Tag: how to achieve your goals

The first and most important goal to set for the new year.

We are 360 days into 2022. Which means the end of the year is near. For those who get the number of days in a year confused with the number of degrees in a circle, you may be thinking that tonight is New Year’s Eve. It is not.

However, within the next 5 days, we will ring in 2023. Which is exciting. It’s even more exciting to bust into the new year with a new set of annual goals. In fact, there is almost nothing more exciting than a new list of goals. Because those goals represent a new and better you. A you who is fitter, richer, happier, and maybe more sober or less cigarettey than the current you.

I am a huge fan of setting goals to become a better human. Setting goals has helped me Rumpelstiltskin my ambitions into accomplishments.

A few examples:

  • Goal setting is how I broke my high school, conference and state records in the discus.
  • Goal setting is how I became an entrepreneur and launched the advertising and idea agency The Weaponry. (Goal setting also helped my team launch our new agency website by the end of 2022. We haven’t announced it yet, but if you click the hyperlink above you will be the very first people to see it live.)
  • Goal setting is how I publish a new blog post at least 3 times every week.
  • Goal setting is how I wrote my first book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? And my second book The Culture Turnaround, with Jeff Hilimire.
  • Goal setting is why today my weight is within 1 pound of what I weighed when I graduated from high school.
  • Goal setting has enabled me to steadily increase my net worth.
  • Goal setting drives me to read a whole mess of new books every year.
  • Goal setting has kept me off the pole. (That and a lack of requests to actually see me on a pole.)

Goal #1

All of my successful goal setting has taught me that there is one goal that you should set first. A goal that will make it easier to achieve all of your other goals. Here it is:

Surround yourself with people who are already doing what you want to do.

There is nothing more valuable to achieving your goals than to spend time with others who have already achieved that goal, or who are fully committed to doing it now.

The gravitational pull of humans on other humans is very strong. And like a Peleton in a bike race, the group will pull the individual along. (Which also means that if everyone else is wearing spandex and doping, you are highly likely to too. Right Lance?)

  • The best chance to keep your fitness goals is to surround yourself with fit and health-committed friends.
  • The best way to write a book is to surround yourself with published authors. (And pens.)
  • The best way to get rich is to spend time with rich people.
  • The best way to become more positive is to hang out with other positive people.
  • The best way to become a better spouse and parent is to spend time with great spouses and parents.
  • The best way to get rid of tan lines is to hang out at a nudist colony.

Key Takeaway

Peer groups are like trains. You are highly likely to go where those around you are going. So when you set your goals, make sure you get on the right train. Surround yourself with the right people. People who are committed to going where you want to go. It is the most important step on your journey. And it is the key to arriving at your chosen destination on time.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

Why adults should tap into the power of playing Pretend.

When I was a kid we didn’t have electronics. Check that, we had one television in our living room. It had no remote control, so you had to get up and go to the TV to change the channel and volume, or to fix the vertical hold. I didn’t have any video games. Our only phone was wired to the wall. And the only fun things you could do with the phone was prank call your friends, or dial 867-5309 and ask for Jenny.

The Pretender

As a result of my Amish-ish youth, I had to find other ways to fill my time. One of my go-to activities was playing Pretend. It worked like this: I pretended I was someone else with a more interesting life than my own. That’s pretty much it.

My pretending covered a wide range of roles. Sometimes I pretended to be a farmer, doctor, astronaut, or soldier. Other times I pretended to be a professional athlete or a cowboy. I used to pretend to run a chapel in my basement. And my older sister Heather and I even used to regularly play (wait for it…) Brother and Sister! We played together the way we saw brothers and sisters play on TV, or in the movies. Which meant that we got along better and did way more adventurous stuff.

Today I am full-grown-ish, yet I still play Pretend. Because I now recognize that if you play Pretend long enough, and really commit to the part, you can make things happen for real.

How it has worked for me.

College

In college at The University of Wisconsin, I pretended I was going to be an advertising creative. So I declared a major in journalism to learn about writing, strategic communications, and the other isms behind journals. I also declared a psychology major, because I wanted to know more about human thinking and motivation. I realized that declaring a major is simply a fancy name for playing Pretend. Just like kilt is a fancy name for man-skirt.

Entrepreneurship

In 2015, at the height of my employed career, I started pretending I was an entrepreneur, and that I owned my own advertising agency. So I started doing all the things I thought entrepreneurs do. I read books about launching and running businesses. I hung out with successful entrepreneurs. I wrote down all my plans. And I talked to people as if I was a real entrepreneur. Suddenly, real people started asking me if I could do work for them with my pretend business. When that happened, my pretend business instantly became a real business. Just like Pinocchio became a real boy. No lie. And no strings attached. Today that business is called The Weaponry.

Blogging

About the same time, I also pretended that I was a blogger. So I did what I thought real bloggers did. I went to a blogging website called WordPress.com, I created a pretend blog, and I started writing pretend posts. Then, after I had written 5 of those, I started publishing them. Within minutes people started reading them. You, my reader-friend, are proof that I am a real blogger. Because you are most certainly a real reader. (Maybe you could write ‘Real Reader’ in the comments to confirm my Real Reader hypothesis.) My blog has now been read in nearly 130 countries around the world. (Because there aren’t 130 countries crowded into one part of the world).

No ending to the pretending.

Today, I am playing Pretend more than ever. Over the past year, I have pretended to be a cartoonist, an author, a community organizer, a high school track coach, an investor, an employee of a tech start-up, a t-shirt maker, and the owner of a food business. All of these things that I have pretended to be are now in various stages of reality. Just like Kanye West.

What About You?

Are you pretending to be who you really want to be? Are you pretending to do the things you really want to do? It’s easier than you think. Just act like you did when you were a child. You knew what to do then. Simply do the same thing now. And if you pretend all the way, you will get all the way to what you were pretending to be. Just like Jackson Browne. Or Chrissie Hynde.

Key Takeaway

Never stop pretending. It is the first step to creating. It is how you activate your beliefs, manifest your dreams, and live into your vision. Because when you pretend hard enough everyone will take you seriously. Including yourself.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.