“Every day I beat my own previous record for the number of consecutive days I’ve stayed alive.”
~ George Carlin
The Power of Goals
For a recent book that I ghostwrote, I was doing some research on the power of goals and discovered that while setting clear goals and visualising them was extremely powerful, it was actually the step of committing to turning them into reality that made all the difference to your outcome.
When you think about it, it’s easy to see why this is true…
Planning and Visualising are important, but if you don’t commit to taking action – disciplined, consistent action – then nothing happens
The data on setting and visualising goals is convincing: when you know what you are aiming for and have specifically outlined that you have at least a 70% chance of achieving it (some studies put it much higher) compared with a less-than 20% chance if you simply set out to ‘do the best you can’.
Goals that Deliver Results
You’ve probably heard of S.M.A.R.T. Goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Based) and that’s a good start… But I’m betting that you, like me, know people who regularly don’t manage to achieve the goals they set using this method. Don’t get me wrong – S.M.A.R.T. Goals are great, but they aren’t enough.
To truly succeed you need to simplify and review those goals and build daily habits and rituals around them. I’ve noticed that in just about every profession it’s those people who have truly committed to excellence in one area that manage to succeed in broadening their areas of expertise one-by-one.
To achieve that outcome is relatively simple: consistent attentive practice.
Quantity Begets Quality
Have you heard the story about Jerry Seinfeld, back in the days before he was a well-known comedian? It is worth repeating because it contains important lessons for business. He committed to writing one joke each day and set up a chart on his wall.
Every day he wrote at least one joke he put an X across that day. His only goal was not to break the chain of days with an X.
It didn’t matter if the jokes were good or bad on any given day, his purpose was to develop a habit and practice the skill he was trying to develop. He firmly believed that consistent, committed practice would lead to growth… And it did!
Recently, I read about a Photography School that divided a class into 2 groups. One group was told their grade would be judged on the quantity of photos they submitted and the other group on the quality of photo submitted (they just had to submit one ‘perfect’ photo to get an A). At the end of the semester, it turned out that the group that had agonised over the theory of the ‘perfect photo’ had made far less progress than the group that had been judged on quantity – because that group had learned even from their mistakes.
NOTE: All practice isn’t created equal. Jerry Seinfeld wrote a joke every day. Some days he may have just scribbled down something in a hurry, but he wasn’t just going through the motions. He analysed and tested his work so that he could discover the types of joke that got a response and those that didn’t. The photography students were judged on the number of photos they produced, but they were trying to take great photos, not just ‘get a shot’. Musicians improve when they attend to their practice and work at improve. It may take 10,000 hours to get really good at something… But not every one of those hours has equal value.
What Can You Do?
There are key metrics in every business – and key INPUTS that contribute to them.
Those are the things that you should practice consistently every day because they will lead to growth and scale. It’s your job to identify what the key metric in your business is at this particular time and focus on that. It won’t stay the same forever.
When Dropbox started their goal was to get as many users on their free account as possible – so they worked out a strategy for doing that and the activity that led to more people signing up. Then they shifted their metric to referrals and gave people incentives to refer friends and family. Later on they shifted again and focused on moving people into paid accounts. As their goals changed – and their place on the strategic map, so did their key metric.
You can start by identifying your key metric and determining the consistent action that will help you improve it.
Dan Kennedy has told the story of how every day without fail he would do something to generate new business including nurturing existing clients. He didn’t always execute the same action, but he always had the same goal. It might be forwarding a clipping from the newspaper, calling someone, writing a letter, or an ad – the important thing was that he took some kind of action even if that didn’t guarantee his results, it made a positive outcome more likely.
I can’t control how many people sign up for my email list or ask about my services or products each day but I can control whether I do something that will increase that likelihood.
If you’re like me, some of those actions produce quick results, others start a slow burn that gains momentum over time. Others may not deliver anything.
I can’t control the timing of the outcomes, but I can control my behaviour… And so can you.
What is the one thing that if you were to commit to doing every single day, would change your results over time?
It might fall into the realm of…
- Practicing a skill
- Testing a new medium
- Running paid ads
- Nurturing relationships
- Emailing your customers
- Or…?
Whatever it is, make a promise to yourself that you will do it every day for the next 6 months – fulfil that promise, then look at your outcomes and see how far you have come.
