Your Best Year Ever: Michael Hyatt - Summary & Analysis (5/6)
Step 5. Make it Happen.
Setting the goal is only half the job. The other half is taking definitive action.
One Journey is Many Steps.
The author shares an account of a decorated army commander named Gen. George B. McClellan. He shares about how the enthusiasm around the General’s promotion to General-in-chief of the Union Army was short-lived as the new commander leapt to training his men but hesitated when it came to attacking the enemy. McClellan was constantly organising and preparing. According to him, the army was never quite ready. McClellan exercised “obsessive caution” even when he had the clear advantage over his enemies.
All his planning and preparation meant too little action, too late. Part of McClellan’s problem was that he regularly overestimated his size of the enemy. The more daunting the enemy grew in his mind, the less confidence he showed in the field.
Setting the goal is only half the job. The other half is taking definitive action.
The Art of the Start.
I meet people all the time who get bogged down in planning and preparation. They’d like to launch a new product, find another job, write their first book — but they just can’t seem to pull the trigger. Due to their feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty, they spend their time dreaming, researching and planning.
Detailed action plans are terrific — if you’re building a nuclear submarine! For most goals, detailed planning becomes a fancy form of procrastination. It’s a lot easier to plan than to take action.
You don't have to see the end from the beginning. In fact, you can’t if your goal is big enough. You don't need to, all you need to see is the next step. Any goal is manageable one step at a time.
Do the Easiest Task First.
Years ago I heard a motivational speaker encourage his audience to “eat that frog.” The line has a long history. And it makes sense in its own way: Stop procrastinating and just do the thing you fear. Once you do that, everything else is easy. While that may be helpful in overcoming procrastination, it’s exactly backward for big goals and projects. Instead, you should tackle your easiest task first.
While we should set goals in the Discomfort Zone, the way to tackle a goal is to start with a task in the Comfort Zone. There are at least three reasons to front-load your task list with easy items,
- starting with motion. The first step on any project is usually the toughest. But when you start with the easy steps, you lower the threshold for taking action. This is how you trick your brain into starting.
- Second, emotion. Getting some quick wins boosts your mood. Your brain releases dopamine when you achieve goals. And since dopamine improves attention, memory, and motivation, even achieving a small goal can result in a positive feedback loop that makes you more motivated to work harder going forward.
- Third, momentum. Getting started and feeling good about your progress means it’s easy to build momentum.
Big goals are inherently daunting. If you're not careful, you can let it discourage you. Set goals in your Discomfort zone but break them into a series of smaller steps in your Comfort Zone.
You’re looking for one discrete task. You basically want to put the bar so low, you can fall over it. Then once that task is done, you can set the next. I don’t care how big the goal is — it can be accomplished if you take it one step at a time.
What if your next step feels uncertain? Don’t sweat it. Just try something and don’t worry if it’s wrong. The goal may be risky, but the next action isn’t. You’re stepping out, but not far. If it doesn’t work out, you just take another step.
Whatever the situation try something, and if you get stuck, try something else. Sometimes you have to try several different things before one works.
Seek Outside Help.
Sometimes we just can’t land on a next step because we’re not aware of our options or we don’t know what it takes to make the progress we want. The good news is, for almost every goal we want to accomplish, someone else knows how to get there.
Commit to Act.
Whether you determine your next step yourself or resort to outside help, you next need to schedule it and commit to act. If it doesn’t get on your calendar or task list, it’s probably not going to happen. You’re never going to find time in the leftover hours of the day to accomplish your goals. You have to make time for it. You have to make it a priority and keep it like an appointment, just like you would keep with anyone else.
Concerning all acts of initiative and creativity, there is one elementary truth . . . that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.
You Can Trigger Success.
“If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins”
Recently I discovered I was using a version of what goal achievement researchers call implementation intentions. I call them Activation Triggers™. These are simple statements or actions that streamline the process of reaching our goals.
How?
By anticipating whatever contingencies or obstacles we might face, we can cue a desired response. Instead of relying on our decision making in the moment (when our mental and emotional resources might be at their lowest), Activation Triggers lock in our decisions in advance by addressing contingencies. We can think of them as simple “if / then" or “when / then" statements.
When people decide exactly when, where, and how they will fulfill their goals, they create a link in their brains between a certain situation or cue (‘If or when x happens’) and the behavior that should follow (‘then I will do y’). In this way, they establish powerful triggers for action.
It’s hard to make progress when we’re stuck in behavioural ruts. Activation triggers can get us out of the ruts and remind us of new and better behaviours that’ll help us reach our goals.
This sort of planning smooths out the friction we experience trying ro maintain momentum and gives us a way to overcome obstacles.
Phase 1: Brainstorm the Best Triggers.
So you’ve got a goal that meets the SMARTER standard. Now you want to identify the triggers that will work best for reaching the goal. Make sure your Activation Triggers are easier to achieve than your actual goals. That’s the whole point. You’re leveraging the easy to do the hard.
After you’ve come up with a short list of possible triggers (two or three), select the one you think will set you up for success.
Phase 2: Optimise Your Activation Triggers.
Take your trigger out of your control as much as possible using elimination, automation and delegation. For example the author delegated his “date night” activation trigger using his assistant. He sets up the author’s dinner reservations.
By taking the trigger out of your control, you’re no longer relying on yourself in the moment. You’re identifying contingencies and taking care of them in advance. When the contingency arises, it’s already handled.
Phase 3: Anticipate Obstacles and Determine Your Response.
Even with a set of Activation Triggers firmly in place, you can still get derailed unless you identify potential obstacles and detail how you will deal with them.
This kind of if/then planning replaces an in-the-moment decision with a predetermined cue. “When people have formed an implementation intention, they can act [automatically], without having to deliberate on when and how they should act.
Phase 4: Experiment Until You Nail It.
This is the key to success. You’re going to experience setbacks — especially if you’re normal. When you hit a wall, it’s time to pivot. Your goal might be sacred, but your strategy isn’t. Don’t give up on your goal, just change your approach.
Whatever your goal, the trick is to simply think through the contingencies and obstacles that’ll prevent you from achieving it.
Visibility is Essential.
A combination of radio and gyroscopes give a pilot the ability to fly safely regardless of visibility. There are several parallels when it comes to our goals. The first is that we often try to reach our destination without enough support. Without proper instruments, when we face stormy weather — which we invariably do, we’re forced to bail or just trust our luck that we’ll make it.
We need the right mix of instruments. You already have two:
- A simple procedure for breaking down goals into next actions, and
- A set of Activation Triggers.
Now you need to add another: a regular review process. You can’t just write goals and motivations. You have to review them and keep them top of mind.
Reviewing your goals and motivations will keep you ideating, self-checking and analysing. That will up your resolve and stimulate creative problem solving.
Daily Review.
A regular goal review process starts with a simple list of your goals, a goal summary. To gain the full benefit of the review, you should scan this list each day. Many people feel stuck or fail to make progress because they can’t make the connection between their yearly goals and their daily tasks.
The daily review is designed to make that connection between goals and tasks. As you scan the list, look for relevant next actions. Ask yourself: “What could I do today that would move me down the stretch toward the goal?”
The author limits his tasks to what he calls “The Daily Big 3.”
The idea is to limit yourself to three significant tasks to complete each day. If you really want to make progress, you need a fast and easy method to chunk down big goals into achievable daily tasks.
Weekly Review.
The weekly review has a triple focus. The first part is to stay intellectually and emotionally connected to your motivations. A weekly review keeps those key motivations present in our minds. When we’re in the thick of it, it can be hard to recall. But when we’re reviewing our rationale week in and week out, the reasons become so internalised that we have a deep sense of what’s at stake.
The second part of the weekly review is a mini After-Action Review. Review your progress and list your wins and misses.
Next, list the lessons you learned and what you would do differently or better. How will you adjust your behaviour?
The third and final part of the weekly review is to get a sense of what needs to be accomplished for the upcoming week.
Use your weekly big 3 to dictate your daily big 3. Taken together, the process works like this:
All the way from the goal down to the individual daily tasks, the idea is to direct your actions so you’re always gaining ground. The daily and weekly reviews make that possible.
Quarterly Review.
Set your goals by quarter so you space them out throughout the year and prompt action immediately, instead of waiting till later in the year as a more distant deadline finally comes into view.
The main purpose of the quarterly review is to analyse your goals and decide if they’re still relevant to your life, and then make any adjustments if not. In the quarterly review process, at least five options are possible:
- Rejoice.
- Recommit.
- Revise.
- Remove.
- Replace.
First, you can rejoice. Let’s say you’ve reached an important milestone in pursuit of one of your goals. Pause to recognize and celebrate it. In fact, the bigger our goals, the more important it becomes to celebrate small wins along the way. { I don’t celebrate my progress so much as document it. }
Second, you can recommit to the goal. This can be hard when you feel like giving up and walking off the field. But then you realize the game isn’t over. Literally anything is possible. You never know what may happen. The only thing you can know for sure is that if you quit now, you will lose. The key in this situation is to refocus on the original goal and reconnect to your why.
In other words, list what is at stake. What will you gain? What will you lose? Once you have these in view, you can consider new strategies or find additional resources. But you have to decide, deep in your heart, I’m going for it.
☝️Don’t conflate goals and strategies. Your goal is the what, your strategy is the how. There’s nothing sacred about your strategy. You can change it at any time if it’s not producing results. If we’re married to our strategies and they fail us, our goals will suffer. But if we’re committed to our goals, we can confidently pivot on our strategies as often as we need to hit our targets.
If you’re no longer committed to the goal, your third option is to revise it. This is totally valid. After all, when you are planning, you have limited knowledge. Maybe you’ve realized that you set the goal in the Delusional Zone instead of the Discomfort Zone. Other facts or circumstances that you could not have known about may come into play — and they may be out of your control. You do have to be careful when revising a goal. You don’t want to do it just so you can stay in the Comfort Zone and not stretch. But you also don’t need to put yourself in a no-win situation just to prove a point.
When I can’t recommit, and I don’t want to revise, the fourth option is removal. Grab an eraser. Hit delete 🚫. If you’ve decided to remove a goal, replace it with another you want to achieve.
This is your game. I never met the goal police, but I’m certain they don’t show up when you strike a goal off your list. If a goal is no longer relevant, if it’s no longer compelling, if you’ve tried to revise it and you can’t, remove it. If you don’t, the goal will just sit there and accuse you. There’s no need to pay an emotional tax like that on your own list.
Look at the four quarterly review options as a decision tree:
▶ REJOICE if you’ve reached your goal/milestone. If you’re not there yet,
▶ Then RECOMMIT to achieve it. If you can’t recommit,
▶ Then REVISE the goal so you can achieve it. If you can’t revise,
▶ Then REMOVE the goal from your list. If you remove a goal,
▶ Then REPLACE it with another you want to achieve.
Why Celebrate?
We experience the strongest positive emotional response when we make progress on our most difficult goals. That’s only true if we stop to notice. When we achieve our goals or reach milestones along the way, we need to take the appropriate time to celebrate.
How many people spend their entire lives striving for something with their nose to the grindstone, only to wake up one day and realize they haven’t really lived at all?
