THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Ed Mylett - Design Your Life

Episode Date: December 28, 2017

Serial entrepreneur and life strategist Ed Mylett shares his goal setting strategies on this weeks podcast!

I want to discuss with you today the process of goal setting more specifically designing your life. And so these are the same strategies that I share with the elite athletes that I coach and work with and the elite business performers. I'm going to share with you today. And like most of the content that I produce, there's not going to be a lot of fluff in there. We're going to get right into the content,

right into the details, because most of the people who are interested in what I produce and what I teach are busy people, I'm sure you are. And so I don't want to waste your time, nor mine. I want to get right into the stuff. And so let's get into the details here. First off, why should you say goals? Well, you're 24 times more likely to produce the life

and the results you want if you get clarity and write things down So that's one reason second thing is average people don't do it The average person spends more time planning a vacation than they do planning their own lives And so I know you're not average nor do you want to be average? You want to perform with the highest level you possibly can and so I'm gonna share with you these strategies that I know that work What I'm not gonna give you is one formatted system You could go on YouTube right now and there's 500 videos of exactly how to set goals So I'm going to share with you these strategies that I know that work. What I'm not going to give you is one formatted system. You could go on YouTube right now and there's 500 videos of exactly how to set goals.

Quite frankly, most of those videos made by people who haven't achieved very many of those goals. And the reason these systems don't work is because people process information differently. Some people are very visual. They need to see things. Some people are auditory. They need to hear them. Other people are kinesthetic.

They need to touch them. And so there's not just one system. What I will tell you that I've learned from me, especially for elite performers, elite performers are busy. They don't need a very elaborate or complicated goal-studding system. I think the more complicated it is, it's the enemy of execute. Remember, this complexity is the enemy of execution. What we really want to do is execute on our plan.

Don't we want to produce the results in the simplest, most direct, concise fashion. And so we're going to do that here today. Let's start out by talking a little bit about the process of goal setting. Why is it so important? Well, one reason is there's a law of familiarity in which is this, we are mind gravitates to things it's most familiar with. So the more repetitiously we're looking at the things we want, we're producing a focus in our minds, the more our minds become familiar with that place and gravitate to them and draw to it the things,

the resources, the people requisite in producing those results. And so we want goals, we want them written down, we want them in front of us constantly so that they become familiar to our mind and our hearts and so we gravitate towards them. And so let's talk about some principles. I'm not going to tell you, write this down, make a box there, have a picture there and our hearts, and so we gravitate towards them. And so let's talk about some principles.

I'm not going to tell you, write this down, make a box there, have a picture there, because I think you'll learn differently, and you can produce your own little system. But I'm going to give you as the principles that I know that work. First off, there's a power to goal setting. You want to create a life in advance so that you can design it. If you're a person of prayer, you'll be praying about it, and listening to your faith in that process, I hope too.

I also think that it's something that can inspire you, give you power and pull you out of bed in the morning to get you going in your life. And so that's why this is so fun. So to begin with, let's just look at first off goal setting as this. I want you to put yourself in a state almost like a child on Christmas Eve or in the Christmas season. If you could make a wish list of your life, if you could turn off for a second the part of your brain that thinks you can't do something.

And you just let your imagination turn on. What are your biggest goals and dreams? If you could make a Christmas list of your life for this year, what would be on that list? I want you to really think about that. And I would challenge you to do what I call a flood. For four minutes, you turn everything off in your life and you just write.

You just flood out on a piece of paper, all your goals and dreams and ambitions. Big ones, little ones. What are they? Flood them all out on a piece of paper, just a Christmas list. Suspend your disbelief just for that four minute window. Put a time clock on it and just flood it out on a sheet of paper. That'll get the process going because when we're setting goals, the most important thing is that we're in a peak state. We've moved our bodies.

We're in that elite state. You know what it feels like that you're about to work out is that we're in a peak state. We've moved our bodies. We're in that elite state. You know what it feels like that? You're about to work out feeling that you're breathing deeply. You're sitting up straight. Your mind is completely elevated and turned on. I want to challenge you to get in the right state before you begin to set goals. Get into that state, move your body.

If you've got to jump up and down 10 times, do some jumping jacks. A few pushups. Sit up straight, breathe deeply. Get in a powerful, believing state. Numbers, a few pushups. Sit up straight, breathe deeply, get in a powerful, believing state. Number two, make it a Christmas list. Just write a list of the things that you want.

That's just the beginning of the process that'll turn on the imagination. It'll turn on that part of your brain. That's a dreamer that thinks big. Suspend disbelief. Nothing on there has to be necessarily certain you can do it. We just want to get things out on that list that are our wish list, our dream list, our

goal list. Now that you've done that, I want to give you some principles in setting goals that are very important. There's really five things that you must do in setting goals. And that's why we're going to focus on this here today. The first thing in setting goals is this. You have to have specificity. These need to be specific goals.

People are wandering generalities. It blows my mind, the people that I see in my life, who don't have goals, they have wishes, they have dreams, they have slogans, but they don't have goals. Specificity is the key in producing anything. Your mind cannot go to work on processing generic things or general things, vanilla things. Your mind goes to work on processing generic things or general things, vanilla

things. Your mind goes to work on producing specific things, detailed things, precise things that you put in it. And so the more specific, the more detailed, the more clear it is, the more likely it is that your mind, your body, your soul will go to work on producing those results in your life. So, what does that mean? I want to get in shape. I want to be more healthy. I'd like to lose some weight. I want to feel better. Those are slogans, wishes and dreams. Specifically is the body weight you want. Specifically the body fat. Specifically your heart rate, specifically your cholesterol, specifically your blood pressure, whatever those things are you want.

And you'll decide what they are. What specifically do you want in that goal in business? I want to make more money. No, what's the exact dollar amount? What's the exact dollar amount? I want to grow my company by 20%. What's exactly 20% mean to you? Okay, so not grow, not expand, nothing generic,

nothing vanilla, nothing vague, it produces nothing. Okay, so specificity is the key in setting goals. Number one key, I cannot emphasize that enough. I cannot get over. When I talk to elite people and I say, what are your goals? How clear, specific, and precise they are. And when I meet people who don't produce results, how generic and general and vague they are. So specific, one of the reasons people don't like specificity

is it holds them to the number. They'd rather be vague that way they can decide whether they hit it or not. Champions want an exact amount of reps and exact amount on the bench they want to hit. An exact amount of money they want to make or save or produce. Okay, exact numbers, specificity. Number two, you have to have somebody you account to.

You must share this with somebody. It can't be just yours. numbers, specificity. Number two, you have to have somebody you account to. You must share this with somebody. It can't be just yours. And so in my family, every year we sit around and we share our goals with each other. You could do with a spouse, a child, a mentor, a business partner. You must at least share this information with one other person that you can account to. There's an accountability that is requisite in producing results in life. Now to ultimately be up to you, you say, well, if it's completely up to me, why do I need to be accountable? Because there's a power in saying it and there's a power in being accountable for it. And so pick somebody. By the way,

you could have 30 goals, 10, if they're in your faith, 10 could be somebody you share with that you respect in your faith. One could be fitness and those that one you share with someone you respect fitness your faith. One could be fitness and that one you share with someone you respect fitness-wise or maybe you'll share them all with the same person. But each of them needs to be shared with another human being. There's a power and spirit in sharing between people.

And so too is accountability. Someone who can hold you accountable outside of you to produce these results. Third, you must read and visualize them daily. Read and visualize. That way you've at least seen them, heard them. You understand this, right? Seen them and heard them. And that way you'll feel them as well. Out loud daily. It must be spoken into existence. There's a power in speaking it. Now, when I say visualize, people say, should I do a dream board? If that helps you visualize, yes, I don't have a dream board because I love to see my goals in my mind, but I know a lot

of people who want to see the picture of the body they want. And the more and more you can see something, the better. So if it's a dream board, if it's a photo that you have on your mirror and your bedroom, if you have them all over the place, I know people who have their goals produced everywhere in their car, on their bathroom mirror, in their shower, next to their bed. On the type of person that's so obsessive that the more I read something I see things as I read them, but it must be visualized. So if you need to actually see something tangible and you can't see it in your mind then you should have a vision board or pictures of something as well. So read and

visualize. People say to me all the time, well when I'm reading it I know a lot of goal setting books say, well say it as if you own it now So not I want to make a million dollars. I make a million dollars or I have a million dollars for me That's disconnecting because I know that's not true yet So I want to say things I truly mean right that I truly believe and so I don't say things as if I possess them I say things as if I expect them which we'll talk about in just a few minutes So read and visualize, out loud, your goals on a daily basis.

This is difficult to do in the process of life. And so one of the things I recommend you do, if you're a praying person, is in my prayer, I go through my goals. I do it. If you're a meditator, certain types of meditation, see those goals happening for you. Now, if you're entering your mind type meditation,

that's different, but do it right after or right before. Okay? So, I try to do it the same time every day. I like to do it in the morning when I wake and before I go to bed at night, it takes me very little time because I don't have an elaborate system. I basically just have the things I want to produce in my life and I know the key to it is their specific. I've told somebody about it and that the more I can repeat it by saying it out loud and seeing it the more my brain becomes familiar with it The more I'm likely to produce it. Why is that matter?

Well, there's a part of your brain called the reticular activating system Which I talk about a whole awful lot and really it's the part of your brain that screens out things that aren't important to you It only shares with you things that are important and And so the more we're feeding our brains, our minds, with what we want, with what we see, what we read, what we feel that we want, the more it becomes familiar, the more it becomes important, the more the reticular activating system will begin to reveal information to you. Let me explain to you how this works without getting really a mumbo jumbo with you. It's kind of like you've seen this before.

If you've ever bought a new car before, I use this analogy analogy all the time You bought a blue van. Let's just say all of a sudden there's blue that blue vans all over the highway Isn't it well it was always already there? But your RAS screened it out to you because it wasn't important to you now that it's something that's important to you You see them everywhere and so what the RAS does it only allows in certain specific information for you to see The information is allowed into the conscious mind. It represents three types of info. The RAS shares with you because your brain's always trying to survive. So your RAS reveals to you information necessary for survival.

So if it thinks you need it to survive, it will reveal it to you. It will see it. You'll see prospects you didn't see. You'll see resources you didn't see before. It will reveal them to you, even though they've always been in your space, your brain screens them out if they're not important. The more we think something, the more we see it, the more important it becomes to us. So there's science behind this. Number two thing, it reveals to us information that's related to our goals and

dreams. And third, it relates information to us related to our beliefs. So if we believe something stronger, your mind will begin to reveal to you situations, people, places, and things that prove you to be right. And so that's why our beliefs and our dreams and goals are so important, because the more they're repeated to us, the more we take control of what we believe about ourselves, about our lives, about who we are, about what we're worthy of. Okay, about what we're going to get in our life. The more the RAS reveals to us,

the circumstances places things, resources, and people that prove us right. It also reveals to us the keys to our goals and dreams and things necessary to our survival. So this is a huge deal that you read and visualize and think about these things often. It's not mumbo jumbo, it's not positive thinking, it's how your brain actually works

because the world wants to deliver to you And there's plenty of resources for you to get fit for you to get money for you to grow your company for you to grow your business For you to grow your life to draw the partner into your life What you want the relationship you want the money the car whatever it might be the giving okay? It's there, but it's screened out if it's not important to us And so that's why it's so important that it's repeted out if it's not important to us. And so that's why it's so important that it's repetitious.

This is a huge thing. The other thing, true. If it's not specific, our brain can't see it. So it has to be specific. We have to be accountable, and we need to read and visualize it daily. The fourth thing that's huge, it has to have a date or a deadline.

It has to have a date or a deadline. Otherwise, it's a wish. So the more you schedule when it's going to happen, the more you get after doing it now. If it's just whenever, if it's just at the end of the year, isn't it interesting that almost everybody's goals are by the end of next year? Well, guess when you'll get serious about them,

probably never, because you'll start out the first few weeks after them, then distractions come in, and then it's just to the end of the year But what if a lot of them were due January 3rd or March 15th or April 27th or July 26th? Do you follow me? The more you've deadline them, the more it reinforces and specifies your focus gets you in a hurry and makes it a goal Not a wish and so deadlines and dates on all of them, specific deadlines and dates. And then fifth, big one, you got to expect it to happen. You have to do it in a state of expectation that these things are going to happen.

So many people just put these things down with hopes. You got to expect it, pour expectation into it, expect them to be delivered in your life. That makes the likelihood of it so much greater if you just expect they're gonna happen, just expect great things. You know what's interesting? When you make your list of goals,

there are probably a few on there that you do expect to happen. They're the ones you hit every year and the ones that you really aren't expecting to happen, you never hit. And so what if we could expect all of them to happen? Now, what if all of your goals had, you'd set them in a peak state?

They were specific. You were accountable to happen. Now what if all of your goals had you set them in a peak state? They were specific. You were accountable to somebody. You read and visualize them out loud every day. They had a date in a deadline and you expected them to happen. Are you hearing me now? You're starting to get it, aren't you? And so there's a power in our life to creating our life to being specific. Now let's get into some other details here. People say to me, so what about categories? Do you set goals and categories? For me, if you have faith, finance, family, and fitness, right? Everything could fit under that umbrella. But for me, I just have one life. So there's just things I want to produce. I don't really look at them like that's a family thing. That's a fitness thing. To me, they all tie together. There's just goals I want to produce in a given year.

What drives us to hit these goals? Number one, for me, it's just a list of things I want. It's not elaborate. It's just, I got a list of things I want, but buy a certain date. And so the big driver on getting goals done is this, okay? Here's the kicker. The kicker on goals is your compelling reasons, the juice, the thing that's gonna get you out of bed

isn't the goal, it's your reason for the goal. So for me, I wanna have 6% body fat. Okay, well why do I want that? Because I have to have reasons for it. So with each of the goals I have, I have my reasons next to them. And my reasons are usually my dreams or other people. So many of you know, one of the reasons that I have a fit lifestyle is that when I was young, I had some heart issues. And I actually had a doctor at one point asked me to change my life. Did I have any interest in living

long enough to be at my daughter's wedding? And it just grabbed my heart and it's never left me. No pun intended. I've always thought when I get up in the morning now, Bella's wedding, Bella's wedding, Bella's wedding and it causes me to eat healthy, it causes me to go to the gym. It's a bigger reason. I think one of the reasons maybe I'm a little bit more fit than most men. My age isn't that I'm more disciplined, isn't that I'm more focused.

It's that my reason is bigger. I've attached a compelling reason to staying fit and healthy, which is I wanna be here for my daughter's wedding. And so the more, if you get that process, the more you can attach compelling reasons, that's the driving force, that's the life force. Goals without reasons are dead. Goals without a purpose is dead.

And so what are the reasons for each goal? Who are you doing it for? What are you doing it for? And just list that next to the goal. So when I'm looking at my goals, I look at a goal, I see Bella, I see my mom, I see a dream house, I see a jet, I see whatever, I put the reasons next to it and that's my driving force behind that goal if that makes any sense to you. So I want to challenge you to do that to not only have your goals, have them specific, accountable, read them out loud, date in a deadline, expectation to achieve them, but most importantly are the reasons. That's the driving force, that's the piece most people leave out in their life, is their compelling reasons. Why is that important? Because guess what? Life is going to happen to you this year.

Distractions are going to come, but I can tell you this, I know distractions are going to come, and if I don't have very specific goals, accountable to somebody, read them out loud, date on them, expectations that I'm going to get them. And driving force and reasons behind them, that distraction is going to kill my goals from happening. So that's why the compelling reason is, you're reasons must be bigger than the distractions that are going to come.

If they're not, the distractions will win, just like they do every year. Next thing, for me, it's important that I have two types of goals. One, I'd call momentum building goals, and one, I would call stretch goals, or life altering goals, game changing goals. And so I do have goals that I know I'm going to be able to hit. Okay, and so, or I expect that I'm going to be able to hit relatively early in the year to create momentum. I think that there needs to be a momentum to catching dreams and goals, just like there's

a momentum in life. And so I do have stretch goals that may take me into August or September, October, or maybe even a full year to achieve. But I also have momentum creating goals that I can achieve early in my year by January 20th, right? By February 26th, whatever it is, have momentum building goals in your year so that you start feeling like you've got momentum towards your goals by hitting some easier ones earlier in the year. This is something that not enough people do is to build momentum goals in order to achieve

your quantum leap goals later in the year. Big one here, I'm going to give you some strategies. You need an alarm clock. You need an alarm clock. You need constant reminders in your planner or on your phone to remind you of these big goals that you have. And so let me give you my key. This is something you're not going to hear somewhere else.

I have all kinds of alarms built into my year. So you've heard me talk about before that in most people have an alarm clock that goes off once a year and they review their life and make adjustments. Pretty good performers do at the end of every month and really world class people can do it every week or every day. But the elite have this bizarre alarm clock that goes off in their head almost every hour. This says, what did I do to get there? What did I do to get there? What did I do to get there? And they course correct make adjustments and get refocused. I have this unconscious alarm clock that goes off every hour. I'm telling

you, it's crazy. Right at the top of every hour, just this thing hits me and I, and it's a muscle I built, it's a habit I've built that allows me to review where I'm at. But most people need a reminder. And so what I want to challenge you to do is I want you to design your year.

Not just write some stuff down you'd like to happen. That's just a list, okay? And so how do you do that? Let's assume, for example, that one of your goals, the deadline you've set is June 1st. I want you to, in advance, set alarm clocks off for you. So that could be, that's up to you. It could be at the end of January, and alarm clock goes off, and boom, your calendar notifies your phone, or if you have a written day timer. Hey, you've got 60% of your time left to achieve XYZ goal. You should be at XY.

You should be here. Constant reminders. Another one goes off March 15th. You're 50% of the way there. How close are you hitting this goal? Reminder, this should be the pace you're on. So throughout my calendar, before the year begins, reminders and alarm clocks go off throughout the year,

reminding me of the deadline that's coming on each of my goals. And I've taken the time at the beginning of the year to pre-program my phone with those alarms that go off that remind me so that in a random day I'm sitting in a meeting and I'm getting distracted, the phone goes off, you're 45% of the way there towards this goal, June 6th. You should be here, this is the number you should be at. What did you do? And I have all these reminders. If you have a written daytimeer,

just go through your daytimeer and pick 67810 times where there's just a reminder appointment on there and you've scheduled 10 minutes for just that goal. Just reminding that, just reviewing that one goal. Does that make sense to you? So somewhere in the year, have written in there, or programmed in there, an appointment with you about that one goal, a reminder. And I like to have between five and eight of them throughout the year on each of my goals, because I don't remember I programmed on the beginning of the year, do I? But all of a sudden,

I'm driving and it's a, you know, February phone goes off I get to my next meeting I go wow okay I'm supposed to take a look at my goal to accumulate XYZ this year in savings where am I at or maybe I was about to eat a bad meal you're you got six more weeks until your goal of 6% body fat and it reminds me it just takes me back on focus back on track is pre-programming my phone and my calendar to remind me, instead of just, here's what you have in your calendar. Meetings, appointments, life, which is code for distractions, lack of focus.

And so somewhere in there needs to be the reminders, the alarms that go off in your life, to get you back on focus and on track, instead of just doing the work. Haven't you already had enough years in your life to get you back on focus and on track instead of just doing the work. Haven't you already had enough years in your life where you know you worked hard and didn't produce your results? And the reason is, is it somewhere during the year you just started to do the work without the focus,

without the vision, without the particular activating system supporting and helping you, right? And so these alarms take us right back on reminder, right back on focus. If you think you don't need reminders throughout the year about where you're at, how much time you have left, what your deadline is, you are wrong. And that's why most people write them out the beginning of the year. Yeah, they read them every day, maybe, but there's no, there's no jolt. There's no reminder that directs us to just one of them for a 10 minute window just another one for 15 minutes six days later

So I want to challenge you to have programs into your phone different alarms that go off 30% of the way there 60 80% 20 days 50 days 100 days out 200 days out this will cause you to make changes in adjustments You wouldn't make otherwise and it's something I share with all my athletes and all my elite business people. And of all the things I teach, they will tell you that the shocking reminder of it, they wrote themselves at the beginning of the year, reawakens them, refocuses them, reinspires them, gets them to course correct and make adjustments, okay. They will tell you that's the number one thing. The last thing I want to tell you on a specific goal

when you write it down, is that I want you to write the resources required to get it. So you have your compelling reason, and then who's your resource, or what's your resource? Is it a specific book you need to read? Is it a specific person you need to meet? Is it a specific group, a specific place, a specific activity?

What are the resources you need to produce that goal, that result? So the compelling reason, and then the resources. And you will see that these things will begin to gel for you. Now you've got a process that works for you because where your focus goes, energy flows. Right? So we want to constantly get back to focus. Constantly get back to the space we want to be in. And you got to do it with total faith and expectation.

Why is this, by the way? Why do we want these alarms to go off? Why do we need resources? Why do we need wise? Because the beauty of having a goal, even though we all take it for granted, is what happens is once you set a goal, it creates a space, a new space that didn't exist before you set it. Just think about it for a minute. The minute you say, I want to save a million dollars this year. I want to save 100,000 dollars. Or I want to lose 20 pounds in way 140. Let's just say that. The fact that you say it, write it down.

Have a reason. Have resources that it is specific, right? You're accountable. You read it out loud and see it daily. There's a deadline on it. There's an expectation you're going to do it. And you've built in these alarms throughout your year to remind you with compelling reasons and resources.

It's almost like a new room you've built in your mind or your house. And the power is, there's a new space. It's possible. And what happens is the more you do these other things, your mind and your life and your will, hopefully your faith, if you're like me, begins to help you fill up that space. It goes to work. The more you can get familiar with it, on filling it up with the requisite people, places, resources to make it possible. It's almost like furnishing a room. You're furnishing your life, but you can't furnish that space until you create the space.

So just the thought opens up that space. That's what most people stop with. And there is a power to that. Put you ahead of about 80% of the space. So just the thought opens up that space. That's what most people stop with. And there is a power to that. Put you ahead of about 80% of the people. But what are you doing to furnish the space so that it's a beautiful place that you've designed, right? Like a building, you're the interior decorator, the interior designer of your life. It's not good enough to just set up the room. It's just an empty space. You have to go about furnishing it with the people, places, things, objects, you name it, that make it a full livable space that you now own.

And that's what these different things do. So most people will overestimate what they can do in one month and dramatically underestimate a year. A year is a long time. And here's the last piece for goal setting for this year for you. You got to work on you. You will never get out of this year. Any more than you think you are worth. Any more than you think you deserve. And so of all my goals for the year, of all my habits,

of all the things I want, the two things that drive my year every single year are my faith and my identity. How can I increase my faith, my belief, and how can I increase my identity? Because I will never exceed my faith or my identity. And so you've got to be working on your personal development. What are the books where you need to be following on social media? Who do you need to get connected with to improve your life? Because see, you will never produce a result greater than you believe you're worthy of.

And so the more and more you can grow your identity, your self-worth, the more these things will become seamless to you. I hope you can hear me on this. You must change your identity. You must change because you could have all of the great plans in the world, all the resources, all of the habits, right? All the reasons. They're specific. You got it all dialed in. You got the alarms going off, but inside you, you don't believe you're worth it. Inside you, you don't believe you deserve it. You won't keep it. You may produce it short term, but you'll lose it. You're unconscious mind.

I'll help you get rid of those results. You'll never exceed it. It's like that thermostat on the wall we talk about all the time. If your life is set at 75 degrees and you heat up your life and you're producing 85 and 90 degrees worth of results. And goals are being achieved, but you don't heat your identity up to 85 or 90 degrees. You will find a way to turn the air conditioner down on the thermostat of your life and cool your life right back to where it was.

I don't want you to end up at the end of this year where you are right now having done all the work out, all the goals, all the strategies, all the alarms, all the reasons, but didn't change you. You must change your identity, you must grow you. And let me give you one last strategy that may help you just a tiny bit do it. Every year, I have something called my one word strategy. So I have all the things I want, but then I have a word that defines me that year.

I want you to consider it the top of your goals having a word that defines you this year. One word, it's a one word strategy for the year. It could be relentless, faith, strength, resilience, love, caring, giving. It could be athlete. What's the word for you this year? Who are you this year? Step into that person. Are you about, are you faith? Are you relentless? Are you strength? Are you inspired? Are you giving? Are you

grateful? Are you obese? Right? Are you a beauty? What are you this year? What's the word that defines you? Are you sexy? Are you kind? Are you, what's the word this year that's going to define your year and who you are because that helps set your identity for the year. At the top of all of it, define you. Give yourself your identity for the year, a gift of one word strategy and I'm telling you that word will resonate with you all year long. Repeat that word all year long. That will set the tone for your identity.

Hope this helps you with setting your goals, getting direction in your life. Hope there's a bunch of detailed strategies you can use there and just some thoughts that'll provoke some change in you. God bless y'all, max out.