staying focused, goal setting 201

Summary

anyone can write down a goal. that’s the easy part. staying focused on it 52 weeks straight is where almost everyone falls off. here’s the simple linear system I use.

1. start with the vision. no timeframe yet. what’s the thing you actually want. don’t filter for what’s realistic. write it down.

2. chunk it down to a year. three business goals, three personal goals, max. these are the big rocks for the next 365 days.

3. break the year into months. based on the annual goals, what has to happen in the next 30 days. then break the month into the week. then the week into the day.

4. keep the goals visible. mine sit at the top of the note I plan my week in. the annual at the top, the monthly under it, the weekly tasks below. when I’m dragging things onto Monday through Friday, the goals are staring back at me. forces alignment.

5. an email inbox is a task list other people gave you. don’t let it run your week. block time for what you said mattered before anything else fills the slots.

6. stay linear. random great workouts don’t build muscle if the program changes every day. same with business. doing a lot of good things that don’t trace back to the goal is just productive wheel-spinning.

I fall off too. life hits. emergencies. when that happens I stop, refocus, and force myself back. that’s the work. try harder.

Transcript

the goal setting most people skip

The most impactful business is the business that genuinely improves another human, a better human business. And to grow a business like this, you have to continually improve yourself. This podcast is a documentation of that thesis, scaling businesses and also personal growth. My goal is for you to shortcut this journey.

So if you’re ready to try hard, subscribe. If you like what you’re hearing, please share and enjoy. This is the better human business podcast. I’m Jerred Moon and today I’m talking about staying focused and goal setting. A lot of people talk about goal setting. We all know goals are important, but how do you stay focused on them?

Because writing it down on a piece of paper is one thing. That’s a commitment. It’s better than it being in your head. But how do we make sure that we’re moving towards that goal at all times, especially if it’s a big giant goal? And I think when you have a big goal, as you should, you’re not 100% sure how you’re going to achieve it, right?

All you can do is take your next best guess on the next steps that you should take. So I want to talk about a little bit about my goal setting process, because it’s a little bit different than most people, right? Like most of my goals are not as trackable as they used to be, because I used to do very trackable goals.

Like I want to exercise or train this many times in a month, right? Or I want to make this much money in business and like all these kind of things, those used to be the goals, very trackable. But then even doing so, you know, you can get lost in the process, right? Even making more money in business, if that’s your goal, all you have are your best theories, what you’ve learned and what you can apply.

vision, year, month, week

You don’t truly know if it’s going to work. You don’t truly know if it’s going to get you to where you want, at least, because if where you want to go is like 10 times bigger than you are right now, you don’t have the skills. You don’t have the knowledge to do that. So all you’re doing is taking your next best guess and maybe you get 50% of the way there and then you realize, Hey, this needs to change.

The strategy has to be completely different, but that’s part of the process and you got to be okay and you got to change. But here’s the simple process I follow. So every once in a while, I’ll sit down, I’ll think about what I, what do I, what I want. I don’t normally put a huge timeframe on this. I’m not saying that this necessarily has to be done in the next one year, three years, five years.

I just kind of know this is the thing that I want done. And then after I have that, I’ll start to chunk it down. That’s where we start putting timeframes on it, right? I’ll put a year on it. I’ll put like, okay, this chunk, this part of the plan needs to be done within the next 365 days. And then after I have that, okay, here’s kind of the big picture of the vision and I translate that down to a year.

Now I’m going to typically set three business goals for the year and three personal goals. These are still bigger, right? These are bigger things. And then based off of those, I’m going to go down to the month and say, okay, based off of that being my annual goal, what do I have to do this month? And then when I’m, when I have those monthly goals, I then look at what I have to do this week.

And I know this sounds very simple, but are you doing it? Are you actually looking at these things? Because for me, I have, it’s software that I use. It’s not a goal planning app or anything like that. It’s something I use. It’s more like a note taking software. So it’s just how I use it. It might not be beneficial for you.

the goals at the top of the page

But when I use this software to track or to plan out my week, right, and at the top of this note taking software I’m using, it has what my annual goals are. And below that it has what my monthly goals are. And so when I go to start putting things into my week, here’s what’s going to happen on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I have those goals staring at me in the face.

They’re right there. You know, I’ve written them down on paper. I put them in this app. I’m looking at them on my computer screen. And then I can see if my actions align with what I’m trying to achieve. And that is the most important part. Because what can happen very easily in business as an entrepreneur, as a father, as a husband, all the things that I am, is a lot of other things can get squeezed in that aren’t necessarily my priority, right?

They’re not the goals that I’m after. I mean, that’s basically what an email inbox is. An email inbox is a task list that other people give to you. Right? It’s crazy. But if you haven’t realized that yet, that’s what email is. It’s like you didn’t, I didn’t plan to have this task today, but someone just gave it to me.

And it could be a random person. And they can ask you a question and now you have a task to answer a question today. So anyway, all these other things can squeeze in. But when I start planning my week and I have employees who’ve asked me to do things or business partners or spouse or whatever, and I’m like starting to try and be like, okay, how am I going to get done what I need to get done this week?

email is a task list other people gave you

Because there’s a lot. I have to start making some tough choices once I start planning my week, because it’s very easy when I have this long list, it might be like 30 things that I need to get done. And I’m like, well, only four of these have to do with what I’m trying to achieve. And it doesn’t mean that’ll be the only four things I’m going to do, but those are going to get the priority, right?

I’m going to be like, hey, this is what I wanted this year. This is what has to happen this month. So those get priority. Those are going first. Early on in the week, I’m making sure I have time blocked for those things to be worked on. Now everything else is going to those gray crappy areas, the after meetings, before meetings, before the call, after the call, where I’m not as focused, like that’s where all the auxiliary tasks are getting thrown in for me.

So my recommendation for you is quite simple. If you want to stay focused on your goals, are you having trouble, you know, everyone can set a goal. It’s the goal achieving that gets hard. If you’re struggling with that, it might be because you’re not actually focused on a weekly basis. So when you’re planning your week, if you plan your week, another recommendation for you, make sure everything that you’re putting on your calendar has to do with the thing that you want to achieve this month and everything that you wanted to achieve this month has to do with what you wanted to achieve this year.

And everything that you want to achieve this year has to do with your greater big picture vision for your life and what that looks like. This is a very simple process and I’m not going to lie. Sometimes life hits me and I, I fall off track. I might fall off track for a few weeks. Things get busy.

stay linear

I get, there are more like emergency type things that I have to take care of and I’m like, ah crap, I’m getting off track and then I have to focus. I have to stop. I have to think. I have to be like, no, do not get distracted. Do not start working on these other things. Don’t that don’t do not matter.

Stay focused. But that’s how you have to act. That’s how you have to be if you want to achieve your goals. You can’t just kind of do a lot of different things in entrepreneurship. That’s not going to work. Like if I wanted to build bigger muscles and I did a really great bodybuilding workout today, that’s great.

But then if I’m doing something random tomorrow, I’m doing a power lifting workout and then I’m doing, uh, you know, a 30 mile bike ride and then I’m doing, you know, some CrossFit and then I come back 14 days later and I’m doing another bodybuilding workout to try and grow muscles. It’s too sporadic, right?

I’m doing a lot of the good things, but I’m not actually moving forward to where I said I wanted to go and it’s no different in our daily tasks. We can do a lot of great things. We can get a lot done. We can be productive and feel awesome about ourselves, but ultimately be spinning our wheels and not moving in the direction we want to go at all.

So stay focused, stay focused, use this linear approach to looking at your goals each and every single day and each and every single week and achieve more in shorter amount of time. Look, I get it. It’s a lot of work to plan all your goals, to do all these things, to make sure that all of your today’s connect to your tomorrows and it is a lot of work, but if it’s too much work for you, I only have one suggestion, try harder.