Thread by @Shane___Martin

Are you getting the most out of your goals?

Goals can be powerful —but just having them is not enough.

If you want to unlock their full potential, you have to take a proactive role in deploying & maintaining them over time.

Here's what you need to know:
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We all know that goals are important. They play a critical role in our ability to consistently improve our lives.

However, most of us don't actually use them effectively.

As such, we inadvertently handicap our own growth & limit our chances of success.

A goal has two functions.

First, it tells you where you’re headed.

A North Star that guides & shapes your efforts, ensuring that you’re consistently pointing in the right direction.

This guiding function represents the practical power of your goal.

More interestingly, it also serves an emotional function.

The right goal has the power to amplify your efforts, providing a boost of motivation to everything you do.

This energizing effect can be extremely powerful but also frustratingly elusive.

Here's the problem: over time our brains begin to adapt and become less transfixed by the rosy outcome imagined in our goals.

In short, the more time we spend with them, the less powerful they become.

This is time decay in action.

You've probably been told to review your goals daily, but you might want to think twice about that.

While this does help us keep our aspirations at the forefront of our focus, we also run the risk of depleting the capacity for those goals to inspire & motivate.

So what can we do to address this time decay and continue reaping the emotional benefits provided by our goals?

1 — Consider experimenting with a different frequency.

Try reviewing your goals just 1x per week (or month), rather than daily.

This will give your brain time to reset and allow the goal to refuel itself.

2 — Breath some life into your goal.

S.M.A.R.T goals are nice because they are clear & well defined — but they can often be sterile and offer very little by way of inspiration.

Instead, we should aim to build out the world around our goal, making it tactile & tangible.

Rather than simply stating the facts: “Finish writing my book by Christmas.”

Imagine the moment your goal is realized: “I’m at my book launch party, delivering a speech to a room of my closest family and friends.”

Which is more likely to stoke the fire of motivation?

3 — Reinvent your goal over time.

Stop thinking about your goals as static entities.

What matters to us is constantly changing, therefore we should be in an ongoing process of re-building our goals over time.

When you revisit a goal, don’t just re-read it, re-write it.

Add more detail, shake up the scenarios, re-build it from the ground up.

This will help you fight against that time decay and keep the goal's capacity to drive motivation fresh.

Ultimately, our goals don’t just tell us where to go, they also provide the fuel to get us there.

As high achievers, we must take a proactive role in manufacturing and maintaining our goals so that they can continue to drive and support our growth.

Working alone is hard.

For tweets on productivity & achievement frameworks for freelancers, indiehackers, and soloprenuers, follow me:
@Shane___Martin

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Thanks for reading

https://twitter.com/Shane___Martin/status/1444699764675674113