CheatCodes - You might as well think positively, the problem with goal setting, how to be miserable
You might as well think positively
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
I call this “default optimism”.
If you just default to optimism and presume things are going to be great, then there’s always a chance they will be great.
If however you default to a “there’s no point in trying” mentality, you’re always going to lose.
So you might as well default to believing you’re going to win.
A very tactical thing would be before you do something, quietly say to yourself...”I’m going to win this task”.
Watch what happens.
Why you shouldn't focus on goals
Last week, I was coaching a founder who had a goal of reaching $11m this year in revenue.
But halfway through the year, he realised they’d actually do $8m this year.
Not bad but short of the $11m goal he had set in January.
It reminded me the danger of goal setting in a business.
Goals sound important. In fact they sound like what you should do.
But a more important thing is actually process.
Lets say you wanted to make 1m a year.
That’s $250k per quarter. Typically you might then look at your quarterly goals, add them and then see how you compare.
This sounds good but the truth is it’s kinda uncontrollable.
A better thing to do would be to ask what’s the process we need to run in order to hit our goal?
How many calls?
How many emails?
How many events & people do we need to speak to?
In other words, what can I truly control and how many of those things do I need to do.
So how do you create a process?
One is top down.
Where you say something like “we need to hit £1m , how many sales calls and emails do we need to send?”
Or bottoms up, where you take a given process (your existing sales process which includes how many sales people you have, how many calls they can do) and then assess how much output that process can give.
Just choose any of these.
I’ve seen a lot of people get really motivated around the goal and not motivated around the process.
Which really is where the magic happens.
Remember, the goal is not the focus.
The process is the focus.
How to be miserable
Make it stand out
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
This excerpt is from "Poor Charlie's Almanack" by Charlie Munger.
This section is in response to someone asking “how to stay miserable in life”.
Being unreliable is one of those that you know you shouldn’t do but you do subconsciously.
The reason is because it’s actually easy to be unreliable.
You show up a bit later.
You don’t send that email you said...you’re sure they won't remember (they always do)
The little things make the big things.
Sure people might not tell you to your face but mentally they’ve labelled you as someone they can’t really count on.
Do what you say you’re going to do.
Your future self will thank you.
