Design highly motivating goals that will actually give you what you want

SUCCESS AND GROWTH
BY Andrew Eade

GET THE DETAILS

GET INSTANT ACCESS

Most people focus on the wrong thing

Ask most people what their goals are and you will no doubt get these typical replies.

Greg: "I want to own a side business", or "I want to be the CEO of a company"

Me: "That's cool. Why do you want to do that?"

Greg: "I want to be financially independent"

Me: "Nice. Why have you decided that you need to do X, to achieve Y"?

Greg: "I don't know. Just seems like those guys don't have any money worries"

Why reason why 95% of people fail to achieve their goals

Imagine you decide one day that enough is enough - your clothes are feeling a little tight, and you need to lose a few (dozen) pounds.

You decide to go running. And because you want results fast, you decide to run every day.

You decide to go running because that's what everyone does when they want to lose weight - right? Oh, and cut all the fat and sweet foods out of your diet too. You need to lose weight fast - your health is a priority after all.

All goes well for the first few weeks. You're starting to see results. You're losing weight fast and you feel good about your progress. Motivation and energy is high.

Then one day you wake up and something feels different. You go to work. When you get home you're lacking energy. You think about going for a run, and inside you groan.

You think about how you still ache a little from all the intense running the last few days. You feeling hungry and it will take a good half hour before dinner's ready.

You reach for a snack to 'tide you over'. You skip tonight's run, and convince yourself that you'll 'go for one tomorrow'.

Tomorrow rolls by and that snack last night didn't do any harm - so you have one again tonight. Your body feels better too for having a day off - so you decide to take another day off running.

And so starts the inevitable slippery descent back to the starting line.

The situation above could have so easily been avoided.

Focus on Benefits first, Solutions second

If you want to achieve your goals, you first need to be crystal clear about what they are before you start. And they are not 'Going for a run 3 times a week', 'Becoming financially free by running a successful side hustle', or even 'Build the empire state building.'

Those are Objectives.

Your GOAL is the BENEFIT you want to gain in your life by achieving those objectives. Your GOAL is you REASON for doing what you are doing. In Project Management, this is called the AIM. The things you decide to do to achieve the AIM are called OBJECTIVES.

The AIM in the example above wasn't the running. Most likely, it was simply to lose weight and as a result feel more confident, have more energy, and live a life with more peace of mind in the knowledge that they were in good health.

If being in general good health, with increased energy to live life more fully was the true goal, then what else could they have done to achieve that?

Why not simply eat more healthily?

If fitness was a key benefit, then fitness to do what exactly? Maybe they could have taken up kite surfing, or hiking. Or maybe even evening cycle rides around their favourite spots in the neighbourhood.

Having this kind of clarity is essential if you are going to achieve you biggest goals.

I've seen countless people work for YEARS toward a goal, only to achieve it and realise that it wasn't what they really wanted after all. They had climbed the proverbial 'wrong ladder'.

Consciously putting in the effort to understand what you really want and why is a fundamental step for achieving happiness, success and living the life that you want.

Introducing...

The Goal Mapping Worksheet

Inside the Goal Mapping Worksheet we've distilled down the key steps for designing highly motivating goals that you will follow through on, and that are centred on the real life benefits.

The Goal Mapping Worksheet will:

Help you understand your true motivations for current goals. By helping you understand the clear benefits you want from achieving your goal

Help you validate your goals. By analysing the different options you have for achieving the benefits using our unique goal mapping quadrant - ensuring you have chosen the most motivating and rewarding goal possible

Show you how to create powerful 'Mission Statements'. Learn to describe your goals as Aims and Objectives and create short, powerful Benefit statements that will keep you and your team focused and motivated on your end goal

Anchor 1