3 Little-Known Secrets How to Produce Results and Achieve Your Goals
These 3 principles will greatly increase your chances of sticking to your plan and achieving your goals.
Let me ask you a question, do you set goals but fail to achieve them?
Have you ever set a goal like you want to make a million dollars in a year, to become financially free, or to lose weight and get back in shape, but you fail to achieve them?
We have been told that to live a successful life, we need to have goals. While that is true, most people get it wrong.
Most people have no idea how goal setting works. They thought that all they need to do is to identify what they want to achieve in their lives, and then things will magically happen to them.
Some people choose to write down their goals and make plans, but they fail to stick to their plans.
Does that mean that setting goals don’t work?
No, it means that you have it wrong. If you set goals but fail to achieve them, it means that you are doing it in the wrong way.
What you need then is to follow these 3 core principles to make your goals a reality. Stick to these 3 principles and you will start producing results and achieving your goals…
1. Compress Your Goals
“According to the University of Scranton, a whopping 92 percent of people who set New Year’s goals never actually achieve them.” — Article from Inc.com
In other words, New Year’s resolutions, or yearly goals don’t really work. Why?
One of the reasons is because a yearly goal is too far away and too many things can happen in between.
When a goal is too far away from your current starting point, it becomes less predictable. Not to mention that all the distractions that you will get in your life throughout the journey.
Peter Theil, the billionaire entrepreneur, co-founder of PayPal, venture capitalist, and best-selling author of Zero to One, says that you should take your 10-year life plan and ask:
“How can you achieve your 10-year plan in the next 6 months?”
Well, that may sound extreme, but it is a question worth asking because if you can find the answer for how you can achieve your 10-year plan in 6 months, your results will be explosive.
Short-term goals are powerful because they give you momentum, immediate results, and allow you to laser-focus without many distractions.
Hence, if you want to set goals, try to compress your goals.
At least make your yearly goal into a 90-day goal. Turn your 1-year goals into 90-day goals.
When you do that, you are compressing the timeframe and make your long-term target a short-term goal.
It gives you better focus, more momentum, and the motivation you need throughout the next 90 days.
Compare to if you have a year-long goal to achieve, it will be a little out of your reach. Things can happen and will definitely happen. Plus, it will be difficult to keep your momentum and motivation for an entire year.
Thus, compress your goals. Thing long-term, but when it comes to setting and achieving goals, start with a 90-day goal.
Read: Ultimate Goal Setting Guide: How to Set Goals and Crush Them
2. Lead VS Lag Measures
When it comes to goal setting, almost everyone focuses on the lag measures. Meaning, they set a goal that is not actionable. Lag measures are metrics that fall behind.
Here are some examples of lag measures:
- To increase sales by 50% by the end of this year.
- To lose 10 pounds and get back in shape.
- To become financially free through property investment.
These are lag measures because these metrics are not influenceable.
This is what the authors of The 4 Disciplines of Execution say…
“No matter what you are trying to achieve, your success will be based on two kinds of measures: Lag and Lead. Lag measures track the success of your wildly important goal. Lags are measures you spend time losing sleep over. They are things like revenue, profit, quality, and customer satisfaction. They are called lags because by the time you see them, the performance that drove them is already passed. You can’t do anything to fix them, they are history.”
But what about lead measures? Here are some examples…
- To make 50 prospecting calls a day.
- To write and publish 5 guest articles every week.
- To hit the gym and exercise for 1 hour 3 days a week.
If you look at the above lead measures, you will notice that they are actionable metrics. And if you work on these metrics, you will automatically achieve your goals or lag measures.
Example 1:
Lag measure — to increase sales by 50% by the end of this year
Lead measure — to make 50 prospecting calls every day
Example 2:
Lag measure — to lose 10 pounds and get back in shape
Lead measure — to hit the gym and exercise for 1 hour 3 days a week
Can you see the differences between lead and lag measures now?
Most people have lag measures as their goals. But they don’t have the lead measures to focus on. This is why most people fail to achieve their goals.
Yes, lag measures are the ultimate goals that you want to achieve, but when it comes to focus and execution, you must put your energy on lead measures.
When you work on your lead measures, you will produce results and automatically move the needle toward your lag measure.
Do you get that?
Therefore, identify your lead measures for your goals and work on them relentlessly.
Remember, lead measures are predictable, actionable, and they are the metrics that will get you the results you want, which is your goal.
Read: How to Use Lead and Lag Measures to Achieve Your Goals
3. Get an Accountability Partner
One of the core factors people fail to accomplish the goals they set is due to procrastination. They fail to take action and work on their goals.
And one great solution to this is to get yourself an accountability partner.
From a study conducted by Dr. Gail Matthews, a professor in Dominican’s Department of Psychology, she discovered that of all the 267 participants she recruited for her goals study, those who wrote down their goals and tagged with an accountability partner have a 76% rate of achieving their goals.
“My study provides empirical evidence for the effectiveness of three coaching tools: accountability, commitment, and writing down one’s goals,” Matthews said.
In other words, you want to increase your commitment to your goals by writing them down, and then hold yourself accountable by getting someone to monitor your progress.
You know very well that when someone is monitoring your progress, you are less likely to procrastinate. Just like if your supervisor or your boss is watching you at the back, you are more likely to do the work because of the pressure.
However, when no one is watching, you tend to slack off and procrastinate. This is especially true for personal goals.
And this explains why most people who set personal goals fail to accomplish them because they lack commitment and accountability.
So, what you need to do to make sure you stay on track and stick to your goals is to get yourself an accountability partner.
Commit to sending a weekly progress report to your partner. Let the positive stress or eustress drives you and keep your momentum high.
Conclusion
So, these are the 3 little-known secrets on how to produce results and achieve your goals.
If you find it hard to stick to your goals or to create the results you desire, apply these 3 techniques shared here.
