124. 4 Tactics for Goal Momentum

Episode Transcript

Blake Stratton:
Happy Monday, Verbs and Courtney.

Verbs Boyer:
Happy Monday to you, my friend.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah. Happy Monday.

Blake Stratton:
That’s a new year, guys. How’s it going so far?

Courtney Baker:
It’s good over here. I have, at the end of 2021, did Best Year Ever. A shout out to any of our people that joined us live for that. It was so much fun. Every year I love the reset of getting all my goals in place. Dreaming what those are going to be. I don’t know. Do either of you-

Blake Stratton:
Well, tap out. Tap out, tap out, tap out. Am I correct in understanding that Courtney Baker didn’t have all her goals in place until December 30th, 2021?

Courtney Baker:
Yes.

Blake Stratton:
The Courtney Baker I know, it’s like the person that puts up their Christmas decorations in September with your point-

Courtney Baker:
No.

Blake Stratton:
With your new year goal setting.

Verbs Boyer:
Right after Thanksgiving dinner, she’s there framing up those bullets.

Blake Stratton:
Thanksgiving dinner. All right guys, no naps. Let’s do this.

Courtney Baker:
The truth is, I actually have to get in the mindset to even think through what I want those to be. Sometimes I get stuck where I’m like, “What do… I have to get creative about what is exciting to me for the next year.” Actually, Blake, I don’t know if you knew this, but Verbs and I… Well, actually, I’m sure you listened to the episode. Did a podcast episode with Megan and Michael, about…

Courtney Baker:
Honestly, we talked about how important it was to process the last year, and Verbs and I both shared about, those were really rough year and I feel I have to go through that process. I know you’re probably shocked right now. I feel I have to go through that process before I can really pin to paper with my goals for the next year.

Blake Stratton:
Sometimes those Enneagram 3s need help getting in their feelings. I understand.

Courtney Baker:
And honestly, Best Year Ever really helps me do that.

Blake Stratton:
Yeah. It’s critical to not just rush, I think, into the year, without really connecting to the why, the reasons, the… Just where you’re at personally, even, I think.

Verbs Boyer:
Right.

Blake Stratton:
If you try to rush into that, it can not work out so well about now-ish, like through the first month of the year.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. I’ll say, and I think it’s okay because with everything, 2022 kicking off, I mean, even for myself, I feel like I haven’t officially kicked off this year. You may hear a little bit of congestion in my voice. So I was telling Blake and Courtney when we first got on, that just getting over the flu, which led into a bad with dehydration and the concussion shortly after that. So I have thought very little about finishing up my goal framework for this year. Even though I have some ideas in my head, I’ve just been trying to get my head together before I really, really dig in.

Verbs Boyer:
But yeah, and I think it’s okay, again, because a lot of stuff has happened the last two years that we need to process to make sure that we’re going into 2022 with the right perspective and not just zooming right in and not allowing things to settle emotionally or mentally or physically

Blake Stratton:
We’re halfway through the first month. And maybe you set a resolution or you set a goal and you’ve already not bated a thousand. You’ve already felt like, “Oh my gosh, how am I going to do this new habit for three months when I can’t even do it up for two weeks?” Or maybe you, like Verbs or others, you may have noticed this. A few people have gotten sick recently.

Blake Stratton:
Maybe the year, health wise, just hasn’t been off to the races the way you wanted it to. This episode is for you because we’ve got four tactics that are going to allow you to build the momentum at a good pace and allow you to build some confidence as you move through this first quarter with your exciting goals.

Verbs Boyer:
Welcome to another episode of Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet. So you can banish distractions, get the right stuff done, and finally start loving Mondays. I’m Verbs, here with Courtney Baker and Blake Stratton. Guys, I think we can get into it as far as talking about these four tactics to gain momentum and even really just how to come out of the gate, I think for 2022. I’m sure these tactics will be applicable to that as well.

Courtney Baker:
So the first tactic is to create visibility. The number one reason people fail to achieve their goals is because they just lose sight of it. It’s really a problem of visibility. So that’s the first thing that, if you find yourself lacking some momentum, is to find a way to get visibility.

Courtney Baker:
This is really the cornerstone for goal achievement. In the same way that memorization happens through repetition, goal visibility happens by returning to your goals over and over and over again. And obviously with the Full Focus Planner, that’s really built into the system. That’s one of them main reasons the system works so well. I’m curious from you two, what are the number one ways that you work in goal visibility into your routine?

Blake Stratton:
So I’m guilty of underestimating this point.

Verbs Boyer:
Blake, I was just going to say that. I was just going to say I underestimate this point.

Blake Stratton:
You were just going to say I’m guilty of underestimating this point?

Verbs Boyer:
Absolutely.

Blake Stratton:
It was like, “Why can’t you be better?” I think if I take a lot of time to think through what I want, I’ll write it down. I’m like, “Great, I wrote it down,” but then I’m like, “I know it.” But looking at it, having it visible, it’s not like I don’t know what my goal is anymore and so I don’t typically do that, or sometimes it’ll be written down, even just digitally somewhere. Or just in the front of the planner from the first quarter.

Blake Stratton:
And last year, I actually had a really incredible year in 2021, and I had the fewest number of goals I’ve ever set. And there was one that was paramount and I went old school and I took the person’s advice. I wrote it down on a three by five card and I literally carried it with me in my pocket everywhere. And it wasn’t even just the visibility. It was even the tangibility. Is that a word, tangibility?

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah.

Blake Stratton:
And I would reach in for my keys or my phone and that card’s there. One time my wife was doing laundry. She’s like, “What’s this?” And I was like, “No, I’m not a nerd.” And it was a little embarrassing, but I actually achieved that goal and I’d never thought that I would.

Blake Stratton:
I mean, I shouldn’t say I never thought I would, but it was like, when I wrote it down, I was like, “I’ve got no idea how this is going to happen.” And so now I’m all in. Visibility, I’m like, yes, just put it in your planner or put it on a sticky, write it on your forehead, put it in a card. But it does this, your brain’s always working subconsciously. And I think that’s the part that we underestimate, is just the visibility of something. It’s like you’re taking it in and your brain’s working on it.

Verbs Boyer:
And it’s funny because this one lends to the most creativity to make sure… I mean, with everything that we have available to us technology wise, I mean, you can make a desktop image of your goals. You can crochet your goals and hang them on the wall in your hallway. I mean, there’s things you can do to actually really stick this tactic, outside of what we work into the system with at least outlining those and either your morning or workday shut down or your startup ritual, whatever part of the day, just making that a normal, a review process. So you can keep those front of mind.

Verbs Boyer:
But man, just with the amount of creativity that we have available to us now, it’s like, man, this could go so many different ways. You can have it on your phone. It can be your alarm, your wake up alarm. Just a run down audibly of your goals or your top three that you may be working on for that quarter. So this is a good one. Like I said, I underestimated all the time and so I’m looking forward in 2022 just using some of that creativity so I can keep in front of mind.

Courtney Baker:
I will say, just to hit these again, if you aren’t doing this, obviously it’s built into your weekly preview process. You should be reviewing your goals then, but again, looking at your different rituals and determining where that could fall, is a really great automation in your day to look at your goals.

Courtney Baker:
The thing I’ve been doing lately guys, this is a really simple hack, but it’s new. So I can’t quite declare it successful, but with my planner, I usually leave it open to the day page throughout the day. And so right now I’m using a standard planner, so I have those two ribbons, but I’m actually trying to flip back and leave it open to the goal page throughout the day, rather than just really that subliminal, oh yeah, these are the things I’m committed to moving toward.

Courtney Baker:
Again, it’s just a little bit of extra visibility that I’m testing out. So I think all this is a really good discussion. As you’re listening to this, think through, how have I created visibility for my goals? And then where are some ways that I can improve on making sure that they’re visible for me each and every day?

Blake Stratton:
All right. Tactic number two, connect to your why. Your why, the reason that you’re setting this goal. Gail Hyatt, the legendary wife of Michael Hyatt, she says it this way: “People lose their way when they lose their why.” And this, I like this one because you got to scuba dive sometimes to get there. You got to go deep.

Blake Stratton:
It really exposes those goals that I call should goals. The things that sound nice, or this is what I think I ought to do, or this is an incremental increase on what I did last year, but really thinking about, what’s driving this for me? Why am I motivated to do this? If this didn’t happen, is it really that of a deal?

Blake Stratton:
The deeper you can go, the more colorful or multidimensional with this why that you get, the stronger your connection is to that goal. And that connection’s really important, right? Because as we all know, when you start going after a goal, it’s like hacking through a forest or a swampy area where there’s no path for you yet. You’ve never gone there before.

Blake Stratton:
And if you don’t have a strong why, it’s going to be easy to just toss your hands up and go, “You know what? I’m just going to go back to the old way that I used to do things.” So Courtney, tell us your deepest why.

Courtney Baker:
I know that you’re joking around about this, but I, actually, I think there is something to this because when you go through your goal detail page, and it ask you to write and rank your key motivations, I think there is a tendency or… And maybe this is just me. I’ll be curious to hear what you two think, but to list these at the surface level, and not to actually dig down to ask why, that’s a key motivation.

Courtney Baker:
I find within myself sometimes what I list out of the gate is like… And maybe I’m probably moving too fast to just check off the next thing. But usually there’s a reason deeper and deeper. And sometimes those whys are not always that comfortable.

Courtney Baker:
Let me give you an example. This quarter, I have a goal to eat vegetarian, and I’m really excited about this goal because my key motivation is actually really to test how I feel at the end of 30 days. And it doesn’t have anything to do with actually losing weight or those kind of things. But in the past, I’ve had these health goals. When I really dig down into it, it’s like, oh, because I want to look a certain way or I want to be perceived a certain way, which then starts to sit with me in a weird way.

Courtney Baker:
Like, is that actually what I’m pursuing here? And is that actually a strong enough motivation? Like, should this even be the thing I’m focused on? And so I think this is really, really important as we get throughout the year, that what’s at the core is like… It’s really like who we are, who we want to be, and are we pursuing the right things? Blake, do you like that? I went a little deep there guys. I feel you guys should get [inaudible 00:13:12].

Blake Stratton:
I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s marinate in it for a moment. I mean, because I think it goes back to what we talked about at the beginning, of just the importance of processing the year. Just so you can get in the right head space to even have what you just mentioned, Courtney, that conversation of, hey, some of these key motivations, if they’re real and genuine and authentic, then they may be uncomfortable.

Verbs Boyer:
And so it’s either, sit with those things, or like you said, flippantly go through that part of the process of, let me just attach this key motivation so I can frame the goal and it’s done and I can get on my way. But I think that is, I mean, that’s part of it. It’s part of the process is what is really my key motivation? Because if it’s not really anchored down into something, then it’s going to become that goal that you end up just scooting to the side because you lost interest in it or that initial shiny feeling that you had when you wrote it down, is just dissipated.

Blake Stratton:
The other reason connecting to your why matters is, it protects against this pass/fail, I’m doing good if I’m checking the boxes, I’m doing bad if I’m not checking the boxes mentality. People sometimes get to the end of the year, they feel sad that they missed their goal. And I go, “Well, why did you want to hit that goal?” It’s like, “Well, because I wanted to…”

Blake Stratton:
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned a health goal. Okay. So, “Oh, well, I wanted to really eat this certain way or be at this certain weight or exercise five days a week. And I never really did it 100%.” And it’s like, “Well, why did you want to do that?” “Because I wanted to have more energy, sleep better and have the energy to play with my kids and just feel better.”

Blake Stratton:
And it’s like, “Okay, do you feel better than you did last year?” “Oh, yeah.” Right? It’s one of those things where connecting to your why allows you to retain your mastery, I think, over the goal pursuit, rather than feeling like you are failing when times get tough.

Verbs Boyer:
Right.

Blake Stratton:
And that I think is a huge thing for the long game of goal achievement. It’s not just the longer I do this stuff, the less I’m thinking quarter to quarter, year to year. I’m just thinking, all right, what’s the long game here? And I can’t afford to have this pass/fail mentality. The more I connect to my why, the more it connects back to what Courtney mentioned, stuff about my identity.

Blake Stratton:
And is that developing? Am I becoming who I want to become? Because the goal is just there to help me do that. It’s more about that than it is… More about the why really, than it is about the number or the checked off box at the end of the quarter.

Blake Stratton:
All right. So the first tactic was create visibility, right? Write it on your forehead, write it wherever you need to, put it on your wallpaper. The second tactic is connect to your why. And what about tactic three? Verbs, you want to tackle that one?

Verbs Boyer:
Tactic number three is, take smaller steps. Take smaller steps. One of the reasons we set goals, really to begin with, is to do something that we’re currently not doing. And I feel like I’ve heard Michael say this more during this last round of the Best Year Ever Live teaching is, what am I not doing currently that I want to shape and form into a goal? Versus just continue to extend things that I want to do better at or in addition to, or just add a layer of on top of something that I already got going.

Verbs Boyer:
But sometimes when we do, the hard part is actually getting started out of the gate. I do have a short example that I want to share. I don’t know if you guys remember last year, I was about to go on sabbatical. And one of the things that I had as a goal was to start DJing. So I bought a whole setup. I was excited about it. I knew the basics of how to get started, but the whole goal was just create a DJ set. It’s a vibe session. What I’d failed to calculate was, the last time I had done something like that… I mean, this is back in the CD era. So you can only play music that you actually physically had.

Verbs Boyer:
Now the universe is filled with music and there’s so much stuff that you could comb through. It came down to just finding songs that I’d actually want to play in this set, that became overwhelming. Because literally everything is at your fingertips when selecting what song you would put into a mix somewhere. And so I had to dial myself back because I went into like, “Oh man, I have records, I got CDs still. I have access to all these streaming pro platforms.” So it’s like, you can pull from anywhere.

Verbs Boyer:
But I had to dial it back to just, well, let me figure out how to actually just mix, the technique of mixing. Let me do that first and then work my way into it and then start to get into building the set song by song and figure out what goes well with what. Because I knew I only had like 30 days to really dig into it because I had time to do it at that point. So it was a little bit of a setback, but I realized, okay, really, I just got to chunk this down a little bit to really get going on it. Otherwise, I’ll just get stuck in scrolling through Spotify and Apple Music, looking for stuff.

Courtney Baker:
I think this is really important. And I think as you do your goal detail page, figuring out those next steps and really figuring out what’s the easiest one, I think sometimes our energy for our goals makes it where you get you want to do the big part of it. But first it’s just that really easy next step as you go.

Courtney Baker:
I’ll give you another example. I’ve got all my goals just like fresh for the taking right here that I want to work with a spiritual director like once a month throughout this year. And my next step is to text a friend to find out spiritual directors that she would recommend to me. That’s the next step.

Courtney Baker:
And each week, honestly, when I’m looking at my goal details, I’m just thinking like, “Okay, what’s the next step now? Well, I need to text these people.” These are really easy things, but ultimately they get me to the outcome in a way that’s not overwhelming at all. It’s very achievable to do.

Blake Stratton:
Yeah, this is another thing. When we create the goals, we get connect to the outcome emotionally, just like we talked about your motivations. Oh, because when I’m there, when I’ve arrived. And so you want to get there. You’re ready right now to get there. But like that first tactic, don’t underestimate the power of the small step, the power of just building momentum.

Blake Stratton:
There’s really no step too small. You want to build confidence because, as we’ll talk about next, achieving goals ultimately is going to be outside of your comfort zone. So when you’re first getting going, especially if you need to build some momentum, stick to what’s the simplest smallest thing that’s going to be in the right direction. It may feel too easy. That’s actually a good thing, not a bad thing, when you’re first getting going.

Blake Stratton:
So as I alluded to, tactic four, we’re going to go from those easy, small steps. And now we’re going to talk about leveraging risk. That’s the fourth tactic, leverage risk. So as I mentioned, goals ought to be outside of your comfort zone. That’s where all the good, exciting growth and exploration and life can happen. The best things in life are happening outside of that normal, mundane, predictable, routine things that you’re doing.

Blake Stratton:
So if you want to build some momentum, after you’ve gotten started, you figure out some simple next steps, you may want to try asking yourself, “What is that thing or an action I could take that would be outside my comfort zone?” What could I do that maybe… I would phrase it like this. If I were the kind of person that had already crushed this goal, what action would I take right now?

Blake Stratton:
Because that’s ultimately what you’re doing. You’re becoming the type of person that… Let’s just say I wanted to grow my sales by 100% this year. It’s like really big goal. Well, how does that person carry themselves? How does that person think? Get into that head space of that person, your future self, your future identity that’s already crushed the goal, and then ask yourself, “Okay, what types of actions does that person take?” And that may spark your imagination about a seemingly “risky step” that you could take next.

Blake Stratton:
What are some things you guys have done, if you can remember, that, maybe it was last year or previous goals or maybe even this year so far, but where you felt like I have to swing big at this point or this one feels a little uncomfortable? Or was it always just those small incremental comfort level steps?

Courtney Baker:
I recently shared this story of, I started… I have a Peloton and I started cycling with a group, and the goal, the number of rides per week that we were doing and the expectation for the other riders was very much outside of my comfort zone. I literally every week dreaded sharing my results. Because I just, these people were legit and I was not. I was a beginner.

Courtney Baker:
But I think that gets to this point, which is, it was outside of my comfort zone, but by doing it, now a year later, four or five challenges in the future, with the same group, I’ve got the results because I was willing to go into that uncomfortable place.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah.

Courtney Baker:
And I don’t think the same outcome would’ve been true if I wouldn’t have.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah.

Blake Stratton:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I feel well acquainted with one kind of risk and it’s because every day I’m on phone calls with people that have these big goals for their businesses, and they’ve hit a point where they feel like, “I don’t know what the next step is or I don’t even know if I can do the next step.” And we sell coaching services for small business owners to help them grow and scale their business. And so I’m there going, “All right? This is what the investment is.”

Blake Stratton:
And for them, a lot of them have never invested in themselves at all, much less invested in premium level coaching. And I know for me, that’s always been the scary thing, is like, am I going to try this to do this by myself? Or am I going to take the risk and make a financial investment to try to get there faster?

Blake Stratton:
And I did that last year with a couple different coach/advisors, and that made a huge difference but I feel I’m in conversations all the time where people are like, ugh. They feel like it’s this big risk. And I guess my thought around risk is, it is where the excitement is, where the juice is.

Blake Stratton:
And usually a couple of things, obviously you don’t want to of leverage things that you can’t, like you truly just could not afford, putting in yourself and or your family in danger. We’re not talking about that, but we’re just talking about outside the comfort zone. And the reality is, either it’s going to pay off or you’re going to learn a lot. And either way, you get to grow. Either way, you get to take a pretty big step in the right direction of personal growth. So that’s my thought on that fourth tactic, leveraging risk.

Blake Stratton:
So let’s put it in some context of maybe an example of a goal. Let’s say you wanted to run a marathon this year. I want to run a marathon by December 1st, 2022. Now, I think that’s insanity. I’m not a runner, but no, but it’s a fine goal. It’s exciting goal. You’re excited. You got your why and all that stuff.

Blake Stratton:
And maybe you’ve even went on Zappos and you got yourself some great running shoes, but you find yourself struggling to build some momentum with the actual steps to get there because you’ve never done this before. It’s just not a normal part of how you saw yourself in 2021. You weren’t a marathoner. You don’t identify as a marathoner.

Blake Stratton:
One way you can leverage risk, is to put yourself outside of your comfort zone, but I guess I would think of it less as what really scares me and more of like, if I knew that I was totally going to succeed at this, how would I basically make this a done deal? And you think, “You know what? I would maybe join a running group.”

Blake Stratton:
But you feel pretty scared about that because, what if everyone’s better than me? What if I can’t keep up with the group and then I feel embarrassed and that I want to give up? And you might be wrestling with those types of emotional things. A lot of times the risk we feel is emotional. Is those are the stakes.

Blake Stratton:
So what I would recommend is to, when you identify those things, go back to imagining yourself at the finish line, literally in this case. Imagining yourself as, oh, no, I am a marathoner. I know this is where I’m going. And just put yourself in the head space of the person that’s already achieved it. And it’s like, well, what would that person do? Oh, that person of course would join a running group. They wouldn’t be afraid. And so it may feel uncomfortable for me because I don’t feel like that person yet, but I’m going to take that action step despite it feeling risky.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah. And I think it’s important to say, I mean, the risk is already baked into the goal itself, because you’ve said it. If you use the framework, it’s risky for you, it’s just really getting it to the start of it to get that momentum you need to get into those next steps.

Verbs Boyer:
So the good news is, you don’t have to lose momentum toward achieving your goals. You can gain and maintain the momentum you need by creating visibility, connecting with your why, taking smaller steps, and leveraging risk. Blake, Courtney, any final thoughts for our Focus on This listeners?

Courtney Baker:
I know I hit on this at the very beginning of the episode but when we were talking about you, but I just, for everybody listening, if you’re like, “You know what? I’m already behind. I didn’t even set goals. Things were crazy at the end of the year, yada yada,” it is not too late. I know culturally, we say, you got to have this done by January 1. That’s not really true. It’s not really true. It’s just not true.

Courtney Baker:
And so I would really encourage you, if you haven’t taken the time to document your goals for this year, to put them in your Full Focus Planner, I highly recommend of that. I honestly I’ve said this before, I really don’t understand how people use the Full Focus Planner without our course, Your Best Year Ever. So there’s certainly the opportunity to go through that course and get your planner set up well for this coming year. And if I was a really good chief marketing officer, I would tell you the URL, and that would be…

Blake Stratton:
Courtneybaker.com/cashmoney.

Courtney Baker:
Bestyearever.me, if you want to take that course. I’m double checking that right now.

Verbs Boyer:
Thanks for joining us on Focus on This. This is the most product podcast on the internet. So please share it with your friends. Don’t forget to join our Full Focus Planner community right there on Facebook. And we’ll be here next week with another great episode. But until then…

Blake Stratton:
Stay focused.

Verbs Boyer:
Stay focused.

Courtney Baker:
Stay focused. I almost forgot guys. 3 million episodes later.

Blake Stratton:
All right. Tactic two, connect to your why. So you may have heard this, said this, there’s a phrase we pass around here that originally came from Gail Hyatt, legendary bride of Michael Hyatt. She says, “People lose their why when they lose their why.” “That doesn’t make any sense, Gail,” is what I tell her. And then she slaps me across the face and she says, “Say it again, son.” And I go, “Okay.” No, I misquoted her.

Verbs Boyer:
Say it again, son.

Courtney Baker:
I think we should forever change this to be, it comes from Blake Stratton. “People lose their why when they lose their why.” And that is still true. It’s still-

Blake Stratton:
Hey, spot the lie. Spot the lie. Okay.