Why You Should Build Habit-, Not Outcome Goals

/0 Comments/in /by
It’s January. We’re all just back from vacation and doing our goal-setting for the year. Whether you want to purchase ten more doors or lose ten more pounds, how you approach that goal counts.

Here’s what I mean.

Progress isn’t linear. Life doesn’t have finish lines. If you set an outcome goal, every day you DON’T hit the goal feels like a loss.

Take dieting.

In a weight loss plan we have cheat days and we hit plateaus. Sometimes the numbers don’t move as fast as we think they should. It’s the same with investing. You can make lots of calls, be on top of your networking and even make a bunch of offers, and have frustrating numbers to show.
That’s why building winning habits is so important.
It’s why this year, I’ve only got habit-goals.
Look at it this way. I can aim to buy five buildings by the end of the year or I can aim to spend twenty minutes every day connecting with potential partners.
My goal could be losing ten pounds or it could be to stick to my nutrition plan, eat no sweets and drink 2L of water every day.
When I weigh myself at night, I may feel sad if the numbers on the scale don’t move enough. But if my “reward” is checking off boxes that say:
Today I :

√ Drank 2L of water

√ Stuck to my calorie goal

√ Avoided junk food.

I’ll get a dopamine hit every time I “succeed” at attaining my habit goals.

Think of hitting big targets this way. I must manifest behavior that translates into incremental improvements that stack up over time. Second, I must have faith that the outcomes will come. It’s my job just to stay on track with good habits and time will take care of the rest.
This year, can you set habit goals and have faith that the outcomes will follow?
Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash

If You Quit Now, You’ll Never Know How Close Are…

/0 Comments/in /by

Life doesn’t have finish lines.

When you race, it’s for a specific distance. In a Jiu Jitsu or wrestling or boxing match, there’s a time limit.
But in life, very few races come with a defined finish line.
You can spend years pushing—giving effort, time, money, sacrifice—and have no guarantee of when or, even if, your goal will ever happen.
That’s the trouble with life’s undefined finish lines and it’s why it’s really, really difficult to know when to throw in the towel and when to keep pushing.
We all have something in our lives that eludes us.
I can’t tell you if quitting now is the right choice.
But I can tell you this: if you stop now, you’ll never if one more days, week or month might be all it takes.
Every big thing I’ve achieved took a lot of years and just as much faith. Every successful person I’ve talked to (and with the podcast, I talk to a lot of them) says the same thing. You reach goals with cumulated actions, time and faith.
And, when the last little obstacle gives way, it’s almost always a surprise.
If you stop now, you’ll never know how close you are.