Focus on 1-2 Goals At A Time

Focus on 1-2 Goals At A Time

if we have particular goals that are important to us, we have to be careful to not get distracted by other goals. So setting one or two or maybe three major goals for a given year is going to be more than enough. - AH

Explanation: In Emily Balcetis's lab, they noticed that the biggest reason people don't hit their goals is that they set too many. Your cognitive attention gets scattered across different things, and you get distracted from your main goals.

It's similar to when you shop online. You open Amazon, wanting to buy one thing, then see all the crazy options you have. You get confused and/or buy stuff you don't care about. There are studies on this.

The same mechanism works for long-term desires. So, this might sound harsh, but consider minimizing your goal list. It's either you set 10 goals you don't reach or set 2 that you 100% hit. Which do you prefer?

Action for the day

Think about the goals you set. Do you want to: make more money? graduate? beat depression? find a job? What are some goals you want to achieve by the end of this month or year?

Great. Now, consider this, if you can get only one thing at the end of this period, what would it be? What's the most important goal?

Just knowing this makes you more likely to achieve it. You don't want to look back on new years and think "Oh I always say I'll do this but don't 😒". So take the time to think about it.

I would give you 5 more tactics for how to hit your goal. But... pfff Andrew said only 1-2 actions at a time :) So,

Identify the 1 or 2 most important goals for this month/year and focus on those.

Have a nice weekend Reader. Here's the clip from the podcast.