How to Reach Your Goals 🆙

Why are we not good at achieving the goals we set ourselves?

Probably precisely why we are too focused on them.

Paradoxical right?

To explain what I mean, let me tell you about the famous "darts experiment" conducted by Barry Zimmerman, professor of learning psychology at CUNY (City University of New York).

Professor Zimmerman, to evaluate the effectiveness of several strategies for achieving objectives, divided his students, none of whom had ever played darts, into 3 groups:

He told the first group to focus on trying to score as many points as possible, that is, on RESULT
He told the second group to be concerned only with making the correct movement with the arm and wrist: that is, on the PROCESS.
The third group was first told to focus on the correct movement and only later on the score, that is, first on the PROCESS and then on RESULT.

Guess what':

The group that had the worst performance was the one focused on the result
The group that had the better performance was the one focused on PROCESS + RESULT.

Now, the conclusion of the study, if we think about throwing darts at a target (which by the way is a typical metaphor for achieving a goal), is all in all obvious.

But if we take it into real life, here we have a surprise.

To achieve your goals, all they focus their thoughts above all on the result, very few instead they know, analyze and diligently put into practice the necessary process.

When I realized years ago that I too was falling into this mistake, I decided to develop a my method for achieving goals.

Based on scientific studies, my personal experience, my strengths and weaknesses.

Here are 9 of its essential points.

1. Make it clear exactly what you want to achieve.

Defining your goal in detail is crucial, because without a clear result there is no clear method.

Having your goal clear means knowing how to respond to three simple questions.

Before seeing them together though, choose a goal that at this moment it is important for you to reach, so as to make the reading more concrete and useful.

In this way you will not look at the three questions in a generic way, but in a specific way, with your goal in mind.

You have ten seconds to decide… .. 1, 2, 3,4…. 10.

Now that you've chosen it, try to answer honestly:

What do you want exactly with respect to your goal?
Why do you want it?
When do you intend to reach the goal you have chosen?

Most people, when they think generically about their goals, are unable to answer any of them. Anyone who has ever had a life coaching session knows it well!

As a result, the goal remains a daydream.

I'll give you an example with a very typical goal:

"I want to lose weight!"

What do you mean by losing weight? Losing weight, of course.

How much? Under what conditions? With what results?

If you dig a bit you realize that it's probably not just about losing weight generically, but about doing it:

In a healthy way
By improving your efficiency and your mood
Without giving up everything you like
By increasing your cardiovascular capacity
Without harming your social life
Without returning to gain weight immediately afterwards

But then, because do you want to lose weight?

Beauty? Health? Perception of yourself? Success with others?

And by when do you want to do it? For summer? From tomorrow? Before Christmas? In X months / weeks?

Answering the three simple questions above in an honest and articulate way allows you to truly analyze your goals and therefore take the first step to build a map to reach them.

2. Ask yourself if your goal is consistent with who you are

Now that you've established exactly what do you want to reach, the reason you want to do it for, and il tempo where you want to reach it, you have to do what I call "consistency analysis".

That is, you have to analyze how your goal fits with respect to:

to your values
the things you believe in
to your priorities
to your lifestyle
to other goals that you have already given yourself

If there is no harmony between your goals and what you are or are doing, they will eventually elude you.

For example, think of a goal like "I want to make a career".

If you don't share the value system of the company you are in, you will either change jobs or it will be nearly impossible to achieve it.

As well as, if you want to have a satisfying family life, hobbies, see old friends, and are forced to travel 250 days a year for work, here is what is created. a dystonia between goal and values / lifestyle desired.

Staying focused on one goal without resolving this type of dystonia will likely mean not only failing to achieve the goal, but ruining the rest as well.

3. Analyze the risks associated with achieving your goal

What are you willing to do to achieve your goals?

And what if, despite all your efforts, you DO NOT reach the goal in the end?

Maybe you're 30, a family with a 6 month old son, a regular job, but you want to be the new Steve Jobs.

Decide that this is feasible and absolutely in line with your values and priorities.

You have also accepted the fact that you will work a lot, but you are convinced that it will only be for the few years before you become rich and that you will dedicate less time to your family but of greater quality.

So you quit your job and mortgage your house to launch your start up.

And maybe two years later you find yourself without having reached the goal, with family relationships ruined and economically in the middle of the road.

Or maybe you're 20 and want to be a great doctor.

College is challenging, and since you don't want to downsize your social life, you decide that taking amphetamines to study doesn't bother you that much.

A few years later, one step away from graduation, in a random checkup, they discover you with a pack of amphetamines and cocaine in the car.

You find yourself with a criminal offense on your shoulders, you have ruined a large chunk of your health and it is possible that you will not be licensed to practice.

Am I exaggerating? Yet these things happen, and they happen to those who do not ask themselves three fundamental questions:

How much am I aiming at the goal I have set myself?
Have I set up a safety net in case it doesn't reach my goal?

Facing life and trying to pursue your goals as a casino gambler, without setting limits and without imagining a plan B, not only is it extremely risky, but it generally takes you away from the very goal you set yourself.

4. Predict and remove obstacles

Obstacles can come in many different forms, such as people, circumstances, events, fears, lack of knowledge or experience, and many more.

Identifying obstacles is a psychologically difficult exercise, because most people tend to stick their heads in the sand.

In fact, we prefer to focus on the positives.

Instead, be prepared that something will go wrong, even if you don't know exactly what.

Instead of freezing, you can say:

“As I expected, an unexpected event has occurred that I cannot control. So I have to find a way to get around it "

Note the pun: foresee the unexpected!

This is not a contradiction at all: it simply means that you know that some obstacle will come, but you don't know what.

So you won't have the answer on what to do right away, but you will have the right mindset to find them.

5. Surround yourself with the resources necessary to achieve the goal

Ask yourself these questions:

What are the resources I already have that can help me achieve my goal?
What additional resources I DON'T HAVE needed?
How can I acquire these resources that I don't have?

Many, when they think about the necessary resources, they think above all to what they know or have.

Instead it is also fundamental assess the environment in which you are.

Have you ever wondered, for example, why 90% of successful tech start-ups not only come from the United States, but even from a certain geographical area within them, which is quite small, called Silicon Valley?

If you have an idea for a great App but you live in some small European city, your access to investment funds, expert programmers, partners, market, is very limited. And if you don't even speak English, your chances of success are very low, no matter how good the idea of the App you had is!

If, on the other hand, you have the idea for an app that is not fantastic, but you live in Silicon Valley, you can participate in the rounds of investment funds, you can look for expert partners to help you improve it, you can find exceptional programmers to develop it! In short, you will have more chances of success just for the simple fact of living there.

It is therefore crucial that the environment in which you are able to support your goal.

And this is true even for the little things: if there is no quiet environment in your home to study and organize your work, graduating will be more difficult.

If you want to be a doctor but there is no university in your city, you will have to move.

If you live 100km from the company where you want to make a career, moving from home to work every day will be a big problem in achieving your goal, and you will need to find a closer home.

If the study group you prepare for exams with is poor and lazy, you too will learn little.

It is easier to achieve your goal if the environment around you motivates you, inspires you and supports you.

Such an environment "conspires" for your success, in the sense that everything pushes you in that direction.

Conversely, there are “toxic” people and environments, which in many different ways damage your chances of achieving your goals. You must absolutely avoid them.

6. Think big, act small

This taking small steps is one of my obsessions, and I've often talked about it about the power of habits and willpower.

As well as my book "The Kata of the will" is entirely centered on the power of small steps.

Thinking big about your goal helps you to form the "big picture", the overall vision, and makes you fully appreciate all the opportunities and possibilities you have in front of you.

This is a source of great inspiration and motivation, but if it is not accompanied by small actions towards the goal it quickly turns into an unrealistic dream.

Everyone likes to think in terms of big goals and big results, because it makes you feel good.

But at the same time it's easy, at some point, feel overwhelmed by the very greatness of the goal you want to achieve, and the distance that separates you.

For this reason you have to establish intermediate steps that depend on small, concrete actions.

This way you are able to stay motivated longer, and with less effort.

The closer and more achievable a goal is, the easier it is to focus on it; the further and unreachable it is, the harder it is to focus and resist.

The idea therefore is that of identify intermediate steps to focus on, so that:

You are able to have periodic feedback on how things are going
You are less intimidated by the magnitude and difficulty of the final goal

It is the technique of marathon runners when they go into crisis: they don't think about how long they have to reach the finish line, they only think how long they have to go for the next kilometer.

7. "Play" to achieve your goals

The "play factor" is very important in achieving the objectives.

So first, to stay focused on your goals, they must be interesting and exciting.

And, to be, they have to be of the right difficulty.

If you are a tennis player, or a chess player or a World of Warcraft player, the worst thing that can happen to you is having to play with someone really poor: you get terribly bored because it poses no challenge.

Like, if you don't know how to play chess and you play against a champion, it's no longer an interesting challenge, it's just frustrating.

From this point of view, the goals you give yourself in life are not very different from the games I mentioned.

If they're not difficult at all, they aren't motivating either, because they don't require you to go any further and really put in your effort.

At the same time, if they are too difficult they become frustrating.

As Mihály Csíkszentmihályi explains in his studies on FLOW, a rewarding activity must be both difficult and within the reach of those who perform it.

Flow is a condition characterized by a total involvement of the individual: focus on the goal, intrinsic motivation, positivity and gratification in carrying out a particular task

Taking advantage of the game effect to reach your goals is not limited to finding the right difficulty. It also means practicing it by simulating the very modalities of a game.

Think about it.

The games all have one thing in common: a system that measures your score and progression over time.

This is why many apps to quit smoking, be more organized, meditate, lose weight, give you scores, pennants or other symbols that show your progression towards the final goal.

In the Ivy Lee method, simply writing down a daily goal list and crossing it out every night tremendously increases your ability to accomplish what is written on it.

The reason is that achieving our goals:

It gives us great satisfaction
It gives us positive feedback, strengthening our behavior
It gives a big boost to our self-esteem
Enhance motivation

All effects linked together and mediated in the brain by a neuro-transmitter called dopamine.

But if months go by between one dopamine hit and the next, it's hard to go on!

The game effect, on the other hand, allows you to have your small dose of dopamine every day, naturally

So, when setting your goals, pay attention to the game effect, and ask yourself:

Can I make this goal fun and exciting?
Can I somehow turn it into some kind of game?
If it's too difficult, how can I make it affordable?
What do I win for every step I take in the direction of the goal?
How do i measure my progress?

If you can set goals that are neither too easy nor too difficult, and find a way to make them similar to a game, everything will be easier.

8. Focus on the critical aspects

As you pursue your goals, it's easy to get trapped in the details by focusing on activities that bring you little long-term value.

So, if a little while ago we said to think big but also to focus on small concrete activities, now let's discover another essential characteristic that these small activities must have: the value.

Especially in complex projects / objectives it is easy, due to the amount of things to do, to waste a lot of time doing the less important ones.

The problem is that unimportant activities do not give you the perception of progress, and this lack of results kills the motivation!

Then analyze your activities according to the Pareto principle, or the 80/20 principle.

Pareto was an economist who identified the empirical law according to which "80% of the consequences are the result of 20% of the causes, and vice versa".

This basically means that they exist some key activities that give most of the result what you want to get; and a myriad of other activities that instead contribute to the result only in a marginal way.

Yet many people, when they work or study, do not allocate their energies and their time according to the Pareto principle, but do it a little at random, according to the mood or the urgency of the moment. Forgetting that what is urgent does not mean that it is important!

So, stop every now and then during the day and ask yourself:

Am I spending my time on a critical or secondary activity?
How close does this activity bring me to my goal?
How could I better spend my time right now?
How could I better occupy my energies?

9. Communicate your goals to an "accountability partner"

Your method of achieving goals begins to have several arrows in its bow.

But how confident are you that you will implement all these strategies systematically?

Are you able to make a promise of trustworthiness to yourself? If yes, no problem, but for some believe me it is difficult.

For example, I promised myself to quit smoking a thousand times, and a thousand times I started again.

I promised my wife once and I haven't touched a cigarette in years.

So choose one or more people you trust and love, and share your goal with them, not just over the long term, but in detail. In such a way that if you are not progressing it is not only you who know it, but they too.

This does not mean that these people have to become part of your project or your goal, or worse that they have to scold you if you don't reach it!

This is not their role.

They will simply be "Witnesses" of what you do, and this alone will be an extra incentive.

But be careful! This strategy presents a risk: that of finding yourself having to lie to hide your lack of trustworthiness from the people you shared the project with.

And that puts you in a vicious cycle of low self-esteem that will only harm your goal.

So, promise! But before you do that, think about it.

Achieving goals, but also not.

We have seen:

How and why to define your goals
How to assess if they are consistent with who you are
The importance of having a plan B and evaluating all the risks
The psychological advantage of anticipating obstacles
The need to move in the right environment
Why think big and act small
Why, if you "play" with your goals, you feel better and have better results
What the 80/20 principle is and why it is so efficient in achieving goals
Why it is useful to have an accountability partner

Now, I believe that you have never chased a goal using all these strategies, and yet I am sure that in your life you have already achieved several.

So imagine for a moment that you are using all these strategies from now on. And maybe still someone else that you think is particularly suitable for you.

I was already talking about it in my article on the Mindset: everything becomes possible and where before you saw impassable mountains now you see goals that you can really achieve.

Isn't it wonderful to be able to see life like this?

As something in which certainly not everything we want will come true, but everything (or almost everything) is at least achievable.

Here, therefore, that, in addition to the concrete objectives that you can achieve, focusing not only on the results but also on the process makes you a great gift.

Make you feel the protagonist of your life, of your choices, of the goals you have set for yourself.

Think about it. Greetings and see you soon,

Anthony.