You have a goal. It’s big, it’s not so big, or it’s in between. You are going somewhere. I know you are, or you wouldn’t be reading an article like this one. As Covey states in Habit 5, Begin with the End in Mind, everything is created twice. The mental creation necessarily precedes the physical creation. The envisioned goal is the mental creation. But how do we actually achieve our goal, which is the “physical” creation? Let’s look at some ideas for moving forward on the path to achieving our goals.

Getting started

If the goal is big enough, we’re not going to know every step to achieve it. The good news is you don’t need to know every step…we only need to know the next one. If you have a big goal in mind, think of what small (tiny even) next step you could take to put you on the path or continue your journey towards achieving your big goal. Maybe you need to do some research, or set up a meeting with someone, or do some brainstorming on a topic. There is something you know how to do that will keep you on your trajectory for achieving the big goal.

Action brings clarity. Once you check off that one small task, ask yourself again what small next step you could take. It’s likely that whatever you learned from the previous small step will provide insight into what the next step should be. Even though each step is small and on its own not very significant, when done consistently over time the results compound and before long you end up with a big achievement.

Scientific method

One approach used to explore possibilities is the scientific method. In the book Lean Startup by Eric Ries, the author presents the Build-Measure-Learn cycle. Basically you create a hypothesis, you build a product (as inexpensively and fast as practical), and you test the product to determine if you should pivot or persevere. In any case you’ve learned whether you are on the right path or if you need to move in a different direction.

Here ‘build a product’ may not involve actually building a physical item. It may be crafting a succinct description of an idea or a mission statement and getting feedback on it. One way or the other we want to test the hypothesis we created.

For example, perhaps you have a new product idea. Your hypothesis is that there is a market for your new product. Maybe you go ahead and build the product, or maybe you make a 3-D printed model, or maybe you use cardboard and duct tape to get the idea across. Then you get your product (in whatever form it’s in) in front of potential customers. You ask for their feedback (i.e. you measure the results). Based on their responses, you make an informed decision to pivot or persevere.

Or, you have an idea for a service. You form a hypothesis that there is a market for teaching people how to arrange flowers purchased from the grocery store. If it’s an in-person class you have in mind, there’s not a physical product, so perhaps you hold a few classes for friends at your house to see how it goes. Based on their feedback you pivot or persevere.

What do I mean by pivot or persevere?

The language of pivot or persevere is used in Lean Startup. Persevere means you continue down the same path. You have tested your hypothesis and found you are on the right track. Pivot means that you change directions. Likely you tested your hypothesis and found you were not on the right track. You learned from the results of the testing that your original thought on which way to head was not going to be successful. In this approach we want to fail as fast as possible so we can get on the successful path as fast as possible.

Set out to do something

We talk about boosting productivity a lot. Whether we’re working alone or in an organization, how to get things done faster with potentially fewer resources comes up often. For our purposes here, let’s contain the discussion to our personal productivity. One thing we don’t think about (or at least I didn’t for a long time) was that at the heart of productivity is producing something. A tip I learned not too long ago was that when you sit down to work, have in mind what you are going to produce. Do not sit down with the intention of “working on something”. Guess what? When we do the latter we often don’t produce anything at the end of our work time. But if we start with the intent to produce something…voila, we produce something.

What we produce can be a physical thing like a document, recording, slide presentation, etc. Or, it could be something we learn. This is often referred to as a learning milestone. We may need to research or gain knowledge about a topic before we can proceed, and the learning milestone is helpful in these cases. The point is, when we talk about productivity and producing something, the thing we produce doesn’t always have to a physical item.

Planning

On a larger scale, you may want to create a weekly or monthly calendar that you put your intermediate goals on (if you know what they are in advance). If you want to write a book, you might have a goal to write a chapter a month. You might consider having a big version of a monthly or every-week-of-the-year calendar visible on a wall. It’s helpful to have your goals visible, and to check them regularly (daily, if possible). This way your goals are always in your mind. You can take these goals into consideration and decide whether your actions move you toward your goal or not.

There are a multitude of daily planners that have areas for daily goals, weekly goals, quarterly goals, and yearly goals. These planners have room for other items such as evaluation of how you did each day, what difficult conversations you need to have during the week or day, and who you need to follow-up with or get in contact with.

These planners are everywhere. They range from free one-pagers to very nicely designed (and appropriately priced) journal-type compilations. If you’re just starting out, try listing the three things you want to accomplish for the day every morning. These are the three things that if you get them done, you’ve moved toward a goal in some way.

tl;dr

In order to achieve a goal you need to act in some way. Whether it’s a small step that once accomplished will inform the next step, or a series of experiments designed to illuminate the path, or a calendar of goals for each week or month, we need to act. Keep in mind that productivity requires us to produce something. This can be something we need to learn or something physical (ok, it might be electronic like a Word document but you know what I mean).

engineer your life

  • If you aren’t planning your day intentionally already, start by taking a few minutes at the end of the day or beginning of the day to write down the top three things that if accomplished will move you forward on one or more goals.
  • If you have a giant goal, don’t expect to know all the steps you need to achieve it. Start with one next step and let the results of that step inform what the following step will be.
  • Next time you sit down to work, set an intention on what you will produce, keeping in mind that it might be something you need to learn.