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So you want to CRUSH 2012? I mean really knock the cover off it?
Great! Me too. You’re in the right place.
Most of us spend this time of year crouched at the starting line in anticipation. Our feet are set. Our heads are bowed in focused preparation. We’re ready for the race.
But before you set your feet in the starting blocks and wait anxiously for the gun to blast there’s something I want you to do that’s going to make all the difference in your performance:
Donuts – if you’re me anyway. The picture above is me less than an hour after completing a big goal for 2011. But there’s got to be something more to it than fresh baked, chocolate iced treats right?
Of course!
And before you run off to the closest donut shop in pursuit of Success I want to share the secret behind this.
But first – a story.
When I was in my second week at Invodo, Brandon (one of the sales guys) came bounding into our office (I share an office with three other people). He walked straight to the corner and started finagling a three and a half foot stereo speaker out of the corner and dragged it into the doorway.
Before I had a could make sense out of the situation my office-mate cranked DJ Khaled’s “All I Do Is Win” full blast!
I’ve got some great news for you – achieving massive results only requires you to take a series of tiny steps, one at a time, over and over and over.
Isn’t that awesome? You don’t have to muster up some heroic strength and expend your greatest effort only to be left completely spent at the foot of another mountain.
Consistency is the key. Seriously, THE key.
Jim Rohn talks about this in his Challenge to Succeed series. Zig Ziglar illustrates it in his famous “Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles” talk. Darren Hardy wrote an entire book about this called The Compound Effect (Affiliate links – highly recommend all three of these!).
Okay I’ll buy it. It sounds pretty smart to me. And that’s as far as I went for a long time.
But believing consistency is the key and practicing it are very different things. I believed it for years, but only started tracking it and practicing it about a year ago – BIG difference!
What if instead of going out and chasing down our goals every day we could cause them to come to us? What if there was something we could do to somehow cause our biggest goals to find us irresistible? Too good to be true? Maybe not.
Way back before my wife Cameron and I were dating she bought a grey Honda Accord. As a Toyota owner myself I didn’t know or care much about Hondas, but I did know that I wanted to hang out with Cameron!
Around the same time there was a special at the Honda dealerships in Austin and hundreds of other people bought the same gray Honda Accord. Suddenly I was seeing Cameron’s Accord everywhere I went. Accords followed me to work, they ate lunch at my favorite restaurants, they trained at my gym. They were everywhere!
Today is a significant milestone for the Bradley family. We’ve been working towards this for about four years now, and my wife Cameron and I are both so excited it’s finally here.
Today Cameron begins her dream job as a full time housewife.
Yes, dream job. Since Cameron was young she’s always dreamed of being able to spend her energy taking care of her family instead of working at a 9 to 5. It’s a goal I’ve also had personally for my future wife since before we ever met.
Now I’m hearing some murmers out there. Maybe some of you aren’t impressed Cameron landed the gig. Or perhaps you’re wondering why we have to work nearly four years towards quitting a job. Or you might even be annoyed because as you’re reading you want to quit too!
The Job Requirements
Like most jobs there were several requirements we had to meet before Cameron’s application could be accepted.
– Must be debt free (except the house) with an emergency fund. We’ve been following Dave Ramsey’s personal finance plan since before we were married. Being debt free with money for a rainy day is a pre-requisite for taking our foot off the gas. For all you Ramsey fans out there I’m talking about Step-6.
– Must own a house we can afford. Living in a single family home is another goal we wanted squared away before we became a single family household. The big requirement here was that the mortgage had to be less than 30% of (only) my take-home pay (after taxes). We put off buying a home for a while while we saved up to meet this requirement! It wasn’t easy to be patient, but it was worth it.
– Must have a husband who loves his (stable) job. Once you go down to a single income household that one income becomes very important. Being the sole provider and simultaneously despising your work is a stressful situation. Last winter I spent quite a bit of time hunting for the perfect place to land, and I was blessed to find it at Invodo.
So What’s The Big Deal?
The big deal is that there’s nothing special about the Bradleys. We don’t have a trust fund. We never made gigantic salaries (and I still don’t FYI). We didn’t inherit anything.
We just decided where we wanted to go. Planned how to get there. And followed the plan.
So yes, you can do this. If you happened to have a trust fund, gigantic salary, or inheritance, even better! But if you’re like us the only thing you need is a goal and a plan to get there.
What’s Holding You Back?
I know there are some of you out there that will read this and think, “We could never do that because _______.” Or “That sounds great, but I’m not sure where to start.”
I want to challenge you on that.
Your thinking, no matter how harmless it may seem, will make or break you on this. Instead of saying “We could never do that.” Ask “How could we do that?” Instead of saying “I don’t know where to start.” Say “I’m going to start by learning more.”
As Henry Ford observed: “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right.”
My offer to you:
If you’ve got a dream you’re afraid to think about because it’s just too big then I want to help you. Add a comment, find me on Facebook, or just drop me an email privately and we’ll chat (deacon [at] lifestoked [dot] com). Just think what your life could look like six months from now…
There’s a basic litmus test for goals that will help ensure they are set up correctly. Whether you’re familiar with it or not I’m going to review it quickly because it’s so simple. All you have to remember is SMART. You want SMART goals.
– Specific – what exactly do you need to do to achieve this goal. No generalities here!
– Measurable – You must be able to measure something to achieve it. Pretty simple.
– Attainable – Aim high enough to make your stomach jump at the thought of it, but not so high you secretly know it’s ridiculous.
– Realistic – Michael Phelps wanted to win 8 gold medals, awesome. You want to win 8 gold medals? Just be honest, that’s all I ask.
– Time bound – Your goal must have a deadline. Don’t cut yourself too much slack here.
Let’s take a few examples to see how we can make some basic goals pass this test:
Goal: Lose weight
This is realistic and attainable, but fails the other three tests. Looking at the SMART test we can reverse engineer the goal to pass:
SMART Goal: Lose 35 pounds by December 1, 2011.
Boom! You’ve just instantly multiplied the likelihood that you’ll achieve this goal. Now let’s try one of my personal goals that’s a little bit harder.
Goal: Read 30 min a day, 3 times a week in 2011.
Is this SMART? Basically, but I struggle with one part of it. It’s not really time-bound. To achieve the goal I need to follow the pattern for 52 weeks in a row. Only read 2 days one week, fail. Skip a week for vacation, fail. I’m basically setting myself up for failure on this one.
So what did I do to make it really SMART? How’s this:
SMART Goal: Read 20 books in 2011.
Now I can read at my leisure and as long as I’m getting through 20 books I’ll make it. By the way so far this goal has really been pushing me to get through books without stalling (I tend to do that every now and then).
One last example and this one I’m going to need some help with because I still haven’t figured it out. This is a goal I’ve never quite been able to make pass the SMART test and as a result hasn’t progressed like I wanted.
Goal: Spend 30 min a day, three times a week studying the bible and in solo prayer time.
How do I make this pass the SMART test? It seems to fall victim to a lot of the problems as my first attempt at a reading goal. And since prayer and study time isn’t something you complete it’s hard to make it measurable.
I’m sorry to say my relentless goal setting, progress tracking mentality has allowed me to let this part of my life slip. It’s something I really need to be better about, but without having found a way to wedge things like this into this framework it’s been noticeably absent.
What about you? Are your goals SMART? Can you make my last goal SMART?
The first time I went through Darren Hardy’s goal setting process I was surprised where it started. It wasn’t with a brainstorming session or answering questions about where I wanted to be in 10 years. But instead we started with an assessment of where I am now.
But I want to get to the good stuff Darren! Let’s go! I’m ready to make some serious progress now!
I went along with the process impatiently (because let’s face it, he’s the master goal achiever) and began my Life Assessment. In retrospect I’m grateful for the road it’s led me down! My life is more balanced and complete which is helping me achieve even more.
Have you ever known someone with a rock-star career but a pitiful social life? How about a wonderful family man who struggles to rise up the ranks at the office? It’s all too common isn’t it? Using a systematic method to assess your life can give you a quick glimpse at how you’re shaped and highlight areas of too much or too little focus.
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Here is a free Life Assessment that I use courtesy of Darren Hardy’s book The Compound Effect:
Life Assessment Worksheet
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Following Darren’s example I assess my life along 8 axis: physical, financial, business, lifestyle, mental, spiritual, family, and relationships. My initial life assessment looked something like this:
Certainly not ideal and lots of room for improvement.
“If you want to be a complete success you’ve got to become a complete individual” – Zig Ziglar
This chart is also useful in my monthly goal setting routine. It highlights obvious deficiencies and places where I’m spending too little (or too much) effort.
For example, one area I’ve always tended to scrimp on is “Lifestyle.” My wife and I bought our first home about 18 months ago and as a financial coach my personality wants to pour all the cash we can into paying it off and investing for the future. My poor wife had to work pretty hard to get some pretty basic house stuff into our budget!
My Life Assessment along with identifying some of my core values (more on that later) helped me realize as badly as I wanted to invest for the future I wasn’t able to relax and enjoy the home I was working so hard for. I value a nicely painted and furnished bedroom where I can unwind. I needed a pleasant office where I could work towards my goals.
2011 has been different. We set a big goal to have our house (v1.0) finished by September 1: Painted, furnished, and ready for guests! We’re making great progress so far and it’s already a great lifestyle boost!
That’s just one example of how using this systematic approach to evaluating my life has helped me become a more balanced individual. I’ve only been using this approach for about 7 months now and I’ve already seen big impacts on my life! Having a nicely painted, organized, and comfortable bedroom to retire to each night helps me relax and wake up ready to attack the next day!
As they always say, what gets measured gets managed.
