All It Takes Is a Goal

Connect with an authentic vision for your future by reflecting on your past.

According to most self-help books, you must create a detailed long-term vision of your life to achieve your highest potential. But many people struggle to visualize what they want to accomplish in minute detail. This phenomenon is known as hitting your “vision wall.” Other self-help manuals suggest mustering motivation by living your life as though you only have six months to live. But who would bother with the details of day-to-day living when facing imminent death? Imaginary near-death experiences don’t promote long-term change. 

“A best moment is when your vision and your reality overlap. It’s when how you hoped life could be actually matches how life is.”

Fortunately, there’s an easier way to connect to your desires: Instead of looking to the future (the realm of fantasy), evaluate your past (your real-life history). Jot down a list of your favorite experiences and achievements over the past two decades. Your “best moments” could include traveling to a far-flung destination or becoming a parent, for example. Don’t place any restrictions on what counts as a best moment; simply identify the times when you experienced joy. Even seemingly trivial moments matter. Your list will instill a sense of hope, gratitude, and self-awareness; highlight the things you cherish; and ground you in the present.

Once you’ve crafted your list, sort each moment into one of the following four categories: “experience” (a moment you participated in); “accomplishment” (an achievement resulting from your hard work); “relationship” (a moment made special by the presence of another person); and “object” (a physical item that brings you joy). Which list is the longest? This exercise will help you understand what kind of moments you cherish most of all. As you reflect on your best moments of the past, you’ll crave more such moments, which will help you plan for your future.

Don’t play it too safe or overcommit yourself; find a happy medium.

Perhaps you are a hard worker, and you feel constantly busy. Alas, being a “high performer” doesn’t equate to being a “high achiever.” High performers flit among the following three “performance zones”:

1. “Comfort zone” — The comfort zone is “an amazing place to visit but ultimately a terrible place to live.” When you lack ambition or motivation, you get mired in the comfort zone. People leave this zone for two reasons: They face a crisis, such as a health scare or failed relationship, or they voluntarily move into less-comfortable territory, knowing that the return on investment will be worth the temporary distress. 
2. “Chaos zone” — You enter the chaos zone — a booby trap for high performers — when you try to tackle too many goals simultaneously. Perhaps one day you decide to overhaul every aspect of your life: You resolve, say, to lose 10 lbs [4.5 kg], earn a promotion, improve your marriage, become more financially savvy, start a side hustle, and take up meditation. All these goals are appealing, but making progress on them all at once is unrealistic. Don’t overestimate your capacity or make too many promises.
3. “Potential zone” — This zone is a happy medium between too safe and too volatile. In this zone, you feel motivated to improve. You resolve to challenge yourself and try new things but set realistic expectations. In the potential zone, you seek out more best moments, bringing you closer to your vision.

Shift from being a high performer to being a high achiever by bidding farewell to the safety of the comfort zone and the messiness of the chaos zone and choosing instead to reside in the potential zone as much as possible.

Gamify your goals to elevate your chance of success.

Treat the journey toward your goals like a game. Playing deceives your brain into perceiving work as fun. For example, if you’re trying to launch a successful blog, watch your blog traffic increase on Google Analytics, which functions as a scorecard. According to psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, work, more than any other daily activity, exhibits game-like traits: It has goals, rules, and challenges to overcome. Achieving career goals, such as hitting your monthly sales targets, releases dopamine — the feel-good neurotransmitter central to the brain’s reward system — just like playing your favorite video game.

“Games are easy…You learned how to play games before you could even walk: peekaboo, hide-and-seek, tag.”

Before setting out to achieve big life goals, identify which of the following “games” you are playing. Pick one, and figure out what you need to do to win:

• “Career games” — Play a career game if you want to focus on work-related goals, like snagging a big promotion.
• “Finance games” — Play a finance game to escape debt or get on the property ladder.
• “Relationship games” — Gamifying relationships might involve aiming to be a better spouse or make more friends. 
• “Health games” — Health games could help you lose weight, lower your cholesterol, or train for a marathon.
• “Fun games” — This category describes any goal that doesn’t fit neatly into the first four categories, such as learning a new craft or language. 

Pursue “easy goals” to gain momentum early on.

When setting goals, people often advise you to “go big or go home,” but setting more attainable goals can help you shift out of your comfort zone. For example, it’s unlikely that you’ll suddenly get off your couch to write a best-selling trilogy of books. But if you set a small initial goal of, say, writing an email, you’re more likely to turn it into a middle goal, such as writing a chapter, and ultimately into a guaranteed goal, such as finishing your book. 

Achieving big long-term goals requires you to break them down into easy goals that have the following characteristics: They have short time frames (ideally less than one week); there’s no ambiguity about what first steps to take; they are affordable (achieving these goals should not come at great personal expense); and you can squeeze them in without altering your current schedule. Once you get a taste for easy wins, you feel driven to pursue more. Avoid the temptation to take on bigger goals before you’re ready, as you could easily catapult yourself from your comfort zone to the chaos zone, failing to hit your stride in the potential zone.

“Easy goals help you escape the comfort zone. Middle goals help you avoid the chaos zone.”

Once you’ve focused on easy goals for at least several months, transition into “middle goals” with time frames of one to three months. Aim for flexibility of execution, a lack of rigidity (because sometimes life gets in the way, and it’s OK to have an off day), and intentionality when pursuing these goals. You need patience to achieve your middle goals, as you can’t make the progress you need to make all at once. The magic of middle goals is that, if you stick with them, you’ll eventually achieve a big goal, such as writing your book, without burning yourself out in the process.

Choose a game you can realistically win, then spend 15 minutes on it.

You might feel tempted to play a game that you’re likely to fail: Perhaps you engage in deliberate self-sabotage (maybe deep down, you don’t believe that you deserve happiness); you lack self-awareness about your own needs and capabilities; or you feel guilty when you succeed because an easy win feels like cheating. Remember that it’s a good thing to choose games you can easily win; they drive success.

“Most goals are optimistic lies.”

Instead of waiting until you have freed up some time to dedicate to your goal (which might never happen), get started immediately by spending 15 minutes on it. A quarter of an hour may not sound like much, but it’s better than nothing and can have a profound impact. You’ll likely discover that the first step is the hardest.

Staying in your potential zone requires the right kind of motivation. 

High achievers tap into a “fuel,” or motivation, that sustains them over the long term and aligns with their authentic desires and values. Short-term fuels — such as the pursuit of money — aren’t sustainable, as they don’t trigger long-term happiness and well-being. Warren Buffett’s original fuel might have been to become wealthy, but philanthropy motivates his work today. Avoid the temptation to rely on a destructive kind of fuel, such as a crisis. For example, maybe you know a leader who excels at “putting out fires” but gets agitated during calm periods. Such individuals often end up setting new fires to feel useful again. Newsflash: That’s not the behavior of a true leader; that person is an arsonist who revels in the chaos zone.

“At some point in the journey, high performers always make a switch from short-term fuel to long-term fuel if they want to stay in the potential zone.”

Only four types of fuel can help you thrive in the potential zone:

1. “Impact” — Refer back to your “best moments” list. If you reap the most happiness from your accomplishments, then let the effects of your achievements act as your fuel. For example, say you want to pay off your credit card debt: Remind yourself that getting rid of your debt can put you in a financial position to help others via charitable donations.
2. “Craft” — If experiences bring you the most joy, let the pursuit of your craft fuel you. “Craft” refers to a broad range of skills, from playing musical instruments to running marathons. You execute your craft for the sheer joy the effort brings you. In the workplace, a connection with your craft is called “engagement.” Workers will even accept substandard pay and conditions if they garner meaning from their work.
3. “Community” — If your happiness depends on your relationships, let your community motivate you. For instance, the support of a running group can inspire you to go jogging in less-than-ideal weather conditions. Technology has consigned “accidental” community to history; nowadays, you rarely run into friends at the store or colleagues in the break room due to the popularity of online shopping and remote working, respectively. Thus, your efforts to connect with others must be deliberate. 
4. “Stories” — Objects tend not to be the most populated category on best moments lists, as materialism isn’t a long-term fuel. But if the objects on your list have a story, they can serve as a potent source of motivation. Objects have the power to weave stories that spark positive feelings of youth, success, trendiness, inspiration, or connection within you. Once you become aware of the objects that bring you joy, you know what type of items to let into your life in the future.

Learn to set “guaranteed goals,” whereby every small effort builds progress.

If you want to ensure your success, then pursue guaranteed goals: Any effort you put in is a win. Guaranteed goals can even help you accomplish tasks you’ve been avoiding or dreading, such as getting your finances in order, if you precede them with easy goals and middle goals.

“Make your guaranteed goal as big as possible but the distance between your deadlines as small as possible.”

Guaranteed goals share the following characteristics:

• They have longer time frames — Guaranteed goals have time frames of between three and twelve months. If you commit to writing a certain number of words each day, you’re guaranteed to have written at least a draft of a book at the end of your time frame. While you can’t guarantee that your book will sell a million copies, you can ensure you write it by taking regular action toward your goal.
• They are within your control — You’re the only one responsible for achieving guaranteed goals. While becoming a New York Times bestseller is out of your control, you can choose the best team to launch your book and maximize your exposure via podcasts before your book launch.
• They are quantifiable — Use easy metrics to gauge your success. For example, aim to read a book every week for a year or to be kind to your family 365 days a year.
• They require a more “deliberate” mindset — You must schedule sufficient time to pick away at your guaranteed goals and navigate the initial disruption they cause in your life. On average, an easy goal requires 1% of your time (two hours per week); a middle goal, 3% (about five hours per week); and a guaranteed goal, 5% (eight hours per week).
• They sound “impossible” — Others may say your guaranteed goals sound overly ambitious. Happily, the only person you need to convince that you have the power to achieve your goal is yourself.

Unleash your full potential by creating individualized scorecards for your goals.

As you work toward your goals, it’s natural to compare progress with others’; remember, your journeys are not comparable. Be kind to yourself if you get caught in the comparison trap; your brain is simply looking for a way to measure your progress. Don’t begrudge other people’s successes. Instead, invent a scorecard for yourself. The beauty of your personal scorecard is that it’s unique to you, and you get to decide what counts as progress. The only criteria are that your scorecard is visual and that you use it. A mindfulness app that logs the number of times you’ve meditated per month can act as a scorecard, just as a smartwatch can tell you the distance you’ve run.

“At the end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the year, or even the end of your life, I want you to have a really easy answer to the question, ‘Did I live up to my potential?”

Create your scorecard with a pen, ruler, and paper and affix it to a wall where you can see it, just as you would display a child’s reward chart. Consider what you will measure (time spent on an activity, actions taken, or results achieved). Update your scorecard to accommodate any significant life changes, such as a new job or the birth of a child, instead of taking a past, redundant scorecard to measure your current self. Once you’ve decided what game you’re playing and the scorecard you will use, get ready to embrace the potential zone and start transforming your “someday” into “today.”