169. The Most Important Goal-Setting Question

Episode Transcript

Blake Stratton:
When I first got a full focus planner and when I second got a full focus planner, do you know what I made sure to put in my goal section, you guys?
I put nothing in there, is the answer. I put nothing. And the reason … I talk with my coaching clients about this a lot, because this is a huge barrier. It’s not that I don’t know how to set a goal, it’s that there’s these barriers, these unseen barriers sometimes, to actually setting the goal. And I’ve dealt with several of these, this pressure of commitment, or this underlying fear of “I’m going to get it wrong.” And a system like ours kind of amplifies that, right? Because other people say, “Hey, just write down everything you want to do this year,” and you just write 50 goals, so then there’s not really any pressure when you’re goal setting. There’s a ton of pressure when you’re trying to goal achieve because you can’t possibly do all that, right? But in the setting, what we ask people to do is to take all those great ideas, those brilliant dreams and vision … whatever you are aspiring to, and now narrow it down, and focus on just a few.
And for me, that felt like a lot of pressure and it was hard for me to commit to it. But in my lack of commitment I was committing to a lack of progress at the same time. And so, it is a real thing, or at least it has been for me. There’s more, I guess, blockers if you want to call them, to setting goals. But that was one that I’ve dealt with a lot. The concept that we’re identifying today has been hugely helpful for me in kind of getting over that hump where now I do very much look forward to that time of reflection and goal setting.

Courtney Baker:
So, it’s funny because I have a similar story, but actually on the opposite end of the spectrum. Which was, when I started, I remember the very first time I went through your [inaudible 00:01:59] ever, and we got into the room, and you actually tease me now because of my response to this moment. We got in the room, we started going through the material and I was totally blank. I was like, “I don’t even know. What do I want to do?” It was not like I had all these things up there and just needed to distill them down. I just was totally lost. I was like, “I have no idea. I don’t know, there’s a thousand … and nothing.” And in that moment, I realized, I’m going to have to go about this a different way. But I think that’s the other end of the spectrum is a little bit of feeling lost of what do I really want to become?
And so, that is a very overwhelming feeling of, “I don’t even know where to start.” And so the easiest thing is, “Well, I’m just not going to do this.” Which guys, most people don’t. I mean only 20% of people set any kind of yearly goal. I mean, that’s pretty low. I think you get some people that do resolutions that last for a week. And so those people probably are not counted in that number. But a very few people are able to build that skill of setting goals and working towards achieving something. And it’s really powerful. Obviously, we believe it’s really powerful if you can push through those obstacles that we all have.
I mean, Verbs, I think you would probably share something similar of goal setting like this. None of us just woke up, we weren’t born with like, “Oh, we know how to perfectly set and achieve goals.” We had to go through the messy stuff to learn how to do it. Except Verbs is perfect, so he probably did. He was probably born that way.

Verbs Boyer:
Hey, that’s just how I roll. No, I think I started with the blank planner and just shut the planner down and set it aside, when I first got it in the mail because I just wasn’t sure what to do. Again, I think anytime you talk about goal setting, you just think about new year’s resolutions, just things that you want to do short term but you don’t really understand the process behind goal achievement, as Blake mentioned. So, I think that’s a good distinction that will help our listeners today as we get into it.
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. Happy Monday to you all, including Nick.

Courtney Baker:
Happy Monday.

Blake Stratton:
And you, Verbs.

Verbs Boyer:
Including Nick this week, guys. Thank you. Thank you sir, I appreciate that. We’re talking about goal setting, but we’re really talking about goal achievement and I wanted to pose this question to you now, is what is the most important question that we can ask in our pursuit of goal achievement?

Courtney Baker:
I kind of got to this question when I was sharing my own story of feeling lost in that moment of, “I don’t even know where to start here,” and because of that, I think the best question is to ask, who do you want to become? Even in Blake’s example, when you have so many things, like so many ideas and dreams, and options, and roads, ultimately that question, whichever brings you to this moment of goal setting is the question to examine, of who do you want to become?
And this is where I feel really strongly, a lot of people do not see goals, they have obstacles with goals or maybe they’ve just never done it, they haven’t learned how to do goals well in a way that works in their lives. But I think a lot of people do want to grow, and they do want to become something more than they are today. And so, if you find yourself in that situation, where you’re like, “I’ve just never done goals, I don’t want to do that,” but you have … I know, I am sure everybody listening to this podcast is somebody that aspires to something. To get better, to learn new things. Then I think maybe giving goals … thinking of it as a tool to help you do that might give you the freedom and to think about this different. So getting back to the question, the most important question to ask, who do you want to become?

Blake Stratton:
Who do you want to become? That’s huge. This is what Michael says, you’ve probably seen this quote if you use the full focus planner, that goals are not about what you do, but about who you become. They’re not just about what is achieved at the end, but about the different person, the transformation that happens in the pursuit of that goal. And your vision of yourself, or your imagination of that future of who you want to become is very powerful because that enables you to actually endure some trials that happens when you pursue a goal.
But I like this question a lot because it helps me overcome my fear, or that pressure of commitment, and the underlying fear of, “What if I don’t choose the right thing to focus on this year, or to focus on in the next two years?”

Verbs Boyer:
Right.

Blake Stratton:
And this perspective shift was instrumental in helping me get over that because the shift went from, “I have to choose the right thing,” to, “I have to become the right person.”
As I look back at my life, and maybe you two can attest to this, if you’ve ever chosen a goal that you thought was a great idea? I’ll go back to my early days, when I was a kid. I’m growing up in the ’90s, in Chicago, everyone wanted to be Michael Jordan, myself included. And I was like, “I just want to be in the NBA.” And now that I get GMs calling me all the time asking me to sub in … Russell Westbrook’s struggling in Los Angeles, they wanted me to come in, and LeBron … but I’m passionate about productivity, so I had to turn that down.

Courtney Baker:
Yeah.

Blake Stratton:
Even when your career choice changes, what I learned was, well, when I was little I learned a ton of discipline because I would just play basketball for hours in my driveway, and it built confidence in me. And so now I’ve got confidence that I can work hard independent of anybody else’s prompting. And that’s a part of my identity as an adult that got instilled when I was six, seven years old. So, that’s a powerful shift. If anyone else struggles with that, of, “Oh, I better choose the right thing.” If you can answer this question, who do I want to become? It’s really hard to choose the wrong goal.”

Courtney Baker:
Well, I think this is where your actions shaped your identity, and maybe you didn’t make it to the NBA, but I think you did become a basketball player.

Blake Stratton:
Just because I didn’t want to, Courtney. I felt more passion-

Courtney Baker:
That’s right. I’m sorry. That’s right, about-

Verbs Boyer:
That was the only thing.

Blake Stratton:
… about other things. Okay?

Courtney Baker:
Well, and I think this is really important. When you become a runner, that happens when you start to run. You become more confident when you take risk and do difficult things. All of these things are actions that you take in the pursuit of goals that really shape who you are as a person. Same with, I think I talked about this a few episodes back, but you become a more productive person probably by just listening to this podcast, honestly. But when you prioritize high leverage work, when you take the action of just setting a daily big three, you become a productive person. It starts to shape who you are and who you see yourself as.

Verbs Boyer:
Courtney, do you consider yourself a cyclist?

Courtney Baker:
I’m so glad you asked this. This is a great question. I do, and I ride a bike that goes nowhere. But I knew the power of this early on, that if I started to identify myself as a cyclist, that it would become more ingrained in how I approached riding my bike, and my confidence level in riding the bike. And certainly if you compared me to … and I think this is what so many people do, somebody that is out racing on road bikes, they might look at me in comparison to them. But in comparison to somebody that never rides a bike, I certainly am. I wear those stinking padded shorts, even the ones with the bib that comes over your shoulder. I mean if that doesn’t say cyclist, I don’t know what is. No one is going to come and give you the certificate that says that you have become a thing.
The only person that can do that is yourself. And you can do that at any time. And so, I just chose early on to be like, “Yeah, I’m a cyclist. I’m someone that cycles. That’s who I am.” And everybody on this podcast is tired of me talking about it, but there’s a lot of power in that. Same with, I would say, even in my professional career, of the skill set that I had, of starting to step into that identity, I think, sometimes mentally, sometimes that even drags behind the roles that we’re given.
And so, when I decided, “Hey, I want to be at an executive level role,” I started trying to wear that like, “That’s who I am. I don’t have the position yet,” to help me, to shape my actions to hopefully one day that identity that I had started taking on, actually became reality.

Blake Stratton:
Here’s a thought, how can people answer this question, “Who do I want to become,” if they feel like, “Oh boy, that’s a hard … that feels like a big question. How do I begin to answer that?” Do you guys have any things that have helped you?

Verbs Boyer:
I mean, I would say, for me it just helps starting, beginning with the smaller things that I may want to … grow in, about myself. So if I’m saying, “Hey, I want to be a more present dad,” well, then that means I think about my schedule during the weeks, of how I can have more time where I don’t have to think about anything else, because I don’t have anything else to get to. That way I can be more present when I’m home with my family. So that helps me frame up everything else, that helps me say no to things that I would normally just say yes to because it was a thing to do. And I can filter through all that because I’m trying to get to the point where I want to be that type of father.

Blake Stratton:
I love that.

Courtney Baker:
I would say for me, I’ve talked about this a lot. I really love the life score assessment. And all it really helps me do is just help me think about these other life domains. I don’t know if this is true for y’all, but I feel like there’s certain life domains where this question is easier for me. Who do you want to become, professionally? That one historically for me has been easier to answer, than who do I want to become as a parent? Who do I want to become as someone who is stewarding their finances? Those other … spiritually, who do I want to become? Is that true for y’all? I just find different life domains more challenging.

Verbs Boyer:
Yeah.

Courtney Baker:
And so the life score assessment helps trigger that thought process in these other areas that don’t come as naturally for me.

Blake Stratton:
Yeah. Something that I’ve done, and I started doing it with my clients as well. I remember one in particular, she was stepping kind of into this new role as the leader of this business. And she was trying to figure out things like, “Okay, what do our KPIs need to be?” but she got to this point, “Who am I going to be? Who am I in this role?” And she was just, “I need help. What are my values or what’s going to be my mission? And what are all those types of questions you ask when you’re in this position of leading others?”
And a simple thing I asked her to do was to make a list of five heroes, five people that she really admires, and then to write down what are the traits, the accomplishments, the characteristics of those people that you really admire so much?
And we did it together and sure enough, and this happened when I did it, as well, you start to see patterns, you start to see traits, characteristics, types of accomplishments. Those types of things begin to emerge, those patterns. And what I think is, we’re attracted to people, like our heroes, we’re attracted to qualities that are lying dormant in ourselves that we wish was … “Oh, I wish that was true about me,” and that we have this magnetic pull to that.
And so that’s been helpful for me is like, “Hey, who are my heroes?” And I start seeing all these patterns. I go, “You know what? That’s actually who I want to be. I can see these top few traits, or these things, or they all are great at this thing, I want to be great at that.” So, if that helps anybody listening, try it out if you’re stumped with this question, just think about, “Well, who are some of my heroes, and what are their qualities I admire?”

Verbs Boyer:
The next thing to consider is what we call the snowball effect. And that’s where the identity really shapes the action. So once you see yourself as a runner, then you’re more likely to run. Once you see yourself as a writer, then you’re more likely to write. Whatever it is that you envision yourself becoming, as you get into that mindset of, “This is who I am,” then you’ll do more of those things. It’s almost like you’re at home, but the train station is five miles down the road. So the goal is at least to get to the train station, because once you’re on the track, you know that you’re able to get to a destination versus just staying put at home, wishing that you can get to the station. You’re on the track, that you’re now become a passenger going to where you want your destination to be.
So if you see yourself as a productive person, then you’re going to do whatever it takes to stay on that track, to do the small steps, to do the consistent steps, to really fit to who you are, and where you want to go, who you want to become, and be. So I think that’s important. I think I shared this earlier, I talked about it earlier this year in multiple episodes back when I was trying to see myself as a songwriter, again. Just being dormant for years, almost to the point where it’s like, “Man, I think I forgot how to do this because I can’t put words together to write a song.” And really, I had to get back into that mindset of, “No, you can do it.”
You have to think of yourself as one who does it, and then figure out the steps, or the strings of steps, the tiny little actions that allowed me to get back into that rhythm, back into that mode of really doing it, to where if somebody asked me, “Hey, do you still do music,” instead of the answer being no, the answer is “Yes, I still do it,” because I’ve seen myself in that place again, as far as what I wanted to start, begin doing.

Courtney Baker:
Well, and what I love about that, and I think for everybody listening, is imagining your future self is really motivating. This is a really powerful tool. And so, as you’re gearing up this year, as you’re thinking about goals, think about who you want to become. Spend some time thinking about this question.

Verbs Boyer:
So today’s tip to level up your focus, is do exactly what Blake said. Think of who your five heroes are, and what traits do they share, to help identify traits that you may want to develop in yourself.

Courtney Baker:
And if you’re interested in taking the life score assessment, you can do that at any time at fullfocus.co/life score.

Verbs Boyer:
Thank you for joining us on Focus on This.

Courtney Baker:
This is the most productive podcast on the internet, so share it with your friends. And don’t forget to join our full focus planner community on Facebook. We’ll be back next Monday with another great episode. Until then …
Stay.

Verbs Boyer:
Focused.

Courtney Baker:
See, we do sound good together.

Verbs Boyer:
We did it.

Nick Jaworski:
That was very good.

Verbs Boyer:
That was indeed.