Achieve Your Goals by Focusing on This One Idea

“Habits are not a finish line to be crossed, but a lifestyle to be lived.”
– James Clear

What is something you want to accomplish? Maybe give a great presentation? Write a book? Start a new business? Now think about who that person is who achieved that. That person is a public speaker, or a writer, or an entrepreneur.

Stop focusing on the goals you want to accomplish, and start asking who you want to become. Reframe the story you tell yourself. Stop focusing on running a marathon, instead become a runner. Stop focusing on publishing a book, instead become a writer. Goals aren’t necessarily a bad thing, but instead of focusing on the end result, focus on becoming the kind of person who can accomplish that goal.

Ever since Jim Collins coined the acronym BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal), it gets floated around strategy meetings and sales departments, and then drifts over to personal goal conversations about completing triathlons, getting 6-pack abs, or becoming a yoga master.

It’s fairly easy to draft a spreadsheet and lay out the incremental steps to accomplish goals. So, for instance, if you want to run a marathon, you can search for marathon running plans and easily pick a plan that will get you there. But all that careful contemplation and planning to get to the starting line of a marathon doesn’t make you a runner. It’s the habit of running that makes you a runner.

So, instead ask the question, what would a runner do? Well, a runner would have a habit of stretching. A runner would run when it’s raining or cold (or both). A runner would learn how to hydrate for long runs. A runner would lay out their gear the night before.

Or if you want your sales team to reach a quarterly goal of X dollars, you can create a plan that requires Y number of phone calls and Z number of proposals submitted. Your team could execute on the plan, and you might make the financial goal that quarter, but that occurrence doesn’t make a great sales team. You aren’t magically transformed into a great sales leader. It takes time, and it takes building small incremental habits over time by practicing them every day.

Instead ask, how would a great sales leader behave? Well, a great sales leader would lead by example, would be an active listener, would be empathetic to individual styles of team members, and become good at providing specific feedback and coaching.

Life isn’t lived in a singular future achievement, life is a collection of moments lived one day at a time. Who you are is the accumulation of the habits you have been practicing over time.

James Clear says one of the most common questions he gets is, “How long does it takes to build a habit?” And your google search will tell you it takes 18 days, or 21 days, or 66 days, but the honest truth is that it takes forever. Because the moment you stop doing it, it’s no longer a habit.

Change starts one small act at a time. Try our course Small Acts of Leadership to build action into your life every single day.

____________________________________________________

Our company Mindscaling, is busy building powerful human and digital learning experiences for companies of all sizes. My new book Small Acts of Leadership, is a Washington Post bestseller! You can grab a copy now. Have a meeting coming up? I love to work with groups large and small. Let’s talk.

Last summer, my son and I bicycled across America with two other dads and their teenagers. We published a new book about it called Chasing Dawn. I co-authored the book with my cycling companion, the artist, photographer, and wonderful human jon holloway. Buy a copy. I’ll sign it and send it to your doorstep.