
If You Want To Improve Your Focus And Discipline, Forget About Goals
In college I set goals for myself. I would wake up every day at 6am, go for a four-mile run no matter what — rain, sleet or snow — conduct a certain number of SCUBA dives per year so I could get my PADI Divemaster qual, and a number of other things that I can’t remember.
That was the last time I set goals for myself.
Here’s the thing with goal setting.
The more goals you hit (i.e. achieve), the more private victories you win for yourself. Think of You and all that makes up your being (your body, mind, heart and soul) as a bank. In order for that bank to run effectively there must be cash flow in the form of deposits and withdrawals. When you achieve a goal you’re making a hefty deposit; you’re building up your mental and emotional bank accounts because you A) see yourself as the type of person who can achieve goals (which is REALLY the value of goal setting — not actually achieving them) and B) boost your self confidence one notch higher.
But what happens when you don’t achieve your goals? What happens when you set yourself up for success and expect to win, but fail?
Hey, it happens. You might’ve set a goal to run a marathon but come down with the flu. Maybe you made it your goal to become a Director by the end of the year but you were picked over.
Unexpected things happen — things outside your control. When they do and they conflict with your goals, you suffer a withdrawal. The person you thought you could be — that you aspired to be — no longer is a reality, and what you hoped to be a private victory becomes a mental and emotional loss.
Bartender, I think I’ll have another.
Withdrawals suck. They’re hiccups that get in your way; mental barriers, poor choices, self defeating beliefs that, for whatever reason, get the better of you. And it doesn’t take much. It doesn’t take much to sway the brain into choosing the easy route because that’s what the brain wants — to seek pleasure and avoid pain.
However, if withdrawals represent “losses,” then they’re also sources of power.
Can you think of a loss — a withdrawal from your “bank account” — that you didn’t learn from? A setback or lesson learned that didn’t make you mentally tougher, emotionally more stable, physically stronger or more spiritually enlightened?
Losses are gains because failure is only determined by when you choose to stop learning.
Every “loss” is a win, a victory that makes your focus a little sharper; nudges you back along The Path of Right and causes you to wake up and question “what is.”
If you don’t question, then you’re not learning. And if you’re not learning, then you’re dying a slow death (because you’re living an incredibly boring life).
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work. — Thomas Edison
Consider This
The value of goal setting isn’t in achieving them. Achieving your goals is nice to have but it’s not the purpose behind goal setting. The purpose of goal setting is twofold:
1) To sharpen your focus
2) To forge, in your mind, a self-image that you’re the type of person capable of doing difficult shit. Belief is a powerful weapon.
That’s it. Losing those extra five pounds, adding 30 pounds of lean muscle, quitting smoking — they’re all nice-to-haves but they’re the byproducts of two things: focus and discipline. Knowing what you want and putting in the effort to get there. That’s why I don’t set goals, I just do.
So, forget about goal setting. Bank withdrawals can be too costly.
Set the environment instead.
Set The Right Environment
Now that I’ve completely bad-mouthed goal setting you’re probably wondering, “Great. WTF do I do now?” Don’t get me wrong, setting goals works for some people and if they do for you, then stick with it. I’m just not one of those people. But what does work for me — and probably many of you — is setting the environment.
For example, waking up early in the morning can be a complete bitch if you’re not used to it. The last thing you want to do when that alarm clock goes off and you’re still nestled up in your warm, comfy bed dreaming about who knows what, is get out of it. But if you set yourself up in the right environment it becomes much easier.
Here’s an example of setting the environment. To ensure you get out of bed in the morning, put the alarm clock in another room so you’re forced to get up. You can also try one of those lights that gradually turns on and mimics the sun so you wake up easier (the sun is a natural alarm clock because it aligns with your circadian rhythm).
And if you’ve already tried this — setting the alarm clock across the room to wake up — and it didn’t work, try harder. If you’re already out of bed but choose to go back to bed, no system, no tool, nothing is going to help you. Only personal choice will. And that’s where self discipline comes in.
If you want to write a book, rather than setting the SMART goal of writing a book on XYZ by year’s end, set yourself in the right environment for writing to occur. Before I wrote Navigating Chaos: How To Find Certainty In Uncertain Situations, I had never written anything more than an email, but I knew that if I made writing a habit, then, by following a process — a system of writing — I would be an author at the end.
The key to being more disciplined, is to BE disciplined. There are no special activities that are going to help anybody become more disciplined. You become more disciplined by making a decision to act on something no matter what, and doing it repeatedly. Discipline, like everything else in life, is a choice. You either choose to be disciplined or you don’t, but there are no special activities to elevate your discipline game.
What you can do is set challenges for yourself — and achieve them! The purpose of goal setting isn’t so much to achieve what you set out to achieve, but to forge the type of person who’s able and willing to overcome difficult tasks. That’s focus and discipline.
Jeff Boss is Co-Founder of Chaos Advantage, a coaching and consulting firm that works with leaders and their teams to navigate uncertainty and win as one by leveraging the unique experiences in leadership and teamwork of special operations. He is author of Navigating Chaos: How To Find Certainty In Uncertain Situations and Managing The Mental Game: How To Think More Effectively, Navigate Uncertainty, And Build Mental Fortitude, former Navy SEAL of 13 years and host of The Chaos Cast Podcast: Life Lessons For Finding Certainty In Uncertain Situations. Receive his weekly leadership insights here.
