Stop Focusing on Your Goals
1 Sept 2021 · 21 min
Rob Dial argues that goals matter less than most people think. Instead, focus on daily actions: write down what you want, imagine yourself having achieved it, identify the specific steps required, then each morning write three prioritized tasks on a 3x5 card and do them in order.
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Amazon presents Laura versus fruit flies hide your bananas. These winged demons came to your kitchen to do two things. Eat fruit and and they're all out of fruit. But thankfully Laura shopped on Amazon and saved on cleaning spray, countertop wipes and fly traps. Hey fruit flies. Your baby boom ends here. Save the everyday with with Amazon. Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host Rob. Dial and if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you live in the United States or Canada and you want to receive motivational text messages from me directly to your cell phone, text me right now. 1-512-580-9305. Once again, 1-512-580-9 305 today we're going to talk about why you should stop focusing on your goals, which might be different than you've ever heard. Because most people put so much time and so much effort into their goals and you hear people that have podcasts talk about the importance of goals and why you need to visualize your goals and your goals and your goals and your goals and your goals and your goals. And all of that's great. But I'm gonna tell you what I think is actually not what I think. What I actually know is more important than your goals to hitting your goals. So there's something that's in there. Your goals are important. I don't want you to act like they're not important or that they're stupid, but they are the least important part of achieving your goals. So the least important part of achieving your goals is knowing what Your goals are. So if you've been listening to my podcast long enough, I always say the most important thing, number one, for anything else, you've gotta be really, really, really clear on exactly what your goals are. The, the more clarity that you can have around your goals, the more likely you are to hit it. But I'm gonna give you a four step process to making sure that you get your goals accomplished. And knowing your goals is the first thing, obviously, but it's not the most important thing, because if I'm being honest with you, I think that goals are actually overrated. And not only are they overrated, I think that a lot of times for people, goals are actually demotivating because they think of where they currently are and then they look at their goals that they have for five or 10 years in the future and the money they want in the house and the happiness and the family and success and everything that they want. And it's so. It seems so far away that it's like, fuck it, why would I even do it? Like, it's so far away I probably won't even get there. And then they don't even take any action towards that goal. So goals can be overrated. And today I'm going to teach you what's more important than them. I'm going to walk you through the process of exactly how to hit your goals by not making them the most important thing. Okay? So step number one is you've got to decide what you want, right? You've got to get very clear on what your goals are. The more that you can see the goal and the more that you can understand what the goal is, the more likely you are to hit it simply because you know exactly what it is that you're shooting for. If you've been listening to my podcast long enough, you've heard me say this many times. If I were to take you and the number one archer in the world, put you up next to each other and have you both shoot at a target, he's going to beat you every single time. But if I take him, I blindfold him and spin him around, and he has no idea what direction he's shooting in, you have a better chance of hitting that target simply because you can see it. Not because you're skilled, not because you're better, but simply because you can see it. So a lot of people don't hit their goals simply because they don't even know what their goals are. They're very abstract. They never put them down on paper and back in the 70s, there was a study that was done for graduating MBAs of Harvard, and they found out that only 3% of those people graduating from Harvard actually wrote their goals down. They followed up with all of them 10 years later, and the 3% were 10 times more successful than the 97% who didn't write their goals down. So simply writing them down is an important piece of the process. So the first thing you need to do is you need to decide what it is that you want. Get very clear on that. The second thing that you need to do is you need to make a plan. Okay, now that we've decided what it is that we want to, now we've gotta make a plan to get there. For some people, this can be really hard because once again, they still feel too detached from their goals. And their goals don't necessarily feel real. It's like, yeah, it's what I want, It's a dream. But I don't know how to come up with the plan to hit that because it just seems so far away. And so I've got a secret for you. And I call it future pacing. And so what future pacing is, is let's say, you know, in 10 years, I want to be worth $10 million, right? And you could use this for any goal that you want to. I'm going to future pace and I'm going to say, okay, it is August 2031, and I have $10 million in my bank account. This is how I got there. This is how I got here. And I'm going to talk from the future self of exactly what I did. Oh, this is what I did with my. The people I surrounded myself. I stopped hanging around other people that were demotivating me, found some friends that were doing this. Waking up at this time. I started doing this. I started getting more knowledge around this. I got mentors in this. And what happens is it makes it feel at least a little bit more real because I'm talking from the future. Not like, hey, these are my goals way off in the distance. It's like, hey, I've already done this. This is how I did it. And for some people, just that little switch will allow them to stop thinking, oh, it's not possible. It will kind of silence their limiting beliefs, at least from a little while. Because it's like, hey, I can dream that it's the future. I can pretend that I'm four years old again, that anything is possible. Then I just created this amazing life. Here's how I did it. And so the second thing is to make a plan on how to get there. This is what I would say the more detailed that you can be with your plan, the better, because that's going to make number three even easier. So if you say, in order to get to $10 million, I had to do this, this, this, this, and this, well, now I've got a pretty good plan of what we need to do, what you need to do each morning in order to get there. Step number three is to figure out what daily actions need to be taken in order to hit that goal. So I'm really big on action. I'm really big on just stop thinking so much, stop overthinking, stop with your limiting beliefs and all that bullshit that doesn't matter because none of it's true. And if you know your limiting beliefs are as true as your goals in the future, you can believe in your limited beliefs. You can believe in your goals in the future, whichever one is that you want. But you can't believe in both at the same time. And neither one of them actually truly exists. So why don't I just believe in the ones that sound more exciting? So number three is to figure out what daily actions you need to take in order to hit those goals. What daily actions? So, like, the person that would get the future that I want, this is what their life looks like. This is what time they wake up in the morning. This is how often they work out. This is the type of food that they eat. These are the people they hang out with. This is what they do with their day. This is how they talk to themselves in their head. This is their nightly routine. This is the type of dinner that they have lunch. You go through every single detail and you start to make a plan of what would it look like for me to have, what would I have to do daily, how would I have to operate as a human daily in order to be the person that could accomplish goals that are that amazing? And you start coming up with a very, very detailed plan. And then the fourth thing is that you wake up every morning and you make a plan for that day. This is something that I guarantee 95% of people listen to my voice right now. You don't make a daily plan. You might make a to do list or a checklist, but you don't make a daily plan of, okay, I know where my future is. I know where my goals are. I know where it is that I'm going. But now I need to figure out what I need to do today because nothing else matters. I don't Give a damn about tomorrow. The only thing that matters is actually today. So why don't I really milk today for every single thing that I can? I'm going to make a goal today. And the easiest way to do this is this. It's very simple. You make a to do list of everything that needs to be done today, knowing that 90% of the things that you put on that list are probably not going to be done today. And you have to be okay with that. Know that that majority of things are not going to be. You know that you're going to put down your to do list today, are probably not going to be done today unless they absolutely have to be done today. You look at that to do list and you figure out what your number one, number two and number three most important goals are for that day of what has to be done, what action items are the most important action items for the day. And what you do is you take a three by five card, a cue card, and you write number one and you write it down. Under that you write number two and you write it down. You write down number three and you write it down and you don't do anything at all until number one is done. That's it. I don't care if you get to number two or number three. As long as your most important thing gets done each day, you're gonna start doing really well. And then after number one is done, now I can move on to number two. Now I can move on to number three after that is done. The reason why I want to put on a three by five card is because I can take that three by five card, I can put it in my back pocket, I can leave my to do list at home, I can leave my phone in the other room. And all I have to focus on are these three things on the piece of paper. And think about this. If you were to accomplish your three most important things every single day over the course of a year, that's over a thousand of your most important things being executed every single day. That's it. What I care about for hitting your goals is not the goal itself. Once again, you need goals.
Yes.
Not trying to make them, you know, to demonize goals. They're needed, but they're not the most important thing. Why? Because consistent daily action is the most important thing. Get off your ass. Stop thinking so much. Stop overthinking. Just frickin do it. I've got an important PSA brought to you by Manscaped. This is the news you've been waiting for the Manscaped engineering team has confirmed that they have successfully created The Lawn Mower 4.0 trimmer, which is now available for purchase so you can join over 2 million men worldwide who trust Manscaped
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dial the beautiful thing about your limiting beliefs and your lack of belief and your excuses that you don't have to believe in yourself in order to take action. You don't, you don't have to believe in anything in order to take action. You just got to get your ass up and moving. You've just got to physically move your body because your mind is thinking your body will do whatever you tell it to do. And so if your mind is like, oh my God, I don't know if I can do this. Oh my limiting beliefs. I'm not smart enough, I'm not good enough, not pretty enough. I don't know if I'm gonna be a good enough parent, blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah, you can have all of that BS run through your head the entire time that your body's moving and actually taking action. So if somebody thinks, oh, my limiting beliefs are holding me back. No, your limiting beliefs are not holding you back. Your thoughts about your actions that need to be taken are actually what's holding you back? And so if you just move your body in whatever it is that needs to be direct, the direction that needs to be successful, that's it. It will eventually work. And so what you have to realize is there's three things that are the most important pieces to hitting a goal. Okay? Three things. Your goals need three things. Number one, direction, which is knowing what the goal is, what the end result is you're trying to hit. Number two is action. And number three is time. Like, it's so ridiculously simple how simple life is, but we make it so hard of, like, how simple success is. But we make it so hard because we put our mind in. Our mind gets in the equation. It starts making a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter. You need direction, you need action, and you need time. That's it. Direction, action, time. So let's say, for instance, I talk about a lot because it's just a simple thing. Cause we can put numbers to it. Let's say you want to lose weight. Okay, Lose weight. Let's figure out what is the direction that we're going towards that would be considered the goal. Right? The direction. Okay, I want to lose 20 pounds. So when I say I want to lose 20 pounds, what direction would I need to be heading every single day, every single week in order to lose 20 pounds? You know what? I'm going to do four workouts a week. That's part of my direction that I'm going to. Okay, four workouts a week. We got it. I'm going to know what meals I'm going to be eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and all of my snacks in between. I'm going to know every meal going into this next week. That's direction. Okay? And part of my direction is I'm going to actually decide that I'm going to remove all of the food that doesn't serve me or isn't part of my meal plan. It's going to be gone. It's not going to exist in my house. I'm going to get rid of all of the sodas, all. Only thing I'm gonna drink is water. There's not gonna be any alcohol. There's not gonna be any margaritas. There's not gonna be any beer. There's not gonna be any wine. So now I've got a pretty good idea of the direction that I need to head in. Okay? Now the next thing I need to do is I need action. Okay, what have I decided? I've decided that I need to work out Four times a week. So I need to figure out what days those are, what times I'm going to be working out. And I'm gonna need to put it in my schedule so I don't try to get out of it. The action that I need to take. Just make sure my ass is in the gym when I say I'm going to be in the gym. And to make it even better, if I have my workouts planned, all I have to do is show up, look at the workout that I already have planned, and then just execute. That is action. Okay, what else? I need to prep on Sunday. All 21 meals that I need to make. I need to go to the grocery store. I need to take a couple hours and make sure that it's done. Because if it's important to you, you'll find a way. If it's not important to you, you'll find an excuse. So I'm gonna take some time on Sunday when I could be hanging out by the pool or at the beach or at the lake, drinking some mimosas and having brunch with my friends. I could do all that if I wanted to, but that's not in the direction of my goals, so I'm not going to do that. I'm gonna go to the grocery store. I'm not saying don't enjoy your life either. Enjoy your life, but if your goals are important to you, you need to get these things down. Then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna walk into the grocery store, I'm gonna buy all of the food that I need, and I'm gonna take a couple hours and I'm gonna meal prep and put all of those meals into glass containers that I can just take with me whenever I leave and I go to work. That's the action that needs to be taken. What's the other action? Remove all of the crappy food that I've already decided I'm not gonna be eating. That is the action. So I've got the direction now I've taken the action. What's the last piece? Time. Just be patient. That's it. We think that we're supposed to have the life that we want, the body that we want, the success that we want, the business that we want, the relationship that we want. Like that. Like it's just gonna fucking happen. It doesn't happen that way. That's not how life works. It's not like, you know in your head right now that going to the gym four times and planning out seven days of meals on day seven, you're not gonna be in the best shape of your entire life. You're not gonna be ripped and sexy and ready to hop into bikini or to be in your bathing suit or have six pack abs. You're not going to have those in seven days, you know that. So as long as you just have. What did I say earlier? Consistent daily action. You're eventually going to get to wherever it is that you need to go. Consistent daily action. Consistent daily action. Consistent daily action. I don't care what's going on in your mind, all I care about is that you move your body into the direction of the goals that you're working towards. Okay, Direction, action. Time. Let's say that you want to save $6,000 this year. You've never saved any money before. You only make 30 grand, 40 grand, 50 grand, and you're like, I want to save money. I want to finally be able to save money. Okay, direction. Alright, I need to stop going out to eat so much. Okay, that's a little going to put me in the direction I want. I need to automatically deduct from my paycheck. That would help me if I just had an automatic deduction that went into a separate bank account and I need to check my bank account every day. That's pretty good direction to get me towards saving that $6,000 over the course of the year. Okay, that's direction.
Action.
I need to go and actually set up the automatic deduction to pull out $100 out of my bank account. Every single paycheck, you know, and actually out of my paycheck to put into a separate bank account is what I mean. I need to make sure that I go to the grocery store so that I have enough food so that I can have the food in my house so that I don't feel like I need to go out to eat. I need to make sure that I set up everything that I need to to make it as easy as possible for me to save money. And I need to stop, you know, going to the mall on the weekends. Because when I go to the mall on the weekends when I'm bored, I end up spending money. If I can just remove a couple things and I can make sure my direction is in the right direction. If I can make sure my action is in the right direction, then I just got to wait. As long as my consistent daily action is in the direction of where I'm trying to go, I'm eventually gonna get there. That's why they always say that direction is more Important than speed. When it comes to your goals, as long as you're heading in the right direction, you'll eventually get there. You just gotta ask yourself, are you headed in the right direction with everything that you're trying to do? So you need direction, you need action, and you need time. Things take time in this world. Nothing happens right away. And so you've just got to learn to be patient. As long as your consistent daily action is headed into the direction of where your goals are and where you're trying to go, you'll eventually get there. That's the beautiful thing about it. I remember When I was 20, 22, 25 years old, I was like, why don't I have. Why am I not a millionaire yet? Why am I not as successful as I want to be?
Why?
Why? Why, why? Why? And now that I'm 35 and, you know, 15 years of working on myself and my business has finally happened, I'm like, oh, I just needed to be patient. That's it. As long as I woke up and I made sure that my action was in the direction of the life I wanted to create. Eventually I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna get there, and it might be 35, might be 45, 55, whatever it is, it might take time, but you just have to be patient, knowing that you're headed in the right direction. And that's more motivating because you know you're in the right direction than looking at your goals and going, oh, my God, it's so far away. It's so far. I don't know if I'll ever get there. And now I'm not motivated to work. No, I just need to focus on what I need to do today. That's it. So you need to figure out what direction you need to go into, what action you need to take, and then you just got to wait. Goals take time. Become somebody. What's more important is having the standard of being the person who follows through, having the standard of being the person that checks off the three things that need to be done every single day. You know, I wanna become the person who takes the actions that they need to. I wanna become the person that doesn't listen to their limiting beliefs. I wanna become the person that doesn't care about other people's opinions. I wanna become the person that takes consistent daily action. I wanna become the person that doesn't overthink anymore. There's nothing to overthink. Just move, take action. That's it. Consistent daily action. Because if I'M worried about consistent daily action. It blows my mind how often people are overthinking things that they don't need to overthink about when all they could possibly be doing is just what they could be doing. Instead of thinking for a while is just go, you know what? I know what I need to do today. I just need to focus on today. I know what I need to do today. Focus on today. And if you do that for long enough and you give yourself long enough, 2, 3, 5, 10 years, 15 years, you'll wake up one day and go, holy shit. I actually built the life that I wanted to because I was headed in the right direction the whole time. I took the action that was in the direction of the life I wanted to create. And with time put into that recipe, I created the life that I want. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me Obdial Junior R O B D I A L J R. And please do me a massive favor right now. If you've ever gotten any value from anything that I've ever said in any of these podcasts, please go onto itunes or Apple podcasts right now and give this a rating and review. The more positive reviews that we get, the more that it spikes itunes algorithm and we pop up on the top of itunes, which means that we are more likely to be found organically. So if you would do that, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. It'll take two minutes of your time and with that, I'm going to leave you the same way leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day. When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients@goodtokknowfacts.org no spin, no judgments. Just the facts straight from the experts. For more than 140 beverage ingredients, visit goodtonowfacts.org A curve in the road, A change in plans. Well, what do you say with the all new Audi Q3? The answer's always yes. Yes to adventure. Yes to escape. Yes to performance. Yes to comfort. Yes to right now. Because saying yes without hesitation, that's real luxury. The all new Audi Q3 made for the yes life.