Goal Setting, This Magical Two Word Phrase Will Help You Achieve Any Goal
When you set goals and achieve them, you make progress in your life. There’s no simpler way to describe the how to of personal development.
Goal setting is awesome, but not every goal is met, and I want to help you with this today. In fact, according to a study done at the University of Scranton in 2014, only eight percent of New Year’s Resolutions are actually achieved.
It doesn’t take a statistician to understand that this is a DISMAL number.
Isn’t it funny the difference between what we say we want to do, and what we actually do?
Why does this happen? What gives?
- So often we express how badly we want to change
- We preach about how much different life could be if we could just make XYZ change
- And we love to complain about what’s wrong in our lives
But even though we say certain things are important for us to change, and even when we create goals around them, we fail more often than we succeed, a lot more.
You probably witness this on a daily basis not only in your own life, but in the lives of others around you as well. Take note next time as you overhear friends or co-workers complaining, or as you peruse through your favorite social media sites.
The world is loaded with people who either cannot or will not make changes or updates to their lives, no matter how much they complain.
I don’t want you to feel bad about this, because here’s the deal…
It’s Not Your Fault
Just like the late Robin Williams told Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting (bonus points for knowing both character’s names), it’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault individually. The world we live in is a difficult atmosphere for change.
There are a record number of distractions at any given time, and as we grow older, these only grow in quantity and magnitude. We all grow up in classrooms for nearly 20 years where we are taught to digest information and regurgitate it into an exam to succeed.
Until you get into a professional environment, you have little to no exposure to managing your own goals and life, so it’s then up to you to figure out what to do..
The world around you is not conducive to making changes.
But I’m here to help you with that. With just a little bit of planning and focus, you can rest easy that big changes can be made.
Let’s explore a strategy that I’ve been using recently to help me achieve my own goals, and then I’ll show you how to apply it to your life.
Priorities Aren’t Enough. Introducing Focused Priority
One of the most effective and important lessons I have learned about achieving any goal in my lifetime has been the need for what I call focused priority.
You already know that priority is a ranking order that you use to put on the items you want to accomplish in a given time period. Well, focused priority is a method I use to cut out the fat from those prioritized items, to allow you to laser in on what it is you would like to accomplish.
I’ll show you how it works in just a minute in the video below, but first I want you to grasp this one key aspect of this principle.
Trying to make a lot of changes usually fails
We often make the mistake of saying stuff like “things are going to be different this year,” or “it’s time for some big changes.”
It’s pretty exciting envisioning what the future might hold if we are successful.
But often times when we embark upon those changes, it’s too big of a shift, so we shut down and regress to our previous habits, or we just don’t devote enough time to the one thing that’s really working.
This is what is known as “psychological resistance” to change. It arises from our basic human need to be and feel “safe.”
It’s OK. Change is hard.
There are very few people that really like to be scared or feel like they are out of their comfort zone all the time. It’s impossible for us to live that way. But when you try to make massive changes all at once like most people try to do at the beginning of each year, that’s exactly what happens.
That’s why that 8% success rate of New Year’s Resolutions exists.
It’s because of this phenomenon that you need to trim down that to-do list and focus your priorities in order to minimize the amount of changes you’re trying to make all at once. That way you can focus on a couple of things that are important, and maximize the impact you can have on your life.
If you’re still sitting there thinking, “I can do it all if I just try hard enough!” sorry, but you’re wrong.
That’s what most people do. It might work for 3 weeks, but you’ll eventually fail. If that’s all it took, everyone would be a billionaire.
In order to succeed, you have to know the science behind what makes higher achievers so successful, and a high level of focus is absolutely key.
- When I wanted to get a raise at my day job, I pushed other things aside and focused on it, and I write to you today 10% richer
- When I wanted to increase my dead lift and back squat, I lowered my other workouts, and focused on these lifts, and I recently hit PRs with both (more bonus points for guessing how much)
- When I wanted to create 401k Millionaire, I let a few things go, and focused on it, and now Academy Success has another flagship product for you to benefit from
What I didn’t do was try to do all of these things on top of what I was already doing and tack on more to my already full schedule.
We all have limits and capacity, and once we reach those limits, we’ll go into overwhelm and shut down.
Create your focused priority around the things that matter absolutely most to you, be comfortable with letting a few other things wait, and you will achieve more than you ever have in your life.
Are you starting to see the value of focused priority now?
Now that you understand the concept, I want to show you how to apply this to your life.
Let’s walk through an example of how to do this here. I’ve created this video to illustrate that. Give it a watch, and then we’ll move on.
So go nuts with creating your goals, but from there, figure out what is really important to you and what is going to make a big difference in your life. Then forget everything else and keep your focus.
In a few days, I’m going to show you a method you can use to make sure you STAY FOCUSED on your goals once you have them defined.
Stay tuned for that. We’ll talk then.
– Cody
PS – Grab a free MP3 download of the video above here (if you’re already on the Academy Success list, you’ve already got this in your inbox!). You’ll also be subscribed for future updates from Academy Success, so you’ll never miss a thing.
