Revealed: Guaranteed Ways To Crush Any Goal

(HINT: One Involves Making A Kid Cry)

Several posts ago, we discussed the importance of using goals  to improve your game, your fitness level, and just about anything in your life. Specifically, we talked about the difference between “results-based” goals and “behavior-based” goals.

Now that you know the difference between the two, and hopefully have come up with a couple for yourself, (or at least have been thinking about them) let’s teach you how to crush those goals.

NOT JUST DREAMS ANYMORE

Have you ever had a goal that you just couldn’t achieve? You knew what you wanted, you knew what you needed to do to get you there, but you just couldn’t follow through and stay committed?

Me too. And I’d be lying if I said that I still don’t on occasion. But I want to share with you a few simple tactics that I have used in the past few years to achieve some of the biggest goals that I’ve ever set. A few of these include:

  • writing a book (which will be coming out soon)
  • dropping >10% bodyfat in 3 months
  • filling a room with over 120 people for a presentation
  • Starting this website
  • And several more . . .

When you start implementing these in your golf and fitness goals, I promise you will see a drastic increase in your commitment and level of consistency.

LET’S DO THIS FOR REAL

One thing that I have figured out in my recent years is that most of us tend to take in too much information and don’t do anything with it. I don’t want that to be the case here.

So before I reveal these “tactics,” I am going to ask you to actually take a little action as you read this post to get you started on the right track.

I want you to come up with a 2 goals. Make one a “results-based” goal and then another that is a “behavior-based” goal that supports the first one. (Again, if you haven’t read the previous post on the difference between the two, I suggest you take a look at this article).

For example, let’s say your results goal is
By April of 2016, I have won the Masters.

Then a supporting behavior goal may be something like
By March 31, 2016, I have spent over 5 hrs a week practicing my putting for 20 (or more) consecutive weeks.

(Notice that I like to write my goals in the past tense, as if I have already achieved them. This is a mental thing that I recommend you get in the habit of doing to trick your brain in to believing it’s already happened)

Take 1 minute to write something down. You can revise them later if you want, but write something down right now before something distracts you and you forget to come back to this later.

Done?

Good. Now it’s on!

FOUR “SAMURAI-LIKE” TACTICS TO MAKE SURE YOU DON’T GIVE UP

The Samurai are known for their honor and commitment. Start thinking of yourself as a Samurai when it comes to setting goals. Because you’re personal commitment is what ultimately makes this work.

These are the 4 tactics that I have personally used before and have seen many successful people implement as well.

1. Risk
2. Reward
3. Promise a kid
4. Accountability partner

The 4 of these can be used individually with great success, but when you mix all of them together, it’s almost impossible to fail. They may not seem all that earth shattering right now, but lets examine each a little further so you can see the power.

1. RISK

When you write down a goal, it’s very easy to be excited about it at first, but when the going gets a little rough, or life gets in the way, it’s easy to blow it off or tell yourself that you “don’t really want it that bad.”

This then leads to disappointment when you don’t achieve whatever it is that you set out initially.

In order to bypass that moment of weakness, it helps if you have something on the line. Something that is more important to you than whatever is tempting you. Some “skin in the game” if you will.

That’s where a risk comes in. What’s something that you could “put on the line” that you would hate to lose? What’s something that, in a moment of weakness, will be more important to you and snap you back into commitment mode?

For some this can be money, personal belongings, etc.

For example, I know of a story of a woman that was having trouble losing weight. She decided to use the Risk tactic. She told her husband that if she did not exercise more than 3 times per week for a specified number of weeks, that she would sell her engagement ring and mail the money she got to his ex-girlfriend!!

Now that is going all out!! And guess what? She achieved her goals!!

2. REWARD

This is along the same lines as the risk, but instead of taking something away, you reward yourself with something that you want to have, do, etc.

Again, it should be something that you are really excited about and if you do not achieve your goal, you will be very disappointed. That way, when you are tempted to cheat or give up, the thought of not getting that reward drives you to keep going.

3. PROMISE A KID

This one is brilliant. Have you ever disappointed a kid? It’s the absolute worst. Well, now you can use that terrible feeling to your advantage.

If you have young kids, this is perfect for you. If you don’t, borrow someone else’s kid. Use your niece or nephew, or the neighbor kid. It doesn’t matter. Really you could use anyone, like your spouse in the same way here, but there is just something about letting a kid down that really makes you feel like crap. Use that. It’s powerful.

Find something that they really want to do or have and promise them that when you achieve your goal, you will deliver that reward. But if you don’t achieve your goal in the designated timeframe or parameters, the deal is off.

Try telling a kid that you are going to take them to Disney World, (or even just to the playground) then later tell them that it’s not going to happen because you weren’t able to stick to your commitment. You’ll feel like a big piece of poo.

I don’t know about you, but this is a huge motivator for me. I hate disappointing my kids.

4. ENLIST AN ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER

Much like the last one, this is a very powerful one for me because I hate disappointing people.

This can be done in many different ways. I’ve had workout partners that I considered an accountability partner. This is great because you usually have very similar goals and will encourage each other to stay committed when the other guy is slacking.

Sometimes, just telling someone that you are going to accomplish something is enough because you don’t want to look like a liar in their eyes.

And sometimes you can just ask them to give you a kick in the ass if they see you slacking. I’ve asked my wife to do this many of times, which she has been happy to do!

In fact, I even have an accountability partner regarding this website. I promised my friend Tony that the day that this site went live, I will post at least 1 piece of content per week for a year, no matter how many readers there are, and he agreed to hold me to that. So far so good!

WHAT’S YOUR GOAL?

As you can see, these tactics can be used for any kind of goal, not just golf or fitness related. But I do encourage you to sit down and think about how they can be used in these parts of your life.

If you need work on your fitness level, what goals can you set? If you have work to do in your golf game (which we all do), pick one thing and start working toward it.

The most important thing is that you have to write it down, draw a line in the sand, and make a real commitment to it.

We all struggle keeping our promises to others and ourselves. Use these 4 bits of advice to start making changes.

Let me know what some of your goals are and what tactic or tactics you are going to use from this article. You can even use me as an accountability partner if that’s what it’s going to take!!

Thanks for reading

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