Jeff Goins's Blog, page 20

Stop Asking “What If?”

I want to ask you a question: What if 2018 was your best year ever? Not best year in a while. Not a pretty good year. But the year that changes everything. Or maybe the year that everything changed…

What does that do in you, when you think about that?

Does it excite you?

Scare you a little?

My best year ever

For years, I set goals and never met them. For a while, I even gave up on goal-setting.

But then a few years ago I discovered a new system for goal-setting called 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever, an online program taught by Michael Hyatt.

Now, full disclosure: Michael is a friend of mine and I’ve known him for years, but when this program came out, I was jaded. I didn’t think it would work for me. I thought it’d be like everything else I’d ever seen on goal-setting—a lot of fluff, but no substance.

I was WRONG.

I followed the lessons in Best Year Ever, and it changed everything.

Not only did it help me achieve my goals, it helped me better understand myself so that I can set the right kind of goals for me, the ones that would actually make me happy.

This past month, I’ve been sharing important life lessons with you (if you missed them, they’re here on the blog); and if these lessons have resonated with you, I urge you to sign up for Best Year Ever.

Now, maybe you’re on the fence. That’s understandable.

If so, I want to offer you a challenge, something someone once shared with me when I was talking about my dreams for a better life. Here’s what my friend said,

What if we stopped saying ‘What if…?’ and started saying ‘Let’s’?

So you want to have your best year ever… right?

What if you lost that weight?
What if you wrote that book?
What if you did all those things you always said you’d do?

And what if to all of the above, you stopped saying “what if?” and just started saying, “Let’s”?

What do you say? Can we make this our best year ever?

Registration for the 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever program ends by midnight tonight (December 19, 2017). Sign up before then so you don’t miss out.

When in Doubt, Be Generous

Well, today is the day where we wrap up this 10-part series. Have you enjoyed it? I sure hope so. I’ve had a blast sharing all this stuff with you.

And if you haven’t checked out Michael Hyatt’s 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever, it has been a sort of unofficial sponsor of this series. It’s the best goal-setting program I’ve ever done, and this is my third year going through it.

I highly recommend it.

Click here to learn how to have your best year ever.

All right, on with the final lesson (you can listen to the audio via the player below):

Lesson 10: Be Generous

Do you know what the biggest secret to a successful life is?

Be generous.

It’s so simple and yet so easy to ignore. Here’s why:

We think that being generous is something we do once we get famous. And that’s not how it works at all.

A friend of mine just shared this:

Anytime I start getting scared of running out of something, I give away something. I have more than enough love, money, work, friendship, food, time, and energy to share. Always.

I agree. The secret to getting more is to give more. The most successful people I know are not hoarders. Quite the opposite, in fact. And here’s my belief on that:

Successful people are not generous because they’re successful. They’re successful because they’re generous.

Certainly, you run across your occasional Scrooges. But in my experience, those people are the exception, not the norm. That’s just what I’ve seen in my whole life, so I’m not speaking for everyone, obviously.

But that’s enough experience to convince me of an important lesson:

When in doubt, be generous.

When you have an opportunity to get versus give, go ahead and give.

Generosity as a growth strategy

I remember starting my blog back in 2010. It wasn’t growing, people weren’t reading, and I wasn’t having fun.

So I decided to shift something. Realizing I wasn’t doing my best work, I decided to do the opposite. I was afraid that if I gave away my best writing on my blog, no one would want to pay me for my best work. But that kind of scarcity thinking wasn’t really working. So I made one simple shift:

I decided to start giving away my best work for free.

Here’s what happens when you do that. Two things, actually:

1. People start to notice when you give your best work away for free.

Why? Because it’s generous. It makes people think, “She gave me all this for free? Wow.”

Not only that, they trust you even more, believing that paying you would bring even greater value.

Which brings me to point #2…

2. You do better work.

Look. You don’t have a ceiling on what you’re capable of. You can keep improving.

When I started giving away A+ content on my blog, I started writing better content. When the time came to write a book, I was a much better writer.

As you give your work away, your capacity to do better work increases. It has to.

So that’s the simple short lesson here today:

“Do your best work for free right now. Give it all away.Tweet thisTweet

But wait a second, Jeff, don’t you say to “never work for free”?

That’s right. In Real Artists Don’t Starve, one of the rules is just that. Don’t work for free. But here’s the catch:

You need to always work for something, and that something doesn’t have to be money.

When you share a photo on Instagram, you are practicing in public. You are putting your work on display for people to see. You aren’t working for free. You’re earning people’s attention.

The same principle applies when you write on your blog for free. You’re working for email subscribers (or at least, you should be).

So, yes. Value your work. But always be generous with it. Give it away in the places where people will pay attention to you.

That doesn’t mean you have to give all your work away or that you can’t charge for what you do at the same time. It just means that when in doubt, it’s almost always a good rule to be generous.

Why?

Because, as my friend said, it sets you free from fear. It makes you a better person.

“Generosity sets you free from fear.Tweet thisTweet

So, pay for that friend’s lunch today when you both awkwardly look at the check. Spend some that extra bit of time (in spite of feeling busy) with someone who is hurting. Give it all away.

I’ve always loved this Annie Dillard quote. It’s about writing, but really, I think it applies to any of us who have a gift to share with the world:

…spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

And when you feel fear telling you this is not a good idea, remember that’s what fear does. It tries to keep you quiet. Anything you hold on to eventually turns to dust.

So, what are you going to give away today? Share in the comments.

Remember to check out 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever. Registration is currently open, but it won’t be for very long. Sign up here.

Stop Trying to Be Famous and Build a Body of Work Instead

These days, it’s easy to be famous. There are more influencers on Instagram than there have ever been famous people in the history of humanity. And our culture just keeps intoxicating us with the allure of more attention, and that it’s an easy thing to chase.

So, yeah. Fame is the easy part. The hard part is to consistently show up every day and do your work. To stay in your lane despite what your peers are doing. To remember that they aren’t your audience.

It’s hard to do this day after day, week after week, year after year. It’s especially hard to do decade after decade.

Note: you can listen to the audio version of this lesson via the player below.

Seth Godin recently shared that he’s never had a viral hit.

Can you believe that?!

One of the Internet’s most influential marketers and longest-running bloggers has never had a huge viral sensation. Is that because he was just unlucky?

I don’t think so. Seth hasn’t gone viral, because going viral is not what Seth is trying to do. He’s trying to connect with you and help you change things. And going viral can sometimes stand in the way of real impact.

“Going viral can stand in the way of real impact.Tweet thisTweet

If you’re wanting more help with goal-setting, I highly recommend Michael Hyatt’s 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever. It’s a process I’ve been going thru these past few years and think it’s simply the best goal-setting program out there.

One-hit wonders fade away

How many one-hit wonders are still making music today?

The answer: very few.

In fact, I know some of these people. Living in Nashville, you start to bump into songwriters and musicians fairly regularly, some of which have experienced astronomical levels of fame at some point.

One friend I have fits this really well. His band used to perform for stadiums of people. Now, they play small dive bars.

And you know what? He’s happier than ever.

For the past two decades, he’s made his living writing songs for other people. He’s written dozens of award-winning songs that have helped other people sell millions of copies. And he’s made a good living doing it.

More than that, he loves what he does.

The big lesson for him was realizing the real reason he was doing his work was not for the fame, but for the thrill of making things.

So when his famous band fell out of the spotlight, as is nearly inevitable for all of us, he got depressed. Really depressed.

Then one day, another musician called him up and asked for his help in writing a song. He went to the studio and saved the day, and he felt alive.

So he did it again. And again. Dozens of times. Decades later, he’s still doing it. I love that!

Lesson 9: Build a body of work

This is what makes a person an artist.

Not a single hit. Not going viral. Not people recognizing you at a conference or a coffee shop. It is the act of making things. Every single day.

It’s no surprise that I think you should build a body of work. That’s why I named my podcast The Portfolio Life. The creative life is one of multiple projects and gigs and crafts that all fit together.

The fun part about a portfolio is that no two portfolios look the same. That is, if it is made up of more than one thing, if it is diverse.

The chances of you becoming famous from a viral hit are slim. But even if it does happen, that’s not enough. Not enough to keep earning a living. Not enough to get you out of bed in the morning. Not enough to keep you fulfilled and alive.

Constantly creating new work, however, is. Some of the work will fail. Some of it will succeed. But if you keep making things, you win.

That’s the goal.

Don’t look at your work as a series of individual pieces that either “go big” or flop. Instead, look at it as a body of work.

Your magnum opus doesn’t have to be a single creation.

“Your magnum opus doesn’t have to be a single creation.Tweet thisTweet

It can be many creations that when all pieced together say something unique that the world has never before heard.

Stop chasing fame. Start building a body of work.

Need help figuring out what kind of portfolio you should be creating? Check out Michael Hyatt’s 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever, which will help you set specific goals for each area of your life. It’s great. I highly recommend it.

How are you building a body of work? What has “going viral” done for you long-term? Share in the comments.

Is “Legacy” Just Another Name for Ego?

I used to think a lot about my funeral. I wanted to do great things and be remembered by people. I wanted them to say nice things about me after I was gone. I thought I was talking about legacy. But really it was all about ego.

Let me tell you a little something about me that is embarrassing to admit:

I care a lot about what people think. I wish I didn’t. But I do.

Note: Click the player below to listen to this lesson.

Recently, I removed all social media channels and even email from my iPhone because I just couldn’t handle the constant feedback loop any more. I was comparing my life to other people’s highlight reels, and it was making me pretty unhappy.

If you were a close friend of mine, at some point, you and I would have gotten into some kind of disagreement that stemmed from a conversation we had or didn’t have in which I mistook something you said as basically you not liking me.

What people think about me, when I’m not emotionally healthy, can plague me.

So naturally, a person with my insecurities would think a lot about “legacy” — what people think about you after you’re gone.

Let me share with you, though, my proudest accomplishment and what I learned from it.

Lesson 8: Focus on impact, not legacy

In college, I was part of our student government and was assigned the task of writing a school Honor Code. This is basically a code of conduct for the student body that says you won’t cheat, etc. This was Sophomore year.

After working with multiple partners on this project, appealing to the students, faculty, and administration multiple times, we finally finished the Honor Code.

It was passed my senior year, the week before graduation.

I’ve written about this before in my book, The Art of Work, where I share that your calling really isn’t about you and that the work you’re meant to do should be bigger than you can do on your own. That’s what I learned from this project.

Once we passed the Honor Code, it needed someone to actually implement it. I entrusted that task to another student — a Sophomore at the time named Josh. And the next year, he helped make the idea of the Honor Code a reality.

Earlier this year, I was visiting my alma mater for a speaking engagement and happened to drop in on a writing class to talk about publishing and such. As I looked around, I noticed at the front of the classroom was a laminated document adhered to the wall.

It was the Honor Code.

My Honor Code.

Except it wasn’t mine at all. My name was nowhere on it. I even asked some students about it and none of them could tell me where it came from or who wrote it.

And you know what?

I loved that. The anonymity of it. The lack of credit. It felt good to create something that helped other people. It felt like the right kind of impact, the kind that makes a life worth living.

Maybe you call that legacy. I call it impact, and as you build the kind of life you’ve always wanted, I want to encourage to do this:

Forget legacy. Do work that matters. Help people. Give away the credit.

It’s way more fun than putting your name a building. Trust me.

“Forget legacy. Do work that matters.Tweet thisTweet

If you want more help with this sort of thing, I recommend you sign up for Michael Hyatt’s goal-setting program 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever.

What are you doing to make an impact? Let me know how it’s going in the comments.

Don’t Get Sophisticated, Stay Scrappy

This month, I’m sharing with you a series on life lessons about success and goal-setting. Today, though, I want to share with you something that surprised me about this process — about actually getting what I wanted and how it disappointed me.

Before we talk about that, though, have you registered yet for Michael Hyatt’s upcoming webinar on goal-setting?

If not, sign up right here to learn the five most common mistakes we make in setting and achieving goals.

All, right, on with the next lesson (you can listen via the player below)

Here’s the secret to continued success…

Lesson 7: Don’t get sophisticated, stay scrappy

One of the things I didn’t expect to learn from this process of setting goals and actually achieving them was that once you get to the mountaintop, you don’t really know what to do.

Nobody prepares you for this. I once wrote about my best year ever, explaining how “I got everything that I thought I wanted and it wasn’t what I thought.”

What do we do when this happens?

I think we ought to remember what got us here in the first place — and maybe that was the point. This goes along with Lesson 4 when we talked about how we should measure the process, not just the results.

In other words, don’t get comfortable. The habits that make you successful are the same ones that allow you to succeed. And although this makes perfect sense, many of us forget this.

We achieve a little bit of success, think much of ourselves, and forget to keep practicing. We get lazy, and as a result, we lose the very thing we worked so hard to attain.

But wait. Haven’t you heard the saying, “what got you here won’t get you there”? I think there’s even a book about that. And that’s true… sometimes.

Don’t get comfortable

Some things do change when you succeed.

But a lot of things don’t.

Take relationships, for example. When you started dating someone, you do everything you can to be around that person. Maybe you write letters or emails or send them text messages. In my case, I wrote songs for the girl who captured my heart (and eventually married her).

But at some point, we get comfortable. Lazy. We take each other for granted, and the relationship starts to stagnate. We’re busy; it’s easy to find an excuse to not spend time together. Because, we think, that person will always be there.

What do we do when we recognize this pattern?

If we’re smart, we go back to the basics, to what got us here in the first place. We date our spouses again. We pursue them. We start writing letters and songs and sending text messages that say “I love you” for no reason at all.

Sometimes what got you here is the only thing that will keep you here.

The same is true with success.

At the beginning, we tend to strive and hustle and work ourselves to the bone. And we love it. It’s fun. Exciting, even. We have all this energy and passion — it’s almost infectious.

But at some point, we achieve our goals. We get what we wanted. And for whatever reason, we think the rules change. We get sophisticated.

It is in these moments when we must discipline ourselves to stay scrappy.

I remember working so hard in 2012 to make enough money to quit my job and write full-time. Then, as soon as I got what I wanted, I stopped writing for three months.

Why?

It’s because I thought that once you achieve a goal, the work somehow becomes easier. That’s rarely true.

Again, I will say it: what got you here, keeps you here. Stay hungry.

“What got you here, keeps you here.Tweet thisTweet

Look. I’m not saying you can’t relax or enjoy your achievements. Just don’t get lazy and entitled about it. Stay humble. It makes you more likeable and allows you to more easily notice your blind spots.

Don’t forget to register for Michael Hyatt’s live training on goal-setting here.

Are you enjoying this free series on getting the life you’ve always wanted? You can catch up the previous lessons here:

Lesson 1: Find your who
Lesson 2: Decide not to drift
Lesson 3: Set habits, not goals
Lesson 4: Measure the process
Lesson 5: Seek feedback, ignore criticism
Lesson 6: Run your own race

What habit or behavior do you need to keep practicing? Share in the comments).

Avoid the Comparison Trap and Run Your Own Race

This is Lesson 6 in our 10-part series on getting what you really want out of life. We’re talking goals, dreams, and calling — all stuff I love.

I’ve been sharing my story of not only becoming a writer but learning a lot of other lessons — like the importance of not comparing myself to others. “Run your own race” has become a bit of a mantra to me lately.

Sidenote: if you’re enjoying this series, check out one of Michael Hyatt’s upcoming live trainings on goal-setting. He is the Grand Poobah of this stuff, and I’ve learned so much from him. Click here to see a list of dates and times.

Also, if you need to get caught up on this series, here are the previous lessons (including audio versions with some bonus material):

Lesson 1: Find your who
Lesson 2: Decide not to drift
Lesson 3: Set habits, not goals
Lesson 4: Measure the process
Lesson 5: Seek feedback, ignore criticism

All right. On with the next one…

Note: To listen to the audio of this lesson, click the player below.

Lesson 6: Run your own race

The other day, I posted something snarky on Facebook:

“So how do you use social media without hating everyone?”

To be honest, I was just venting. I’m a pretty insecure person and can easily get jealous of what other people are doing. And I wanted to know if I was the only one who did that.

I received a lot of interesting responses.

One person told me to pray more. Another person told me to unfriend everyone. But one person said this:

Just remember that everyone deep down just wants to feel loved and important. Anything you see stems from that.

I loved that, because that’s what I want. To feel loved and important. And usually, I feel pretty good about my life — my goals, my dreams, my accomplishments — until I see someone doing better than me.

I know not everyone is this way, but I am. It’s a sickness, I think — this fear of missing out, the comparison trap we often find ourselves in.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Sure, ignoring people helps some of the time. But sometimes, it’s just hard to ignore everyone all the time.

About a year ago, I learned a crucial lesson. I was drowning in stress and overcome with resentment about my situation. On the outside, I looked like I was winning: I had a seven-figure business, a bestselling book, and hundreds of thousands of fans. But inside, I was miserable.

All I could think about was what I wasn’t doing. What I wasn’t achieving. What I had to yet to do. And it was eating me up inside.

A number of people helped me get out of that funk, and I detail all of it here in this article.

I am now a lot healthier and happier. But I can still drift into the comparison mode and find myself not enjoying what I’m doing.

There’s one simple phrase that I’ve held onto all this time. It was given to me by a friend who was desperately trying to beat everyone around him in a marathon (like, a literal marathon), and one of the people he was running beside shouted at him:

Run your own race.

That’s become a sort of mantra for me. I don’t have to compare myself to other people, because we are all playing different games. That’s the fun part. We get to choose the games we play, the crafts we want to master.

When I hear a friend sharing about his biggest month ever, I can quietly tell myself: “Run your own race.”

When I see someone’s highlight reel on Facebook, I don’t have to be mad or assume they’re lying. I can just remind myself that this is not my life. What someone else is doing has no bearing on what I do. That’s their race. I need to run my own.

And when I worry about not doing enough and really not being enough, I can quietly say to myself:

This is your race. Run it well.

Because, really, that’s what we all want, isn’t it? To do the thing that only we can do — and to do it well.

So if you struggle with comparison and jealousy as I do, let me say to you:

“Run your own race.Tweet thisTweet

There’s really nothing else for you to do. Cover bands don’t change the world, as my friend Todd Henry likes to say. And you won’t change anything trying to be someone else.

Let me say that again:

You won’t change anything trying to be someone else.

Run your own race.

See you at the finish line.

How do you run your own race well? You start by setting smarter goals. Learn how to do that in this free live training Michael Hyatt is hosting.

Where are you at in your race? How can you run better in the New Year? Share in the comments.

You Can Be a Critic or a Creator (But You Have to Choose One)

“It is not the critic who counts.”

–Theodore Roosevelt

Recently, a friend recently released a book with the disclaimer, “If you don’t like it, write your own book.” I love that.

We live in an age when criticism is easy. It’s expected. But is it necessary?

One of my favorite things on the Internet lately is a clip from the Howard Stern Show when a listener calls in to offer some “constructive criticism.”

Howard politely interrupts the critique saying, “not necessary.”

The listener is flabbergasted. He’s offended, insisting that Howard needs his feedback.

The seasoned shock jock curtly replies,

If I listened to feedback, I’d have quit on Day 1.

I used to say that feedback is always a gift, but is it always? I’m not so sure anymore.

Note: You can listen to the audio of this lesson by clicking the player below.

Lesson 5: Seek feedback, ignore criticism

Less than a month ago, I issued a challenge to some friends to make and share one new thing per day for 30 days. We called it the “practice in public” challenge based on an idea in one of my books.

The idea was this: Professionals make things every day and then they share them. That’s how they get better — by making things.

“Professionals make things every day and then they share them.Tweet thisTweet

Amateurs, on the other hand, wait for their big break and hide in the shadows until someone discovers them. Incidentally, they are the ones who are quick to criticize those making things.

Which one would you rather be: the brave creator, or the cowering critic?

The only question that counts

As part of this challenge, I ask one simple question on a daily basis: “What have you made today?” It’s an important question, one we get to ask twice:

First, we ask this question to ourselves because before we do anything, before we attempt to lead or offer advice or criticize, we must first get in the game.

Second, we can ask this of others. Everyone, in fact.

You don’t actually have to confront these people, though sometimes that may be necessary. But you should at least be asking this on the inside.

That critic?
That rude neighbor?
That argumentative in-law who has an opinion about everything?

What have they made lately?

Are they doing the work? Are they braving the abyss, facing the fear of creation, and making something? Are they enduring the years it takes to bridge the Taste-Talent Gap and finally be as good as they hope?

Or are they just dispensing feedback for the sake of being heard? Are they offering empty advice without having earned the right to share that advice? Are they a critic, not a creator?

If so, I dare you to kindly reply, “not necessary.”

It’s not necessary to say you didn’t like my book.

It’s not necessary to tell me what you think I should be doing differently.

It’s just not necessary.

I have resources for that, people whose opinions I trust and value, those I know have my best interests in mind.

These days, we live in an age where virtually anyone can share their opinion with anyone. And so, we tend to treat all opinions as equal. But they are not. In fact, some opinions should matter to you very little.

And when you hear someone voice one of those opinions, you can just say, “not necessary.”

Or even better: Ignore them entirely and just keep doing your work.

Want some help with this? Make sure you hit the ground running in 2018 by identifying 5 common goal-setting mistakes in this free live training.

What have you made lately? Let me know in the comments, and please share this with a friend who’s doing the work.

Measure the Process, Not the Results

NOTE: This is part of a series of personal lessons on life, success, and goal-setting as a way of ending the year on a reflective note. To catch up, you can read lessons below.

Lesson 1: Find your who
Lesson 2: Decide not to drift
Lesson 3: Set habits, not goals

My friend Michael Hyatt is hosting a free live training on how to actually achieve your goals for 2018. Learn more about it here.

Okay, now let’s get into it:

NOTE: To listen to the audio of the lesson, click the player below.

Lesson 4: Measure the Process, Not the Results

Most of my life, I’ve felt like a loser.

I know that sounds harsh, but it’s true. I’ve just never felt good enough.

When I played soccer as a chubby little ten-year-old, I was too slow to score any goals, so my dad (who was the coach) had me play defense.

That year, I won the “Most Improved Player” award. This, in a way, is a pretty good metaphor for my life: good, but not great. Solid effort, Jeff. Nice try.

In Sixth Grade, I got my first real taste of greatness by winning the school spelling bee. The winning word was “acquiescence,” and the eighth grader who lost allegedly cried the entire bus ride home.

It was the only time I ever made an eighth grader cry, and to be honest, it felt good. To beat somebody. To win. To not be a loser.

The next year, I didn’t practice at all and lost to a sixth grader. The losing word was “flourishing.”

Most of my life has been like this: one step forward, one step back. Make a little progress, then regress.

Measure the chase

It’s not until recently that I’ve learned why I do this. I set goals, accomplish them, then slowly start to sabotage myself.

Do you know why we humans do this?

Because we don’t believe we deserve success. That can mean whatever you want, but the reason we get a little bit of happiness or money or influence and then squander it is because, deep down inside, we don’t feel worthy of such things.

Now, the reasons we do this are complicated and you should probably talk to a therapist about them (I do), but I want to offer a simple way that you don’t have to feel like a loser.

It’s so easy and yet almost no one does this:

“Stop measuring the results, and start measuring the process.Tweet thisTweet

Want to feel healthy? Great. You can set a goal to “lose 10 pounds” or whatever, but don’t fixate on the outcome. Research proves that we humans don’t love accomplishing results as much as we love chasing results.

So what should you do?

Measure the chase, of course.

How you achieve something is vastly more important than whether or not you achieve it.

For example, you can lose 10 pounds by starving yourself for a week, but that will slow your metabolism down and likely cause you to gain more weight in the long run. It’s an unsustainable practice.

The same goes for setting a goal of writing a book. If you sprint through NaNoWriMo and complete your first novel but haven’t developed the daily discipline of working on your writing, it’s unlikely that you will continue being able to write great stuff.

What I’m talking about here is habits, practices, and process.

Celebrate the process

So, what should you do about that weight loss goal? Measure the thing that you’re doing to get healthier. Did you go for a walk today? Eat enough vegetables? Stay under your caloric goal for the day? Then you should feel good about that.

What about that writing goal? Did you write your 500 words today? Great!

Time to celebrate!

After my second book came out, The In-Between, it didn’t do as well as my first two books.

I remember sitting on my back porch, texting a mentor of mine, saying how let down I felt, expecting him to commiserate with me. Here’s what he said:

“There was a time when where you are sitting now seemed out of reach. Rejoice, my friend. Rejoice!”

Look. I don’t know much about anything. I’ve been a loser my whole life, remember? But I do know this:

If you cannot celebrate the process, you won’t be able to enjoy the outcome.

So start measuring the process.

A great way to start doing that would be to attend Michael Hyatt’s upcoming training on goal-setting. Click here to reserve your spot.

What are you working on right now? How can you celebrate the process? Share in the comments.

Set Habits, Not Goals

For the next few weeks, I’m doing something different and sharing 10 simple lessons with you on how to get the life you want. Think of this as a free, crash course on setting goals and achieving them.

If you missed the previous installments, check them out here:

Lesson 1 – Find Your Who
Lesson 2 – Decide Not to Drift

Once you’re caught up, here’s the next one.

NOTE: To listen to the audio of the lesson, click the player below.

Lesson 3: Don’t Set Goals

For years I set goals and never achieved them. It was horrible.

I’d write them on scraps of paper, put them in a drawer, and forget about them.

What’s the saying? A goal without a plan is just a dream?

Well, I like to dream… a little too much.

But I like accomplishing things even more.

Note: If you’d like to attend a free webinar on how to set goals and actually achieve them, click here.

For the greater part of a decade, I would set goals — I mean, dreams — and never achieve them. I was drifting through my life, fantasizing about living another way but doing nothing to make that fantasy a reality.

Honestly, I didn’t know how.

Eventually, I got so burnt-out that I just gave up the entire process. Resolutions, goals, dreams — those were for suckers. I was content to just live my life without any big ambitions.

Except that I wasn’t.

Secretly, I was disappointed with my life and with myself for building such a life. I felt trapped and didn’t know how to make things better.

What’s worse, I was certain the problem was me, so that led to feelings of shame and inadequacy. If only I could just not want anything, I thought. But that didn’t seem to work, either.

Start small to get big results

Eventually, I got sick of feeling this way. I got tired of dreaming. I wanted to be doing. So I started small — not with a goal or a resolution, not even a dream, but with simple habits.

I started running every morning because after a few years of newlywed home cooking, I was getting fat.
I started writing every morning because I figured that’s what real writers did, and I wanted to be a real writer.
I started carving out little blocks of time to work on the things that mattered most to me.

And gradually, these little habits grew into a part of my daily practice. They became the thing that made me feel like me.

I distinctly remember one morning getting up before dawn, running five miles, eating breakfast, taking a shower, and sitting down with my cup of coffee and writing 1000 words — all before 7:00 a.m.

Who was this person I had become?

It felt good.

In fact, it felt so good I never stopped doing it.

And those little habits changed my life.

The power of daily habits

That year of writing made me a better writer. It helped me build an audience. It even led to a book deal and successful writing career that continues to astound me.

This didn’t happen, because I set some goals and forgot about them. It happened because I learned the importance of habits. I got serious about what I wanted to see happen and worked that into my daily life.

This was something I learned from my friend Michael Hyatt who is probably the most disciplined and organized person I know. He crushes goals. And I was amazed to hear that he reviews his goals on a daily basis.

I guess that makes sense. Once I learned the power of daily habits, I started setting goals again.

And you know what? It’s been years since I’ve set a goal that I haven’t achieved.

It’s possible to get the life you’ve always wanted, to set big goals and achieve them, as long as you understand this isn’t magic. It just requires daily practice.

To get free help on setting goals, check out this free training Michael Hyatt is hosting.

It’s been said that you are not what you do, and I believe that. But here’s the thing: we become what we practice. As Annie Dillard once said,

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

What you do today defines what you become a year — or even a decade — from now.

Spend it wisely.

How are you spending your days? What is one of your daily habits? Share in the comments.

How to Not Drift Through Life and Get What You Really Want

This month, I’m writing a mini-series for readers on how to get the life you’ve always dreamed of. If you missed Lesson 1, you can go read (and listen to) it here.

Maybe “the life you’ve always dreamed of” sounds fluffy to you, but I promise you it doesn’t have to be. I’m sharing short, practical and personal lessons with you on what I’ve learned from finding my life’s purpose and living it out on a daily basis, along with all the struggles along the way.

If you haven’t already done so, take the LifeScore™ Assessment to clarify what’s most important in your life, and how to tangibly create the life of your dreams and achieve your biggest goals.

All of us have room to grow in this area, but knowing where you stand is a necessary first step before that growth happens.

To listen to the audio of the lesson, which includes some bonus commentary from me, click the player below.

Lesson 2: Decide Not to Drift

Have you ever noticed how some people just seem to drift through life, without direction or purpose? Maybe you’ve noticed that about your own life.

I did this for nearly 10 years. It made me miserable. I kept complaining to my wife about what I really wanted to do but was too afraid to do.

It reminds me of a time when I was about six years old, afraid to go outside and play with the other kids. My family and I were living in a small apartment near Aurora, Illinois, and I was so shy that instead of going outside to play with the other kids that summer, I stayed indoors.

But whenever the other kids from the apartment complex would run around the courtyard, I’d chase them from one end of the duplex unit to the other, running from window to window so that I didn’t miss a thing.

Of course, I was missing everything. And I wanted to be out there playing with them, but I was scared. Scared to leave the comfort of home. Scared to step out. Scared to be rejected.

But one day, my mom (who was probably annoyed at a hyper little boy racing around her house when he should have been outside that summer) sat me down and said,

Jeff, if you want a friend, you have to be a friend.

She taught me that if I wanted people know and like me then I had to make the first move. I’ve never forgotten that lesson.

Often in life, we’re waiting for someone else to make the first move.

We’re stuck inside, watching others participate in the game but never taking the bold move to join in. We’re hoping someone invites us in, hoping we don’t have to do the messy work of asking or simply showing up.

But that’s not how life works. At least not for me. Maybe you are different. Maybe you got invited to all the parties in high school and all the girls (or guys) wanted to go out with you and you never had to deal with awkwardness or rejection or fear.

But I did.

And as someone who’s deal with that, I can tell you. It’s easier to just not put yourself through it. Easier, but not better.

Sail your ship

There’s that old saying: “A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not what a ship is built for.” The same is true of you. I believe that there is work that you need to do in this life. Important work. Work that only you can do.

But it won’t just happen. You can’t just drift through life and create the change you want. It’s going to take work and intentionality. You’re going to have sometimes swim against the current and brave the onslaught of the waves. You might even get dashed upon the rocks on occasion.

So it’s anything but safe. But this is what you were made for. This is why you are here.

“Don’t squander your life by living in the shadow of comfort.Tweet thisTweet

Step out into the light, become your true self, and decide not to drift.

If you haven’t already taken your LifeScore™ Assessment to see where you rank in terms of how well you’re living up to your potential, you can do so here. It’s totally free and a great self-discovery tool. I love it!

How have you drifted from your goals? What is one step you can take to get back on track? Share in the comments.