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So how’s your year looking so far?
It’s only early days, I know, but in the past, I’d already be running at a hundred miles an hour, headlong into a repeat of last year.
You know exactly what I mean – emails, clients, and all the things you didn’t do around the house that you swore you’d do this holiday season.
Believe me. I know how this goes.
But this year, for me at least, it’s different. A lot different. You see, this time I’ve taken a completely fresh approach to what I want. In the past, I’d ruminate over exciting goals and lofty ideals. I guess I figured the bigger they were, the more motivated I’d be.
Well, this year I finally woke up to the fact that it just doesn’t work.
What it does do is give me an easy way out.
After the hangover of the holidays would subside, I’d see that my goals were more like fantasies than anything achievable, so it was easy to quit them. And as the demands of ‘normal life’ kicked in, that’s exactly what I’d do. I’d quit. I’d just revert to my usual head-down-butt-up position and restart my daily grind for another year.
Want to know what I did this year?
I focused on daily routines. And there’s a sound reason for that. Creating a vision for your life and setting goals are fine; I’m not against this practice – I still do that. But where most of us fail is we rely on these things to make us do the work.
The bottom line is, they’re not enough. You’ve heard the saying, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.” That’s it in a nutshell. If you rely solely on your vision and your goals to motivate you, it’s unlikely you’ll reach them.
How do I know this? Years of failure – that’s how.
So let me tell you exactly what I did.
First, I went for a long drive in the country with my phone at the ready and recorded anything that came into my head. I thought about all the amazing things I’d like to achieve this year, no matter how extravagant they seemed. This would become by Big Picture list.
It included things about the book I’m writing, the podcast I wanted to create and the kind of clients I no longer wanted to serve. It also included some things about my health, my income, my investments and the relationships I wanted to have. It described the person I wanted to be twelve months from now.
Next, I started thinking about all the things that worked for me last year and all the things that didn’t. From that, I made another list of what I’d say ‘yes’ to and what I’d pass up.
When I returned home and wrote everything up. I then created a simple three-column table in Google Docs with the following items at the top:
- Date
- What
- Why
After vetting my Big Picture list and distilling it into the few things I wanted most, I listed the targets I’d need to hit to stand a chance of getting them. I put a date against each of them and described why I wanted them. Importantly, I approached this with the mindset that I might achieve them or I might not, and being OK with that. The important thing was to set some trail markers along the way.
Then came the nitty-gritty – the part that made all the difference.
I wrote up a daily schedule. This would be the one thing I’d look at every day to know if I was on track or not. If I just did everything on that schedule each day, I’d know I had a shot at reaching my goals.
Now my motivation had a powerful new source – something far more tangible than a mental image of me at a book signing, or appearing on James Altucher’s podcast.
My schedule was something I could believe in 100%. It was something I could control.
And that’s exactly how it’s been working. As Steven Pressfield would say, I’m doing the work.
For example, right now I’m sitting in my garage on my IKEA chair at my little camp table, writing this blog post. I’m doing this because it’s what my schedule has told me to do. I don’t need to be inspired or motivated to do this (even though I am enjoying it). It’s just a to-do item.
And knowing that I’m doing this is all the motivation I need because I can see the progress I’m making every single day. I know I’m inching closer to my goals, and therefore, my Big Picture list.
There’s something else I should mention. I’ve also included all the important personal things on this schedule. That means there’s a slot in there for reading, there’s one for playing with my son, two for walking and of course, one for sleeping. It starts at 5:30 am and finishes at 9:30 pm.
Knowing what I have to do every day is the only way I’d ever be able to eat an elephant. It’s the only way to get shit done. No amount of dreaming or external motivation will do that for you.
Your habits, more than anything else, determine the outcome of your life. When you’re drowning is obligations and pressures and doubts, the best way to make progress is to follow this process. It clears the air, lifts the burden and marks a clear path forward.
It allows you to say, “I know what I have to do. I’ve got it from here.”
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This article originally appeared on Midlife Tribe
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