Stack the odds in your favor. Here’s how to do it:
“Pick 1 area of your life you want to improve (fitness, finance, etc.) & set a goal.
Not 5 goals.
One.
Then, cut your objective in half.
From there, design a realistic plan to achieve your halved goal.
Then, cut that plan in half.
Achievement loves sustainable action.”
-Ray Zingler on X
“Shoot for the stars!”
No. Fu*k that. At least not right now.
Right now pick 1 thing.
1 simple thing.
And create a realistic goal.
From there, take your realistic goal and cut it in half.
“Pessimist much?”
Nope. Realist.
Next, design a plan to reach your halved goal.
Once you’ve done that, cut your plan in half, too.
“What!? That’ll never work!”
Wrong.
What won’t work is going all in for 3 weeks and then quitting because you don’t have the bedrock of discipline to carry you over the long haul.
Here’s an example:
“I want to lose 30 pounds. I will do this by exercising 4 days per week for 1 hour.”
That sounds like a great goal.
But have you worked out at all up to this point? No? So, you think increasing your work out behavior 400% is the answer? It most definitely isn’t.
Start with 15 pounds (hell, start with 1 pound, lol) and 2 days per week.
While obviously 15 pounds isn’t the “overall” goal, it’s far more manageable and realistic just as exercising twice per is, over four times per week (if you’d not yet built up the habit.)
The same goal setting concept is true for anything in any field.
Want to make $250k this year? But you only made $67k last year? Shoot at $100k.
Want to learn to play the guitar, but have no experience? Let go of the Led Zeppelin dream and master the chords, first.
The problem most people have is not with intentions.
Everybody (well not everybody) has great intentions.
They have great theories.
They know what “sounds awesome” and “would be ideal”.
But they have no proof of concept.
And without proof of concept with a little, you can’t get proof of concept with a lot.
The goal of goals isn’t to actually “achieve that thing”, the goal of goals is to improve your discipline.
Once you improve your discipline, i.e. have proof that you can do it, you can create bigger, loftier goals.
But when you’re starting out, start small. No smaller. No, seriously I mean smaller than that.
The objective is to make it so realistic & simple that you can bat 1,000.
As your discipline grows, so do you.
