MAKING 2023 YOUR MOST SUCCESSFUL YEAR EVER MAY NOT BE AS HARD AS YOU THINK!

Goal Setting May NOT Be The Key To Success That It Is Made Out To Be!

Everytime I make a statement like this, some people want to jump to the defence of goal setting and the idea that “If you want to succeed, set big goals!”

At this time of year a lot of people share their best goal setting tool or planning system with their communities … such is the habitual discourse around goal setting.

So how dare I suggest that goal setting may not be the key to success after all!

Hear me out for a second.

I think that for something to be a “key” to anything, it has to be the most important thing that contributes to the result.

I’m yet to be convinced that setting goals does that.

Goals are important, they define what the result should look like.? They allow us to measure at the end to see if we got there.

Goals define the destination!

The problem is, simply defining the destination is not enough.? It doesn’t guarantee success.

Three Dimensions of Success

Success can be hard to define, but for me, success is achieving something at a level that is well above the norm.??

Achieving what everyone else achieves is really just existence.

The truth is, most people want to win.? They want to have disproportionate results compared to everyone else.? If you asked most people if they just wanted to exist through life, or would they prefer to succeed through life, there’s no surprise what the most common answer would be.

The desire to succeed, is the desire to achieve something others haven’t achieved.

Now you may say this is too simplistic, but simplification is the highest form of sophistication!

Let me try and simplify success even further, by breaking it? into three dimensions represented by the model below:

To be successful you MUST have a Mega-Vision of what you want to achieve.? How do you want your success to be defined?? Mega-Vision is necessary to create the drive and motivation levels that take you beyond the ordinary.

Once the motivation of a Mega-Vision has been created, you do need to create detailed goals so you have a target - a definition of what the destination looks like.

That definition of the destination gives you clarity and direction.

Now for the key distinction I want to make …

The only way to truly succeed is to find AND FOLLOW the proven pathway that will get you there.

A proven pathway is nothing more than the step-by-step progress you need to make that will take you to the goal.

If you stay on the pathway and make progress, the goal becomes inevitable.? It can’t not happen.

However, if the pathway is unproven, failure is still possible.??

Similarly, if the pathway is proven, but you don’t stay on it - if you behave your way off it, failure is also possible … maybe even likely.

I’m going to contend the provocative proposition, that the one thing that can guarantee success is to make disciplined progress along a proven pathway.

So it’s possible that the real key to success is nothing more than diligently tracking progress!

The Simple Science Of Tracking Progress - And A Model To Help You Do It.

I wish I was about to reveal some ancient wisdom about tracking progress … but I’m not.

The rest of this Newsletter will elaborate what you already really know … but in all likelihood may not be doing at a high enough level of performance!

Progress along a proven pathway is a simple concept …

A series of specific steps WILL lead to a predictable outcome!

A goal in any sport is not scored because of the last millisecond of play that produced the goal, and the ball definitely didn’t manifest itself into the net.

The goal happened because the team executed a series of steps, many that were already practised and rehearsed to such a degree that they have become hard-wired behaviour, that predictably led to the goal.

At the same time, the other team failed to execute the predictable set of steps that would have prevented the goal.

Simple!? The pathway produces the result … nothing else.

Well executed progress along a proven pathway is the key to most success.

My Futures Model is a great way to think about progress and pathways:

The model tells an interesting story.? Pathways are non-judgemental.? If you follow a red-line pathway, the series of steps that lead to failure, then you will most certainly fail.

What do these look like … drift, avoidance, procrastination, blame, guesswork, disorganisation and so on.

Of course if you follow a green-line pathway, the series of steps that lead to success, then you will most likely succeed.

What do these look like … informed decision making, action taking, self-discipline, accountability and responsibility.

What the model highlights about progress that isn’t so obvious, is that time compounds everything!

Building on step-by-step progress along the green line, will cause time to compound your results and help you to accelerate up and away from the average.

Of course the simple passing of time will equally compound red-line behaviour down and away at an accelerating rate.

A proven pathway should give you two sets of information:

• What are the green line steps that others have taken to get there and what are the gates along the green line you need to shut behind you to stay on that pathway to success?
• What does the red line look like and how will I know if I’m slipping into drift?

From there, it’s really a case of monitoring your progress.

If you checked in every day, week, month and year, and asked a simple question “Was today a green day or a red day?” success would be much more likely.

Naturally there are a bunch of questions to ask behind that first question, for example:

“If I didn’t have a green day today, what do I need to change to make tomorrow green?”

“What drift habits can I eliminate?”

“What progress habits can I develop?”

This all applies at team level too!

Like I said, tracking progress and creating success is not a complex concept.? It’s almost so simple it’s boring, but boring leads to success!

Every Olympic gold medalist got there through tracking their progress and “doing the boring”, day-after-day, to be ready to achieve the goal at the Games.

In this Month’s 20-Minute teaching, I’m going to be unpacking the secret science of progress tracking and I’ll be sharing my Progress Tracker Toolkit that I send out every year at this time.

This is one of my most well-received gifts I share throughout the year.

In this 20-Minute teaching?

Why Goal Setting Won’t Get You There And How To Make Big Things Happen In 2023!?

I’ll be digging deeper into how you can make your progress and pathway your success superpower for 2023.

There are plenty of tools you can use to set your Vision and cast your Goals … What I want to do is help you guarantee success and make progress against your proven pathway.

My 20-Minute Teaching is a highly popular event and we don’t advertise it widely.? We publish a diary link the week before and from there, it’s on a first in best dressed basis until the Zoom room is full.??

There is no registration required.??

If you’d like to join me just go here to get the diary invite and add it to your calendar:

https://modelsmethod.link/20-minute-teaching