What Is Goal Setting? A Simple System for Leaders

0:03Welcome to Leadership DNA, a podcast for those who aspire to be a better leader. Alongside Arturo Gomez, I'm Rob Cressy. Today's topic, goal setting in this one is oh so big and important. And I actually believe this is going to be the most impactful episode that we do. So Arturo, let's start with this. What is goal setting?

0:26I mean, well, I think it's establishing some benchmarks, some places, a position, ambition, aspirations, and going after it, setting some type of cadence towards this vision of where we want to be. And I think it's always associated with some type of form, some form of improvement. I think we, I think we vastly speak about goals, predominantly in the business space, but it's, you know, there's, there's obvious for obvious reasons, I think that we all should be paying attention to both any goals that we have in our particular businesses or in that corporate space. And then obviously goals that we have for ourselves as, as individuals and personal desires that we want to achieve.

1:13And I believe that second part that you just said is one of the most overlooked things that people do not do is we're accustomed in a business setting to have goals. Anybody who's in sales has a sales number or a quota that you want to hit, but how many of us have life goals, family goals, fitness goals?

1:33And for me, it becomes intentionality. Every little bucket that you have in your life, you want to be intentional about. So let's start to think about what are the goals that we have for each of these things. And we're going to dig so much deeper into this, but one question I want us to all ask ourselves is, do we have goals in things other than just business?

1:56Yeah, I think the, I think the, well, I'll speak for myself, right? I, you know, I certainly do. And I think that a good majority of the people that I, that I deal with or that are in my inner circle, I would say that do as well. But I think, you know, to your point there's not enough people that really speak about their personal goals on an ongoing basis.

2:17I think it's customary towards the end of the year, people are saying, you know, what's my new year's resolution going to be or how am I going to, how I'm, how am I going to approach the year? You know, traditionally you have people kind of going into January with some gusto and a ton of emphasis and effort on, you know, the vast majority of it is surrounding fitness and personal finances and stuff like that.

2:40You know, we ended up finding that, you know, towards the end of the first quarter around April, the wheels start coming off. And so, you know, these goals are fantastic ways for us to kind of motivate ourselves to achieve the things that we're looking to achieve, but it takes, it takes some rigor and it takes some commitment to make sure that we're adhering to the process. And then it also takes some flexibility.

3:05I mean, you have to be somewhat flexible towards getting to the goal because certain things are going to arise and certain things are going to happen. But I don't think that people can actually use that as an excuse. You know, you have to, you may have to work harder. You may have to find different solutions to getting to those goals.

3:28But I think having personal goals, whether it's, you know, that kind of attaches to your personal relationships, whether it's your family or friends is something really important. So actually that's a great segue. So let's talk about why it is important because this is a benchmark of where we want to go in all of the different buckets of our lives.

3:51And it's hard for us to know where we're going or when we got there, if we don't know what the end point is. And I know through my own journey, goal setting is something that you might have to mature into. You hear it just talked about nonstop. And if you're someone who hasn't set goals or hasn't written down goals, it can seem like such a difficult thing because you throw this arbitrary number out, but it doesn't mean anything to you.

4:19And you mentioned the word commitment, and it's such an important thing that you want to commit to these goals. But at the same time, I think it's also very important to realize these goals are here to serve you. What we do not want to have happen is for you to create this goal that you put out there and then you don't hit it. And then all of a sudden you're feeling negative about yourself because why in the world would we ever do something that makes us feel bad about ourselves? What this should be is a rudder, a due north for you.

4:49And we're actually going to get to that, how we work on it in a second. But when you set stretch goals, it is the journey that is more important. It's actually not the goal itself. It is the everyday actions that you're going to take for that goal because a lot of people, and certainly with the time that we're in right now with the pandemic, they can feel a little lost without a rudder. Rob, Arturo, I don't know where I'm going right now. Well, goal setting is a great opportunity for you to help set that rudder.

5:17If nothing else, then you've taken one positive step forward towards improvement. Maybe you don't hit it, but that doesn't matter because it is better than if you don't have this. So talk about why you believe this is important. Yeah, I mean, I think there's obviously two sides to this. And we're talking about kind of personal and career-based goals and aspirations, visions, whatever.

5:44I think we spoke about it, I think, in our second podcast. I mean, you have to have personal goals and commitments to improvement because if your desire is to be a strong leader, you have to really kind of put yourself in the best possible position. And that means that you have to have a strong commitment to improving. You have to have a strong commitment to being the best version of yourself.

6:09And so I think that for many people, that conversation or that goal or those goals are different. Some people want to be able to run 10 miles a day. Some people want to be closer to their families and have more dialogue with the people that they love. There's a lot of different things that fall into that. And I think that anybody's goals or commitments are fantastic. I think the main goal that you should have is how do you improve?

6:39How do you improve? How do you become a better version of yourself in that process? And then with business goals, I mean, I think, you know, to your point, there's a lot of question marks right now that, I mean, the smartest people on the planet can't tell you what's going to happen in four months. That there's just too many variables associated with how life is unfolding before us with, you know, with COVID and is the vaccine coming? What impact is that going to have and when?

7:09And so I think that you should still have, you know, to me, the goals are always associated with vision. And we had a long conversation about vision, you know, in previous episode. But so I think you still have to have a dream. You still have to have a goal. You still have to have a vision of where you want to be in and, you know, the current state of the world, you know, obviously plays a part in that. And I think that we still have to have some basis in reality. But I don't think that we should be derailed.

7:39Actually, I think that we should still maintain, you know, the dream and the desire. And I think that creating these goals, it's OK to say, hey, I'd like to be somewhere in three years, four years, five years. I'm a big advocate of, you know, let's talk about a year. Let's talk about 12 months. And even then, I think that you have to it's required that you have constant check ins to be able to get there.

8:06So you have to deconstruct, really kind of deconstruct these goals and say, you know, I want to I want to make a million dollars or I want to get in better shape. Well, every day there's there's certain things that are required to actually achieve that that process. And so. So, yeah, I think it's I mean, there's there's two sides to it. There's obviously the personal side and the commitment that we're making to our careers and to our businesses.

8:30So both approached, you know, I think in similar ways and and, you know, some are a little bit different, but I think they're both necessary. And and people shouldn't get derailed from it and shouldn't be unmotivated by the fact that there are some unknowns in front of us. And I want to talk about the time frame side of things, because I had a friend of mine who runs an agency in Georgia reach out to me and say, Rob, with all the uncertainty from the pandemic, I'm curious to hear about how you're setting goals. Are you doing it on a one year timeline like you just mentioned, or are you doing it on a 90 day basis? And my answer to that on my end is a little from column A and a little from column B.

9:13I will be having one year goals, but at the same time, and this is actually something that was new to me in the back half of 2020 was I'll be setting 90 day goals because there are a lot more tangible. And I guess for the lack of a better term, controllable a year from now, we don't know what's going to happen. And a great example of this is heading into 2020. One of my goals was to have dual living in Chicago and New York.

9:41Reason being is I had a lot of business going on in New York. I wanted to move to Brooklyn. I loved it. I've always loved the transient lifestyle of bopping around to both places and building the life that I dream of. So I'm like, boom, I'm going to be moving to New York. This is going to be awesome back and forth. Well, guess what? But March comes and here comes the pandemic. You know where the last place in the United States is right now that I would want to live? New York.

10:07So something that was a life altering thing, living in New York or not living in New York is going to change a lot of things. Well, guess what? I couldn't foresee that happening. So that's an example of a one year goal that I set that isn't going to happen. But on the flip side, if we shrink this in the 90 days and what I really liked about what you said with the one year goal, Arturo, is now we've got to start working backwards. So if we think about a one year goal, you say, all right, well, what is it going to take for me to actually accomplish this thing?

10:36So now we're going to be intentional about those steps and those steps can get broken down into little 90 day nuggets. So if you're sitting there on a 90 day goal, now you say, all right, well, what is it that I need to accomplish this month in order to make that happen? And then you go backwards and you say, well, if I want to accomplish that this month, what do I need to accomplish this week? And then once again, if I want to accomplish this this week, what do I need to do today? And what ends up happening is this layers up.

11:02What you do today blends into this week, blends into this month, blends into this quarter, blends into this year. And it's like one of those Russian nesting dolls or whatever that just keep on you, open them and it's just smaller, smaller. But that's how I'm going to be thinking about this because it's going to allow me to have vision, but at the same time be extremely tactical about the things that I can do in this moment to move things forward.

11:29What are your thoughts on 90 days versus a year for this upcoming year? Yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, kind of as I mentioned, I mean, you have to, you know, you can create a vision or a goal or aspirations that are further out in time. You will never, ever get there unless it's completely deconstructed in a way that allows you to actually have some method of keeping yourself on track. I mean, you know, saying that you want to be here in a year or two years down the road doesn't you, the only, in my opinion, really, the only way to get there is it's, it's daily and it's weekly check-ins.

12:16In terms of your performance. And so, you know, the easiest way to, to think about it is, you know, if it's a particular sales target or a particular growth in business, there's steps that are required. It could be five, it could be a hundred that are going to actually get you closer to that particular goal.

12:36Whether it's cold emails, whether it's cold calls, whether it's networking, whether it's whatever the, that list is that comprises, you know, the, you know, the steps towards that goal. You have to actually have a commitment to those specific little pieces. And that involves a daily, there's a daily process. Yeah. You can skip a day. You can skip two days, but every day that you skip is, you know, there's a potential, there's a potential loss there, or it needs to be made up in some way, shape or form. I love what you said. So let's actually get to the daily side of things. I'm going to give something extremely tactical. So we always hear the people who write down their goals are significantly more likely to actually achieve them.

13:20Well, if we know that, and you just talked about that, if you do it every day, if you skip some days, but for me, I write down my goals every single day, right in the morning as part of my morning routine. And sometimes in the 10 X planner that I use, there's a space for the goals in the morning and at the night. Why in the world would I do that? Because step one in my morning routine, I'm reaffirming the goals that I have for myself every single morning.

13:48So there is no me getting off course when every single day I'm seeing the same thing over and over again. Then on the flip side, when I do it twice a day, I'm writing it at night. Why am I doing that? So now when I go to bed, boom, it's sitting there working in my head. I wake up the next morning, boom, I'm writing those goals down again. Again, because when you have dreams and goals as big as I do, you want to be fanatical about it. You want to be so committed. And there's a term that I use often. Are you interested or are you committed?

14:17People who are interested, they talk about it, but then they say, you know what? I've been thinking about it for a year and a half. They don't get to something. When you're committed, boom, there's a 100% chance I'm making this happen. And another thing you said, well, what if you miss a day or two? I heard a great phrase or quote that essentially said, your decisions that you make on a daily basis are reaffirming the strongest version of you.

14:42So if you decide that you're not going to work out, well, you're actually affirming the person who says, I don't want to work out. So when you skip those days on your goals, you're essentially saying to yourself, you know what? The version of me who doesn't like writing down my goals, that's not the strongest belief that I have. On the flip side, when you're someone who writes down your goals every single day, you're reaffirming to yourself that the strongest belief you have is I'm the person who writes down my goals every single day.

15:10I'm curious what you do from a writing or reading standpoint on a regular basis. Yeah. I mean, I think it's, you know, I definitely keep a strong notebook, I would say. I think that there's things that I'm going to be approaching moving into this new year that are probably going to be a little bit more rigorous in terms of identifying where I stand with regards to those particular goals on a daily basis. I think that's the biggest thing that people kind of lose sight of.

15:38And I think I'm also somebody that has, you know, oftentimes fallen victim to that. I'd say that I, you know, probably have a strong compass that mentally resides in inside of me that really kind of keeps me on track. And then I use, you know, obviously my notebook and writing things down and various other forms of technology to kind of keep me on track.

16:04But, you know, journaling and writing things down and kind of really reminding yourself of these commitments that you've said that you want to make on a daily basis, exactly what you said is for a lot of people. That's the work that's required to actually get to where it is that you want to go. And so, you know, I think that the other thing that's important is that people should understand that really, you know, in my opinion, there's not that much that's unattainable. There's a formula. There actually is a formula to everything. And, you know, if you want to become a standup comic, there's a process to that. And you got to put in your time and you got to put in the work. And no one's ever said that anything is without work. I mean, everything that you want to accomplish in life, whether it's personal or professional, none of it's free. There is nothing for free.

16:59And so everything requires work. And some things are insanely difficult, but there is a process to getting there. And there's a commitment. And, you know, to the point you were making that most of these things require for you to actually put yourself in that mindset early in the day and, you know, get those things knocked out. And if you can get those things knocked out, stand a much better chance of getting to where it is that you want to go. And if you have some additional free time, then go ahead.

17:29You can get distracted. You can do the other things that you may want to do. Um, but you should hold that commitment towards your personal goals or professional goals. Um, for sure. It's a, it's a must. And remember, we can control our actions, but not the timeline in which things happen. So often go back and listen to our episode about patience. You need to exercise some patience because so often we're very anxious for this goal to happen on any area of our life. I want it to happen. Why isn't it happening sooner? Why isn't it happening sooner?

17:58Don't worry about that. You can't control that, but what you can control is your actions. And some things that I want to add onto this that I do, um, is at the end of every day, I write down my wins from the day. Why do I do that? It's a great opportunity to practice gratitude at the same time. It's a nice little drip in my head from a gold standpoint that says, all right, I did some things today that helped move me forward. It doesn't mean that I was a 100 out of a hundred in every single thing that I did, but instead let me focus on the things that I did positive today that moved me forward. And then all of a sudden I often say rinse and repeat, read the goals in the morning, write down your wins, read your goals at night. Boom. You keep doing those things. And all of a sudden you start to feel good about the progress that you're making because sometimes we actually don't give ourselves credit for the things that we do because our standard is so higher because we have these goals that we have not achieved yet.

18:54And you have to learn to love the journey and to appreciate the journey and see the action that you're making and give yourself credit for that. I agree. I mean, again, it's, you know, I mentioned it's not easy. It's never going to be easy. So I think there's some personal care and some self-love that's required along the way. And, you know, there's going to be days where you're going to, you're not going to make the goal and you might, you might fail, but there's going to be other days that maybe you give yourself that opportunity to actually catch up. And those should be the days that you really, there should be some self-acknowledgement there along the way because it is a process and it is going to require some support. And sometimes, you know, along the journey that that support actually is coming from you. So love it.

19:46So I want to talk about a few more things that each of us do, and you mentioned the word vision. So here's something I'm going to share with everyone. That was a game changer for me that I did for the first time last year that I learned from some other mentors of mine, create a word of the year. And what this word of the year is it becomes a rudder of who you are, your due North, the person that you want to become. So last year going into the year, I'm like, all right, what do I want to be my due North?

20:14In my word of the year was give. And because of that, I then wrote down a series of affirmations that I would read on an everyday basis that would declare who I am. So I would say, give to others, give life and energy to things, give myself permission, give knowledge, wisdom, and inspiration. Give my time, my attention, my heart, give to my dreams.

20:39Give love, give good vibes, give kindness, give appreciation and gratitude. So as part of my morning routine, I'm reading my goals and then boom, I'm also reading my word of the year. And I would also write this down on my journal in the morning. And I would also have it on a whiteboard in front of me. So the word give is all over the place for me. And what I loved so much about the exercise is I was more aware of this.

21:08And I wrote down the things of why this meant something to me, because once again, we're looking for a rudder. What's that thing that's really going to define who you are? And it served me so well. But guess what? You mentioned the word vision, Arturo. In two weeks ago, I decided to change my word of the year. And I didn't wait until January 1st because I don't believe in resolutions. I believe in immediate change because I heard so many people that I respected talking about vision, dreams, make it more clear, make it bigger. And you hear something enough times until you finally say, I've got to take action on this. And while give served me for 320 days this year, immediately I realized vision would serve me better. So from this point forward in the back end of 2020 and 2021, my word of the year is vision. I'm curious on your end, have you ever thought about doing a word of the year or is this a concept that you would get?

22:06Um, you know, it's for me, everything's been more conceptual. Um, I think there's, you know, the word that kind of resonates with me for, I think year over year is commitment. Um, because, um, excuse me, it's, um, you know, that's, that's a requirement, you know? So, um, I think that, um, identifying, uh, in advance, the hard work that's going to be required to get where it is that you want to be is part of that word commitment. But I've, I, but I've actually never singled out that particular word. Um, I think in these conversations that you and I've had, I definitely am looking forward to actually laying that seed. I think that there's already, there's already stuff that's kind of materializing in front of me as I've over the last couple of weeks really started to prepare myself up for 2021.

23:00But again, to your point, it's, you know, January 1st or December 31st is, it's just a, it's a day on the calendar. It doesn't, you're not beholden to that. So it, you know, if you've identified something that you really want to chase or that you have this new goal that you really want to redirect time and effort towards. Don't, I mean, don't wait. There is no, there is no time to wait, you know? So you got to jump into it immediately.

23:28Um, but yeah, I mean, I think I am going to, you know, it's been, it's actually been quite a while, Rob, since I've actually sat down and, you know, every year I, I map out, uh, goals, dreams, visions, kind of, um, a little bit of a roadmap in terms of how I'm going to get there and the things that I really, I'm looking to achieve. I would say that probably the last two years have been a little bit, um, turbulent in the sense that there's, there's just been a lot of things coming at me and, and really has caused me to kind of, um, I think take a, uh, put less muscle behind that process. And, you know, as I look back, um, again, not necessarily ever giving myself appropriate credit, um, but there's been some tremendous accomplishments over the last two years.

24:18And, and, um, and a lot of that has been because of the diligence, again, kind of trying to stay in touch with this mental map that you can have, or that some people have, and, you know, that I certainly have in terms of kind of where I wanted to go. But, um, you know, there's a lot of things that were surprises. I mean, there were, there were a lot of things that materialized or didn't necessarily materialize that were actually worked for, but, um, would have never, ever shown up on some piece of paper or in some journal at the very beginning of the year, because you just can't, you can't foresee some of these things that are going to happen. So, um, I am super excited. And again, I've already started, but I think there's going to be a much bigger investment from me this year to really mapping things out. It's actually already started. I mean, there's, there is a, um, I would say four or five pages in my notebook that are already dedicated to a particular goal that I have. Um, and you know, I've done it in a way that I've actually deconstructed it where I understand time commitment. I understand the amount of time allocation that's going to take on a weekly basis. I understand the amount of calls and emails it's actually going to take. And, uh, now it's just up for me to, to manage that. And then also to be, um, have enough energy and resilience to be there, to, um, manage the unknowns, you know? And so there's gotta be an hour hourly allocation for that. You know, there's, there's marketing, there's PR, there's other things that are going to kind of fall into this process or, or roadmap of getting to where you want to go. It's not two points. There's not just two things that I need to do on a weekly basis to get to where I need to go. There's probably 30, 40. Um, and so, uh, so yeah, it's, it's, um, I'm really excited about actually approaching, um, the next couple of weeks. This Thanksgiving holiday is going to be a really great opening for me to actually kind of step away from, you know, the mental requirement that, you know, the day-to-day, um, your day-to-day management of your business requires and actually be able to spend some time with some interflection and looking at kind of where this, you know, the next 12 months could possibly go. So I want to dig deeper and get even more specific on this so that people can actually take action.

26:38I'm curious how you actually allocate your time for this, because I think about someone who's listening to this and it's like, boom, I'm buying in, I'm buying in. But on my end, I am going to spend, let's call 10 hours between now and the end of the year working on my goals. It's going to be one part reflection. What are the things I do a SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. And I'm going to be very intentional about this.

27:07So it'll be like a year in review. And then I'm going to be looking forward and I'm probably going to spend 10 hours on this in a variety of different sessions, maybe an hour here, two hours here. I think you nailed it around the Thanksgiving holiday. When things slow down, people have the option to spend more time watching Netflix, or you can say, you know what? I'm going to carve out this time to start dreaming and working on my vision. So I'm curious on your end, how you actually allocate that time.

27:34And if so, how much so that if someone's like, whoa, that's what they do. Maybe I could duplicate or do some version of that. Yeah. I mean, I think yesterday I spent probably two and a half, three hours for this process, actually mapping things out because just saying, hey, I want to have this, that's fine. That's where it starts. But you actually really kind of, again, need to deconstruct the process and actually identify what is it that you have to do on a daily basis, weekly basis, and monthly basis to actually achieve that goal. So I think I'll have it done certainly by Thanksgiving for sure. And I think probably another four to six hours of time investment in the various things that I'm shooting for is probably going to be enough.

28:27What I'm trying to do is create a rough estimate and a rough sketch of kind of how these weeks need to lay out in terms of work. I think there's only so, I mean, you can only go so deep, right? Because, you know, I could spend another 30, 40 hours on kind of elaborating, you know, extensively. But I think in the particular goals that I've identified for this year, I have enough, call it expertise and understanding of how to get there that I think it gives me some flexibility and some certainty that I can kind of adhere to these kind of more chunky portions of the goal. I love it. So I actually pulled up right here, my 2019-20 reflection and goal setting in sort of what I do. And this is a framework that I used that I can share with anybody who's interested. Hit me up on social at Rob Cressy.

29:25I'll actually send you this document. But here's some of the things that I'm asking myself and I'm working on. So number one, what were the wins of this year? What travel did I do? Because I like to look at all areas of my life. What was my biggest triumph? What was my smartest decision? What word or phrase sums up or describes my experience of this year? What's the greatest lesson that I learned? What was the most loving service I performed for myself or for others?

29:53What's my biggest piece of unfinished business from this year? What were the three most significant events of this year? What three people had the greatest impact in my life this year? When did I feel most alive? What were the biggest risks I took? What was the biggest surprise? What was the biggest failure? What fear surfaced in my life? Just so many different things where I'm looking at a bunch of different lenses where when you reverse engineer and you diagnose this, you see it, you're like, wow, you get a much better grasp on things. And it's really served me well. And the next thing I want to ask you about Arturo is setting stretch goals. Let's talk about the size of them. I mentioned in previous episodes, one of my favorite books that I highly recommend is the 10X rule by Grant Cardone, where he says, take your goal and I want you to 10X it. Why would you do that? Because if your target's a million, you might only hit 500,000.

30:49If your target's 10 million, all of a sudden you might hit 2.3. Well, congratulations, because you've set a further target, you're now able to accomplish more. And I very much buy into the mindset of it. And it's something that is there to stretch you. And it doesn't mean in every single area of your life where you're like, oh, I'm going to make up a trillion dollars this year. Maybe that's for your life or something. But I'm curious on your end from a stretch goal side of things, because in goal setting, you've got what I think I can hit.

31:17Maybe this is something that I feel comfortable about. But at the same time, we want to push ourselves as high achievers, as people who are designing our lives to be the best version all the time. How do you think about stretching your goals or the size of them? I think it's great. I mean, because I think this book has been spoken about in so many of our podcasts, I just started diving into it.

31:44So that's a whole other podcast in and of itself. And there's a lot of stuff that I'm – there's some things that I wouldn't say are necessarily new that I'm hearing from Grant, but there certainly are things that I think are resonating with me that really are validating process that I've taken in the past and certainly some new things that I'm kind of picking up. I think the stretch goal – I mean, again, it's all about what you want in life.

32:14I mean, it's do you want average because if you want average, you can have average. Average isn't really that difficult to attain. And if you want below average, you can have below average. If you want exceedingly great and what most people would classify as extremely successful in whatever category you're talking about, it requires insanity. I mean, it really requires insanity and intensity to actually get there. And again, it's – when we categorically are looking at all these different industries and all these different things that we could say that, hey, I'm aspirationally wanting to chase that down or be that person. To be successful – I mean, again, one of the things that he highlights in the book is that if one person is successful, it doesn't mean that you can't be successful. We all have that option. We all have the choice to make to be successful.

33:10So if there's one NBA guy that's insanely successful and regarded as one of the best NBA players, well, there's room. There's room for other guys to be in that conversation as well, and that requires a tremendous amount of work. And so I think pushing yourself to the limit and creating stretch goals is, again, is to this commitment of being the best version of yourself. And I think it – I think, you know, whether it's professional or whether it's a personal goal, I love it. I think, you know, looking at a goal and not pushing yourself to achieve something that may seem a little bit far-fetched to you at the moment is the way to do it. You know, safe landings and providing cushion for yourself, that's going to give you – that's going to make you average. I love a quote. Nothing great ever came from your comfort zone. So be someone who stretches things.

34:08And Arturo, as we wrap this up, is there anything that I didn't ask you about goal setting that you plan on doing or some wisdom that you want to impart on others? Because I know on my end, I learned so much from you, and I just love hearing how people do things and what makes them tick. Because I just take a few little nuggets here and there. It doesn't mean that everything we do is absolute. It's more of this is what works for us. Maybe you should think about it for yourself. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple little tidbits and things that I think we've already kind of discussed, but I'll recap a little bit.

34:38But I think that, you know, the center of goal setting is vision. And again, personal and professional, you really have to have this idea or this grand goal of where you want to go. You know, we have a very short time on this planet, and you might as well make the best of it, okay? And I think that, at least from my perspective, making the best of it means pushing yourself to become the best version that you could possibly be. There's a real commitment and a ton of work that's associated with anything that we're aspirationally going to chase. And so you have to be prepared for that. You have to be prepared for that. But you also have to be understanding that if you're ready to make that type of commitment, that you will see and reap the benefits of it. And I think that anybody that really kind of dives in immediately to these, you know, stretch goals, lofty goals, or big visions, and actually adheres to call it a month, two months, three months, a quarter of really being diligent about chasing this and deconstructing how you get there, you're going to see results immediately.

35:37It's like making that commitment to going to the gym. I mean, you're going to see your muscles increase. You're going to see certain things happen. And it doesn't just happen. It's not a gift. Everything's from working really hard. I think there's also a balance between being a visionary and being pragmatic. I mean, you, again, create stretch goals, create a big vision, understand that there is going to be a ton of work that's required.

36:06I also think that living reality and understanding that things are going to rise. There's going to be things that are going to knock you off that path. And that's just the way that life is. And you're going to have to really understand that things are going to happen. You got to get back on it. And then the last thing, you know, I'll say is kind of part of this vision concept. And I brought it up in a previous episode. But, you know, one of the things that I'd asked, you know, a personal friend and an investor in one of my businesses in terms of something that they might be able to tip it of information they might be able to share me from, Elon Musk. And his whole thing, and the one thing that he emphasizes is if you can conceive it, if you can actually dream it and picture it vividly in your mind, then you can achieve it. And, you know, there's a real, there's a little gap and an absence of how you actually achieve it in that sentence.

37:00But if you put yourself to work and diagram this goal that you have, then anything is achievable. And what I'll add to that is as part of vision being my word of the year, every day after I meditate, I spend six minutes with my eyes closed visualizing this vision, the dreams and goals that I have, the pictures, the feelings every single day, because your mind doesn't know the difference between what you're thinking in reality. So all of a sudden what you want, if you keep doubling down on that over and over and over and over again, you make that more clear. Now your body and your mind starts working on that on a regular basis. And I believe that so much. And I'm actually working on increasing my vision. It's a very difficult thing to do for you to think bigger than you can currently dream. And it's not a bedrillion dollars because it's something that you want for yourself. And that's the thing is you want to live it.

37:59You want to believe it. You want to dream it. You want to visualize it. You want to make it so crystal clear and you want to think about it all the time. And then you write it down and then you read it and then you work on it where all of a sudden you are so committed to making this happen. That is how you make your dreams happen. So two quick book recommendations. One, we talked about it. The 10X rule by Grant Cardone. The other one that I've mentioned a million times, the power of consistency by Weldon Long. It's another thing about staying aligned to your visions and your dreams.

38:27Arturo, do you have an action item that you want to give everyone or a takeaway? Yeah, I think just more of an action item. Spend some time over this Thanksgiving holiday and write down, take a stab at actually addressing your goals, your needs and get it solidified so that you can really spend the month of December actually additionally putting pen to paper to map out what each of these weeks in the year feel like.

38:57And be patient with yourself, but make the commitment to get this done in the next 10 days. I love it. And for me, I've got sort of two. Number one, create a word of the year. Think about it. Be intentional about it. Sit there and say, what would be my due north for this upcoming year? Write that down and then write down what it means to you. And number two, if you want some clarity on goal setting from a totality standpoint, here's what I do.

39:27I write down goals around my health, wealth, love, and happiness. And doing that hits all of the different buckets. So if you write down your health, wealth, love, and happiness, hit me up and let me know about this or let me know about your word of the year. I would love to support you any way that I can.

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0:00Welcome to Leadership DNA, a podcast for those who aspire to be a better leader. Alongside Arturo Gomez, I'm Rob Cressy. Today's topic, Goal Planning in Year End, and Arturo, as we're recording this, the last week of December on our mind is how we are wrapping up 2023 and what we are doing moving forward to putting ourselves in a position to succeed in 2024. So I thought it would be very valuable to sort of have a candid conversation on what does our processes look like for how we close out of year and what we do to put ourselves in a position as it's seed for future years. Yeah, I mean, you know, to me there's always that it's in November, December. Obviously there's always like tidbits of little pieces of ideas or call them aspirations, goals that are kind of accumulating throughout the year.

1:02Some of them get re-inserted into that current year and become part of this goal and objectives to chase down for the corner for the month for the year, whatever it may be. But one of the things I've realized because it's, I'm a, my eyes are always bigger than my appetite kind of thing. And I don't think that that's a bad thing. I think that in order, I was told once by somebody who I've incredibly respect, you know, if you can dream it then you can achieve it.

1:40And so when it comes to goals, I think towards the end of the year, there's something about the holidays and there's something about the year and wrap up that obviously motivates really an entire, you know, man kind. As we close out the year to kind of figure out how we're going to get better for ourselves and potentially our businesses and our families. And so, you know, everybody's a little different. But I would say don't be afraid to have long-term big vision goals.

2:14I do think though that what I've found more productive on the personal side and on the, you know, on the career side is to find small wins. You know, find small opportunities that you can literally march down the field on a weekly, and maybe even, you know, approaching it on a daily basis. But for me, the best value in the most, I think the most guided trajectory towards accomplishing goals really has been where I'm managing this literally on a daily and on a weekly basis.

2:50And it becomes really a lot more attainable. I think personally. And so, you know, that's how I'm approaching, you know, this next coming year. I think I'm doing it with a little less rigidity. You know, like I'm being a little bit more fluid and loose about it because I realize that to plan something six, seven, eight months out, I can have a vision of where I want to go.

3:17I can have a real true like this is, I want to grow the company by ten million dollars. Okay, things happen, things happen. And, you know, goals and, you know, the destination sometimes gets derailed. And, you know, sometimes you realize that it's an entirely new destination that you're actually heading to. And that's okay. You know, so small, little daily opportunities to move the needle.

3:49I think are the most impactful and I've found that to be true with with health, personal objectives and career objectives. Yeah, insert the Instagram meme of entrepreneurship where you start and you end and everything. And then everything, since it's linear math and it's really this up and down roller coach would like, oh my god, I've got it.

4:10Oh my god, this is the worst. Oh my god, it's just like up and down but you keep that vision knowing that what doesn't waver as your commitment. But what may be dynamic is the how you get to that. So what I'm about to share come straight out of my coaching playbook that I coach with all of my clients.

4:32What I will say is if you want access to this information, I'll just give it to you in my platform hit me out, Rob at robcressy.com or on Instagram or LinkedIn at Rob Cressy. So these are very specific tactical things that you can do to either wrap up your year or moving forward, playing it because Arturo, you said something which is the most important part.

4:57This is essentially a mindset of lifestyle and the way of being that yes, the entire world says I'm going to create a new year's resolution. But when you're performing at the top is the 1% of the 1% we're living this on a daily basis. This is who we are in once you understand holistic success as opposed to just filling up one bucket of your life. It allows you to actually start living this instead of just thinking that this is something out there in the future. So number one, let's go looking backwards.

5:30So we're going to call this reflective and I've got a document that I have that says looking back at 2023 and there's probably 20 prompts. Now send those to you that say what were my wins? What were my failures? What do I vow to never do again? What would I love to do more of again? Where is their unfinished business? When did I feel most alive? And these various prompts give you an opportunity to live in the gain.

6:00A.K.A. Where did I make progress as opposed to living in the gap? What did I not do? The same time it is important for us as leaders to evaluate where are their holes in our boat and not do so in a scarcity mindset way, but more of a cool there's an opportunity for me here. Because then the next part of this document is looking forward and you're going to create the same sort of things of a vision for this year. And what I found is, Instead of just thinking that I'm going to figure this all out, I just use the same document every single year. Just change the date from 2022 to 2023 to 2024, looking back, looking forward.

6:40I estimate I spend six hours on this, but not all at once. I started planning for 2024 in the end of October. Why 30 minutes here? And now we're here 15 minutes here to where all of a sudden I'm putting this all in a blender. So that's a reflective exercise. Now looking forward here some simple things number one.

7:04I create a word of the year. So in 2023, my word of the year was vision in 2024, my word of the year is freedom. And it's something that I want to live and represent in courses through me every single day, a very simple practice. I write down what freedom means to mean a document that I created consistency practice where in my morning routine every day, I just read the seven to ten bullet points of what freedom means to me.

7:34That way I can live it. Super simple thing. The next thing that I do is I create the 12 most important outcomes for my year for 2024. All right, what are 12 things in all buckets of my life that I would love to do? Of course we can spider web this and drill this down to various elements on a very high level. What are those 12 things because once I've created those 12 outcomes. Here's the next thing that I do the game changer of all game changers and I actually resisted this for so long. And it is speaking your goals on video.

8:10So once again, you're going to hear something for me the power of consistency. So with those 12 outcomes what I then do is do you pop open zoom or just your cell phone and say, I'm Rob Cressy. These are my 2024 goals and I'm speaking them into existence and you read off that script one two three four five all the way down to 12.

8:33And then whether you want to do this every day once a week whatever it is, you then watch or re-listen to yourself saying these are my goals. Why do we do this drip drip drip drip drip because as you said Arturo, we're keeping the vision. As I look back at 2023 there's probably 30% of them at least, which are no longer on my radar because life took things a different direction.

9:00But the simple anchor of having these things in there creates a different connection because you have an awareness awareness, create awareness and intention plus consistency creates the action boom there's my goals there my goals there's my goals. And then one quick side note on this I resisted this because I didn't have clarity of goals. So I would just keep pushing off keep pushing it off. I don't like myself on camera whatever until I finally did it and I said screw it. This is so important success leaves bread crumbs.

9:33I read those 12. I did it now. I was like oh my god, I'm never not doing this again and then the last thing this is so simple I call it best year ever in photos. I want you to create a folder on your phone entitled it 2024 best year ever. Then as you go through your life all buckets of your life you're taking photos once a month just going that folder and drop the best things that happened to you because then when you're doing your end of the month or month forward you just do it it takes maybe five minutes you're gonna see all your wins all your great things so once again it's gonna re-triker those positive emotions for you Then you do it January February March April a lot of people here and they're like yeah, whatever but it's actually super simple if you just do five minutes once a month because now I look back on all of 2023 and I've got 233 photos of the best things that happened for me this year. So this is my process for how I close out of year as well as put myself in a position to succeed in 2024 it's not hard It's actually fun and it's very easy when you use the power of consistency. I love it the other thing I'm gonna say is that there's so many great tools on your platform right up and that people you've offered and you continue to offer for people to kind of to peek under the hood here and do it, you know for free essentially.

11:02So they should take you up on that, but I love all those ideas. I think they're fantastic. I think some some are obviously more aligned I mean they're they're goal aligns some are a little bit more career focus some seem to be a little bit more Personal growth focused, but I think that's the balance that everybody needs you know that the photo of them thing I think is fantastic because it's how do you how do you photo capture an accomplishment in your career You can but I think I think there's other moments of gratitude and other moments of appreciation in your life that should probably come into per view and be identified as like as just happy moments because You know not everything is is a hundred percent work and not everything should be a hundred percent worth and so and I think that you know you probably come to that to that understanding this is probably a good growth you're for you with family and in your son You're you're word being freedom to me freedom is is more of a abroad You know thought kind of a key word that again, it's it's it's you know the point I said too is like being less rigid about how we're approaching things and And allowing the universe to speak to me in in different ways and just being open you got to put in the work though You got to put in the work you'll get what you need and then also be appreciative along the way and and however you celebrate those moments you should Just give yourself some give yourself some TLC. I think it's important along the way So our turn I'm curious to hear from you because I think this is going to be one area where people might be challenged is people often want to know well How much time are you spending or how are you doing this so in theory these things boom This sounds great and I actually created a framework for myself and my clients and it is Know, Believe, Live what do I know to be true?

13:05What do I believe to be true, but what am I actually living so you could listen to this podcast and be like, man I know everything that Rob and Arturo talk about amazing. I actually believe him this sounds fantastic But now when it comes to the living of part This is where I'm not doing it so can you peat like pop open your hood on like what does he living this look like for you? Yeah, so you know like like you mentioned I also have You know I have a digital tablet where I do all my most of my creative writing and and Documenting I also have a pen and paper notebook as well, but This document is a living breathing document. It's you know, I'm going to take 2023 and modify it and because to me it's not You know there's many of these goals are life goals are not they're not necessarily for the year or for the month or for the half year or whatever So so there will be some modification there's a lot of a lot of A lot of thought and contemplation of these goals throughout the year. I do think it's a 10 to amplify for me towards the end of the year But same way that you said it, hey, it might have been you know six cumulative hours That's a lot. I mean, that's a lot of time You know, that's a lot of time And you can find podcasts especially going into the holidays I mean the world is essentially going to shut down here in the next you know four days And so You know when you're sitting around and you and you have a moment to think Allow yourself to draft these thoughts put it on paper But but it should be it should be a living Breathing document that you continue to look at and modify throughout the course of the year And so I don't think it is extraordinarily difficult I think that it should be a very fun exercise And I think that it's focused around the things that you know that you value in your life and it's everybody's going to be a little different Yeah, and let's get to the action. I remember the takeaway in my action I know Arturo is going to yes into what you just said So as we're going in the holiday season Creating that intentional time And when I've audited myself and where I've actually been challenged to do this Even as the person who helps people do this it is really seeing my holiday time And I'm just scrolling on Instagram or Facebook or on social media Where it's just like you're just mindlessly doing it and the only difference between High performers and those you don't do is instead of scrolling on Instagram You're just popping up in the evernote document with this series of prompts and saying Man, let me get this going and what you'll quickly learn is that Low gets activated when you're in this world pretty quickly So all you need to do is go from I'm not scrolling on Instagram to let me grab my pen or paper or open my document Which is why having these prompts is so valuable for me because now I don't have to think Well, where am I gonna go? What do I have to talk about? It's like boom open up the document I use Evernote copy paste starter brand new one. Whoa, I'm scrolling on Instagram I want to work on my goals and vision in this is where you can bring it to life And then next thing you know forty seven minutes later You're like wow that was so much more valuable what about you what you actually never take away I think you know I was I was 10 to also get a fresh new notebook You know beyond my digital notebook. I get a fresh one for the year And I think you know small Very you know precise big vision, you know draft that where do you want to be what do you want to do? What do you want to go?

16:55Compartmentalize it break it down into quarters three months weekly the other thing is is one of the things that I've been thinking about quite a bit And I've been talking to my team about is this idea of bridging You know and sometimes you have to do something that's not ideal That's not perfect But you know that you'll be on the other side Maybe three months four months five months from now and so It's to me it's it's part of this TLC and giving yourself enough care and attention But also being understanding with yourself that yeah, you may not be in the ideal spot right now And you may have to be here for another six months I think facing reality and understanding that you are building a bridge building a bridge and that you are in an intermediary kind of space You may be looking at it as like no man's land, but it's not it really is a progressive actionable Opportunity for you to bridge from where you are today and where you want to be the future And sometimes there's a little pain and acknowledgement that takes it takes you through that process, but don't be afraid of it 100% and growth mindset 101 I am not trapped in this position. I can make it better So we would love to hear from you what does your practice look like for closing out one year and putting yourself in a position to succeed This year you can drop your thoughts on our linked in group page at leadership DNA and Arturo working to make connected you Best place is going to be linked in Arturo Gomez And once again, you can hit me up at linked in or Instagram at Rob Cressy or shoot me email rob at robcressy.com I have world-class resources that can help you or your team. I'd love to share them with you to help put you in a position to succeed All you guys do is hit me up. I'll send them over you

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