Set goals, smash them. This has become a familiar hashtag and catch phrase trying to encapsulate goal setting in four easy words. But rarely is reaching our goals as easy as this catch phrase — and others like it — makes them out to be.
The first mistake many of us make when setting a goal is going in without a road map. We know what we want the result to be, but how do we get there? Without understanding the steps we need to take, our goals are set up for disappointment and distraction right out of the gate. This leads to procrastination, or worse, self-sabotage, both of which are incredibly damaging to us.
But there’s a second mistake we tend to make when it comes to goals. And this one isn’t addressed as often, but it’s just as important. Generally speaking, people shrink their goals to fit what they believe is possible. But instead, we should expand our mind to fit what’s possible. That’s the entire point of reaching for a goal — to stretch our current capabilities.
We’re all full of unlimited potential. But we tend to limit ourselves in one of three ways when it comes to reaching our goals. In order to unlock our limitless potential, we need to understand which of these three beliefs are standing in our way. And it all boils down to the three M’s.
The 3 M’s
Everything we need to know about reaching a goal lies in our Mindset, our Motivation, and our Methods. And really this is taking a goal from our head, moving it through the heart, and landing it firmly in our hands. In other words, what we believe is possible, unlocks our purpose, which then drives our actions.
If we struggle to reach our desired result, there’s a limit that has to be realized, released, and replaced in one of these three areas.
Mindset
In looking at mindset, we tackle the underlying beliefs in our head. And the question we need to ask ourselves is what. What is our goal? Within that what, is the deeper question: what is possible.
When we’re blocked in our mindset, it’s because we’re holding on to beliefs about ourselves and our capabilities. We don’t believe we can learn a new language, so we stop trying. Or we believe we’re too old to learn to play an instrument, so we never start. Understanding our mindset is incredibly important because belief drives behavior. What we believe, we achieve — both the good and the bad.
The best example of how mindset limits us is the four minute mile. Prior to 1954, it was believed that humans could not run a mile faster than four minutes. Doctors believed the human heart couldn’t handle it, but beyond thinking it was dangerous, no one believed it was even possible. Until Roger Bannister did it.
But the most amazing part of that story isn’t that he broke the record. It was how quickly others began to break it. Once they believed it was possible, it was.
This story is important because it shows how we tend to shrink our goals into what we think is possible, instead of believing that anything is possible. But by using tools like visualization and editing internal self-talk, we can change our mindset. Beliefs are learned. Which means we can unlearn them. By unlocking a limitless mindset, we can not just dream for more, we can achieve more.
Motivation
Once we’ve tackled our mindset, we know what’s possible. It seems like the next logical step would be to go into the how. But that’s a common misconception. If we don’t take the time to understand the why, the how becomes difficult to execute.
Motivation is probably one of the most misunderstood concepts. When we think about what motivates us, we think about our passion. But motivation isn’t the thing that drives us. It’s the thing that gives us purpose. And purpose isn’t passion either. Passion lights us up. But purpose lights other people up. It isn’t enough to know what drives us, we need to know what our goal will do in order to light up others. That’s what moves us into action.
We don’t have to be excited to be motivated. It simply means we have discovered the reason driving us into action. Essentially, motivation can be broken down to this formula: purpose + small steps + energy = motivation.
Understanding this formula means we can train our brain for motivation every day. This is where the small steps come into play. By developing daily habits that drive us into action, we are training ourselves to tackle difficult tasks. Motivation in this aspect is mental fitness. Once we realize we may not enjoy the process but we do it anyway, it gets easier to handle the mundanity of any task.
Think of motivation the same way we would any fitness regime. It takes daily dedication and focus, starting small but working our way to longer and more intense sessions. The process is hard, but pushing through gives us the energy we need to do other things in our lives. More importantly, this routine becomes a habit, extending into other behavior. Energy isn’t something we have, it’s something we do. And by creating habits that force us to do difficult tasks, we will find we have the motivation to tackle any goal.
Methods
The third step in unlocking our limitless goals is in our methods. We’ve taken our goal from our head, into our heart, and now it’s in our hands. But knowing it’s in our hands is different than understanding the methods that will make us successful. It’s important to realize that mindset and motivation cannot carry our goals through to the end. If we use ineffective methods, we will struggle to attain our limitless potential.
Methods are the step-by-step process we use to actually reach our goal. But frequently we use the wrong methods. We start too big, not understanding the smaller steps we need to take. Or, we don’t define the steps at all. By breaking our goals down into small, easy steps, we make it easy to understand what needs to happen and how. Remember, inch by inch, it’s a cinch. Yard by yard, it’s way too hard.
There are two important keys in unlocking limitless methods. The first is to break down the steps into the smallest tasks. Take flossing as an example. We know that flossing is good for us, yet many of us struggle to do it consistently. But what if we said we were going to floss one tooth every morning? It sounds ridiculous, but by committing to one tooth, it feels manageable and easy. Our brain doesn’t resist the idea, making it easier to begin. Now here’s the good news. Once we start, the odds of us stopping after one tooth are pretty low. We’re going to continue until we’ve flossed every tooth.
Our brain doesn’t like open loops. What we start, we’re likely to finish. Knowing this, we need to make action steps so simple and easy that we cannot fail. Start with one step to get going and odds are we’ll continue with the task until it’s completed.
The second key is consistency. As we learned with motivation, daily habits are where our goals come to life. Duke University did a study that concluded 40% of our activities are habit based not decision based. This is vital because first we create our habits, and then our habits create us. Applying the same small step approach, if we commit to creating daily habits supporting our goals, we will reach them. If we put our running shoes on every day, chances are we’ll end up running every day, making running our habit. Write one sentence a day and soon enough we’ll have our business plan, or novel, or thesis. Read one sentence and we’ll finish the book.
Small steps done daily are the limitless methods that will bring any goal we set into fruition.
Conclusion
When it comes to goals, too many of us are working too hard and getting minimal results. The limitless model is about unlocking our potential so we can work smarter, not harder. Remember, we need to take goals out of our minds, through our hearts, and into our hands. Discover purpose, create small steps, and incorporate them into our daily routines in order to harness our limitless potential.
