I know this goes against most conventional wisdom about goal-setting and achievement but hear me out…

Both Jeff Haden in The Motivation Myth and Chris Bailey in Hyperfocus discuss the idea of setting and then forgetting your goals if you want to increase the likelihood of achieving them.

Well ok this isn’t the whole story but it is the start!

Both say that having a goal is useful because it is important to understand where you want to go but both also go on to say that the goal should inform the process and routine that you need to achieve your goal.

So it’s the start of 2022, a fresh new year after an appalling 2020 and 2021; most of us want to achieve more this year than we have done before.

Anyone want to loose weight? Do a couch to 5Km? Write a book or start a business?

All of these things are great goals but none can be done with a single action… all will require you to take a great many steps (Quite literally with the couch to 5Km) to achieve.

Let’s take the couch to 5Km as an example because that was very popular in 2021 and so is a great way to illustrate the point here.

The Couch to 5Km

The whole premise behind the couch to 5Km is that it is broken down in to small steps (the training plan) which, when all done correctly and according to the plan, will result in you being able to run 5K (for many this will be a first).

So to run 5Km, you may well start with a 1Km run. Completing the 1Km run will give you a sense of achievement and will encourage you to run again.

Say the first part of your training plan is to run 1Km 3 times a week for say 3 weeks. The focus here shouldn’t be on how far away you are from your goal of 5K, but instead it should be on making time to do the next 1Km run because that is the next step in the process.. the rest is largely irrelevant.

One you have done your 9x 1Km run, the next stage might be to do several 1.5Km runs because if you can do 1Km consistently, you can surely up it to 1.5Km?

See how following the process is the important thing here?

Jeff Haden discusses the idea that if the gap between our current situation and where we want to get to is big (like in a couch to 5Km) we are more likely to feel demotivated and may not even start.

So the idea is to follow the process you have set out for yourself and to be consistent in executing that process because if you do, success will be inevitable.

Focus on what you need to achieve TODAY as part of your process and when you do, pat yourself on the back, let yourself feel good about it and this will keep you motivated to continue.

Where to go from here:

(The following is taken from Jeff’s book The Motivation Myth because I couldn’t have put it better myself)

1. Decide on what your goal is and be specific
2. Chose a routine that is realistic to achieve
   1. Being unrealistic can reduce the likelihood of following the process, reduce your motivation and make you more likely to give up
3. Customise your process to be extremely specific
   1. Decide what you will do, when you will do it, where you will do it and what your success criteria is. This further increases the likelihood that you will actually do what you say you will do
4. Rework your schedule around your process
   1. You may need to make changes in your life that are compatible with freeing up time or energy to follow the process
5. Put together your daily plan
   1. I suggest doing this a week ahead of time and then planning other activities around this to give you a better chance of success
6. Get to work, working the process you have just created
7. Fix your schedule problems
   1. You won’t be able to anticipate all of the things that come your way and this might mean that you have to compromise on something in the short term to stick to your plan (like getting up extra early to do that 1Km you have to do in the next few days)
8. Adapt as you go
   1. The more time you spend working your process, the more you will get to learn about how well the process works for you personally. If something doesn’t quite work, then adapt it so it is closer to what does work for you