Notes

: Yeah. I think it’s like anything else we know to be good for us that we don’t take
action on. You know, we know our lives would be better. We would live longer if we took
exercise seriously or ate more healthy food. We think our relationships would be better if we
spent time with the people we love, in a certain way undistracted from the devices in our lives,
but we just don’t act on these things.
I think the same thing is true for goal setting. The evidence is overwhelming. People who set
goals are happier. They live longer. They make more money. I mean, in every metric you want
to measure, goal setting is a key component. Yet very few people do it. The thing that excites me
about is the fact that i'm going to talk about practical ways to do that.

///01: Keep them few in number
The first principle is keep your goals few in number. I recommend no more
than 7-10. If you have more than that, you just can’t stay focused. Yeah, I had my goal list with 7-10 goals But the mistake i made was the fact that i put all of my due dates for these goals as December 31 of that year, so i had all year to accomplish those.
What happened was I didn’t really get into action until like mid-October, and then I was like,
“Oh my goodness. I only have a couple of months.” Then I got all overwhelmed. so you need to have a few goals and then focus on an even smaller number of them in the
beginning.

///02: SMARTER
The second one is to make them SMARTER. We’ve all heard of the SMART acronym,
but my acronym is SMARTER, so I add a couple of items to it.
#a. For many people, this will be just kind of a refresher. Because I know most
people don’t actually write their goals… This is something you want to practice. First, your
goal needs to be specific. That’s what the S stands for. Your goals have to identify exactly what
it is you want to accomplish with as much specificity as you can possibly muster. For example,
here’s a bad goal. “I want to write a book". that’s not even a goal, That’s an aspiration, which is fine, But to turn it into a goal, you have to make it more specific. If I say I
want to write a book proposal for what’s going to be my next book, Living Forward, that’s
specific. That’s a specific book I’m talking about rather than just having some general goal to
write a book.
#b. Measurable
Then they need to be measurable. That’s the M. The old adage says you can’t manage
what you don’t measure, so you want a goal that’s measurable so you’ll know when you’ve
achieved it and you can check it off of your list. An example of a bad goal that’s not
measurable would be, “I want to earn more money this year than last year.”
Or, “I want to be healthier.”
It has to be more measurable than that. For example, “I want to earn $5,000 more this year than last year,” or, “I want to lose 10 pounds.”
#c, Actionable
The A stands for actionable. Every goal should start with an action verb like quit, run,
finish, eliminate, etc. rather than a to be verb. A bad example of this would be, “I want to be
more consistent in blogging.” That’s not an action verb. That’s a to be verb. “I want to be more
consistent in blogging.”
A good example would be, “I want to write two blog posts per week.” That’s very specific. Or you could say, “I want to work out three times a week,” or, “I
want to go on a date with my spouse one night a week.”
#d, Realistic
Those are actionable. Then they need
to be realistic. Here’s where you have to be careful. When I say realistic, I’m not saying they
should be inside of your comfort zone. They have to be in your discomfort zone but not in
your delusional zone. I identify those three different zones.
A good example, though, would be if I said, “I want to lower my golf
handicap by three strokes.” That’s realistic. That’s within the realm of possibility. It’s outside
of my comfort zone because I don’t see how I’d get there from where I sit right now (especially
since I’m not playing that much), but it’s important to make it realistic. This is art, not science.
I want to kind of go to a delusional point and then dial it back a few clicks to where it’s in the
discomfort zone.

#e, Time-bound
The T stands for time-bound. Every goal needs a date associated with it. This is the
difference between an aspiration and a goal. If it doesn’t have a date, it’s not a goal; it’s just an
aspiration. So put a date on it. The great thing about a deadline is it creates urgency and drives
action. A bad example would be if I just said, “I want to lose 20 pounds,” and left it at that. I
mean, do I want to lose 20 pounds in the next 10 years? Do I want to lose 20 pounds in the next
year? What’s the deadline? If you say, “Oh no, I want to lose 20 pounds by April 1…It changes everything.

#f, Exciting
The E stands for exciting. Your goal has to be
compelling. It can’t be something that is extremely incremental or something other people
think you should do. It has to be something that is exciting to you personally.
An example of this for me would be saying, “I want to take a very specific photography course
this summer when I’m on my sabbatical.” That’s exciting to me. I can’t wait to do that. The
goals need to be that way for you. They have to be personally compelling. Nobody can judge
that except you, but that’s the juice that’s going to carry you through when you want to quit.
#g, Relevant to your season in life
Okay? Because of my season in life, I can spend an hour in the gym every day. I have
no kids at home. I’m at a place where I can afford to do that. It’s relevant to my season in life.
That’s probably not relevant to your season in life or your wife’s season in life.
So it's totally different, You can’t measure your season by somebody else’s season.
We can naturally get caught up in looking at others and what they’re achieving and put
pressure on ourselves when, if we can just take a step back and realize, “Hey, listen. They’re in
a different season of life…”
Maybe the most you can do is get in a 20- minute walk, and you can do that three days a week. You’re going to trade off with your
spouse. That’s fine. It’s something. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. That’s exactly
the opposite of the way we usually hear it, but sometimes we can be so idealistic
that we’ll settle for nothing but the best, so we do nothing.
A lot of people end up doing nothing. So your goal has to be relevant to your season in life.
That’s just a test to give yourself. “Is this going to be relevant, or do I need to wait and do
something a little bit less ambitious given where I am?”