Want to know the secret to achieving your goals? Once you have set your goal and developed a daily plan to achieve it, focus on that process and not the goal itself. That is the advice of Jeff Haden, author of The Motivation Myth.
Everyone has goals. The people who actually achieve them, create routines, build systems and anticipate the obstacles that are going to come up against and plan for them. They consistently take steps that in time will ensure that they reach that goal. In effect, they forget the goal and focus on the process.
The Old Way of Achieving Your Goals
In the past people spent all your time focusing just on the end goal. Those who do that may become disheartened by how far they still have left to go. For example, say you want to lose 125 pounds. After several months you have lost twenty pounds (a significant sum). If you continue to focus on the goal, many will overlook all the progress and fixate on the fact that they are still far from achieving it. If you continue to focus on this gap, instead of the weekly progress, you may give up and eventually gain the weight back.
The Newer Way of Achieving Your Goals
There is a better way. Instead of focusing on goals, focus on the process.
If you focus on doing the things that you need to do, day in and day out to achieve your goal, you will make daily progress, and each day this will give you a dopamine reward to help you stay on track.
What matters is not how you currently compare with your goal. What matters is that you consistently work your process and do what you set out to do, each and every day, to reach your goal.
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