Tag / goal setting

by Nathan Coumbe

What can you control?

A new company wants to break into an existing market, open five new stores, generate $10 million in new revenue in the next year, and capture 2% of the market share.

Can they do it?

Well, yes. Possibly, but… Only one of those things is within their direct control.

They can open the five new stores – that’s an action over which they have direct control.

Everything else is an outcome – something that they want to happen but can only be controlled indirectly through specific and defined actions.

To get the outcome, they must focus on and develop actions.

Here’s a (possibly) more relatable example:

Someone wants to bench press 300 pounds. That’s an outcome goal, something that’s dependent on a lot of factors:

  • Genetics
  • Injuries
  • Past training history
  • Age
  • Nutrition and recovery
  • Consistent training

It’s possible to hit that goal, but not by focusing on the outcome. Instead, the lifter should focus on actions that will lead to the outcome she wants:

  • Consistently execute a targeted bench press program 3 days per week
  • Eat X grams of protein each day
  • Go to sleep at 9pm each night to recover appropriately

The thing is, she may still never reach that goal. But by focusing on the actions that lead to the outcome instead of the outcome itself, she has a much greater chance.

The same principle applies to our business example. Hitting $10 million in revenue or capturing 2% of the market share is great. But what actions, done consistently day after day, will lead to those outcomes?

That’s the question.

by Nathan Coumbe

The messy middle

Any worthwhile pursuit has a messy middle. In his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller talks about what it’s like to cross a stretch of water. We leave the shore and eventually arrive on the opposite side.

But in between those two points, we have “the hard work of the middle.” That’s where the journey becomes a slog, the motions seem repetitive, and the effort seems useless.

Pursuing a goal, starting a business, losing weight… All of these pursuits have that same hard work to be done in the middle.

In almost every case, we start strong and make decent, even quick, progress. But soon after we hit a point where we lose focus and motivation.

“Why am I at the gym for the third time this week? I just want to go home…”

“I really just want to pig out on pizza, beer, and ice cream. I don’t feel like cooking…”

We get frustrated, hit plateaus, and our motivation wanes.

It’s when we hit that point we have to rely on our “why”.

Our reason for pursuing whatever it is has to be strong enough to get us through the messy middle. Seth Godin calls this “the dip” in his book of the same name.

Without a strong why, without a reason to keep pushing through, we burn out and quit.

Not only does our motivation have to be strong, but we have to revisit it every day. Zig Ziglar had a saying about this rule:

“Motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing. That’s why we recommend it every day.”

First, identify a strong reason why you want to pursue something.

Then make time every day to review it. Keep your motivation front of mind.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Are you using “someday” to procrastinate?

Seth Godin wrote a very short blog post today you need to read. (Click here to read it)

I taught a class on this very subject yesterday afternoon. 

The students all had these grand plans to accomplish big goals for their budding businesses. But I told them: without a deadline to meet, they wouldn’t succeed.

By the end of it, all 71 of my students had a date certain for when they’d accomplish their goals. And we worked together to develop daily action steps to get there, too. 

“Someday” isn’t a day on the calendar. Declare your date and make it happen. 

(It never ceases to amaze me how Seth’s shortest posts seem to be the most insightful and relevant.)

Make sure you read his post here. And subscribe to his newsletter—it’s the most insightful email you’ll read each day.