Oli Gibson

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.” – Abraham Lincoln

Through the last few posts here I have talked about goal setting and my tips to create better goals or achieve your dreams. By reading the posts I have already written (below) you will have the tools you’ll need to set goals that really work, so now I think it is time to show you what can be achieved by using these techniques and why you should use them.

Past Posts in the Series

• An Introduction and Thinking Smart
• Five Tricks to Achieve Goal Setting Nirvana
• Dreamlining

How Tim Ferriss Achieved it All

Tim Ferriss is a remarkable character who has achieved a remarkable amount in his 29 years. Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Reporter even went as far to say “Tim Ferriss has packed more into his 29 years than Steve Jobs has in his 51″. Thats clearly no mean feat! Here’s some of the things Tim has achieved.

• Guest Lecturer at Princetown University
• First American in history to hold a world record in Tango
• Speaker of 6 languages
• National Chinese Kickboxing champion
• MTV break dancer
• Actor in Chinese hit TV series (Human Cargo)

To go with this Tim has also traveled the world extensively, run a successful business (BrainQuicken) in the US and is now an established angel investor.

So how do you pack all this into 30 years and more to the point how do you keep focused enough to achieve all this?

Well Tim has used all the techniques I have detailed in the last few posts but he is a particular fan of dreamlining. He believes the more unrealistic the goals you set the more likely it is you will push to try and achieve it.

Admittedly not everyone wants to be like Tim but he is probably the best example for me to show what can be achieved with proper goal setting. Setting goals is a technique that needs to be learned in itself and once mastered it is amazing what can be achieved, look at Tim!

This now concludes The Goal Setting Guide. I will hopefully add to it from time to time but I now feel that there is a great guide out there to help you set goals that really make the most of your potential. While this is the end of this short series, it doesn’t have to be the end of my advise on goal setting. You can always email me with any questions you have – oli@oligibson.com – or you can find me on twitter – @oligibson.

I was introduced to the idea of dreamlining by Tim Ferriss when I read his anecdote about the fat man in the red BMW convertible (an example of what he could be like if he continued to follow his career path)

Could you really stand to be in the same position as your boss in 15-20 years time? A symbol of mediocrity with a 3 bedroom house in suburbia, 2.4 children and a small family saloon. Stuck in your middle management job and going no where. Trust me that idea scares the hell out of me. This is why I became a lifestyle designer and why I remind myself everyday to never “accept reality”. This is why I use dreamlining.

Strictly speaking dreamlining is not goal setting. It differs in a few ways…

1. The goals shift from wants to defined steps
2. The goals MUST be unrealistic to be effective
3. It focuses on activities that fill the vacuum created when work is removed or reduced should you wish (who doesn’t!)

I am going to help you do what you never thought possible. What you dreamed of when you were young but as you grew up realised was ‘not possible’. I am going to help you dreamline. It’s not going to be easy but it will be worthwhile. To start with I recommend you download my dreamlining template and my expenses calculation form to help you out.

What Would You Do if You Couldn’t Fail?

Imagine if you were the smartest person in the world. Think how much you’d do now knowing you couldn’t fail.

Create two timelines, one for six months and one for twelve (there is a template here) and list up to five things you dream of for the following categories…

Having – Including but not limited to material wants eg. cars, houses etc.
Being – Eg. being a great cook, fluent in a language or a world champion.
Doing – Eg. Visiting Australia, racing motorbikes or running the marathon.

If you have difficulty identifying what you want in some categories, as some will consider what you hate or fear and write down the opposite. Make sure you don’t limit yourself or worry about how you will achieve these dreams. For now it doesn’t matter. It’s also important not to fool yourself. I love cars and dream of owning an Aston Martin so I put it down rather than putting down removing aids from Africa out of guilt. It doesn’t matter what you want as-long as it is what you really want. Be it fame, fortune or prestige get it all down.

If your still drawing a blank consider the following questions…

• What would you do day to day if you had £50 million in the bank.
• What would make you most excited to wake up tomorrow morning.

What are the Four Dreams that Would Change it All?

On both the six and twelve month timeline highlight the four dreams that are most interesting, exciting and would make the most difference to your life.

Discover How Much Your Dreams Cost and Your Target Monthly Income (TMI)

If financeable, how much does it cost per month to achieve your dreams. (eg rent, mortgage, monthly payments etc) If you start to think of income and expenses as monthly cash-flow instead of grand totals you’ll likely find things often cost a lot less than expected. For example my dream of owning an Aston Martin. A brand new Aston Martin V8 Vantage normally costs £90,341 but I can drive one away for as little as £1,542 a month.

So let us calculate your Target Monthly Income (TMI) to help you achieve your dreams. Firstly find the total for each of the rows counting only the four selected dreams. It doesn’t matter if some of these rows total zero. Next add your total monthly expenses x 1.3 (30% buffer for savings and unexpected costs) This grand total is your TMI target. Your calculation should look like the following.

Column A + Column B + Column C + (1.3 x Monthly Expenses) = TMI

You could take this further and divide your TMI by 30 to get you Target Daily Income to give yourself a goal for the day.

If all this seems a little complicated please look at my examples here. You can also use the templates to do your own dreamlining. I find dreamlining particularly useful to give targets and show that dreams are easier to achieve than first expected. I hope it can help you in the same way. As usual please leave comments or email me if you have any questions on dreamlining and it’s best practices – oli@oligibson.com

If you haven’t seen my first article in this series you can read it here, it’s a more gentle introduction!

I can’t tell you how to achieve overall nirvana but I can lend a hand to achieve enlightenment in the goal setting world. As Buddhism teaches there are no shortcuts to nirvana. There is no way to jump the queue or to get a priority boarding pass for the nirvana express but I have discovered five ways to fast track the journey to goal setting superiority.

1) Write Down Your Goals

Ok many of you already know how important it is to write your goals down but because it’s so important I think it’s important to reiterate it. The simple mechanical act of writing makes your goal visible and tangible, it’s no longer just a thought it’s a commitment.

The mistake that most people make here is they just write they’re goal down, unfortunately thats not enough. Best results are seen when you describe your goal in specific detail. For example compare:

“I want to be rich and successful”

With

“I want to be making £10,000 per month from my business from 1st July 2010″

The first is a dream the second is an actionable goal. Write it everywhere and anywhere to remind you as many times a day as possible what your trying to achieve. I know my desk is littered with post it notes containing my goals.

2) Ask the Question

When I was younger I used to ask this question all the time and it drove my parents mad. I still do ask it probably more than most. Failure to ask this question of yourself when setting your goals will certainly result in a lack of motivation and direction.

WHY?

Make a list of all the reasons why you have this goal and try to imagine the benefits of each. The truth is the more reasons in your list the stronger your motivation will be and the more likely you’ll follow your plan to the bitter end!

3) Trick Your Brain Out of Procrastination

So you have your huge goal but every-time you have the time to start on achieving it you realise you have no where near enough time really, so you think, I’ll do it tomorrow.

Remember, Tomorrow Never Comes

Set yourself a small goal that you can use to achieve your overall for tomorrow and you’ll never again waste today.

Another way to stop you putting off and important task is to write down the following every-time you catch yourself avoiding something.

1) Where are you?
2) What do you want to do?
3) How will this make you feel?

As you write these down imagine yourself doing the task and it won’t be to difficult for you to just get up and do it. This is such a simple technique but it works like magic.

4) Keeping Up The Momentum

This is often the point people skip, but I feel it is most important. Upon asking why they didn’t do it they normally say they thought it would be too timing consuming or they don’t have time for it. However I do do this and it takes me less than 10 minutes a day, you can spare 10 minutes.

Start a personal success journal to remind yourself of all the success you’ve had and how they make you feel. Make sure you write something everyday even if they were only small achievements and look back at them when you’re feeling unmotivated or are procrastinating. It’s amazing how motivating past achievements can be. On a personal note I often look back at pictures of me when I was racing for Great Britain to motivate me as it reminds me of these achievements and shows that I have it in me to do great things. If I can do it so can you.

The journal also eliminates temptation. You’re less likely to not achieve your goals if you know you’ll have nothing to write down in the journal for the day.

5) Have Fun

When teaching children new things the best way is to make a game of it. The same goes for your goal setting. For example if you have to fill 5 litre bottles from a 1000 litre container (I used to do this) time yourself and see how many you can do in 3 minutes. Then challenge yourself to beat your last score.

The good thing is you can never lose this game!

It may sound silly or childish but this is probably the most important trick, most athletes use this when training to reduce the monotony of training and continue to be efficient and effective. On top of this it is also proven that this simple trick can increase productivity by more than 125%.

Hopefully you can apply these tricks to help you reach goal setting nirvana. But it’s a difficult path and sometimes we all need a little help along the way, don’t give up you can always contact me with any questions on how anything in this article can help you or if you just want to say hi thats cool too. Send me an email – oli@oligibson.com

Goal setting is probably the most important productivity skill out there. Without the ability to set achievable goals and accomplish them none of us would ever do anything. I set myself goals many times per day which is why I find it so hard to understand the phenomenon that resulted in me deciding to write this series of articles: The New Years Resolution.

I hate the word resolution, I looked up it’s meaning in the dictionary and it says it means ‘a firm decision to do or not do something’, which is great but it doesn’t help you achieve what you desired that just means you promise to yourself you will or will not do something, whatever that something is.

My dislike for the word resolution may be the reason I have never managed to keep any of my new years resolutions but some how I doubt it. I think the problem lies in the way that a resolution is set. For example if I had smoked 20 cigarettes a day for the last 20 years saying as the clock strikes twelve on the 31st December ‘my new years resolution is to quit smoking for good’ is unlikely to lead to that actually happening. However if I set myself a number of SMART goals throughout the year, I could almost guarantee (with will power) that you could quit smoking.

SMART
As you’ve probably already guessed SMART is one of those annoying acronyms made up by academics who think its mildly amusing but it does make remembering a little easier so we’ll make use of it. SMART obviously stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely!

Specific
Goals should be straightforward and emphasize what you want to happen. Specifics help us to focus our efforts and clearly define what we are going to do.
It can be broken down into….

WHAT are you going to do? Use action words such as direct, organize, coordinate, lead, develop, plan, build etc.

WHY is this important to do at this time? What do you want to ultimately accomplish?

HOW are you going to do it? (By…)

Ensure the goals you set are very specific, clear and easy. For example instead of setting a goal to lose weight or be healthier, set a specific goal to walk 5 miles at an aerobically challenging pace.

Measurable
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. In the broadest sense, the whole goal statement is a measure for the project; if the goal is accomplished, the is a success. However, there are usually several short-term or small measurements that can be built into the goal.

Choose a goal with measurable progress, so you can see the change occur. How will you see when you reach your goal? Be specific! “I want to read 3 chapter books of 100 pages on my own before my birthday” shows the specific target to be measure. “I want to be a good reader” is not as measurable.

Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goals.

Attainable
When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop that attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. Your begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals.

Goals you set which are too far out of your reach, you probably won’t commit to doing. Although you may start with the best of intentions, the knowledge that it’s too much for you means your subconscious will keep reminding you of this fact and will stop you from even giving it your best.

A goal needs to stretch you slightly so you feel you can do it and it will need a real commitment from you. For instance, if you aim to lose 20lbs in one week, we all know that isn’t achievable. But setting a goal to loose 1lb and when you’ve achieved that, aiming to lose a further 1lb, will keep it achievable for you.

Realistic
Realistic, in this case, means ”do-able.” It means that the learning curve is not a vertical slope; that the skills needed to do the work are available; that the project fits with the overall strategy and goals of the organization. A realistic project may push the skills and knowledge of the people working on it but it shouldn’t break them.

Devise a plan or a way of getting there which makes the goal realistic. The goal needs to be realistic for you and where you are at the moment.

Be sure to set goals that you can attain with some effort! Too difficult and you set the stage for failure, but too low sends the message that you aren’t very capable. Set the bar high enough for a satisfying achievement!

As a side note to this I will say that it is often best to set an almost unattainable goal then set smaller realistic goals to achieve the main goal.

Timely
Set a timeframe for the goal: for next week, in three months, by fifth grade. Putting an end point on your goal gives you a clear target to work towards.

If you don’t set a time, the commitment is too vague. It tends not to happen because you feel you can start at any time. Without a time limit, there’s no urgency to start taking action now.

So What Now?
Well what I do is write down on a piece of paper all the things I would like to achieve. Then look through them and try to apply the SMART principles to them. Often I have to break down my aims into smaller chunks because those big aims often take time and need to be thought of in smaller chunks to be most effective. For example many athletes aims are to win an olympic gold medal but if that was your only goal it would be impossible to achieve whereas if that goal is broken down into smaller more manageable ones it becomes entirely possible since the steps to the over goal are small enough to see the way to achieve them.

This is just the first article in a short series on goal setting I am writing here. I hope this introduction was useful and introduced you to SMART goal setting or refreshed your memory if you’d already heard of it. Like always if you have any questions on how anything in this article can help you or just want to say hi send me an email – oli@oligibson.com