Rescuing Your 2023 Goals

0:28Hi, I'm Michael Hyatt. last 30 days of the year. So don't discount it. I mean, there's still time on the clock. So true. And tenacity and grit are really helpful at this time of year. Okay. So last week we ran the first episode of this series called Going Further by Giving Thanks, which was pegged to Thanksgiving appropriately enough. Today's episode, rescuing your 2023 goals. Third episode, filling out your wish list for 2024. I brought mine with me for the recording, which we're going to do here later today. Did you really? I did. Oh my gosh. This is just my head. Oh, okay, good. If you were going to pull out like a whole list, like a printed list, I was just going to throw my paper down and just walk out of here.

1:14I'm not that prepared. Fourth, choosing habits or achievement goals. Those are two different things. And that's really important. Fifth, jumping into 2024 with... confidence. Okay. Let's dive into this episode, which is all about rescuing your 2023 goals. Do you ever feel like that? Your goals need rescued or why would somebody be in that situation where they feel like that's relevant? I don't know what's wrong with the rest of you. I've never had that experience. Just kidding. In fact, I would say about every quarter when I do my quarterly preview in the full focus planner, there is some goal that I have to rescue.

1:52I mean, there's something that I've kind of lost track of, or I was making progress on, but then life happened and got in the way and the momentum kind of stopped. Right. And so I think this is just actually part of goal achievement. Unless you, I mean, unless you're a person we haven't ever met yet, you know, everybody that I've ever talked to, when you make that list at the beginning of the year, inevitably there is going to be at least one, probably several goals on your list that are just harder to accomplish than others, either because of external forces, maybe your own resistance or distraction.

2:23And I think one of the biggest things I've learned about goal achievement in all the years that we've been teaching it, and since you really came up with the best year ever framework, is that don't quit until the whistle blows. So much gets accomplished in those last few moments of whatever the period it is. So like I was just looking today at my quarterly preview and looking at my goals for this quarter. And I realized that, and we're recording this in late October, that basically I've done nothing on any, I have three, and I've done nothing on them for the first how many ever days this is in October.

3:02Right. Right. So there's so many times when I get right to the end, it's like, you know, December the 1st, I got one month left, now I kick into gear. And that's part of that you can let work for you because there's huge value in urgency. It's like hyper focus. It is. Yeah. I actually think it's an advantage if you know how to think about it. And the worst thing you can do is just say, eh, I'll just roll that into next year, no big deal. You know, that may be a conclusion that you come to, but not without a fight. And that's really what we're going to get into today. Okay, so one of the things that we've got to acknowledge is that probably all of us, including us, start the year full of hope, full of expectation.

3:41Maybe we have a goal list, maybe we don't have a goal list, but we're absolutely confident that we're going to accomplish it. Everybody starts out hopeful. Well, you kind of start out thinking, well, maybe this is just me. I don't know. I'm about to be vulnerable. But you look at that list and you think, I totally got that. You know, that's not going to be that hard. And then life happens. And then life happens. By the way, we've experienced that this last year in a big way. We have. All kinds of things. and we were just talking about medical emergencies over the last year that tend to interrupt your plans.

4:16I was on vacation last week. This is my first day back in the office. And I was scheduled to do one thing. We were going to actually go to a monastery and kind of have a spiritual retreat. And then we heard that all the monks got COVID. So at the last moment, we're scrambling, obviously not their fault, but we didn't want to get COVID. So we didn't want to go. They said, Hey, come on if you want. You know, we'll just have a party. No, that's okay. I'm good. Is that like a hurricane party? So even the best laid plans, even when they're not something so big as your annual goals, can get, you know, waylaid by circumstances.

4:52So anyway, the numbers disagree on resolutions. And depending on what surveys you look at, most New Year's resolutions fail before half the year's out. And I've been a lot of people, they fail sooner than that. Yeah. I don't know if I trust these statistics. All you have to do is drive by the gym by about mid-February. No kidding. Compare it with the first week of January, and that's all you need to know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us the whole story right there. Okay, so today we're going to cover five steps to rescue your goals and still achieve what you set out to do. It is not too late.

5:27I cannot say that enough, right? Yep. There have been so many examples, and we see it in the sports area all the time, and I'm terrible with sports memory. but examples of football teams winning in the last few seconds of the game. Well, you know, we're big Kansas City Chiefs fans over here at the Miller household. And if you are an NFL fan at all, you know that the Chiefs, and in particular Patrick Mahomes, are famous for the fourth quarter comeback. I mean, I don't know how it happens. They didn't do it on the game we watched the other day, yesterday, I guess. But normally, you know, there could be three minutes left in the fourth quarter, and somehow they pull out a win, and you couldn't see it happening.

6:06And actually, there's an interesting interview with Patrick Mahomes where he says something like, I wish it wasn't this way, but there's something about being down in the fourth quarter that causes me to play my best football. Well, I was literally talking to our business accelerator clients this morning, and I was talking about work the way you work. And, you know, in my Colby profile, K-O-L-B-E, that's a personality test. Basically, I'm high on quick start, which means that I suck at preparation. And I used to beat myself up. I mean, it means a lot of things besides that. But it means that I do my best work at the last minute.

6:47You initiate work by taking action. That's right. And so what that means is I used to beat myself up for not preparing, like, for a keynote speech teacher even for my session this morning until the last minute. And it was actually Dan Sullivan that said to me, work the way you work. He said, because he's like that also. And people that are high in quick start tend to be fast on their feet. And so just embrace it, right? And so if you think by moving into this last part of the fourth quarter and you don't have your goals done that it's just too late. No, it's not too late. This could actually help you, especially if you can kind of gin up a sense of urgency about it.

7:27And the best way to do that is just say, no, I'm not giving up on these goals. And even though I have what now looks like three months of work crammed into the last month, it's okay. I can pull this off. Yeah. Don't give up. Don't give up.

7:43All right. So let's talk about these five different ways to achieve what we set out to do and rescue our goals. So step one. Step one is to reduce. And that means reduce the number of goals that you have. So sometimes what happens is that it feels overwhelming and you're kind of paralyzed for making progress because maybe you still have five, six goals on your list that you haven't accomplished. Well, we would never recommend that you pursue five or six goals in the last quarter of the year, much less the last month of the year. So there may need to be some triage that comes into play here where you really ask yourself the question, okay, given the month of time that I have left, how much can I reasonably accomplish?

8:30And I don't mean reasonably like effortlessly. it's going to require some push, but you don't want to just be delusional. And I think that discomfort zone idea that we talk a lot about as being the place that you want to find yourself when you're pursuing goal achievement is really important. You don't want to be delusional, but you also don't want to be comfortable. And so we're looking for that discomfort zone. What can you reasonably accomplish that's in your discomfort zone without being totally delusional? And so ideally that's like three or fewer goals. Yeah. And I think just to reprioritize your goals and to look at them.

9:04Not all goals are created equal. Not all of them have the same level of importance today because you probably set these back at the first of the year or maybe at the first of the quarter. And I totally agree with you. What's number one? This is why we recommend on the Daily Big Three, literally number those. What's the most important thing? So that if I only get one thing accomplished, at least I got the most important thing accomplished. And so as you're looking to rescue these goals for 2023, there's probably something that still has yet to be done, that if you could accomplish that one thing, it would be meaningful.

9:35Yep. Well, like in my case, I had a goal earlier this year to start taking horseback riding lessons. I grew up riding horses. I love horses. I was really excited to get back into it, but I had a foot injury earlier in the year that, you know, I knew I was going to delay kind of the timeline for that, which I planned for, because I knew that at the beginning of the year. But then I ended up having a really serious hand injury in August. I don't even get me started on like the injuries and the medical stuff. But anyway, that goal is not a priority right now because healing my hand and doing all my occupational therapy and all that, that's my priority.

10:10And so, you know, I'm having to kind of put that down on the list. In fact, it's actually gonna just have to go into the future because it's not gonna happen this year. And that's okay, but that gives me more focus to apply to the few goals that I have left to accomplish this year. That's really good. Yeah, so just what's the most important that's left to do? Yep. And then you can check that off and go to the next one. So I had one time a client that said to me, he said, well, I've got actually six goals for this quarter. I said, you can't have six goals for this quarter. That's against the rules.

10:40And I'm not going to get the rules. No. And so they said, well, I really want to accomplish these six. And I said, well, pick the two or three that are most important. And if you can get those checked off and there's still time left in the quarter, then you can go on to the other ones. Well, as you would expect, they did all six. But they did it in the way I suggested, where they made sure they got the most important ones done first. Because part of it is, too, you don't know what's going to happen. I mean, in the fourth quarter, God, as you may have noticed, some other activities. Yeah. Like Thanksgiving, like Christmas, like preparing for New Year's.

11:09So all that takes more time than usual. So I think you have to really be surgical. And I hate to bring up the medical word. You have to be surgical in your approach to it. Too soon for that. Too soon. Okay, so reduce. So cut it down. what's the, what's the number one, what's the number two, what's the number three, just work through them systematically. And the truth is for most of the goals that we have, it doesn't really take that much work. It's the getting started. Yeah. Don't ask me how I know this. It's that it's the getting started that takes a long time. Okay. So I don't think this quite fits in with our points anywhere, but one of the things that we have you do in the full focus planner, when you're writing your goals at the beginning of the quarter is to identify your next actions.

11:53And so one of the things I've started doing every week when I do my weekly preview is I identify, I'm actually writing my goals down each week as a part of my weekly preview process. I'm kind of just playing around with that. And then I'm identifying the next action right then and there. And I'll tell you what, it is amazing how easy those actions are. I mean, it's usually something like approve the sales copy for this or send this person an email. I'm not talking about I'm spending hours a week on my goals usually. It's usually just what's the next thing to move it a little further down the field.

12:29It's not that overwhelming. But if you think about it like the whole goal and you don't think about it like the next action, then it can cause paralysis. So I think reducing, but then also as a part of this reducing, reduce the goal itself to the next action. I love that. And the thing I love about it is you're in that headspace of goal achievement. Right. So stay there. That's a different headspace than what you may be experiencing during the week when you're trying to, you know, frantically deal with all the stuff that's coming your way. Right.

12:58Okay. Step number two, recommit. So we've got to reconnect with the goal, both intellectually and emotionally. We've got to remind ourselves of why it's important. And it's easy to forget that because, you know, you're involved in life and whatever is urgent. feels like it's also important. But there's a real distinction between urgent and important. Those are two different things. Sometimes things are urgent, but they're not that important. Oftentimes, things are really important, but they don't feel that urgent. So it's really easy to postpone it. So we've got to connect with it emotionally because ideally what I like is something that is both important and has a certain level of urgency so that I'm motivated to give it my focus and give it my attention.

13:47Yeah. I think that's really true because otherwise what happens is life presents itself with things are often that are often both urgent and important, you know, like medical emergencies, for example, that you feel like you can't ignore, but they, they kind of stack on top of each other and you can go your whole life feeling like all you do is kind of run from one fire to the next and you never really take the time to do the things that are the most important. And so you can kind of create some artificial urgency to help raise the profile of those things that are important, that need to actually compete with the sort of things that pop up naturally in your life.

14:24And deadlines are a great way to do this and great way to get yourself to recommit. You know, this happened for me last year as I was pursuing my weight loss goal. So I've had a weight loss goal. Honestly, I've had a weight loss goal on my list for many years, and I've really struggled with that. Well, I thought I knew the strategy that I was gonna use to accomplish that last year. And by July, I hadn't really made any progress. And it wasn't for lack of trying, I was, but it just, the strategy was not working. And so I had a real choice to make at that point. Okay, am I going to abandon this goal, which is kind of what I had done in the past when I hadn't made the progress that I want, or am I gonna recommit to it and say, okay the only way to fail is to quit there has to be a way and then go find the way well that's what I ended up doing I ended up just saying there has to be a way to do this and I ended up some of you know this story because I've talked about a little bit publicly but I ended up discovering a medication that is available to help with weight loss it's you know it's probably something you've read about in the news turned out to be super super effective for me and at this point now, you know, year and a half later, I've almost lost a hundred pounds, which is pretty ridiculous.

15:37And someday we'll, we probably have to do like a whole episode on that at some point, but it really happened because I recommitted instead of giving up. And this was one of those things where there was a well-worn path of giving up. Well, here's, what's cool about that. And this is kind of your superpower is that you stay locked on the goal, but you're happy to change strategies when necessary. And I think there's an important lesson for all of us on this. Sometimes it's not the goal that's the problem. No, it could be, but oftentimes it's not the goal, it's the strategy. So if the goal is kind of the destination or the what that you want to accomplish, the strategy is simply the means by which you're pursuing that, how you're going to get there.

16:21And sometimes the hows we try don't work. I was telling you before we started today that I was trying to install a electric vehicle charger in my garage. I actually hired an electrician. They came out and installed it. I got home because I was out of town. I got home and I plugged up my car and it didn't work. So that strategy of hired an electrician got me so far, but it didn't finish the job. So I rolled up my sleeves, got out the YouTube videos, figured it out and did it. That strategy worked. And it only took me about, well, realistically, two hours. And it was kind of fun. And like your eyebrows aren't singed off, you know, all your hair is still there.

17:02Amazing. Well, I had the good sense, thankfully, because it was 220 volts. I had the good sense to turn it off on the breaker before I started taking it apart. So that's kind of Electricity 101.

17:24okay step three resource okay so step one reduce step two recommit step three resource well this kind of goes back to what we were talking about because it could be the reason that you haven't accomplished your goal yet is because somehow you've under resourced it and i would say you're probably just trying the same thing over and over again and you're you're trying what we like to sometimes called the brute force strategy, which is not great. But the question is, do you need some resources that you have not employed yet? Like, for example, maybe you need some more information, like a different strategy.

17:59You know, maybe that's a consultant, a coach, a, you know, YouTube video, whatever. Do you need to dedicate more financial resources to it? Maybe, for example, if you have like a fitness goal and you're able to afford it, maybe a real difference maker right now would be to go ahead and hire a trainer in advance of the new year's rush. I mean, you have your pick right now. Probably all the best trainers are available here at the beginning of December. Maybe that would do it. What about your attention? Maybe it's one of those things you just keep forgetting about and you need to put a post-it note in your planner with that goal written on it that you just carry day to day over.

18:34Or maybe you need to block some time on your calendar so that there is really kind of putting your money where your mouth is in terms of the scheduling piece, you always say, what gets scheduled gets done. And if you haven't scheduled, that's one of the things I'm doing in my weekly preview is I'm looking at my goals. I'm looking at those next actions. I'm setting my big three. I'm really making sure, do I have time on the calendar blocked for those things? Because otherwise it's kind of hope as a strategy, as our friend Jeff Walker says. Well, and I think that, you know, we have to remember that somebody somewhere has probably achieved the goal that we're pursuing and they figured out the strategy that works.

19:15You know, and I know, I don't want to get too personal, but I know that when you were working with your kids who were adopted and you were trying to work on some of the behavior issues that they were facing because of severe trauma, that the first couple of resources that you tried didn't work. But you stayed with it until you finally found something that worked. And it wasn't easy, but you were willing to change strategies. What you didn't say is, okay, well, I guess we're going to give up on this. Yeah. I think that's one of the things that, to me, not one of the things. I think it is the thing that sets successful people apart from unsuccessful people or super successful people apart from moderately successful is the ability to have frustration tolerance and to be perseverant.

20:02Because if you don't quit, you will usually find a way. Totally. I can't think of an example of a time in my life when that wasn't the case. No, I think you're 100 % right.

20:14Okay, step four, revise. Sometimes we've got to adjust the goal to achieve it. Nothing wrong with that. And I think one of the best examples I have is that I was really frustrated with my exercise. So a year ago, I had a heart attack, went through cardiac rehab, was trying to get back to my normal exercise routine and all that. It was really struggling. And finally, my trainer, Lisa, said to me, she said, I think your goal is too big because I was trying to work out six days a week. Oh, wow. And so even if I did, and I really would get maybe three or four times, and then I felt terribly guilty.

20:53But you were always failing. I was always failing. And so she said, I think you should set the goal for four times a week. and then if you get to to work out more than that then you're in bonus territory and can celebrate it but she said i feel like this psychologically it makes you give up before you start and she was 100 right that's really wise and so i was eminently more consistent after i started doing that than i was before so sometimes you just have to revise the goal down which you're going to be tempted not to do because you're going to feel like oh you know i'm letting go of the dream no you're doing that in order to give yourself a win, which builds momentum, which may enable you to actually accomplish the original goal.

21:36But at least if you can reduce it in some way or revise it in some way, you give yourself a chance without having to remove that goal entirely. Well, that's what I did last year when I adjusted my strategy on the weight loss piece. I'd lost a lot of time at that point because I had originally intended to start pursuing that at the beginning of the year, which I was, I just wasn't making any progress. And so I set a much smaller goal in my revised version of it, you know, kind of midway through the year. And I hit that goal. And I knew based on kind of like what my trajectory had been that that that I could do that if I stayed focused and all the rest.

22:13And it really set me up then to lose the lion's share of it this year. But if I had had kind of remained committed to the original iteration of the goal, I would have felt so defeated, even if I'd accomplished the same result as I ended up accomplishing, because I would have set that bar too high and what it would have felt defeating to me. Did you ever have in mind at the beginning that you wanted to lose a hundred pounds? No, I didn't think that was possible. I think I had set a smaller goal, but I knew that my doctor, my cardiologist felt that that was where I needed to be. But until it was kind of like I had to get into it enough and have enough momentum to have the courage to set the big goal.

22:56Well, I think the same thing happened to Gail, my wife, your mother, because the cardiologist, same doctor, said to her, you know, I want you to be at this particular weight. And she about spit out her coffee. She was like, no way. And so she talked to her nutritionist and her nutritionist also said to her, said, don't worry about that. Forget that. Let's just focus on the first 10 pounds. And so before she knew it, kind of a similar situation to you, I think she's lost maybe 70. I'm not even sure. Yeah. And I think she feels like she's done now. She looks great, as do you. But she couldn't conceive of that.

23:35She had to reduce the goal in order to give herself a fighting chance to leap ahead, or I should say revise the goal. Yeah. Well, a couple of things you can do as you're thinking about this for yourself. You can ask yourself the question, what was the original transformation that this goal was trying to achieve? That's a great question. Because ultimately goals are means to an end. You know, we're trying to go from one state of where we currently are to a different state that we perceive as being better. And so the question is like, what was the kind of idea of that goal? Because the specifics, whether it's a financial goal or a health goal or a relationship goal, don't really matter that much.

24:15It's really the outcome that we want. And so that's one question. And then the next question would be, what are some alternate routes that will get you in the neighborhood of that transformation, but maybe work better with the timeframe that you still have left, which is now about a month or so left on the year? I like that.

24:37Okay, final step. Step five, and I really think this is the most important. Reach out. Connect with an accountability partner. You already mentioned this. It could be a trainer, you know, somebody you pay. By the way, there are more options available that are affordable now than ever before. And this is for everything. I mean, not just fitness. Like any, if you want to learn to play the guitar, if you want to work out, take art lessons, get better at public speaking, it doesn't matter. Like there is a coach for literally everything. Well, and I used to have an accountability partner and a fitness trainer that I would meet at the gym three times a week.