With the Olympics underway, elite athletes across the world are in an arena that they have likely dreamed about for a lifetime. Imagine the pressure of knowing that your shot comes once every four years. Most will get only one chance to achieve their goals. One opportunity to demonstrate what they have been training for their entire lives. This is enough pressure to cripple most normal people. The highly successful have learned to manage this pressure by refocusing their mind onto what is effective, rather than what is debilitating.
By learning to approach goals like the highly successful, you can achieve much more success with much less stress and anxiety. Here’s why and how:
Why
We live in a society that functions based on results, results, results. How much revenue did you bring to the firm? How much weight did you lose? How many points did you score? Most people believe that their worth can be summed up by a few numbers on a spreadsheet or stats sheet.
This mentality puts an immense amount of pressure on people to perform. The problem is that this pressure decreases the likelihood that anyone will actually achieve the results he or she is trying to achieve. Pressure is like wearing a weight vest. The higher the pressure, the heavier the vest. How many performers do better wearing a weight vest in their event?
The highly successful know how to set goals in a way that decreases pressure and increases productivity.
How
There are two types of goals:
• Product goals are result-oriented. For example, losing 20 pounds by Christmas or increasing revenue by 30% this year.
• Process goals are the two or three most important daily activities that cause a person to achieve the product goal.
The key to reducing pressure is to focus on things you can control. In the end, the results (product goals) are not nearly as controllable as the activities that produce the results (process goals). Focusing on things that can be controlled is like having a release valve for pressure.
The highly successful define the result (product goal) they hope to achieve, yet they put their emphasis on the process by which to achieve it. This significantly reduces pressure because process goals can be controlled. A person gets to choose each day whether or not he or she will win or lose. By focusing on two or three process goals, the highly successful reduce pressure and position themselves consistently to win on game day.
Here are two examples:
Product Goal: Lose 20 pounds by Christmas
• Process Goal 1: Spend 30 minutes per day on the treadmill (5 days per week)
• Process Goal 2: Drink 64 oz. of water per day
• Process Goal 3: Limit alcohol to one drink per night
Product Goal: Increase revenue by 10% by the end of the fiscal year
• Process Goal 1: Spend 30 minutes per day researching new leads
• Process Goal 2: Dial at least 10 prospects per day
• Process Goal 3: Wake at 6:00 am every morning (M-F)
Once you have developed your process goals, your task becomes to complete them each day no matter what. If you are not completing your process goals, you cannot expect to achieve your product goal. On the other hand, completing your process goals for the day should become your new judgment of your success. This has proven to be extremely effective for ultimately controlling the desired results.
Focusing on results is stressful and inefficient. Placing your emphasis on the process keeps you accountable on a daily basis and makes it much more likely you will achieve the results you hope to achieve.
While most of us will never perform in an Olympic arena, you can adopt the goal-setting strategy of the highly successful to achieve your very own Olympic victory.
