanting to go. But they are not very useful or motivating in the day-to-day life.
2. It’s the daily and weekly Habits that make the goals happen. Not even the daily To-Do list items are that useful with making it happen. But your daily habits — that’s where the stuff gets accomplished.
3. Decide where you want to go (specifically or more big picture). Then figure out what are the daily and weekly habits someone would need be doing to reach the goal.
4. Here’s what ties it all together and can make the difference. You Track Your Habits. Not your goals. Not your To-Do list accomplishments. This is the paradigm change (to use a little Stephen Covey lingo).
You’re thinking, how do I develop these new habits. Based on the latest studies, to develop a new habit takes 60 days or more. Not the 21 days we’ve told.
So … What’s a person to do?
Good question. Try this process …
First Priority: Master the Art of Showing Up for your new habit. What does this look like?
1. Start small. Here are some examples of what that might look like.
Example #1: You want to start going to the gym to workout 5 days a week. Don’t commit to working out for 1 hour five days a week if you’re not working out now. That’s too much to tackle. Most likely it won’t last.
Start with going to the gym 5 days a week. Drive to the gym. Get out of your car and go in the gym. Do one rep. Get in your car and leave. Or even better, go in the gym, then turnaround and leave. You are not allowed to do more than one rep.
Sounds too simple, even a waste of time … right?
What you’re doing with this process is training yourself that you go to the gym 5 days a week. The more you do it the more you begin to believe that you are a person that goes to the gym 5 days a week.
Track it by recording in your calendar every time you went to gym. Not how much you did. Just that you showed up.
Here’s the mental change that’s taking place within you. Each time you go you’re placing a vote that says “I’m a person that goes to the gym 5 days a week.” At some point you will internalize this and actually see yourself as a person that goes to the gym 5 days a week. You can look at your calendar and have a visual backing up this belief about yourself.
Example #2: You want to be a writer but you write inconsistently. How do you start small? Commit to writing one sentence each day. Just one sentence. You are not allowed to write more than one sentence when you begin this process.
Mark in your calendar every day you wrote one sentence.
At some point you will begin to see yourself as a writer. Because you are writing every day. And you have hardcopy proof in your calendar to back up this belief.
Generalizing this to any new habit. Figure out something you can do within your new desired habit that takes less than 2 minutes . Then commit to doing that every day.
Two minutes is probably not going to get you where you want to be. But it does allow you to build the habit of doing it daily. And it will change how you think about yourself.
Next: (After you’ve mastered the art of Showing Up)
Once you’ve mastered the art of showing up, then you can begin making tweaks to maximize the effectiveness of your new habit.
But there is nothing to maximize unless you’ve mastered showing up.
Based on my early results with this, I’m finding it much more effective and motivating for me than working off Goals and To-Do lists as the primary tool for getting me where I’m trying to go.
If you struggle with goal setting as a useful tool you might give this a try.
Let me know what you think about goals and goal setting in your own life.
Brad
P.S. Here’s the link to the book Atomic Habits if you’re interested.
Or you can go to YouTube and search “James Clear” or “Atomic Habits” to learn more.
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So … If you know any men looking for help in getting from where they are to where they want to be in life …
Feel free to pass along my contact info:
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Brad
