For those that have gone through my Goals That Matter system, you know I’m not keen on giving up on goals. At times, we may discover a goal is no longer serving us, so I recommend looking at your “Why”. Why did you set the goal? What were you ultimately trying to accomplish?

In my upcoming book, I share a story of David Osborne (Author of Wealth Can’t Wait) that wanted to run a 50-mile ultramarathon. His “Why” was better health and a friend of his had done it. After running a couple of half-marathons, David accepted that he really hated running and could not imagine continuing. It was no longer serving him. He looked at his why and decided there were other ways he could achieve his ultimate goal of better health.

You may have some goals you set for yourself that now seem impossible to achieve due to COVID-19 and sheltering in place. Your listed goal may not currently be possible—for example, going to the gym or a weekly date night with your partner—so I encourage you to look at your Why.

Why did you set the goal? Was it for better health? Losing Weight? Having a better relationship?

Though it’s true that your original goal may not be able to be accomplished, when you pinpoint the WHY of your goal, you may be able to identify ways you can modify the goal during this time so that you are still able to achieve the end result you were seeking by setting the goal in the first place.

For our earlier example, instead of going to the gym, you could do home workouts or decide to start going for walks or hikes (appropriately social distancing) to get you moving. If you wanted to improve your relationship with your partner, you could have a “date night” where you cook dinner (or COVID twist: You’re spending SO much time together, the date could be making sure you take care of everything so your partner can have some alone time). With a little ingenuity, I believe you can modify your goal to meet your original Why.

Unfortunately, there are some goals that will not be able to be met PERIOD.

Every day, I review my Accountability sheet that lists all my goals (10-year, 3-year, 1-year, quarterly, monthly, and weekly). During these trying times, I have been pretty good about meeting my weekly and monthly goals. I’ve also allowed myself some grace when I didn’t (see my last post about Allowing Yourself Some Grace).

However, I have some annual goals that I cannot meet due to COVID-19. It has been bothering me every time I see them. They are:

1. See my brother 4 times (who lives out of state)
2. Visit 4 new countries (part of my larger goal of visiting 100 countries in my lifetime)
3. Do an international trip with my parents and my brother.

With travel restrictions and shelter in place, these goals are impossible to do this year as written. My parents will not be traveling for some time and to see my brother requires a plane trip, which I’m not going to do this year. Same with visiting 4 countries.

Every day for the past month, these goals on my Accountability sheet made me hear a little voice saying, “no you’re not”. My Accountability sheet, which gives me energy towards achieving my goals, was telling me every day that I wasn’t going to meet my goals. This may seem small but for the goal achieving guy, it was making me nuts.

I checked in with my accountability partner to walk through my thinking. I looked at my Why (love of travel for one and closer family connections for the other two). I decided I could still achieve my Why of closer familial connections by having regular communications with both my brother and my parents.

My travel goal of visiting four new countries? I’ve had to give it up this year. I still am keeping my long-term goal of visiting 100 countries and will get back to traveling in 2021.

I am keeping movement towards my Why of closer relationships with my family by changing how I would achieve them. I had to give up the travel goals.

At the same time, I did decide to move all three goals as originally planned to the following year. I still want to do them, and they are important to me. My accountability partner agreed with my logic and modified some of his as well.

The lesson for me was to go back to the basics and look at my Why. And to talk to my accountability partner to make sure I wasn’t just telling myself a story. I encourage you to do the same.

If you don’t have an accountability partner and want to check in with someone about modifying your long-term goals, feel free to email me at Michael@goalsthatmatter.com.

#GoalsThatMatter

We are now several weeks into shelter-in-place and I’ve talked to many friends who have seen their enthusiasm to work on goals range from “I’ve got all the time to do what I need now” to “I don’t have any energy to do anything today.” Often during the same day!

This is an interesting time. We have SO much more of it than we ever did. That means we have all the time we need to work on those DIY projects, to work out 6 times a week, or work on any number of goals now that we have the time, right?

The answer may be yes. And it may be no.

The emotions I’m facing during this pandemic go from high to low with some regularity. I may wake up full of energy only to find myself knocked off track by world events or finding that a friend is struggling. It’s a wave of emotions and it seems the surfboard I’m on isn’t quite as sturdy as it used to be.

Log into Facebook and it seems like a wall of challenges: Workout challenges, food challenges, DIY and what not. It seems all the world is doing more than we are during this pandemic. Everything is telling us to be more productive. Use all this extra time wisely. And yet….there are times we just don’t want to.

For those of us that are used to pushing ourselves and achieving our goals, it’s hard to accept that we just may not have the enthusiasm even though we have the time.

As the goal setting guy, I’m always up for a great challenge and usually push myself to accomplish everything I’ve put on my Goals sheet. But I’m giving myself some grace these days. I’m accepting there are days I just don’t have the juice. I’m not trying to fight it and I’m not guilting myself.

This isn’t to say the entire shelter-in-place timeline is an excuse to not do anything. It’s just accepting that there are going to be days that we are out of sorts, feeling lonely or depressed. We are in the midst of a global pandemic and our world has been turned upside down. Overnight, many of us have had our lives disrupted. Sure, we may have more time but there’s a lot more baggage to carry now. And sometimes that baggage weighs us down.

It’s during those times that I encourage you to allow yourself some grace. It’s a great time to talk to your accountability partner to get some perspective. Mine has been a godsend during this past month. On the days I’ve been low, he’s challenged me to accept it as it is and cut myself some slack. I’ve been able to offer the same in return. Overall, I’m doing okay with my goals. This week has been a very good week of achievement. Last week was not. And that’s okay.

I’m allowing myself some grace.

 

How about you?

#GoalsThatMatter

I have been working remotely for about three weeks now, just before California mandated “shelter in place” orders. I started a bit earlier than most because of my business. In that time, I’ve learned a few lessons about routines: they help me keep my sanity and some semblance of normalcy during these challenging times.

My daily routines (along with everyone reading this article) have changed drastically almost overnight. We no longer have the workweek that separates the weekend. We don’t have the nights to go out to dinner with our family, time at the gym, time with friends, weekend getaways that gave our lives diversity.

What we have now is seemingly long days that stretch one into the other like a living version of the movie Groundhog Day. The only difference is we can make changes today that will make tomorrow just a bit better. 

On the days I haven’t followed my regular routine, I often climb back into an unmade bed at the end of the day, having consumed more food than is good for me, watched more news than was necessary, and I didn’t reach out to see if I could share the burden with a friend. I had a day that was dampened by a fog in which I was adrift. 

I have found that by sticking to my morning routine, I stand a much better chance of having a day that matters: A day that creates a pattern of success. 

On the days I start with making my bed and doing my Miracle Morning routine, I tend to follow my other patterns that are good for my body and soul: exercise, eating well and spending less time watching the news. 

I wish I could say I’ve had a lot more days of routine than not: I haven’t. So far, I would say I’m about 60/40 on the side of sticking to my routine. That’s also about the same success rate I’ve had with meeting my goals for the week. 

Am I beating myself up about these numbers? No. Like one of my daily affirmations I read during my regular morning routine, I’m allowing myself grace in trying times. 

That means I won’t be perfect every day. I’ll win some and I’ll lose some. But I know I have a much better chance of success on the days I start with my regular routines. 

Take a second to look at what routines you may be missing since being stuck at home. How can you create the space to get some of them back? You may need to be creative but by getting back into the routines that served you, you’ll stand a better chance of keeping your sanity.

#GoalsThatMatter

In this digital world, we have hundreds of “pings” coming to us on a daily basis. We get them in various forms: sound alerts for email and text messages, workstation popups, notification icons on phone apps you use frequently. You might even have a smart watch that will vibrate and bring those interruptions wherever you are.

We are constantly bombarded by electronic noise. And for most of us, we’re not being choosy about who and what we’re allowing interrupt us.

During our weekday, the things that interrupt us the most tend to be our email inbox, and our mobile phones. Both are necessary tools, but unless handled correctly, THEY determine your priorities.

When your email application is open all day, every time you receive an email you probably get either a popup or a sound alert that something new is there. No matter how important or unimportant the email, you know about it the instant it comes in. And if you have notifications configured in multiple places (Outlook, your phone, your smart watch), you might be getting multiple notifications for each email!

When you’re working on something that requires any concentration, these notifications steal you away from it. It may be only for 4-8 seconds to glance at the subject and decide you can deal with it later; worse, the email piques your curiosity and you swap over to that email and type a quick reply. Now you switch back to the task at hand and try to focus again. Only to be interrupted a few minutes later in the same way. It’s a never-ending cycle.

Here’s the painful truth: if you haven’t turned off all noise and notifications, you are allowing ANYONE with your email address or phone number to determine your priorities. Let that sink in for a moment.

You’re letting the world dictate your priorities.

Hyperbole? Maybe. Reality? Think about it.

Next to email, our smart phones are the second thief of our time and concentration. Every time you set up a new application, or configure a “default” one, it prompts you to allow it to send you notifications. These can show up as popups that have to be dismissed, badge icons, or sounds to tell you when you get a text, a voice mail, an email, a Facebook notification, when an application needs updating, when an app wants to alert you to a special, or to just remind you to use it again!

If you were to look at your phone right now, how many of these notifications are actually important, and how many took you away from what you were doing when you received it?

For badge icons, each “number” on the app’s icon on our phones creates an open loop: there is something that needs to be done, requires some action. It’s subtle but it creates a mental “to do.” If you don’t close the loop, your brain still is often thinking about it.

The same holds true for your email, wherever we read it. Our brains are wired to “close the loops.” It might 7:00 PM at night when we look and see there are 30 unread messages in our email—there’s nothing we can do at this hour but there might be something important, so we decide to take a few minutes just to verify. We’re taking time away from our family or friends to see if ANYONE with our email has sent us something that matters. It’s human nature.

The phone creators and application developers understand this part of our wiring, using it to their advantage. You would be amazed at how much research goes into getting us to pick up our phones and interact with them regularly.

Both email and smartphones were designed to be a tool to make our lives more convenient. Now that convenience seems to encroach upon our lives constantly. What’s the answer? Take back the control of WHEN you’ll be interrupted.

It’s actually quite simple.

For email: Keep email closed on your computer until YOU decide to look at it. On your phone, turn off all notifications. No dings, no popups, no buzzing. The email still comes in, but you choose when to look at it.

That may be every 15-30 minutes for some. It may be longer for others. Personally, I try to have my email application closed for much of the day. The most productive days I have are the ones that I open my email in the morning, around noon and again at 4pm. I process messages and then close the application.

For phones: Really dig into your phone’s settings, and turn off all notifications and “numbers” that do not serve you. I have stopped ALL noise and buzzes on my phone. It doesn’t vibrate, make noises or for the most part, show any “numbers” on the apps.

The only apps I allow to show me numbers are texts and voice mails. Everything else is “quiet”. I don’t see how many unread emails I have. If I want to look at email, I click on the app. I decide when I want to interact it with, not the other way around.

I’ll admit this was challenging at first. But it created an unbelievable amount of extra bandwidth and focused time in my life. Time to go deeper in my business, time to write, time to work on my goals, time to reflect.

Give yourself the gift of more focused time. Try this for a week and see how much different it feels.

#GoalsThatMatter

As 2019 winds down, and I begin my preparations for 2020, one thing that I always make time in my schedule for is reflecting back on the previous year—celebrating my successes and acknowledging what has room for improvement.

For many entrepreneurs, frequently on the list of improvements for the next year is to spend more time working ON versus IN their businesses. When you work IN the business, you’re focused on the day-to-day, and the urgent issues tend to ride roughshod over the important. Working ON the business, however, moves your long-term goals forward because you’ve made the future your priority.

It’s micro versus macro.

So, what is this magic gift you can give yourself that will help you work ON your business? It’s amazingly simple and powerfully elusive: Time.

The gift you give yourself is protecting that future time now. Block out time to work on your business or on the “one thing” that will move you towards your primary and most important goal(s). If this is new to you, try to start with a minimum of two consecutive hours a week that is dedicated to working ON the most important goals you’ve outlined for yourself.

Blocking out time though, is pretty easy. It’s the keeping of self-appointments that is hard. For this to work, you have to do one thing—

Keep. This. Time. Sacred.

Seems easy, right?

We’re all busy with a to do list a mile long: calls to make, fires to put out, emails to answer. Yes, these tasks need to be done, but should be worked on after your primary thing. The world will not end if you put the urgent on hold for two hours while you work on the important.

Look at your calendar right now for the next week—how much of your time is accounted for? How much time do you have dedicated towards working “on” your business? How many of the time blocks on your day would you categorize as urgent versus important?

To give yourself this amazing gift (trust me, you’ll thank yourself for it after a few months), take the time today to review your calendar, and block out time for the two months as a trial. Block at least 2 hours a week, and ideally 2 hours consecutively. It works best if you block the same time every week as an appointment you absolutely can’t miss.

Give it one month and see if you notice improvements in your professional life. If so, you’re already protected the next 30 days and can schedule out the following month.

If something comes up during your sacred time, you have to decide if it really is the most important thing in that moment. Can in wait 2 hours? If so, then do your primary thing. If it’s truly cannot wait, move your block of time to later in the day or the following morning. Again:

Keep. It. Sacred

Try this for 30 days and you’ll be amazed at the progress you can make!

An added bonus is this works in your personal life as well. Block time for things that matter: Dates with your significant other, time with your kids, time for friends, or just time to have for yourself to do things that bring you joy.

#GoalsThatMatter

Four Tricks to Keep Your Sanity & Your Waistline Over the Holidays

As we get deeper into the holiday season, what should be the most joyful and fulfilling can also become the most stressful. When we try to fit more into an already packed calendar—holiday parties, after-work get togethers, time to prepare for all of the events we’d like to throw and attend—the more our regular schedules get thrown out of whack and we tend to put ourselves on the backburner.

Most of us love this time of year and enjoy seeing our friends and family. Unfortunately, the added stress can also wreak havoc on our health and nutrition goals. We often decide we need to just get through the month of December the best we can and then re-focus on ourselves and our goals in January.

But that means we often start the New Year (and our goals) utterly exhausted, 5-10 pounds heavier and having not followed good habits we established over the year. Instead of starting our New Year at the starting line, we’re already 10 yards behind. It’s not an auspicious way to start the new year!
Hopefully, these four tips will help you have a little more sanity over the next month and let you start the new year with more energy and less weight than normal.

1. Cancel events that won’t bring you Joy – or that can wait until after the new year.

If you look at what is in your calendar for the rest of the holiday season, you will likely find that it has commitments you wish were not there, that you made when your calendar was empty, or before you knew what the holidays would look like for you and your family.

Would you still schedule those same commitments seeing how your calendar looks now?

You don’t have to attend every get together that shows up on your calendar. Find the ones that mean the most to you and commit to those. For the rest, send your regrets, and don’t feel guilty about skipping. By choosing only those that mean the most to you, when you attend you won’t be thinking about all the other things that still have to be done on your schedule.

For reoccurring events, see if they can be merged into a holiday one, or postponed until January. For example, if you have a standing phone call with your aunt every month, but you’ll see her at a party, don’t feel guilty about canceling the call and picking it up again in January.

2. Schedule time for you NOW

To ensure you’ve got some down time for yourself, schedule time for you over the next 4 weeks. Schedule 2-4 hours EVERY week and label it “Me Time”. It can be an evening or on the weekend, all in one chunk or an hour here and there. The trick is to Keep It Sacred. Do something that nourishes you, that gives you energy. Get into nature, read a book, go to a movie, do anything that brings you energy.

Do not use this time to catch up. That’s just stealing from yourself. By building some down time, you give yourself the gift of recharging. It may seem like you already don’t have enough time. Trust me that this will give you more energy to do all the extra things you have to do. And you’ll do those things with more grace.

3. Look at menus before you go to restaurants

Many companies and friends have get-togethers at restaurants. This is often after work when we’ve spent the whole day making decisions and we’re likely tired and stressed. This is the WORST time to have to make a healthy decision. You’re already depleted of energy. Your Amygdala (Reptilian, or “base” brain) will be screaming FEED ME. And it usually doesn’t want healthy food. It wants fast energy and that’s sugar & carbs.

By looking at the menu in the morning, you can make the decision of what you’ll eat when you’ve still got energy to make good decisions. By not having to look at a menu at the restaurant when you’re tired, your base brain won’t have to be involved in that decision.

4. Eat something healthy before going to a party

Most of the time you go to a holiday party, there’s going to be LOTS of food that doesn’t support health and nutrition goals. Eat something healthy before you go in (fruit, nuts, protein bar, etc.).

It’s a double win: you’re getting some good food AND it will help you to eat less of the unhealthy food. You also stand a much better chance of not over doing it. Make it easy on yourself and keep some of these goodies in your car the entire month. That way you’re always prepared.

#GoalsThatMatter