How to get what you want
How to get what you want
3 principles for achieving your goals.
This week I’ve reflected a lot on how to achieve new goals.
I’m getting ready to start my Youtube channel, and soon after restart my podcast, and being confronted with big goals again has been exciting, but also scary.
The amount of things you don’t know until you start is always an intimidating feeling, but I’m pressing on, and excited to take these next steps.
It got me thinking about what it takes to achieve goals, and how I’ve achieved some of my biggest goals in the past.
These are the three things that stuck out to me the most:
1. Be Consistent
This one is straightforward, but the power of consistency is tragically underestimated.
There’s a saying that goes something like “Successful people do consistently what others do occasionally.”
You can’t work on your goals only when you feel like it (most days you won’t).
You also can’t go all-out one day, doing 5 hours of work… and then not work on your goal again for two weeks.
Consistency is crucial.
Small daily progress will get you much farther than sporadic sessions whenever inspiration strikes.
Whether it’s daily, or a couple times a week on a set schedule, choose what works for you.
And most important, do it consistently, whether you feel like it or not.
2. Practice Kaizen
Consistency is great, but doing the wrong thing consistently gets you nowhere.
I used to work at a gym, and I would see people all the time who were consistent.
They worked out almost every day… but they were making no progress at all.
Months would go by, the scale wouldn’t budge, and they’d tell me how frustrated they were with their lack of progress.
They were consistent, but they weren’t taking time to look at what they were doing and find areas to improve.
That’s why Kaizen is so important.
It’s a Japanese word that roughly means “Continuous Improvement”.
Even when you’re doing the right things, find ways to do them better.
Every day, you should be looking for ways to improve.
In the case of the person working out that means:
- Optimize your workouts
- Improve your nutrition
- Get better sleep
- Read/watch videos to learn more about fitness
You don’t want to be mindlessly consistent, doing the same thing over and over hoping it will work out for you.
No. You want to be consistently better, always looking for ways to gain an advantage in your craft.
Consistency is good.
Consistency done with Kaizen is unstoppable.
3. Pay the Price
I came across a quote recently that sums up why people don’t get what they want:
“If you don’t get what you want it is either a sign that you did not seriously want it, or that you tried to bargain over the price” - Rudyard Kipling
Let’s unpack this.
“did not seriously want it”
Sometimes we think we want something, but if we’re honest with ourselves we just “kinda” want it.
We think we want to play an instrument, but after a few sessions we quit.
We think we want to pursue a sport, but realize pretty quickly that it’s not for us.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with trying something new and then realizing it’s not what you want.
(Unless you really DO want it, but just don’t wanna do the work)
But if you truly want something, and have a burning desire to achieve it, then it’s the next part you gotta focus on:
“or that you tried to bargain over the price”
It’s like the saying goes – “You can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want”.
If you want something in life, there’s a price.
Want a fit body? The price is the workouts you have to put in, the junk food you pass on, the early mornings in the gym when you’d rather sleep.
Want a great marriage? The price is learning to have the hard conversations (and a lot of them!), putting your ego aside, always considering the other person, and working everyday to grow together.
Everything has a price.
If you try to bargain over that price, at worst you’ll fail to hit your target, and at best you’ll take twice as long to get there.
Some roads to your goal are better than others, but there’s rarely ever an easy road.
So embrace the difficulty of your goal… Don’t try to bargain over it.
The difficulty is what makes it worth achieving in the first place.
Thanks as always for reading,
– Josh
P.S
I’ll be experimenting with the format of the blog/newsletter in the weeks to come. New thumbnails, more storytelling mixed in with inspiring messages, and just putting more work into making this a better experience for you, the reader. Thanks again for being here. See you next week.