Struggling With Your Goals? Do This Instead

Here’s an old riddle: What keeps coming but never arrives?

Answer: Tomorrow.

Tomorrow has a way of sabotaging my best intentions.

As you might imagine, how we create our goals has a huge impact on how we complete our goals. When you give action items a home in the future they tend to snuggle in and want to stay there.

Five years ago I thought about updating my book. I published Give Me a Break in 2011 and it was a big part of my speaking career, selling over 30,000 copies and providing a tidy bonus income at every speaking engagement. 

I stand by the principles and systems I promote in the book, but it was written before the smartphone, apps, work-from-home and online meetings—a life-time in terms of technology innovation and a changing workplace. 

So, I wrote a typical goal: “Update Give Me a Break.” Nice sounding goal, right? It suggests something about working on content and revisiting models to better match my current thinking.

Like a newborn full of hope and potential, “Update Give Me a Break” started its life right, smack at the top of my Flight Plan for the week. Nice - that’s the stuff I work on first. 

The next day, I remember looking at my new goal and thinking “‘Update? Crap that sounds hard - maybe, I’ll find more time Tuesday.’ 

Tuesday came and went and eventually “Update Give Me a Break” was downgraded from “This Week”, to “This Month” and eventually, after a month of mental tug-a-rope, to “Someday” - my wrecking yard of half-baked ideas and projects looking for a priority. 

What I was missing was instructions.

Give your brain instructions

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.” - Richard Feynman

If you want to create real, meaningful results, give your brain clear instructions. Research led by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer found that the completion rate of difficult goals increases by about 3 times when you move from goal intention (“I intend to do X”) to implementation intention (“I intend to perform goal-directed behavior X when I encounter situation Y”). I think of implementation intentions as brain instructions.

“I’ll see you on Tuesday at 1:00” packs a lot more commitment than “I’ll see you soon.” Just as “Go to gym” is the weak cousin of a time block 1:30PM Tuesday labeled: “Gym workout.”

Here are some examples of sloppy brain instructions and better ones:

“More sales” becomes “8:30 call 3 prospects”

“Take a walk” becomes “Walk at 12:30”

“Lose 10lbs.” becomes “No alcohol February”, or “No eating after 8PM.”

“Clean garage” becomes “Sat: 10:00-11:00 clean garage”

“Fix leaky sink” becomes “10:00 call plumber”

Note: If you’re finding the value of goal-setting syntax a bit obvious, I invite you to revisit your goals for today, this week, and (especially) for this year.

A big goal made small

“I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes at nine every morning.” - William Faulkner

Fast forward to the start of the new year and I’m looking at “Update Give Me a Break” - covered in dust and cobwebs and about to celebrate another sad birthday. Using the first question in my Small Wins framework, I asked: “Is this more important than what it will ‘cost’ me?” An upcoming speaking engagement gave me a good reason to complete the update.

The next question is “what does ‘better’ look like?” My motivation is to be proud to offer my book to audience delegates and online. For me, ‘better’ is a refresh in writing style and update in content - not a complete start-again, rewrite. I estimated I would need 90 days.

Lots of edits!!

Next, I broke down the steps, starting with the simplest one: read the damn book. Here’s what the first few steps looked like and what happened. Note: all of these were time blocks made over a two week period.

1. “Complete quick edits this week”

By Thursday I had finished. It wasn’t anything like a complete update, but the flywheel was moving and I was feeling good about getting some momentum. Total: 4.5 hours.

2. “Organize all original files in Google Docs”

My original files were a mishmash of PDF’s, jpegs, and Word Docs. Reformatting the original PDF took the most time. Total time: 2.5 hours.

Sample book covers

3. “Invite 3-5 book designers to a call this week.” 

I did a quick search for designers in Canada, and interviewed two of them. Total time: 1.5 hours. 

4. “Send Sandy samples of best-sellers.”

Created a quick mosaic of best-selling self-help book covers I like and sent to my long-time friend and illustrator Sandy Magee. Got version #1 of the new cover, sent back notes and received version #2 in same week. Total time: 1.5 hours. 

Version #2 of new cover

5. “List illustrations and what’s missing.”

The book has over 20 illustrations, charts, and cartoons. I created a quick spreadsheet list of all items and their status (did I have original, was an update needed, etc). Total time: 45 min.

By the time these five mini projects were completed I was at the end of the second week and was thrilled with the progress. My total time invested was about 11 hours and the “Update book” project had moved from morbid and stuck to having real momentum and success potential.

Slippery when wet

“Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win.” - Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habits

We all have ‘gaps’ we want to close and resistance we need to overcome. For five years I wanted to update my book and for five years I danced, dodged and procrastinated about getting started. Ironic, given that the book is about time management.

Just as a wet road gets slippery, a weak goal invites slippery intentions and unintended outcomes. You're pointed in the right direction, but your flywheel of progress is stuck.

If this is the year to dust off an old goal, or pump life into a new one, dry off your intentions, add clear brain instructions, and enjoy the sound of that flywheel starting to spin.

Here are my most recommended posts on goal-setting:
How to get started on your goals with small wins
Why you need to Plan like a Pilot to get super organized, laser focussed and insanely productive
Small Wins - why little steps are the path to big rewards