How To Actually Achieve Your Goals
Hint: Think less like a productivity guru and more like a scientist.
A society of quitters
Most of us have given up on at least one goal we’ve set in our lives. Sad as it may be, about 92% of people ˆ1 give up on their New Year’s goals. Given this is being published on Jan 31, that means that over half (~63%) of people who set a goal at the beginning of the year have already given up. This is both astounding and noteworthy not just because it means we consistently fail to accomplish the things we set out to do, but also because it means we become increasingly less likely to accomplish goals with each passing failed goal.
Every time we give up on a goal or resolution, we reinforce an identity to ourselves about who we are. This identity is that we are the type of person who does not finish things that we’ve started. With enough repetition, this identity compounds over time and is one reason, I believe, that people become less likely to try new things as they get older in life.
When examined carefully, however, it’s really no surprise that we frequently give up on our personal goals. It’s not that we set goals that are too ambitious; often the opposite is true, in fact. Rather, it’s because we are typically not nearly as thoughtful as we need to be when setting and executing the systems that will enable achievement of our personal objectives.
For example, for anyone in the business world, we use tactics such as project timelines, metrics, launch dates, working groups, incentives and team check-ins to help us achieve our objectives. We form teams to problem solve, track “OKRs” and meticulously review metrics on a weekly basis to ensure we are on track. If we drift off track, there is someone (usually more senior) that yells at us, and creates incentives for us to get back on track. However, most of us nearly never use these same tactics, which have been proven to be effective time and time again, for our personal goals.
For example, most of us take it for granted that we go through the process of goal setting at the beginning of the calendar year in January instead of say, March or August. Why do we do this?
Of course it’s the beginning of the calendar year, but the calendar year is really a completely arbitrary concept. Nothing in physical reality actually changes from Dec 31 at midnight to Jan 1 at 12:01am and there is no meaningful difference from one day to the next. Why then should this arbitrary time marker serve as the only time we feel the need to reassess our lives?
Annual goal setting is a very useful process and I don’t want to discredit all systems for yearly reflections and goal setting, as there are several great approaches I love (Annual Report, Past Year Review, Word of the Year), but I believe we can do better.
Experiments vs. Goals
An approach I’ve found to be more effective and fun is based on the premise that the execution of any goal should start as an experiment, where the primary objective is to simply learn something. It’s not that we shouldn’t have goals. It’s simply that they should function primarias our north star, not the mechanism by which we use to track and measure success throughout our lives. Thinking about our lives as an amalgamation of small experiments is a much better framing.
Goals are success based. Experiments are learning-based. Most goals result in failure. It’s impossible to fail an experiment, only learn and adapt. People’s interests change over time. Our interests in January, when we typically set “goals”, are just a snapshot of our interests at that specific point in time. So why should it dictate how we spend your entire year? Our actual goals change and evolve; we often lose interest or motivation not because we don’t still want the thinking we originally wanted, but because we either don’t enjoy the process to get it, or we don’t set up the right system for success.
Even if you choose to continue setting annual goals, breaking those down into mini-experiments will help better frame and measure against your progress. These experiments should be set up for a very specific time period, depending on the objective. Setting a time frame that is appropriate for the experiment in questions is a crucial first step.
The experiment could also last a couple of weeks or a couple of months, depending on the ultimate goal itself. However, one month long experiments is a good starting point for a number of reasons.
First, a month is less of a commitment psychologically. Doing anything for 30 days is much more digestible than 365 days.
Second, it allows for frequent adjustment. Our interests in various goals and the methods to achieve those change over time. Shorter time frames provide both an opportunity to pursue what is of interest at any given time, as well as a forcing function to move fast, learn (or fail) quickly, reassess our progress and determine if we should continue down the path, or adjust course.
Third, one month is about the optimal time to either make major progress towards a goal, uncover something meaningful, or understand whether or not you want to continue doing that thing. The research varies on how long it takes to acquire a new skill but some estimates are as low as 20 hours (which is about 45 mins / day for a month). 20 hours of practice will bring you nowhere close to expertise in a particular skill, but it should be enough time to give you clarity on whether you want to continue pursuing that thing.
Fourth, shorter time frames typically bring a sense of urgency and intensity. If you know you have a whole year to get something done you will be more likely to put it off. But if you only have 30 days, every single day counts. It’s a system that by its nature requires consistent, usually daily pursuit.
Choose a timeline that works for the specific experiment you are designing, but err on the side of shorter to make it more digestible.
5 Tips for Structuring Your Experiments
There are many strategies and tools for helping to stay motivated to achieve your habits or goals which also apply to experiments. Some of these include creating an incentives structure for yourself and finding a partner to help keep you accountable. I love James Clear’s framework for this. Those apply to experiments as well, but I won’t address them here. Instead I’ll focus on tips that are unique to the experiments framework
1. Plan your timing strategically.
If you are planning to travel to Brazil for vacation, setting and executing a monthly goal of studying 20 hours of Portuguese is a great goal for that month because your environment will be conducive to supporting the completion of that goal. It will also have an outsized impact on your experience while visiting Brazil, allowing you to better appreciate the culture, understand a little bit of conversation and maybe even order some food or have a simple conversation with a Brazilian.
Alternatively, if you know you won’t be traveling for a long time, maybe it’s a good time to set a goal related to improving your home, cooking more, or hitting the gym daily.
Make it easy to complete your goals by choosing the right timing based on where you are in life.
2. Structure the experiment properly
Experiments should not be ambiguous New Year’s resolutions. Instead, they should be structured as followed:
- Broken down into measurable units
- Performed consistently (ideally daily)
- Have a specifically defined period of time
- Goal should be a total number for the time period (vs. daily goal)
- Framed Positively (Do X # of positive things vs. Do not do Y # of negative things)
It’s important to perform the experiment consistently (ideally daily) because it not just compounds knowledge and builds momentum but it also reinforces a positive self narrative about ourselves. However, while we should aim to perform tasks daily, holding ourselves to a daily goal can be counter-productive and therefore the goal should be a total number.
To illustrate, let’s say that you are doing two experiments this month:
- Experiment A: Do 9,000 air squats in 1 month (300/day)
- Experiment B: Cut out all added sugar from my diet for 1 month.
We all have distractions or extenuating circumstances that arise that make it easier to slip up and get off track. What makes a difference is how we view these “failures” psychologically based on how we frame the challenge itself in our heads. With Experiment A, if you can only do 100 air squats one day instead of your intended 300, it doesn’t feel that bad. It’s fairly easy to catch up in the subsequent days, and at the bare minimum you still did 100 air squats that day. You are closer to your goal of, say, building strength, reducing stress, and showing up. The exact number doesn’t matter as much; the consistent behavior does.
However, with Experiment B, if you slip up and eat sugar in the morning for breakfast, it’s much more difficult to find the incentive to eat healthy for the rest of the day. Even if you do get back on track tomorrow, this day, today, the day in which you already screwed up, is much easier to write off as an overall loss. It’s demoralizing, and reinforces the negative belief that you are a person who does not finish things. Furthermore, goals structured like Experiment B are ambiguous and do not allow us to easily track how well we are doing. Once again, the goal of cutting out sugar is to have greater health benefits overall, not to never eat sugar again.
You might then tweak your Experiment B to be something like the following. If you eat 90 meals a month, maybe your new goal becomes “Eat 85 meals that contain zero sugar in January.”
This is a much better basis for your experiment. It’s based on the smallest reasonable unit of measurement (# of meals) framed positively, and gamified, so once you finish a meal that does not contain sugar, you get to chalk up another notch on the scoreboard
Avoid vague or binary measures of success and instead break experiments down into the smallest measurable unit.
3. Record Everything.
It’s critically important to ensure you have a system for tracking in place and build in admin time for tracking everyday. I set aside 15 mins / day just for tracking my experiments. Make a google spreadsheet, download a goal tracking app, or write it down the old fashioned way in a journal, but make sure no matter what you choose you have that log with you at all times. If it’s easy to record it’s exponentially more likely you will actually do it.
Here is a template I use. It’s a bit formula heavy because I nerd out on tracking the metrics, but you certainly don’t need to go to this level. Simply recording your progress somewhere you can easily and frequently access is what’s important.
4. Write down your “why”.
More than just recording your experiments, it’s important to be aware as to the type of challenge you are setting for yourself and keep at the forefront of your mind why you are doing the challenge. Is it for fun, to help improve your life, or just for the sake of doing something hard? What do you hope to gain or learn from this experience? What qualities or traits would you like to develop that this challenge will help you to cultivate? Write it down, somewhere accessible and look at it often.
Keeping your why close to home will ensure you stay motivated. Recall in the above example of doing 300 air squats per day that the “why” of the goal is to build strength, reduce stress, and build a habit of showing up. Having this goal top of mind makes it much easier to then focus on it even during the bad days. Even if you hit 100 instead of 300, you made progress towards that goal. If you don’t know why you are doing something, you can get too bogged down with the process itself without having the awareness to zoom out and focus on the big picture. ˆ2
5. Continue the experiments that bring you energy and joy
The point of doing these experiments monthly is not so that you can do something completely new every month. It’s so that you can find out what works best for you and be more focused and intentional in your pursuit.
You will find that by nature of performing intentional, daily, focused tasks, you’ll start to become more clear about your likes and dislikes. You’ll be more engaged in life and you’ll be making steady progress towards your goals while having fun doing it.
Examples
Experiments can support a larger goal(s) for the year, but they don’t have to. Choose experiments that you find to be challenging, interesting, support a larger goal or are just simply fun. I typically do 1–3 challenges / month across different buckets: Health/Exercise, Diet, Learning, and Fun. Here are some examples of experiments framed with the above criteria:
If you’re having trouble thinking of some, one method that can help is to make observations about what in your life is suboptimal (identify problems) and think about how improving that part of your life will bring you joy via a scientific approach:
- Observation / Problem: I’m anxious sitting in meetings all day. I feel weak and unmotivated to go to the gym. I’m having trouble eating healthy
- Question: What can I do to improve my situation? How is my current behavior (or lack thereof) contributing to my current state?
- Hypothesis: Short bursts of exercise throughout the day can help build physical strength, provide small breaks that will force me to step away from my computer and allow me to recenter myself.
- Prediction: Doing air squats is simple, can be done anywhere, builds strength and flexibility.
- Formalized Goal: 9000 air squats over the course of the next 30 days with a goal of 300 / day.
The beauty of this process is that your “prediction” does not have to be right. In fact it’s often wrong but not only is that okay, it’s necessary. Humans learn by doing and much better to spend a few weeks trying something new and incorrect then doing nothing at all. This process is also great because you now already have your “why” since it’s intrinsically tied back to the problem you are trying to solve.
Put it to work
I hope you find this method of reframing goals as experiments useful. It personally brings me a lot of joy and makes doing hard things a lot more fun.
For those interested, here is a short summary of some of my experiments, results, observations and iterations from January.
The truth is that great things are not achieved by intense bouts of hard work, and you cannot productivity hack your way to success. No "overnight" success stories actually happened overnight. They happened over the course of years of experimenting, tweaking and learning. Think about this next time you set a goal. What lifestyle does that goal necessitate, because that's what you're actually signing up, not the achievement of the goal itself.
Make your life into a laboratory, and fill it with the experiments that inspire you. Happy experimenting.
Mike
- Source 1, Source 2
- For anyone interested in a much more robust process to help you uncover your Why, I love Simon Sinek’s basis for thinking about this. His books Start with Why and the practical follow up hand book Find Your Why are both great resources.
