The Fitbit Bust

I’m ticked!  I glanced at my Fitbit watch and noticed the time. 12:13 AM.  New day.  New goal. But what about yesterday’s goal?  Did I make it? I don’t remember the cheerful little vibration that tickles my wrist when I exceed my daily Fitbit goal.  Did I miss it?  I grabbed my phone to log in and see if I met yesterday’s 5 mile goal.  Oh no, I’m 13 minutes too late.  4.98. Ah, crud! Yeah, I’m ticked – at myself.  I lost focus, and I wasn’t paying attention to my goal.

I am by no means a fitness buff. I know I should try harder. But I wear a Fitbit, and set reachable goals for myself. Five miles a day should be easy, with a little focus. When I focus on it, I can knock it out by lunchtime. With a little attention, I can monitor it and make up any shortage at night to still make my daily goal by midnight. On the occasions where I am doing the right thing and being active, no attention is really needed.  I get the happy little buzzing to let me know that I passed the goal, and I keep on trucking.

But no buzz yesterday.  I was sure I would make it.  I was fairly active during the day.  I took it for granted that I’d hit the daily goal. I didn’t monitor it while I still had time to fix it.  All I needed was another few feet.  Upstairs and back would have done it.  But I missed out on a goal because I wasn’t paying attention. I took my eye off the goal.

Goals Drive Us

Sure, that’s a puny little goal.  Anyone can do five miles a day.  It’s not worth writing about.  But that is exactly why I am writing about it.  It’s these little goals that lead to the big goals. You do little goals every day, and the big goals come easy. I could have done the 5 miles.  4.98 is not good enough.  I failed myself because I wasn’t watching my performance against my goals.

We make goals because they give us a timed vector toward success.  A goal has a direction, a magnitude, and a timeline.  The direction is toward a longer-range vision.  We can’t wake up one day miraculously at our destination, but we can wake up each day and move one step in the right direction toward that destination. 

Sometimes multiple activities can influence an objective.  You might need multiple performance measures, but each short-term performance goal should be laser focused on an individual activity.  For instance, “increasing sales” is not a measurable short-term goal. It is a longer-range objective that requires several individual activities.  “Increasing sales” is what you WANT, but you have to boil it down to something you can DO.  You can set your short-term performance goals by activities you can control, such as making 10 cold calls per day, or having 5 new customer visits per week, or introducing yourself to 6 new people at your next social event.  My Fitbit measures me against performance goals of steps, miles, floors, etc.  If I miss them, it's because I wasn't watching. If I achieve them, I'll likely move toward the larger objective of improved health.

The magnitude is black and white.  You either make it or you don’t. An almost-achieved goal is not an achieved goal. My buddy has a sticker that says “13.1” on his car because he recently completed a half marathon of 13.1 miles.  The sticker doesn’t say “13”.  The goal was not 13 miles. The 0.1 is important.  You don’t round up to your goal.  You either make it, or you don’t.  My goal was 5 miles, not 4.98.  The 0.02 is important. We can’t give up until we cross the goal.

To me, the timeline is the most important characteristic of the goal.  Time is not on your side.  It’s the enemy trying to stop you.  You can define your direction and magnitude, but if you don’t push yourself to accomplish your goal in a designated time, you are not going to reach your long-range vision. How many of our youthful dreams remain just dreams because we didn't put a deadline on them? The timeline is the motivator. The clock is your opponent.  Tick.  Tick.  Tick.

Actionable Performance Goals

Too often, we confuse performance goals with ambiguous objectives.  How many people start each New Year saying they are going to lose weight?  “Lose weight” is not a goal.  It is an objective that points to the direction of the goal. But direction is not enough.  You need to also define how far you will go and how much time you will allow. Lose 20 pounds by March 30; walk 5 miles each day; call 3 new customers by noon are all goals.  Performance goals become the measurable actions you can take toward those larger goals in the direction of your overall objective.

Objectives can be defined by big goals, which can be acted upon by small performance measures. 

Use direction, magnitude, and time to define short-term goals that you can perform and measure.  Your performance goal can be defined by:

Performance = (Magnitude * Direction) / Time

If your objective is to be more active, you can set a measurable goal of:

Performance = (5 additional walking miles) / day

If your objective is to make more sales, you may choose a goal of:

Performance = (10 more cold calls) / day

Or,

Performance = (5 new customer visits) / week

In each case, you can measure your performance.  You can drive yourself to do the right amount (5) in the right direction (new customer visits) in the right time (week).  You can hold yourself accountable for achieving your performance goals.

Making the Most of Your Goals

My expected performance yesterday was 5.00 miles.  I missed it because I wasn’t watching it. There is nobody to blame but me. I need to be more accountable to my goals – and you probably do too. If you are willing to trust a guy who just failed at a goal he should have crushed, here are 10 tips for making the most of your goals:

1. Start where you are: Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither was Arnold Schwarzenegger nor Apple. I hate when I hear companies compare themselves to Apple. You are not Apple.  You are probably not a guy who can join a gym today and be a ninja warrior tomorrow.  Set realistic objectives, goals, and performance measurements. Example: I’ll make my first two cold calls today.
2. Clearly define your goals: Define measurable activities with a quantified magnitude that can be completed in a known time and move you in the right direction. Example:   Have lunch with three new prospects this week.
3. Write them down: It may sound silly, but the mere action of writing down your goal doubles your chances of achieving it. Plus, they make a nice visual motivator to kick you in the teeth when you are not working toward your goal.  Example:  Outline your performance goals and post them on the wall where you can see them each and every day.
4. Tell an accountability partner: If you told your boss that you were going to visit four customers this week, how many customers would you actually visit? My guess is it would be at least four.  When you tell your goal to someone who will call you out if you fail, you will be more motivated to succeed. Example:  Ask your cube-mate to remind you to make your morning phone calls. (Promise to buy him lunch if he ever catches you missing that goal.)
5. Give your goals dedicated time: Set aside time to focus on your goals. If you can achieve a goal without focus, it’s probably not a challenging goal. But if your goals are challenging, but you set aside committed time to work on each goal, you will see incremental progress. Example: Commit to making sales calls each morning from 8:00-9:00.
6. Monitor your performance: Create a practical way to monitor your goal, measure your performance, and motivate your action.  You will get what you measure. Measure progress while you still have to time adapt and correct your performance. Measurement leads to motivation. If I knew I was only 0.02 miles from my goal even 5 minutes before midnight, I would have stood up, marched it out, and achieved the goal. Graph your progress so you can monitor improvement. Trending charts show you where you have been and where you are headed. Example:  Keep a log and a trend chart of how many sales calls you make each day.
7. If you miss a goal, get back on the horse: When the going gets tough, keep on going. Don’t let a stumble make you quit.  Just work harder. Let it drive you to do more. My 0.02 mile failure created this article.  Missing a goal can be the  motivational kick in the behind that you need. Example:  If you miss your weekly visits goal this week, try to have it done by Thursday next week.
8. Adjust your goals when needed: If you can’t achieve your performance goal no matter how hard you try (e.g. lose 20 pounds/week), reduce your goal to be more realistic. If your goals are getting too easy to achieve, increase them to keep up the challenge. Running 1 mile/day is tough at first, but after you get in shape, you can increase to 2 mile/day. Example:  Increase from 5 cold calls/day to 8 cold calls/day.
9. Celebrate the victory: As you continue to work your small goals, your big goals and long-range objectives will be realized. Be proud of your success. Celebrate your achievement. Share your accomplishments with others. Example:  Publish your sales report and show others on your team how you got there. (It’s not bragging if you use it to help them succeed.)
10. Regularly revisit, redirect, and reach further: Do you remember the children’s song “The Bear Went over the Mountain”? That poor bear. Each time he got over the mountain, what did he see? Another mountain. So he climbed it; and we can too.  Set the next goal and drive on.  Example:  After I get to $500k/quarter in sales, I am going to reach higher for $750k/quarter.

Stepping Stones

Goals move you in the right direction. They are stepping stones to a better you. Performance goals move you one step at a time in the right direction.  I tried to move 5 miles of activity in the right direction yesterday, and I missed it by 0.02 miles.  But I still made it 4.98 miles.  That’s a stepping stone in the right direction.

I remember a creek near the house where I grew up.  To cross the creek, you had to jump from rock to rock over a jagged path through the water.  You couldn’t jump the creek – or swing across it on a Tarzan swing – although we tried that and failed.  However, if you started on one shore, and focused on the first step to a nearby rock, then the next, soon you would be out to the big white rock in the middle of the creek.  The path got a little more difficult after that, but you already make it halfway, so there was no giving up.  Eventually, you made it to the other side.  Short-term goals lead to long-term goals.  They always have, and they always will.  Keep your eye on the prize, but keep your attention on the next step.  Baby steps lead to big success. One stepping stone at a time.

4.98 miles. I wasn’t paying attention and missed the goal by a stinking 0.02 miles. I guess it’s better than crossing the creek. If the rock was five feet away, and I missed by 0.02 feet, I’d be washing my clothes instead of writing this article. 

A lousy 0.02 miles! That won’t happen today. I’m going for a walk.