The Problem of Unclarity
Procrastination feels like being a drift on a small boat in a large ocean. You know you should be going somewhere, but you don’t know where. It seems pointless to do all the work to get underway when you don’t know where you are, where you’re going or why you want to get there.
Many people lack motivation to get started because their goals are fuzzy, weak or non-existent. Why is this? People set goals all the time (New Year resolutions being the most popular). There are thousands of goal setting systems in the self-help genre. If motivation were only about setting goals, shouldn’t all our goals be realized? Yet more often than not, goals are left unrealized.
What is the missing X-factor which makes the difference from a goal realized and a goal forgotten? That’s what this chapter is all about.
Devils in the Definition… Understanding Goals
For three generations, self-help authors have been writing about the benefits of goal setting. Unfortunately, our society is overly familiar with the concept. “Been there, done that.” everyone thinks. When information becomes commonplace it loses its mystique of being secret knowledge. We know it ‘works’ but we tell ourselves it takes too much effort so why bother. Then we fall back into procrastination. What most don’t realize is that goal setting is a fundamental part of our mental operation.
The human mind is a teleological system. Every single action you take, in your entire life, is goal based. This morning you hit the snooze button, you got up and went to the bathroom, you showered, you got dressed, prepared and ate breakfast, went to work, etc.
Before you take any action, you have a mental image of the desired result. These images exist on the edge of conscious awareness. They occur so frequently, thousands of times per day, we only become aware of them when they fail to produce the desired result. Your conscious mind becomes more alert and automatically devotes more processing power to the activity; in other words, you pay more attention to what you are doing.
Goal images are an interface system; it is how your conscious mind communicates a desire to a myriad of different unconscious processes and coordinates physical actions. When most people talk about goals they are talking about far reaching long term goals. They are not talking the common place goal of navigating themselves through a crowded bar to get to the bathroom and managing a return trip to their seat.
When traditional goal setting systems work, they locked into this same system we use thousands of times per day, when traditional goal setting systems fail, it is because they violate the basic way we represent desires to ourselves.
What “Imagination” Means
The word “image” is a bit misleading. It is common for many people to see pictures of desired results. You wake up on a cold crisp morning and think how nice a cup of coffee would be. You may imagine holding your favourite brown mug, warming your hands and that “oh so pleasant” aroma of fresh ground beans. Then you rush off to the kitchen to make it happen. An image may have a visual image we use for a shortcut to represent the experience. The full experience often includes feelings, taste, smell, and sound. The more clear the experience, the more motivating it becomes.
Some people represent “images” as symbolic, linguistic codes only. They feel they lack the ability to visualize and can’t do goal setting activities that involve visualization. This is more a problem with how words are being used rather than any real limitation. They just don’t represent the world in “pictures,” but that doesn’t mean they don’t have other ways to represent the world. As an auditory person, I represent “images” as verbal commands such as “go get tea” or “write this chapter.” I don’t usually see pictures, though I can pull up visual representation if I wish. Representations are like an abbreviated version of an experience. They are like computer icons which represent programs they are attached to. Anyone can access a full experience when they wish, but the short form of representation depends on your preferred sensory system.
So when you hear people using visual language when talking about goals (such as “imagine the result,” or “see where you’re going”) just remember they are visual representations. You can do any “image” exercise by hearing, or feeling, or symbolic representation. They are all valid. As most readers use a visual representational system, I will continue using visual terms.
How Procrastination Screws You
Most people think “a goal” only qualifies to be a goal if it is a massive undertaking that has a dramatic impact on your life. People do not think simple actions like “make a cup of coffee” qualifies as being a goal. This perpetuates a delusion that “goal setting” doesn’t work or that you are “bad” at goals. In fact, you set and achieve little goals every moment your life. You are already an expert at goals. The trick is to take the simple system you already do and apply it to larger projects.
And this is how procrastination screws you. When you think about a “big” job, your mind comes up with an end result. It also comes up with images of pain in doing the job. For example; Johnny’s parents say, “Johnny, your room is a mess, clean it!” In their mind, they see a clean room and their son is happier in an organized environment where he can find all his stuff easily.
Johnny may also see this picture, knowing what the parents want and why. He also sees a much bigger picture of suffering as he toils away his afternoon picking through a mountain of junk as he misses all the gaming action with his online friends. The image that wins out tends to be the one that is attached to a clearer, more realistic experience. Experiences of pain usually trump pleasure.
Johnny considers the two pictures for a fraction of a second and is hardly conscious of thinking “screw that.” A few hours later, Johnny’s parents find Johnny moaning in his room. He is running a fever, nauseous, looking very ill. Johnny isn’t faking being sick; he really is sick. A psychosomatic disorder isn’t “all in your head.” It is a coordinated failure of the immune system for a purpose. The mind can exert a frightening degree of control over the body.
Seeing Johnny’s distress, his parents gave him a pass on cleaning his room. His mother felt so sorry for poor Johnny she did his chores for him. And Johnny, unable to do anything else, takes what little comfort he can by playing video games for the rest of the afternoon.
Procrastination is not the result of inactivity. It is the mind doing too much. When you have conflicting goals, such as Johnny’s desire to obey his parents vs his desire to be with online friends, a decision happen at the edge of conscious awareness and a plan is carried out by your unconscious processes. Do we consciously choose to become ill, no. Does our illness serve a purpose and get us what we want?
As a teacher, I have seen hundreds of students attempt to dodge final exams because they were sick. Eventually, our school adopted a blanket policy requiring a doctor’s note and then they had to write the exam immediately on re-attendance, otherwise it was a fail grade. While affected students considered it draconian and unfair, our school saw a significant drop in student illnesses around exam time. When “being sick” no longer served a positive purpose, students no longer became ill.
Writing Goals Feels Weird
Most people feel weird when asked to write out a goal. Because we set micro goals thousands of times per day, using a pen and paper just feels unfamiliar and cumbersome. However, if the goal is important to you then drafting it on paper has some advantages; you can look at, reflect upon and edit it. You become far more conscious of your options on how to proceed rather than leaving them to non-conscious processes, thus you have a greater chance of success. Less than 3 percent of Americans have written goals and only a third of this group reviews and rewrites their goals regularly.
Normal behaviour is defined by what the majority of people are doing. It is important to remember that “normal” is not the same as “effective.” Geniuses are highly effective in what they do, but their thinking is not the same as average people. Writing goals is abnormal because 97% don’t do it. You should also note that being a person who gets shit done is also unusual. Only 3% of people have created enough of a fortune over their lifetime to live out their retirement happily.
Who Is In Control of this Boat?
To refuse to create long-range goals is to abandon the primary control mechanism that governs the quality of your life. Having no long-range plans is similar to having a ship running at full steam with no one at the helm. Eventually, it will flounder and crash upon the rocks.
An ocean is constantly moving, and the ship is constantly going somewhere. Reading nautical maps, charting way-points, getting a fix on current position, and bearing are fundamental to nautical navigation. The basic idea of navigation is to know where you are, and where you’re going. Life is a fluid system like an ocean, always moving, always in flux, never stagnant. To successfully navigate the ocean of life, you’ll always have to have one hand on the wheel and you need to keep an eye on where you are going by having clear long-range goals.
97% of our population is unaware that the system they use every day for small goals (making breakfast) is the same system they use for large ones (buying a house). It is very easy to direct your life for the positive, yet most steer themselves on the rocks due to short sighted thinking.
How to Always Get What You Want
Here is an interesting statistic to consider: Every highly successful multi-million dollar business was started by an entrepreneur who crashed and burned an average of 10 previous businesses. It is very rare for an entrepreneur to find success on their first attempt, and there are some who find success on their 40th attempt. Investment circles know that 8 out of 10 businesses they invest in will crash, one will allow them to get their money back, and the last business will earn them 10 to 50 times the money they placed into it.
So what do you make of this information? Does this mean you only have a 10% chance of success? It is a logical conclusion and most people think this way. You could also see that you have a 100% chance of success. If you keep shooting arrows at a target, learn from your mistakes, and keep shooting more arrows, then it becomes inevitable that sooner or later you will hit your goal.
Failure isn’t fun, but it is how we learn. When the new entrepreneur fails in their first business attempt, losing all their investors’ money, and disappointing all the people who were counting on them… how do they interpret it? They are only failures if they walk away and go back to the safety of working for someone else. After they fail in their second, third and fourth business attempts they go through massive feelings of doubt: “Am I a failure? Am I a total loser? Am I cut out for business?” All successful entrepreneurs have to go through these feelings of deep self-doubt and resolve them. On their fifth and sixth business failure they are having serious doubts about their competence and sanity.
And then they pass. They launch a business and it takes off. They become the richest of the rich; and other people look with envy at only their one successful business and call them lucky. Perhaps one of the most insulting thing to say to a true self-made millionaire is that they were lucky. But they are rich, they paid the price for it, and they don’t bother to disillusion others of whatever they want to believe. To the successful entrepreneur, “Luck” means “Labour Under Correct Knowledge”.
Using S.M.A.R.T. Goals
Writing out a goal does not guarantee success. Goals have to be clearly formed in the mind for them to be motivating. Many written goals fail because they aren’t any better thought out than the mental version. The purpose of writing out a goal is to be able to look at it, consider the ramifications and make adjustments to improve clarity.
“SMART Goals” are a relatively new trend in self-help literature and life skill coaching. S.M.A.R.T. is an anagram to different aspects of consideration when reviewing the quality of a written goal. The greater your clarity of a goal, the greater chances of success. The SMART system allows you to overcome failure due to half-baked ideas that haven’t been thought out in full. You should try writing out your goals first, then run through the smart system like a checklist to vet your goals.
Every author has their own version of SMART goals. After looking at dozens of different interpretations, the most effective word choices are: Specific, Measurable, Alignment, Realistic, and Time Bound. Memorizing this without knowing why these are the correct words is like trying to throw a punch without body mechanics. It’s just weak.
S for Specific
Wide Net Problem
You would be surprised at how often people create goals that encompass too much all at once. I call this the “wide net” problem and it relates to human laziness. People feel that if they are going to make the “major effort” of writing out a goal and thinking out all the parts, then they want to get the most bang for their buck. The mind is always looking for ways to optimize efforts. The problem here is that if the net is too wide to catch more fish, it becomes completely ineffective at catching any. Chopping down three trees with one swing is a great idea, but in practice life doesn’t work like that. When you discover is isn’t going to happen most people give up because their expectations are shattered and they drop the goal as well. They just needed to be more specific on the outset.
Consider goals like:
I want to improve my life.
I don’t want to be in his horrible relationship.
I do not want to feel this way.
I want more money.
All of the above are very common goals from people who don’t understand how to set goals. They relate to desires and immediate problems however the language is unspecific and negative with no clear action called for. A goal is a target that you are aiming for.
Three Rules for Specific Goals:
1) One Clear Outcome
The goal should apply to one specific area of your life. If a goal attempts to solve multiple problems at the same time it is less effective. For example, a person may set a career goal to gain more money and at the same time improve living accommodations and alleviate marital stress (couples often fight over money). While logically a new career can do that, it starts pulling your results in too many directions simultaneously. The net gets frayed, the holes become too big and the whole thing collapses. Ultimately you get nowhere with any objective.
The better option is simply to create 2 or 3 specific goals. One is a plan to advance in your career, another to set up a saving plan so you can afford a new house. The third is to schedule quality time to spend with your loved ones and do things to improve familial relations.
Doing too much at once prevents you from getting anything done.
2) One Clear Action
Ideally, when you set a goal there should be one specific action that you can perform that will move you closer to that goal. With some goals it may be a sequence of actions, but you are clear about what you are doing that moves the needle closer to your objective. If you can’t see any action associated with a goal, or if you see a hundred different things you have to do, then you may want to rewrite the goal so you can see specific actionable steps.
3) Use Positive Language
Try for a few moments not to think of a pink elephant. Do not think a pink elephant, right now. Do not think of a pink elephant with the mouse on his back. Do not think of the pink elephant with a mouse on his back balancing on a ball. Do not think of a pink elephant with the mouse on his back dancing on a ball holding an umbrella. DO NOT THINK OF AN ELEPHANT!!!
You probably noticed, that it is almost impossible not to think of an elephant. In order for your mind to understand the words “elephant” and “pink” your language centres immediately call forth images of pink elephants, and if you do that… well you have just violated the rule of trying “not to think of a pink elephant.”
Negative language forces the mind to imagine the thing that you want to avoid. Think about messages like “No Smoking” or “Don’t touch that” or “I shouldn’t over eat so much.” Any time you say “I do not want X” you are sending clear mental images of exactly what you don’t want. These get interpreted in your mind as commands and your unconscious will work to produce the results you don’t want. This is why it is important to state goals using positive language. This means the words you use call forth the images associated with the state you wish to achieve.
For example: Never say “I don’t want to be poor.” This focuses you on poverty. Change it to “I want to be rich.” Much better. Maybe we can add an associated action with it. “I want to become a rich and famous plastic surgeon. Now we see a path forming of how wealth is to come about in your life.
A Goal is a Target.
Do you like playing darts with a blindfold? No! That’s silly and dangerous to everyone around you. How could you win a game when you don’t even know where the dart board is? A fuzzy, out of focused target is hard to hit. The more specific you are, the more you will know if you are on or off track. And you will have an easier time making fine adjustments to keep you on course.
Your life is much more important than a game of darts; so get specific about what you want and make your target very, very clear.
M for Measurable Results
The blind wish.
Melvin found a magic lamp, rubbed it and out popped a Gennie. Unfortunately it was an old Gennie and only had one wish available so Melvin had to sit down for a bit and think about it. After a long while Melvin said, “I know what I want, I have been poor all my life and the root of all my problems is not having enough money.” he looked over at the Gennie, “So I wish I had more money!”
“Really? Are you sure that’s your wish?” Ask the Gennie in a low voice that bespoke of wisdom of ages.
“Absolutely!” replied Melvin already rubbing his hands together greedily.
“As you wish.” said the Gennie and with a snap of its fingers a shiny nickel appeared in Melvin’s hand.
Melvin stared nonplussed at the nickel for a few long moments, “You gotta be kidding, this isn’t enough.”
The Gennie shrugged, “You asked for more, and now you are $0.05 richer. Be happy with your wish.” And then it disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Melvin to contemplate his folly.
Goals and Results
When you take any action, you get a result. We define success as getting the desired result, or the one you want. Logically, failure is nothing more than a result you didn’t want. The feelings that we associate with both success and failure just serve to reward or punish the ego, but have nothing to do with the results themselves.
If you come to the understanding that results are “just results” then you can let go of ego attachment. Now you become the archer firing arrows. Any one shot doesn’t matter. A bad shot simply means that you make a few adjustments and improve your aim on the next attempt.
This is why goals need to be measurable. You require some objective criterion (aka a measurement) to determine how close the results of your last attempt is from your ideal results. If you set up your goal without a means of measurement then you would find yourself in Melvin’s position: Asking for more money without ever knowing how much is enough. Obviously, he wanted more than a nickel, but what was the specific amount where he would draw the line?
Men often get stuck in “forever goals” where there is no end point. Perhaps they advance in their career, seeking more income and more status, yet they never know where the end point of the goal is. As they make progress they float the goal to something higher. They are the donkey forever trying to catch up to a carrot attached to a pole attached to their harness. The goal they set for themselves is unattainable.
Solution: Set up a Score card
To solve this problem, you should attach a specific quantity to the result. Financial goals should have a specific monetary dollar amount attached. Weight loss can be measured in pounds, a fitness goal can be measured in miles ran per day. Any good goal should contain a quantifiable result, both to know when you have achieved it and also to keep track of how close your current results are.
Imagine two teams playing soccer, but no one is keeping score. How do you know who is winning? Does the game still remain interesting to watch? Figure out a scoring system for your goal.
What vs How: Michael and the Clever Girl
Michael is a 20 year old body builder. A few months ago he set a goal for himself to bench pressing 400lbs. He thought this was a great goal; specific, measurable, and because he seen other do it, he believed it to be realistic as well. After 2 months of effort he was capping out at 300lbs. This is when he encountered a little 9 year old girl, Laura, watching him struggle with his last rep.
“You know, I can lift twice as much as you and hold it up twice as long.” Laura said thoughtfully.
“That’s ridiculous.” Michael retorted. He knew it was ridiculous because he had been trying to lift 400 pounds and couldn’t get anywhere close to it. 600lbs was inconceivable for a tiny 60 pound girl.
“You want to make a bet?” Laura asked with a wry smile, “$50, says I can lift twice whatever you can.”
“You’re on.” Michael agreed. It wasn’t nice taking money from a child, but it was $50… and children shouldn’t be so cheeky to make stupid bets. It would be a good lesson for her. Michael, being competitive, loaded up 320 pounds on the rack, and with some strain and pushing he managed to hold it up for 6 full seconds before setting it down with good form and technique.
Smirking slightly, Michael looked back at the girl and said, “There you go… looks like you’ll be doing 640 for 12 seconds.” He was already thinking of a case of beer he could by with Laura’s $50.
Laura smiled, “Ok, just one condition. You have to sit quietly over here until I’m done. You can watch but you can’t speak. If you do I win by default.” Michael couldn’t see how this would change anything so he agreed. Silent or not, a waif thin girl wasn’t going to budge 640lbs. “…Sure..”
Laura dropped her gym sack with a clank and spent some time loading up the 640lbs of free weights on the bar. After she was finished she pulled out a car jack and placed it under the bench and raised the bench 5 inches. She timed out 18 seconds smiling at Michael all the while. Michael felt a little red under the collar, like he was being had.
“WTF?!?” Started Michael as Laura lowered the load with a hiss. “That is not how you lift weights…” he started.
“No, that isn’t how YOU lift weights,” Laura retorted, “You never put any restrictions on how it was to be done. Only that the weights were to be lifted.”
“But you didn’t lift the weights… the jack did.” Michael said trying to save his $50.
“Did the weights spontaneously get up and put themselves on the bar? Did the car jack position itself under the bench on its own? Did the jack raise itself?” asked Laura.
“Um, No.” Michael responded doubtfully.
“So who did the action?” Laura asked.
“Well you did.” Michael admitted.
“So I did the action and 640lbs went up for 18 seconds… which was about 3 times as long as you held it. So I guess what you’re saying is you owe me $50.” And Laura put out her hand.
Michael felt a little coned, but Laura did what she said she could do, just not in the way he expected. So he forked over a crisp $50 bill with a grimace.
Results or Methods
When we focus on achieving measurable results, it is important to remember that what you are trying to achieve is more important than how you do it. So many people are so locked into a particular methodology they block themselves from achieving a goal when all they have to do is try something different. Flexibility in thinking allows you to make massive progress. When everything we know fails… try something else.
A side note about ““Ends justify the means” thinking; when you engage in behaviours which hurt others in order to achieve your goals. Yes, you may win but such actions have additional results which may be very detrimental in the long term.
There was a famous Chicago restaurant that served a most amazing clam chowder. People would come for miles just for the chowder. Eventually, the restaurant was sold and the new management decided to make a killing by watering it down. And they were right to do so. Profits when crazy for a couple of weeks, but after that customers no longer came. People, who travelled across the city expecting the best clam chowder in Chicago left in silent insult with a cheap watered down broth. They didn’t come back. They didn’t come back even after management realized their mistake and changed the recipe back to the original. For a quick short term gain of a couple of weeks they sacrificed their brand name and did irreparable damage to the trust of their customer base.
“Ends justify the means” type thinking almost always looks at immediate measurable results and ignores long term consequences. It is important to be flexible in how you go about getting results, but not at the cost of relationships. Was Laura cheating? Michael would say she was, but was his method of brute strength the only valid method? Laura was being creative, and she found another method which achieved the desired result. Though the other result is that Michael sees her as a little cheat and will never trust her again.
When you consider your goal against the “result based” criterion, you should ask yourself what’s important. Is it about obtaining the result through a specific method (Michael’s concept) or only the end results by any method (Laura’s concept.)
When a goal is tied to a specific method, you should ask yourself why. Are you stuck on traditional methods? Is there some other reason why we do it ‘this’ way? No one goes to the gym to move weights. The purpose of working out at a gym is to get physically fit. Laura’s method wouldn’t help her to do that; but that wasn’t the subject of the bet, only that she could move 640lbs, which she proved that she could do.
By separating your methods from results, you will see more options. Then the impossible suddenly becomes possible.
A for Alignment
Agreed Upon, Assignable and Aligned
Internal Alignment
Our mind is the composite of many smaller entities. It is as if your mind is a large tribe filled with hundreds of people, each serving the larger community in their own way. The consciousness is like the big chief who makes all the major decisions. His counsellors are those closest to him and exert the greatest influence on his decisions. Powerful beliefs and values live in the forefront of your mind and you are aware of how they influence your decision making process. Outside of these, there is a larger community of sub-systems which operate below conscious awareness. Mostly we never hear from them unless there is a major problem.
For example, you are generally not aware of breathing, though you can exert conscious control at any time you choose. This system operates in the background however it makes itself known when there is no oxygen or when you are breathing so hard that your lungs hurt.
More abstract ethical subsystem may be responsible for your fair and honest conduct with others. When you see someone violating your rules of conduct you may find yourself boiling with indignant rage; even if only through a vicarious experience.
When you set up a goal, does it serve the whole of your being or does it violate the function of other sub-parts of you? People often set goals, and fail to achieve them because they are fraught with internal resistance that leads to blatant self-sabotage. This internal resistance is caused by internal systems that disagree with the goal, though they are not given an acceptable channel to voice their concern. This leads to passive aggressive behaviour and procrastination.
Parts therapy, a subset of NLP, suggests the concept of checking personal ecology when making changes that affect the whole system of the mind. For goal setting, this amounts to sitting down, relaxing your mind and asking if there are any parts of your being which object to your goal. Then you MUST listen without judgement. Smaller systems tend to be hesitant to voice concerns as they can be easily suppressed and bullied into submission, though this doesn’t encourage system wide harmony. It encourages self-deception.
Make a space for yourself to allow your smaller parts to come forward and voice concern without judgement and give them a little time to relax, trust, and come forward. As you show your mind that you trust all parts of it, they become more relaxed about coming forward with issues that need to be addresses. In this way you not only overcome internal resistance but you also create a much more powerfully organized mind. One that feels little need to fight with itself.
External Alignment
In many systems of SMART goals the A stands for Accountability, Agreed Upon, Assignable, and Alignment with Corporation Goals. This is found in managerial applications when the goals are shared with teams of people.
Oddly enough, everything that applies to the internal representational systems of the mind applies to dealing with people in the external world. Does everyone on the team agree with the objectives of the goal? Does anyone else have different input? Are there better ways of achieving the desired results? Are the people who issue the goal open to listening to others on the team and modifying strategies if they hear something better? Have the team members bought into the goal or are they going to actively resist it?
“A for Alignment” asks if all the people involved in making the goal are in alignment with each other. Do they know what their part is? Are they willing to work for its achievement?
R for Realistic
Realistic goals based on available resources, time and skill.
Any human is capable of doing anything. Napoleon Hill once said, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” A human being, properly motivated, can move mountains. Literally.
A case in point: In 1927, Gutzon Borglum and his son decided to embark on an epic project of sculpting the faces of 4 past US presidents, each of which 60 feet in height, into a granite mountainside. Mount Rushmore was finished in 1941. They didn’t have modern power tools, they didn’t have electricity, and they didn’t have a large crew of workers. They certainly didn’t listen to anyone who told them that was unrealistic and unachievable. I’m sure there were many who thought them crazy, yet part of the charm of America is it is a nation built upon crazy ideas. Today the Rushmore national park has 2 million visitors per year.
Mount Rushmore is a shining example that any goal is achievable. “Realistic” depends on how you represent the goal inside your own mind. Do you see the whole thing as one big job? If you do, then you will probably be overwhelmed and never start such a massive undertaking. Most people who look at Mount Rushmore see it as one BIG accomplishment, they say, “WOW! That’s incredible, I could never do something like that!”
They don’t see it as a succession of smaller goals. Can you take a mallet and chisel and chip out one small piece granite? Of course, it is no big deal. Can you do it twice? Again no big deal. Doing it again and again and again for 14 years resulted in Mount Rushmore. But the prospect of doing anything for 14 years seems like a joyless, overwhelming undertaking. I believe Gutzon Borglum took joy in the accomplishment of many sub-goals inside his grand quest; they had a party when they finished Roosevelt’s left eyebrow, or raised a glass of wine when they got Lincoln’s nose right. There were many mini-celebrations in those 14 years which kept them motivated and interested in the project.
This is why so many people fail to achieve big goals. They believe that the only time you can celebrate and take pride is at the end. They don’t see that you can (and should) break a large project down into smaller goals and take pride in each phase as they are completed. This is a wonderful thing to remember when you have to do something that you otherwise don’t want to do.
Sucktastic Jobs
I recently had a house base board painting project which I was very much did not want to do. It was a very large job, required a lot of work on hands and knees (painful). It was something I wasn’t particularly interested in doing, or skilled at, yet it had to be done. While I had lots of motivation not to do the job, I managed to get it done inside a week with almost no effort on my part.
How did I do it? Simple. Rather than looking at it as one big painful, annoying job, I broke it into mini tasks. Each mini-task took only half an hour, and I dropped them into my “in between” schedule. For example: right now I could clean one section of hall way and put down masking tape. Then I would go away and watch some TV. A few hours later, I said, “Well all I have to do is paint this one small section… no problem, it will only take half an hour.” Then after a writing session and some lunch, I needed a break, so I said, “Hey, I could do a second coat.” Another 20 minutes and the second coat was down on the dried first coat, and what the hell, let’s drop some more masking tape down on another section.
By breaking a big job down into small REALISTIC chunks I managed to get the whole project done inside a week, but it didn’t feel like I was trying very hard. Maybe painting base boards is not the same as carving Mount Rushmore, but the principle of doing a small job, and finishing a small job, was far more motivating than looking at a massive ton of work I would have procrastinated on forever.
When considering the realistic aspect, ask yourself if you can see the end in sight. Then ask yourself if is a big stretch, or a small stretch to get there. If you see the next milestone as a long difficult road, then consider breaking the goal down into bite sized chunks. Motivation depends on how interpret your capabilities against a perceived task. If you can’t run a marathon, try to get to the end of a city block, then try to get to a city block and a tree, then two.
When you enjoy accomplishing small jobs, you become more motivated to take on more small jobs. Pretty soon those small jobs will add up to the completion of a major project. Just keep chipping away at your mountain and enjoy the process of the small chips.
T for Time Sensitive
What a cheerful word “deadline” is. A metaphor that conjures images of an impending doom which you can’t help but move closer to with every tick of the clock. It is unavoidable as we are trapped and you can do nothing except work your ass off and pray you get done in time. The term “deadline” is popular with management because whips are better at motivating people than carrots. People always work harder at avoiding threats than gaining benefits.
It should be of no surprise that most people “forget” to include a deadline when setting personal goals for themselves. A deadline creates an uncomfortable failure condition. “If I don’t have result X by Y date, then I failed.” No one likes to fail. Yet without a specific time to expect a result, procrastination can happen forever. It never becomes a priority, and it is why so many dreams die. It may be uncomfortable to set a target, then fail to hit it target. But in that failure comes evaluation and learning. If you are afraid to fail, how can you expect to improve? Many resist setting deadlines because in doing so they think they can postpone failure forever. In doing they also make success unobtainable.
Time is Valuable
You’ve probably heard the expression: “Time is money.” If you are working for an hourly wage, then time is literally money. Your employer is paying you cash for your time. Most jobs expect you to produce a certain result, to a certain standard, by a certain time. You expect compensation for your time; how would you feel if your boss didn’t pay you? You would probably scream, shout, and may resort to legal action. Not paying for your time is the same as stealing from you. In the same respect, your employer is justified in being angry when staff members are screwing around. They are effectively stealing from the company for they are taking wages without producing the result which the company is paying for.
Time is a valuable resource. While this is easily understood in the context of work (as someone is paying you for your time) it is less obvious after you go home. Isn’t it odd that people spend so much time and effort working to earn a pay check, yet when they go home, they place no monetary value on the time they spend for themselves? “Free time” isn’t valuable because someone isn’t paying you.
Yet this is an error of logic. What is the point of working for someone else? To gain money. And what is the point of money? It gives you financial leverage to pursue your own dreams. So, if you aren’t using your free time to further your personal goals, how does that make you any better than a slave?
In reality your personal time (away from work) should be far more valuable to you. This is the time that you make your dreams a reality. Time is important at your work, they expect you to get shit done to a certain standard and by a certain time. So why should your dreams take a lesser priority? Your dreams need to get done, to a certain standard and by a certain time.
“T” (Time Sensitivity) is to time what “M” (Measurable) is to quantifiable results. Time is a metric, it is a point that you can use to evaluate your own methods. Did you take more time or less than expected? Were you wasting time? Are there ways to optimize what you’re doing? These are all valuable ways of improving, but can only happen if you set deadlines for yourself.
Time is your Tool, Not Your Master
A long time ago, I was working under a CEO who was obsessive about deadlines. We had weekly planning meetings to determine time frames for upcoming projects. Staff members were assigned tasks and encouraged (forced) to declare how long these tasks would take to do. As many projects were novel (the first time we attempted them), it was up to each staff member to guess how long something would take. If a staff member overestimated the time to do a task, they were subject to an uncomfortable interrogation on details as to why they thought it should take so long. After a few of these, staff quickly tried to make guesses based on the minimal amount of time they thought an assignment would take to do. This is what the boss wanted, as he didn’t want his employees wasting valuable time.
Once he had our “agreed upon” time frames, the CEO constructed a calendar with milestones clearly showing where the project should be on specific days. Using a milestone method to create plans is highly effective, and I have included a version of this later in the book; yet the way he was using it was manipulative. The calendar set deadlines in stone and meeting deadlines became a major headache for everyone in the office.
Ironically, the person most stressed out about keeping to the schedule was the CEO himself. It was his project, and it was his idea to create the calendar. He kept saying his “reputation” was on the line, but it was never clear whom he was trying to impress. His obsession in trying to keep up with an inflexible schedule succeeded in a highly motivated work place. We were busy all the time, but it was a high pressure experience. You always felt like you were “working under the gun.” It was also not sustainable, leading to staff burn out. This caused more delays as new staff needed to be trained and were expected to keep up with a schedule their predecessor couldn’t manage. But the plan was absolute, had to be obeyed, like a divine commandment.
The Problem of Minimal Time Estimates
The obvious problem with my time obsessed boss was forcing people to provide a minimal time estimation. A minimal time estimate must assume ideal conditions. Except that the larger a project is, the more likely it will find one or more monkey wrenches thrown in. There are always unforeseen events that happen beyond anyone’s anticipation or control. An essential package of supplies gets delayed at the border, finances couldn’t be secured from investors, there was a fire and equipment was damaged and needs to be replaced, an update on some essential programs scrambled back ups which interrupts work flow for days, a printing error may require an entire job to be redone. A lawsuit from a past project tie up staff members which now put them behind schedule on their current assignments. Someone sneezes and we are in a new pandemic.
Because we were forced to give a minimal ideal time frame estimates and because those estimates were set in stone, we discovered that we were always off schedule. So naturally, we looked for ways to get “back on track.” This would involve cutting corners, and sacrificing quality to “save time.” Following the plan became more important than the results that were being produced.
Time is a valuable resource. You are a mortal creature and you only have a limited supply of time. It should never be wasted. It can be a useful metric in evaluating your methodology. As you take daily actions toward goals, you can notice the quality of your results against how long it takes to achieve them. The next day you can tweak your methods to gain better results with less effort and less time. This is the road to efficient action. There are many tools out there which can help you use your time more productively.
But that is the key point. Time is a tool. It is a concept created by humans to coordinate efforts and to become more productive. Time is never your master.
Being obsessed about time and deadlines is counterproductive to goal achievement. It takes all the fun out of the journey in pursuing a goal and make you more prone to procrastination. If your plan is totally screwed after 3 months, simply set up a new plan. Being sensitive to time is about striking a balance between using time well, and not being so obsessive about your schedule that it overrides the whole point of the project.
Consider the Snail
Snails live a fraction of your life span, only one to ten years; they also move at a top speed of .33 inches per minute, or approximately 0.002 mph. One could say that time is far more important to a snail as they have so much less of it. A snail is a creature that never wastes time. The goal of a snail might be to make a journey to your flower bed, eat as much as possible and race back to the forest before sun up. Doesn’t that sound SMART? The snail’s objective is Specific (your flowers), measurable (full belly), in alignment (with its survival), realistic (given its speed), and time conscious (sunrise brings birds.) So our little snail spends all of its time wisely on persistent and consistent actions that move it closer to its goal. Given how limited time is for a snail, it simply has no time to waste on procrastination.
The lesson of the snail is one of continual action. Deadlines and other external motivational tools are unimportant when you have a clear goal and you are moving towards it as part of your habitual life style.
Action is really how shit gets done.
