How to achieve a big goal

I came across the above quote this afternoon, and it spoke to me so I thought it might be of interest to you also. 

Ryan is onto something. He highlights an obvious but overlooked truth. And that is, that achieving a great goal takes great focus. I had to learn this the hard way, sometimes via burnout. Often just the frustration of working towards goals that seemed to be ever-receding towards the horizon. 

You may have a lot of goals or just a few. I know I have many. Goals such as finishing a project, getting enough exercise, making sure the kids do well in school are typical for most of us. These are the day-to-day goals. Mini-goals if you like. Important but not major goals that will change your life.

What Ryan is talking about are the big goals. Building a business, completing a Ph.D., surviving childhood abuse, beating cancer, or writing a book need sustained focus. 

Three things I’ve learned about achieving big goals are:

1. Plan ahead and out time with no distractions or social engagements whatsoever. Kazuo Ishiguro found the success of his first two books created amazing "career-enhancing proposals, and party invitations, alluring foreign and mountains of mail ... ” but no time for his next book. So he scheduled four weeks of 12 hour days and wrote an international bestseller. Most of my first book (a non-fiction book) came about in two periods of six-day intensives. My co-author used a similar approach with a series of concentrated weekends. Solid goals need solid blocks of time. 
2. Do something every day towards your big goal. If you can’t carve out big blocks of uninterrupted time (even if you can) do one small thing each day. It could be as simple as reading ten pages that will help you, writing 500 words, or doing 20 minutes exercise. So long as you know why you are doing it (progress towards your big goal) it will keep your goal alive and help make it a priority over the long term.
3. Delete, eliminate, drop, avoid, outsource, or otherwise get rid of everything you can. Declutter your list of things to do, so that the only things that remain are the things that you truly value. Is watching the evening news helping you towards your big goal? If no, that’s 30 minutes per day that you’ve freed up. Is tidying your garage as important as your big goal? Tony Robbins has said something like “the quality of your life is proportional to the quality of your questions.” I agree but would add that sometimes the questions don’t even need to be all that profound. Useful questions will do :-)

Are you on track with your big goals? What works for you?

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The book I’m reading, if you are curious is: "Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts" by Ryan Holiday https://amzn.to/2xPOSuG Ask me again in 10 years if I’ve succeeded in my big goal to write a perennial bestseller :-)

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