The Research Behind Why You Fail Your At Your Goals

How We Benefit From Incremental Gains

We set goals in order to accomplish them.  Or at least that's how the thinking goes.

We create plans on how we're going to get to the finish line.  We repeat these behaviors everyday hoping to see some improvement.

But more often than not, we fail.

Why is it that once we set a goal, we're more likely than not to fail?

Some goals we set may be too improbable, or impossible even.

It could be a lack of time, energy or resources.

Perhaps it was too unclear. The path to achievement too unsure.

Most likely we didn't focus on the right things.

If we focus our attention on micro-accomplishments, we have a much greater opportunity at succeeding on the goals we set.

When I started this blog, it was to document my process of using kindle publishing as a platform for my short stories.

Along the way I learned that short stories are a hard, difficult trek.

But I kept on writing.

I may not have published more stories lately, but I've published a number of blog posts covering a wide swath of topics (some may say too many topics): posts on how to improve productivity, goal setting, time management, and confidence building through experience.

But the point of this post is to focus on the power of micro-accomplishments as fuel toward achieving your goals.

The Power Of Micro-Gains

In a post on James Clear's blog, about the aggregation of marginal gains he tells the story of a coach for the British cycling team.  The focused on making just 1% improvements on the small details, from the obvious like nutrition for an athlete, all the way down to what type of pillow would allow each cyclist to get the optimal level of rest and recovery.

With proper execution, the goal was to finish as champions of the Tour de France in 5 years.

The coach was wrong.  It only took 3 years to be named champions.

The idea was that the aggregate amount of each of this small improvements were easier to accomplish, simpler to maintain and would result in a much greater output in results.

It was the ultimate implementation of the concept: "The sum of the parts is greater than the whole."

Seeing your goals through to the end is an important first step.  But knowing what steps to take in order to achieve your objective is even more important.

Plan The 20% Of Your Efforts That Yields the Best Results

What's Your Process

Productivity is a by product of efficient process.

Procrastination is another.

In a previous post we discussed how defining your passion would improve your productivity.

In another recent post we discussed the myth of hyper-productivity.

There've been articles and posts about how to improve your productivity, better time management tips and ideas for self-improvement.

All of these concepts are by-products of another concept put to action, and that is "process."

Process is defined as "a serious of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end."

 It is, in other words, what you do in a sequence of steps to achieve a desired outcome.

If you want to train for a marathon, there are a series of training methods and ideas to help.  Of course you need to train the requisite number of times - i.e. be "in shape" to best run a marathon, but a process of training would help you maximize your ability.

If you want to learn a foreign language, there are ways to learn quickly, but for most people and most learners, there's a process of language acquisition that takes a dedicated amount of repetition over extended time.

One of the more important concepts in the school of productivity and process is the Pareto Principle.

Otherwise known as the 80/20 rule, the Pareto Principle is the idea that you get 80% of your results from 20% of your actions.

Understanding this dynamic between effort and outcome is crucial to your overall success. By focusing on the 20% that yields the best 80% of your results, you'll accomplish more with less effort.

The trick then, is to develop a process that builds on the 20% that yields the highest gains.

 

How To Squeeze The Most Out Of Your Day

How To Find The Energy To Pursue Your Goals Even When You're Exhausted

There are days when life seems to conspire against you.

For me, today is one of those days.

It's 11:30 pm, the end of the day for most of us, me included.

The dog and cat are sleeping, as is my girlfriend.

All my friends are either asleep or out doing something fun - but if they are, eff'em for not inviting me.

I haven't gotten around to writing today's post. I didn't have time.

There were phone calls to make, meetings to schedule, plans to make, take care of the dog and on top of that, there was work to be done.

I could complain, but everyone has things that are going to be obstacles in their way. It wouldn't mean much to any of you if I did.

The point is, once you set a goal, the best way to achieve it is in pieces.

Look, everyone has the same amount of minutes and hours in a day.  Nobody gets extra credit for their day.

The thing to understand then, is that there will always be obstacles. There will always be challenges that you need to find a way to overcome.  

What defines your opportunity at success then, is how you handle the obstacles, the challenges, the limitations that will undoubtedly be placed in front of you.

The key to success then is that unless you have unlimited amount of time for a particular project, you need to set aside time in small blocks.  Use the concept of prioritization to set the most important tasks you need to accomplish in front of the ones that are of lessor importance.

Once you've prioritized the order at which you need to work on them, break each task into even smaller portions and work on those, one at a time.

Even with a demanding day, if you prioritize your tasks into order of importance, then break them down into small porting that can easily be finished, you'll get more done in less time.

Finally, if something is on deadline but not the most important task, find small minutes you can steal throughout the day to devote time and mental energy toward.

Like this post, I spent the day working on things that I needed to do before getting around to writing it.  But I was thinking about the topic, how to approach it, and what tone and POV to write it in. And that was so that once I could type it out, I had a general idea of what to say.

It's now 11:48 and I have 12 minutes to spare to get this published to accomplish my goal of 31 posts in 31 days without interruption.

Sometimes goal setting is just as tough as everything else.

The follow through is even harder if you don't learn how to manage the obstacles along the way.

(published at 11:53pm)

Beware the Ides of March

Failure To Prepare Is Preparing To Fail

This is a short post today about the process of trying to write 31 posts for the month of March.

It's a true challenge, I'm not going to lie.

I have two really long pieces I'm working on right now and those seem to take more time than I have available to finish them.  Especially with trying to keep the publishing schedule that I announced. 

Perhaps that's the ides of March I should be wary of.

The significance of the ides of March was made famous by William Shakespeare.

In his play, Julius Ceasar, a soothsayer warned Ceasar to "Beware the ides of March," otherwise the day of his assassination at the hands of the Roman Senate.

Over time, the idea has taken many different meanings, to wit:

The assassination of Caesar isn't the only major historical event to happen on March 15.

For example, the ides of March was the day that Roman citizens had to pay outstanding debts.

Christopher Columbus returned to Spain after his first voyage to the New World.

The last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, abdicates in 1917.

In 1985, the very first Internet domain name, symbolics.com is registered.


So there are good things that can happen on March 15.

I just wouldn't want to be Ceasar.

Or the Roman citizenry - I haven't finished my taxes yet and a month is a lot of extra time.

I didn't plan the month of March out very well, but as they say - if you fail to prepare, you've prepared to fail.

How To Transform Your Thinking And Get Everything You Want

The Value Of Experience And Confidence 

Something's been on my mind all day.

Confidence.

What is it?

Why do we struggle with it at times, especially when we've done something over and over and over again?

Is there something innate in us that makes us doubt ourselves, or some other outside force?

I read an interesting post today on Mary Jaksch blog, Write To Done.  If you're unfamiliar with Mary or her blog, you're missing out.  It's a wonderful blog about all things writing, from freelance to topics on writing and everything in between.

Today's blog post discussed a common fear we all share.

The Fear Of Being Discovered

Discovered as the fraud we writers imagine ourselves to be and ways to work through it.

The post was written by Sonia Thompson who is founder of Try Biz School, a great resource for helping others build their dream business.

The post titled "How To Keep Writing Even When You Feel Like A Fraud" lays out common struggles that we writers all share (and I'm sure other creative types, as well as any one who shares anything worthwhile).

For example, one of the common issues we deal with is that we are a by-product of our environment growing up (Nature vs. Nurture anyone?).  Think about it a little.  We are raised by our parents, attend schools that help reinforce certain behaviors and expectations, and we strive to fulfill them.

It's when we feel we fall short of these expectations and roles that are rooted in our psyche that we develop a sense of being an imposter.

The Myth Of Overnight Success

Another cause of the feeling like a fraud is if we do something that appears to come easy.

Take the example of Elizabeth Gilbert, writer of Eat, Pray, Love.  She dealt with "instant" success that garnered a lot of attention, made into a movie and a book deal.  She struggled with the idea that she wrote something amazing, easily, and the expectations were to replicate it.

She struggled to write her next book and guess what?  It didn't do very well.  But she was fine with it, because she knew the value of her experience working on her craft.

Keep in mind that as the person who sweated, toiled and worked for years to perfect our craft, we know it wasn't easy but a rather long, hard road. And the knowledge you learned is priceless and the experience gained, invaluable.

  Pablo Picasso is rumored to have best illustrated this in a story about being approached by an admirer while sitting in a cafe in Paris.  The admirer asked Picasso for a quick sketch, and Picasso agreed.

Using a napkin, Picasso sketched out his "Dove of Peace" and handed it toward the admirer but not before asking for a rather large sum of money in return.  The admirer, stunned, said "how could you ask for so much?  It took you a minute to draw this!" To which, Picasso replied succinctly, "No, it took me 40 years."


(Thanks to Brian Braun's excellent short post on the Napkin Wisdom on Experience and Pricing)

Since we, as people, are social creatures by nature, it only makes sense that we struggle with being discovered as less than we project.

But understand, you are an expert at what you do.

You've studied the craft and honed the skills for years and the idea that you can just whip out something in mere minutes that appears to be easy, was actually paid for in years of hard work.


If you're interested about more articles on Mary Jaksch blog Write To Done, just click Mary's name.

You can get more information about Sonia Thompson's Try Biz School by clicking her name.

Read Brian Braun's excellent post Picasso's Napkin Wisdom on Experience and Pricing.