Start With A Win - Goals

Episode Date: January 18, 2019

On this episode of the Start with a Win podcast, Adam and Mark discuss the goals and resolutions that so many people are going to start in the beginning of 2019. Did you know that it takes an average of 10 attempts before your resolution will stick? This does not have to be the case. In order to have SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals, it is important to avoid these common mistakes:Too vague – Saying that you “want to get healthy” is not helpful in the scheme of things because you have not done the upfront planning to make a goal worth accomplishing. A good way to make sure that your goal is not too vague is to tell people about it so they will hold you accountable.Too boring – If you are not excited about your goal, then you are not going to put in the work to make it happen. Set up a system of routine and reward for yourself and perhaps take advantage of goal-stacking to multiply your efforts.Too easy – Setting a goal that is too easy does not really count as a goal. You should feel gratified after completing it, and it should be a bit of a challenge.Overwhelming – Many people say that they want to “lose 60 pounds in 2019” or “save $5,000 by the end of the year”, but these goals are so large that they seem unattainable. Try making your goals more bite-sized like “lose 5 pounds in January” or “only eat out once per week and save the excess.”Easily forgotten – It isn’t helpful to anyone if you set an arbitrary goal just to say you have set a goal. You will benefit the most by setting goals that are related to your daily life.By eliminating these variables from the equation, you set yourself up to accomplish your goals.Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/adamcontosREMAXCEO/https://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/

At top of the 12th floor of the Remax World Headquarters, you're listening to Start With a Win with CEO Adam Kantos. And hello, everybody. At top of the 12th floor here at Remax World Headquarters in Denver, Colorado, it's Adam Kantos with Start with a win here with me this morning or today, whatever time you're listening. Producer Mark, how are you? I am amazing. Thank you for asking. I have to ask.

You have to ask. And for everybody out there in listener land, whenever you do ask Mark how he's doing, it is a really cool answer. Amazing or so good or, you know, it's... Positive. You have to stay positive. you know, it's... Awesome. Positive. You have to stay positive. Absolutely. You have to stay positive. Darn right.

Yeah. So, what are we talking about today, Mark? Well, I heard that today we're talking about goals. Goals. Which is a very appropriate discussion because here we are at the start of the new year, and it seems like goals would be a good thing to discuss. Absolutely. You know, it's funny. I was at the gym this morning, go figure. Really? Yeah. Figure that one out. I was looking around going, I wonder how many of these people are going to be here January 1st, February 1st, on and on and on. Because it's kind of funny.

It typically takes people, like a New Year's resolution, it takes them like 10 tries. If they actually declare, write down, work on that resolution, it takes them 10 tries on average. Like 10 tries as in 10 days or? No, we're talking 10 New Year's, man. So 10 years. Yeah. Someone's like, I want to lose weight. Yeah., man. So 10 years. Yeah. Someone's like, I want to lose weight.

Yeah. I want to grow my business. Yeah. And it's 10 years of that. Because most of the time, it's just people talking about it. They're actually not doing it. Yeah. There's a reason for that. What's the resolution then?

Yeah. Well, we're going to jump into that today. We're going to talk about the reasons why goals don't become accomplished, why we don't get there with those goals. And you want to hear another really kind of staggering fact? Yeah. When people have a heart attack, okay, you think that you would change your lifestyle, right? Well, yeah. I mean, it's like, I almost just died. Let me change my life. Right, right. Well, the stats show that only 14% of people that have a heart attack actually make the changes necessary to prevent future heart attacks. That's nuts.

It is. That's really nuts. It's not like you're going, I need new tires on my car. It's, hey, this could kill me next time. Yeah. I need a new heart valve. Right. So, I mean, there are certain things you just shouldn't mess with in life and your health is one of them. Yeah. So, what do you think it is that hinders people from continuing on with their goals or are some ways that people can accomplish their goals?

Well, it's funny because we hear about SMART goals. We've always heard people go, oh, your goals need to be SMART goals. And SMART is an acronym, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. So everybody always talks about your goals need to be SMART goals. But in all reality, we kind of always work in another realm where we write these ideas down instead of goals. And the first, obviously, the S is specific and smart. Well, really what people end up putting down as their goal, the first problem that they run into is their goal is vague. And by vague, I mean, I want to get healthy, that type of vague. They're not saying, here's what I need to do. They're kind of pointing their ship towards the North Star,

but that's about all that they're doing with it. You know, they see the North Star and they know they have a ship, but they're not laying out ways to get there. So they're just vague. They're not giving themselves anything that is inclusive of the idea of the goal. It's more of the idea of the goal. It's more of the title of the goal. And not like, in 90 days, I want to be X, Y, and Z. Right.

It's just, oh, I'd like to be X, Y, and Z. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's, I want to be wealthier than I am. And you go, well, what does that mean? Does that mean you have more money in the bank? Does that mean you're happier, you're more fulfilled, You're more spiritual? Whatever it is, they need to kind of lay out exactly what's going on. I need to have an extra $1,000 in my bank account by the end of June. Well, it seems like if you do that, then it becomes more actionable. It does. Right?

Because then you'd say, okay, in order for me to get $1,000 by June, what will I have to do? I need to X, Y, Z in order to accomplish that. Right. Exactly. So the first reason why goals don't work is they're too vague. So your goals can't be vague. Somebody should be able to look at your goal and go, I know what it is, and I know exactly how you're going to get there. So it's kind of the friend test.

The friend test. You got to get these goals in front of other people. Nothing secret here. I mean, if it's a secret, very personal goal, then find somebody you can trust in to help you with it. But a goal that is never shared is really one that only you are responsible for achieving. And ultimately, we're not very good at holding ourselves accountable, let's face it. So, second reason why goals fail, a lot of times they're too boring. Not exciting enough. Not exciting. I mean, you got to get up in the morning going, I'm excited about doing this. Yeah.

Does that make sense? Totally. Yeah. So, I mean, it might it might be i'm gonna read eight books boring you know but if those if you have a list of those books and you have a date you're gonna read those books by and why are you excited about reading those books yeah it's like have you read the power of habit yes yes and you know how they talk about how you reward yourself right like you have the goal and then you accomplish that goal and then you reward yourself. Yes.

Kind of like trick your brain into wanting to get up and do your task. That's right. Yeah. They call it the cue, routine, and reward. Right, right. So you're talking about the reward there and that's it. You got to have a reward. Yeah.

You got to get excited about these things. And I mean, you look at the exercise goal, if you will, the New Year's resolution of exercising. And I think that's one of the big reasons why people never accomplish it is they don't get fired up about it. Right. It becomes more of a have to instead of a want to, right? Yeah. So, you know.

The thing I started doing was is that I'm really busy you know we got a lot of stuff going on constantly and whatnot but i still love movies and i love tv shows and things like that but i don't like to waste time doing those so my reward is always like all right if i go to the gym and i'm on the treadmill for 30 minutes i can watch an episode of ozarks or you know there you go of whatever it is and so it all right, I'm going to go to the gym so I can watch some TV. I love that. Yeah. That's awesome.

And that's a great point. That's actually goal stacking, what you're doing. You're accomplishing two things also. Particularly with combining being on the treadmill and I want to consume a book. Right. That would actually be in the book Atomic Habits, which I think we've talked about before.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That right there might be a good way to goal stack. Yeah. So number three. Number three. Number three.

So the first two, just review, vague, boring. The third one would be easy. Some people set easy goals for themselves. I mean, I'm going to go for a walk each day. I mean, I hope you're going to go for a walk each day. I mean, I hope you're going to go for a walk each day, right? Right. I mean, it's, the fun thing is when you look at how people measure some of their goals,

you hear about the 10,000 step goal. Yep. But so many people try to just fit it in their day. I personally think you need to make it separate. You need to make it something specific. You are going out and you're hammering on it and you're accomplishing it and you've got this. It's not easy. It's something you have to reach for. Right. Because we get better feedback personally by accomplishing something that we reach for. Yeah, totally. All right, so far we have vague, boring, easy. Fourth one, overwhelming. Too big of a bite.

That's it. Yeah. Yeah, they're trying to eat the elephant instead of taking one bite, right? Yeah. You know, the old proverb, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. You can't eat the whole elephant at once.

Yeah. It's overwhelming. So to say, this year, Mark, I'm going to go climb five 14ers, 14,000 feet peaks in Colorado. We have a whole bunch of 14ers here, as you know. If I said that, you'd go, okay, that's a little overwhelming. But if I said every other month, I'm going to go climb a 14er, you'd go, oh, you can do that. Yeah, more attainable. Right, right. So you don't want to overwhelm yourself.

One of the problems in business goals is a lot of times they're overwhelming instead of broken down into achievable pieces, but they're not easy. They're challenging, but they're not easy. You need to be able to deal with that. Break them down a little bit so you don't get overwhelmed by them. Saying, I'm going to lose 100 pounds this year.

Okay. How are you going to do that? Well, you got to do it one pound at a time, right? Or half pound at a time. Yeah. Break it down. Don't be overwhelmed by your goals. That's a big problem that a lot of people have.

So we have vague, boring, easy, overwhelming. Last one, easily forgotten. What is it? Easily forgotten. Oh. last one easily forgotten what is it easily forgotten oh see it works right it does easily forgotten yeah goals right a lot of times later on in the year if you walked around and asked people what were your news resolutions for 2018 they They'd be like, I can't remember. You should be able to pull those out and have them written down somewhere,

written on the wall, whatever it is, and say, that was not easily forgotten. So there you go. I mean, that's really the list of, you know, you hear about smart goals, which are the antithesis of this. How do you achieve them? This is how do they not get achieved? So if you can go through and you can check your goals off, is it vague? Is it boring? Is it easy? Is it overwhelming? And is it easily forgotten? You got to eliminate those variables

in your goal setting in order to actually achieve them. Make sense? Totally makes sense. And it seems like something that you can once again accomplish, right? If you really break it down like that. And then once you accomplish it, you get that endorphin rush of being successful. And then you continue on with seeking to achieve your goals. That's right. It's a good goal to have, right? Yeah. Really good goals. Cool. Awesome. So that is how we think about achieving our goals and how we think about not achieving our goals. Understanding the enemy of the goals is a good way of accomplishing them. So that's what we got today on Start With a Win.

Catch you guys on the next episode of Start With a Win from Remax World Headquarters. This is Adam Kantos. Thank you so much for joining us today. Make sure to head over to startwithawin.com to get more great content. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Adam on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And remember, start with a win.