429. Setting and Achieving Your Goals in 2024

Chris Dixon:

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to The ONE Thing podcast. I'm Chris Dixon.

Nikki Miller:

And I'm Nikki Miller. I'm so excited. This is my favorite time of year. I feel like everyone, even though it's the end of the year sort of is the mark of closing a chapter, it's also the excitement of opening a new one of having the ability to write a new one. And talking about goal setting is my favorite thing. Really, I should say talking about goal achieving is actually my favorite thing.

Chris Dixon:

Nikki Miller:

Well, we're both extra energized right now because we literally just got back from our annual goal setting retreats, probably the thing that we're best known for, the thing that I mark on my calendar at the beginning of every year, rather at the end of every year, we've already got the dates out. And it's the thing I probably look most forward to. And this year was, from my perspective, one of the most special ones that we've had.

Chris Dixon:

Oh, absolutely. I've been fortunate enough to, for this to be my third as a leader in the goal setting retreat and a facilitator and a trainer and coach. And by far, this was the best one from my perspective, and for a number of reasons, and there's some really great highlights. And I know Nikki, you feel the same way.

Nikki Miller:

Well, what's cool for me, Chris, is that I've known Wendy and Jay for a long time. And the sort of origin story of the goal setting retreat, if you follow the podcast, you've heard this, but the origin story of the goal setting retreat is this is something that they started just doing for themselves. This is something that they, as a couple, just started doing for themselves to make sure that they were on the same page, to make sure that they were moving into the next year with clarity, with purpose, with a clear path about how they both wanted to show up, not only for each other, but in their lives.

And so I've known them for a long time. And this is something that I've done with my husband for a number of years. I mean, probably 9 or 10 at this point. And I've always used sort of the OG, like PDF form that they used to give out. And I've never actually gotten to have the opportunity to go in person. And oh my gosh, what an incredible experience. I mean, doing it with your partner is one thing, doing it with the energy of everyone else around you and the coaches and the trainers there to help facilitate questions and really do a deep dive when you get stuck, which you inevitably do, and to give some perspective and coaching along the way, I mean, it was just, I came back so unbelievably energized and excited for the coming year.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah, me too. And you can't help it even if you're there leading some of the work, doing some of it yourself, and getting really pumped about it. And one of the things that I think, it sounds simple, but it's so important and why it's so valuable to do this, is just finding the space to actually dedicate to work on your goals. If you try to do it in your typical day to day life, if you're trying to do it at home, squeezing it in between dinner and bedtime, it's going to be tough for you to really give it the focus it deserves.

So what I love about this kind of event and our event is you actually peel away and you dedicate the time to focus on aligning your plan. And if it's with someone else, aligning with them about what success looks like for the future and making that investment in the path that you're going to achieve it.

Nikki Miller:

A hundred percent. I mean, I think that sometimes for really productive people, this is counterintuitive because we are motivated, and we want to keep working and we want to keep moving and we want to keep growing and we don't want to stop. But creating a great plan sometimes requires that, not sometimes, pretty much all the time requires that you just slow down. You don't want to live there forever.

We're not saying go on a goal setting retreat for a whole year. But take a couple of days to really ask the hard questions between you, between your partner, whether that's in business or in life, and just ask, are we on the same page? Do we want the same things? Are we clear about how we're both moving into the next year?

And I think, to your point, so few people give themselves the time to do this. And so then they just keep moving through the days with their head in the sand or, or barreling through not realizing they might be working harder than they have to be, or might be out of priority and not even know it.

Chris Dixon:

A hundred percent. Something that really stood out for me this year, different than other years, was recognizing how many people were here from the last year and were there again. And we did an exercise to have people stand up for who's been there the most times. And it was shocking to see how many people are repeating this event.

And going into it, you always wonder, you hope that people will get value that are coming back-to-back years, and you try to create new and fresh content. But when you ask them, they're like, it's just once you have that behavior built in, it's so important to just continue that and do it every year. And even if you feel like you have clarity, check in and double check and make sure that you still are aligned on where you want to go.

Nikki Miller:

And what also really stood out for me, Chris, is how much can change year over year. I mean, we go back to the saying often that people underestimate what they can achieve in five years and overestimate what they can achieve in a year. But I think a lot of people also underestimate what they can achieve with a really clearly outlined plan.

And one of my favorite things was people standing up at the beginning of the retreat and saying, this is what I achieved between last year and this year. And because so many people do return, they have this whole room of people cheering them on and remembering what they set out to do the year before. And it was just really special to hear the amazing things that that community, that our community is doing.

Chris Dixon:

It's just incredible. If you focus on it, what you can accomplish. And like you said, if you have a community and you have momentum building year over year and just finding the tools and the place to focus on it, what you can truly accomplish, it's incredible.

Nikki Miller:

I also think that, again, hearing everyone's feedback and hearing how they work with each other and hearing people's perspectives on other people's goals and getting to do a lot of that group work and that group think around the goal setting and around really every single exercise we walked everyone through was also a real standout for me because it's obviously going to be important.

We're going to talk about the framework of goal setting today and the framework that someone can use, even if they didn't get to attend our in-person goal setting retreat. But at the end of the day, having a community around you of like-minded people, of people who speak this language is just so important and so valuable to get an extra set of eyes on what you're building and what you're doing.

And sometimes, especially as leaders, if you're a solo leader, if you're an entrepreneur and you own your company, you don't always get the privilege of having an extra set of eyes on what you're doing and having some perspective from people who understand. Right?

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. It's so true. I mean, we always say it's funny, you can have a really powerful question, you can ask yourself when you're going through things. Like if I could only choose one of these things to focus on, which one would it be? And you answer that question on your own versus when someone else asks you that question, how different the response can be. And it's really interesting. So knowing what forms of accountability exist and how to leverage them to get the most out of that process.

Nikki Miller:

A hundred percent. I mean, we started the whole goal setting retreat with a moment of just reflecting and celebrating, which I think some people probably think is backwards. We're talking about the future, but we actually start our goal setting retreat with reflection and celebration, which is how we wanted to start this conversation reflecting and celebrating on the amazing things that happened at this year's goal setting retreat.

Because in order to inform what we're going to do in the future, we have to look backwards and say, did my plan work and also to take a moment to celebrate what actually occurred. Because as achievers, we can often get stuck in the day-to-day cycle of this is what I want to do. And I want to achieve more and have more and create more. But I don't want to take the honors of you giving the standout celebration from the entire goal setting retreat. I think there was one that none of us will ever forget. And I think you should share it.

Chris Dixon:

Are we talking about Schus?

Nikki Miller:

Yes, we're definitely talking about Schus.

Chris Dixon:

Well, for those of you who are at GSR and are listening to this podcast, hopefully you'll appreciate this as well. But one of our teammates and one of the best coaches in the world, and he's an incredible human being, and he actually has been with us for a long, long, long time in and around this world.

His name is John Schumacher. He's absolutely dynamic on stage. He's an incredible human being. He also blessed us with accidentally falling off the backside of the stage on one of his keynotes this year. But I mean, he vanished and popped back so fast, if you didn't catch it, you wouldn't even know it happened. It was impressive. A man of his experience, that nimble, but it became a fun banter for the remainder of the event where we gave him a hard time every opportunity and he fired back appropriately.

Nikki Miller:

I've never seen somebody so quick on their feet with the jokes. I mean, all of us had time to write them down and have material for the rest of the weekend. And he was just, to your point, he was just so good and got back up so quickly and went right back into what he was teaching. And for me, it was a true celebration in the sense that sometimes this stuff can feel heavy.

I mean, we're talking about some really heavy things. Like people are talking about things in relationships that are really challenging. They're talking about challenges they might be facing in the upcoming year that are going to be in the way of where they want to go. They're talking about financial challenges, spiritual challenges, health challenges, all the things that come up when you're truly setting goals for your future in an all-encompassing way, it was just a reminder for us to have a little bit of fun in this process, too, that we can fall, we can fail, we can do things that might not be part of the plan and we can still get right back up and keep going.

So Schus, we love you. We love you for your comic relief and we love you for being the incredible trainer that you are and being able to literally fall off the stage and get right back up and get right back into teaching one of the most important sections of the goal setting retreat without missing a beat, by the way.

Chris Dixon:

Nikki Miller:

For sure. We already talked about reflecting and celebrating for the year prior, right, or for the years as it is so far. And I think this is a really important way to start because, again, I go back to everyone who participates in this goal setting retreat is an achiever. And sometimes in an achievers’ mind, we can constantly be looking forward and asking ourselves, how can I do more and be more and have more and create more and serve more.

And it's easy to get stuck in that cycle, which often as we're looking for more, negates all of the things that we've done up until this point. And I've always had a fundamental belief that in order to celebrate the big wins, we also have to celebrate the small wins. We have to know how to celebrate and we have to know how to appreciate the progress that we've made.

And so, to me, this is actually one of the most important parts about setting goals, because it also allows us to look backwards. When we're in the day to day, it's hard to realize all that we've accomplished. And this allows us to look backwards, especially for those people who come year over year and for them to see all that they've achieved in a relatively short amount of time. I mean, a year in the scheme of things is not that long.

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. I mean, it's so important just to orient yourself or locate yourself on the path to achieving your goals if you've already begun this process so that you can adjust, course correct, and reflect appropriately. If you're just getting into it, it's still a great time to locate yourself. And the best time to start in this process is now. So it's enabling you to do that means doing some reflection.

Nikki Miller:

For sure. And then we move everyone to the setting of intentions. You want to talk about that, Chris?

Chris Dixon:

Nikki Miller:

And for me, the way I always ask myself this, Chris, if this is helpful to anyone who's listening, the way I always do this part of the goal setting retreat is I actually, instead of setting intentions for what I want to do, I actually ask myself based off what I want to achieve, how do I need to be different? I sort of call it my different list.

And I say one of the biggest challenges I see, especially in my world, which is real estate is I'll do a business planning clinic or goal setting for real estate agents, or really, we see this in our corporate training for any business. And they'll say, we want to increase this number of widgets, or we want to double the business, or we want to do whatever.

And when we ask them, how are you going to do that? We'll sort of circle around for a while until they finally get back to some version of like, oh, we're actually going to do the exact same thing we did last year. And we're just saying that the results are going to be different. And we'll look up and we'll say, that's not how that works. In order to get different results, you are going to have to behave differently.

So one of the things that I look at after I reflect and celebrate from last year, and then look at what I want to achieve this year, I have to ask myself, how do I need to show up differently in order to achieve different results? How do I need to behave differently in order to achieve different results? What is the difference between the Nikki that showed up last year and achieve that, and the Nikki that will need to show up this year and achieve this new thing? And by the way, almost never is my answer. No difference at all. I'm always going to have to evolve and grow in order to get to the next level.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. And I think you have to give yourself permission as you go through what you just described to be okay with being honest about what you did. And the more honest you can be, without being intentionally harsh, but be honest about what your challenges were that should come out in reflection, like, where did you win and what were your opportunities? Because then that -- and learn to appreciate that because everyone's going to have them. The win is recognizing what the opportunities are and making the change or committing to the changes you said, how do you want to be different?

So not just celebrating wins and leaning into that. You just won't be set up for having the clarity and reflection that you need to so you can recognize those things. So just be okay. Give yourself permission to dig into that and not feel like you have to be judged by yourself or that you didn't accomplish what you wanted to just dismiss all that and get super clear.

Nikki Miller:

I love what you just said, Chris. I think that's super important. And I also think it allows us to get clarity on how small that difference can be. I mean, when you and I do this exercise with people, that small difference is often this one teeny tiny little habit. I just need to wake up a little bit earlier. I need to exercise in the morning instead of at night. I need to look at my financials every day.

I mean, the difference that people outline is actually not that monumental because we have a habit when we're goal setting to be in a positive future frame of mind and everybody falls into the New Year's resolution trap where they're like, I'm going to just change everything. I'm going to take my life, shake it out, flip it back up and rebuild the whole thing anew. And we know that that never works. That never actually comes to fruition.

So this is really us asking how small can you make a change and what is actually the difference between where you are and where you want to be such that you could build a habit in order to bridge that gap. I think we're going to talk more about that later.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah, absolutely. And something that's helped me in my own experience, but also to help explain this piece to others is understanding that there is somewhat of a separation at times, or at least it helps to, in reflection and planning, to separate the what you want to accomplish and the who you're trying to become that enables that.

Because when you think about -- we tend to, in setting goals, think about the thing we want to achieve. And it's easy to dismiss that to achieve it, we have to really look inside the kind of person we have to grow into and there's behavioral change that supports that. And if you're going to make behavioral change that that's often propped up by the kind of habits that you want to set. And so I think it's important as you are reflecting and planning consider both because there is a relationship between those two things, the what and the who. And I think that's important too.

Nikki Miller:

And to your point, there's a relationship between those two things and there's a constant relationship with these goals that you set out. You might look up and halfway through the year, you'll say the who that I thought that I needed to be, or the change that I thought that I needed to make isn't having the impact that I thought it would. And by the way, you have permission to change that.

If you see a better path forward, go take that better path. You aren't bound by what you wrote on your goal setting retreat packet or on that one-page plan for the entire year. Businesses change, life changes, the economy changes, circumstances change, challenges come up, those things evolve. And so therefore where we always have conversations about having a relationship with your goals, it's also having a relationship in these types of questions too, and having clarity that that can change even throughout that year.

Chris Dixon:

A hundred percent. It's a question you get a lot. Like, is it okay to change my goals or shift your goals? And I think it's important to recognize especially, but not limited to, if you're exploring a new area, if you've really started to dig into somewhere where you're growing and learning, you just can't see that far over the horizon early on.

So as you start to learn more about this path you're going down, it's completely normal to fine tune your goal or make corrections based on what you discover. So you shouldn't feel like that's not something you can do. Like you tattooed it on in the beginning of the year and you're stuck and committed to it. Like give yourself permission to make the change if it's helping you being more accurate about what you want to accomplish.

Nikki Miller:

Well, I think this is also the power of going through an actual goal setting retreat is that you walk out of there, not only with your goal set for the year, but above all, what I tell people is it's the ability to set these things. It's the ability to go back to these questions. It's the ability to learn how to have the conversation with yourself or to bring it to your coach and say, I think I might be off track, or I think I might need to change. Let's have a conversation around that. And I think that's the power of really going through this process.

Chris Dixon:

A hundred percent. Yeah. We often talk about forming a relationship with your goals as being so important and staying on track to achieve them. And it's true. And I like to say, there's really four steps, from our perspective about how you set, establish that relationship and keep it. And the first one is just write your goals down. And that's easier said than done because the process to get clear on what you should write down is what we're going to help go through some of today. And there's some tools to do that. You have to kind of dig down to go through but write those down and keep them in a place you can see. And we use the 411. We believe in it. It's a great way to do that, but you have to have them in a place you can see them all the time.

The second is to not only write them down, but to revisit them regularly, make changes, check and adjust the plan over time so that you can stay on track to achieve it. And I'm sure, in your experience, Nikki, you've seen how that can be impactful, not only writing them down, but you have to check and adjust them, right?

Nikki Miller:

Well, that's the purpose of the 411. By the way, shameless plug, you all should go listen to episode 411, aptly named, where we actually walk you through how to use this, because this is to me the most important tool that somebody can use in actually achieving their goals. Because so often we put this goal up on the board or we set it at the end of the year, and then we stuff it in a drawer somewhere. And then pull it out at the end of the next year, when we're setting our goals for the upcoming year. And we ask, well, how did we do?

And I'll often tell people, if you set your car in the direction of where you want to go and just step on the gas and stop watching where you're going, you are inevitably going to hit something probably very quickly. And setting your goals is the same way. You have to check in on these things regularly to just understand how you need to make changes. And by the way, the benefit of doing this so regularly is that it makes the changes that you have to make really small, right? I would rather have 365 small chances to adjust than have to look up a year later and say, I didn't even get close to what I wanted to achieve. And so in order for me to not only make up the gap, but also get to where I want to go the following year, I'm going to have to really make some heavy changes.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. And you're going to end up so far off track if you do it this way. You'll give up or focus on something different or become discouraged or disinterested. So it's important to your point. So the write your goals down, you have to break them down too. So if your goal for the year is X and what does that look like for the month and for the week and really dig into your plan, then make those adjustments, we believe at least weekly. But you were saying 365, that could be the small daily adjustments, just matters where you are in the process and what makes sense for you.

And the last one we talk about is habits and forming powerful habits. So if you can do that, setting your goals at the beginning of the year is an important step in the process, but how you stay in a relationship with your goals throughout the year is equally, if not more important because you're probably going to make adjustments and changes as you learn more and life happens,

Nikki Miller:

I would be asking yourself, we use the focusing question, obviously, from The ONE Thing, what's the one thing I could do such that by doing it makes everything else easier or necessary. And as you're building your goals this year, I would ask yourself, what's the one habit I can create such that by creating it, makes everything else easier and necessary. I can tell you, Chris, early in my goal setting journey, the one habit I could create such that by creating it made everything else easier or necessary was just checking in on my goals on a daily basis.

Chris Dixon:

The same.

Nikki Miller:

Because it forced me to ask myself, did how I show up today or was who I was today in alignment with who I'm saying I want to be. In other words, if how I show up today, put me in alignment with where I want to go this year. And if the answer was no, well, then I just have to have an honest conversation with myself about how I want to adjust. And again, for me, it was a lot easier to stomach making small changes every single day, rather than having to look up a year later or longer and say, I'm totally off track, to your point.

Chris Dixon:

We had the opportunity, the fortunate opportunity, to talk to a former lead pilot of the Blue Angels on the podcast recently. And that was awesome. But he reminded the importance of using checklists, even for somebody that does this kind of thing, like flying an F18 upside down 18 inches from another one. It's like, however many tons doing 500 miles an hour. Crazy stuff. They do it every day, but they rely on their checklist.

And I think there's something to that daily behavior because you may think you have your goals in your mind, but you go a week or two weeks sometimes without looking at them. And you miss the details. So I think there's a takeaway or a parallel there and how important it is for us to use our goals like a checklist too.

Nikki Miller:

Absolutely. And so we have this framework. We call it the 3Ps. And it's purpose, priority, and productivity. And if you can just use this framework as your goal setting, it really gives you the roadmap to how to not only set the goal, but also how to keep it in alignment with who you want to be and what your true values are, and then how to identify the priorities in order to achieve that. So we start first and foremost with purpose.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. If I can share, Nikki, before we jump into purpose, something that I think if you work those 3Ps backwards too, almost as like a diagnosis, it's really interesting that way also. So if you look at very productive people or really productive teams, if you think of the iceberg analogy, like that's what's the P that's above the waterline, because what you're seeing is the results of them achieving something, it's the production. It's the end result of them working towards a goal.

And when you see that, if you ask some questions or you dig down just a little deeper, you'll find more often than not that those people, those teams, those organizations have a really in-depth ability to prioritize what matters most and that's really powerful. They know what to say yes to more often than not. They also feel empowered to say no to certain things because they have clarity on what's important. If you go a little deeper, even from there, you'll find that these people, teams, et cetera, have a really strong sense of purpose.

And so they're clear about their bigger purpose, their bigger goals, their values, as you mentioned. So they are enabled to prioritize things that matter so they can leverage that purpose driven goal setting so that they can be productive. So I think it's fun to not only go from the bottom up, but think about it as you work your way down and try to root cause where success is coming from for people.

Nikki Miller:

Well, I think the challenge --thank you for walking us through that, because I think the big challenge that we see often, Chris, is that people try to do this backwards or upside down to your point. And it doesn't work because we have to start with our purpose. We have to start with our values, with what matters to us, with why we're here, what gives us energy, why we want to show up, what we're enthusiastic or excited about, because often somebody will come to us, and we have some version of this conversation.

They're like, I want to achieve more. And I want to be really, really successful. And we're like, amazing, what does that mean to you? And they're like, I'm not really sure. And we're like, okay, well, well, how do you want to get there? I don't know about that either. And then we'll both look at them and we'll say, well, congratulations, you've already arrived.

A ship with no direction doesn't really care which way the wind sails. So we often try to set these big goals. But if we don't actually have a purposeful attachment to them, if they don't actually light us on fire, then when life gets hard, when business gets hard, we're likely not going to have the grit that we need to achieve them. So we start here to ask, is this an alignment with who I am, with who I want to be and why am I really doing this? What is this all for?

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. Sometimes purpose can feel big. By definition, it should. But it can feel almost too big to wrap your head around or you're like, how can I, maybe it's esoteric or maybe nebulous a little bit for you. And you're like, what is this big purpose thing? If you have that perspective, and even if you don't, I think it's really valuable to start with, like, what are my values? Like what matters most to me?

We call them core values. We do an exercise to help you identify your top three. It's awesome. There's tangible cards that you can flip through. It's really cool. People do it every year. And I swear every year, they're going to feel like it's repetitive and they have more and more takeaways every time they do it. Like mine have been the same for the last three years.

And actually, this time, as I went through, I recognized that they've changed. There's some big changes that happened in my life this year and I think that's important to call out. I got married. So there's different seasons of life and doing these values activities help you recognize like the, I call it the lens that you're kind of looking through to see the world and you're looking through these, this lens at your goals. And I think that's really important to start first with what matters most to you.

Nikki Miller:

For sure. And I think, to your point, I've gone through this exercise so many times, and mine have changed. Mine changed this year as well. Partly because Mark who, one of our amazing trainers is so good, so, so good at walking people through getting real clarity on this. So shout out to Mark. He’s just exceptional at it. And it wasn't till I got to have it facilitated by him that mine changed that he really helped me see it from a different perspective.

And one of my favorite parts about this is that we get to watch a lot of people do this exercise with their partner. And you see these light bulbs go off on both sides because core values is our fancy way of saying this is inherently what really matters to me or what I believe in. This is just part of who I am. A lot of people want to pick aspirational core values, like this is who I want to be. And we're like, no, your core value is part of who you already are, the things that already resonate with you.

And so I'll share one of Mark's stories that he shared from stage, which is that one of his core values, his top core value is fun and his wife's core value was, I'm going to say it incorrectly, but I think it was like scheduling or something like that.

Chris Dixon:

I think it’s efficiency.

Nikki Miller:

Efficiency, there we go. It’s efficiency. So if you put somebody whose core value is fun and somebody whose core value is efficiency together, if you don't come together with a common language and an ability to have that conversation, then you're probably going to have a little bit of friction in the relationship and not know why.

And so one of my favorite parts about this exercise is that we get to see a lot of couples and a lot of business partners have this conversation. And we see these light bulbs go off of, oh, this is why this bothers you, or this is why this bothers me. And then they figure out a way, not only have the conversation, but also how to work better together. And that to me is one of my favorite parts about this exercise.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. And we talk about communicating at a higher level, and that's not only communicating with someone else, like a partner, the people around you, but even weirdly communicating with yourself. It's being able to speak to yourself about why you're doing certain things or responding to certain things or maybe you're reacting to something because you're out of alignment with your values and the recognition of that's important.

But this is a really important and impactful way to, we believe, start with rooting yourself in this purpose process is knowing what matters most to you. And that sets you up to then, which is the other piece of giving some kind of grit to purpose early on is big goals, some big goals, having a big vision of what success looks like in the future and having this compass of knowing where you want to head 10 plus years into the future in combination with your values can really give you some direction on your purpose.

Nikki Miller:

For sure. And the way that we start this exercise, Chris, is we understand at The ONE Thing that people are not singular. And ultimately, happiness and joy and usually a fulfilled life doesn't just mean business fulfillment. And I think often we talk about the goal setting retreat, people make a direct line and association with business or financial goals. And so they'll come with absolute clarity about the business or financial goals that I want to achieve.

And we look up and we say, well, you're not here just to do that. Yes, that's important, but you didn't step onto this planet just to be a really successful businessperson. And you have other areas of your life that matter to you in order to achieve greatly in order for you to truly achieve fulfillment.

And so in The ONE Thing, we call that the seven circles. And probably my favorite exercise that we take everyone through is envisioning what success looks like in all seven circles of their life, in all these areas that encompass the whole human being. And one of my favorite exercises, like I said, was walking people through a visualization of what success actually looks like in each of these categories someday in the future. What does a 10 and a 10, a perfect life look like in all seven of these categories? If they were all firing on all cylinders, what would that actually look like? And then we take them to, based off that vision that you just had, which of these would be the most important for you to achieve or make improvement on today.

And probably my favorite conversation that I had during this exercise was there was a woman there who runs a huge business. And she walked up to me after we walked people through this exercise and she said, I came here specifically to build a GPS and my one-three-five and my Sunday goals around this big business and financial goal. But after doing this exercise, I realized that that's not the thing that's going to make the biggest impact. So which one should I focus on?

And I was just sort of quiet for a minute, and I just looked at her. And we sat in silence. And she was like, fine, I'll go do the one that's going to make the biggest impact on my life. And I said, great. It doesn't mean that you can't build the plan for the other goals, but this allows us to get clarity on the thing that's actually going to drive us forward in the most meaningful way.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. I got to see that interaction. It was pretty cool. Something that I've recognized with personal goals also, I mean it's great if you focus on business goals and that's where you want to go to and grow your business, that's incredible. A hundred percent support that. What you'll find, or I have experienced with goals that in and around business is there's a lot of built in accountability and practices and processes that naturally will, even if you're not the one that's implementing it, there might be something existing in a business that forces you to kind of do some of this process.

May not be as comprehensive, but you're going to check in around your goal. Someone's going to hold you accountable if you don't show up to work and do your job, those kinds of things, but oftentimes we lack any of that structure on the personal side. And so you end up without some of this forced accountability if you don't put something there and you'll see no matter how experienced you are with goal setting and things on the business side, you often see a deficit on the personal side because you don't have that in place. You don't show up to an office to talk about your personal goals five days a week. And it's just not something that's there.

So I think that's it. It's just an important call out. If you don't play some of that structure there and if you're not thinking about your personal goals regularly, they're going to start to tilt over towards -- your focus is going to tilt over towards your work goals because of that inherent accountability.

Nikki Miller:

For sure. And I think this is one of the bigger aha’s that people have when they join us in person. I mean, I can't count how many people came up to me and said, no one's ever asked me this before. Like just nobody has ever asked me these questions about all these other areas of my life.

We get asked all the time what do you want to achieve in business? How much money you want to make this year? Blah, blah, blah. But we almost never get asked, what does success in your spiritual life look like? What does success in your health look like? What does success in your key relationships look like?

And there's usually a significant discovery for people in having to not only envision but put to paper what that actually looks like for them. Most of them have never even been asked that question before or taken the uninterrupted time to really think about it and create intention around it.

Chris Dixon:

So true. So purpose, we believe you need to start at purpose. We think that's the foundation that you will be able to build all of this action on top of. It's the compass that will point you in true north as you move year over year, month over month, week over week through your goals. So we think at least start with getting clarity on your core values, know what matters most, get some vision of future success and identify the areas of your life that you think will have the greatest impact, and earn the right to maybe build more of those goals over time. So that will help give you some purpose.

So we talked about the 3Ps, purpose, priority, productivity. So if you are feeling like you've begun to gain some clarity on your purpose in that context, then you're setting yourself up to be able to prioritize what matters most. And we like to and believe in very much a process we call goal setting to the now.

Nikki Miller:

Well, the truth is, when you start with purpose, you know where you want to go, right? And when you live by priority, you know what you need to do in order to get there. And that's goal setting to the now. It's where do I want to be in the future based off that. What do I, how will I know if I'm on track in five years based off that? How will I know if I'm on track in a year based off that? How will I know if I'm on track this month, this week and today? And that's how we work backwards.

And again, I always tell people, we could ask probably all the time, what's the biggest mistake people make in goal setting. And I think this is the one that I'll always come back to that they try to flip it and say, what should I do today? But until you've informed what that someday goal is, what you want to do in the future, you can't possibly hope to clearly identify in a meaningful way what needs to happen today.

Chris Dixon:

Absolutely. I mean, you may know that you need to swerve left or right and not run over that pothole, but you don't know if you should swerve left or right based on what will get you closer to your bigger goals. So you can kind of dodge things and play whack-a-mole really well, but you're kind of aimless or you'd have to be very lucky to connect that to some bigger place.

Nikki Miller:

Well, we tell people often that the true purpose of a goal is to be appropriate in the moment. We have to define what success looks like. And that's where we have to start, because if we don't start there, then how will we know throughout the year if we're on track or if we're off track?

And by the way, if you're leading a team, this is even more important. If you haven't defined what success looks like, how will they know if they're on track or off track? How will they know if they need to change something? How will they know if they've won? How will they know when to stop?

And if we don't define what any of those things are, and the true answer is they won't, and so they will be thrust into failure or worse, the oblivion of directionlessness. And subsequently your organization into chaos and madness. And that's what we're trying to avoid by creating that clarity.

Chris Dixon:

Yep. Yeah. And working your goals back from someday to often to the future, to five years and one year and one month and one week and knowing what the one thing you need to focus on in each one of those intervals are or is, then when things change and they do and you have to make adjustments to your plan, you're set up to do that. You are able to make those small changes.

Versus if you know the one thing you need to do next week to get back on track, it's much more manageable. It feels more achievable. And then you can catch the hockey stick of exponential success over time that builds when you make those small corrections. But if you don't follow goal setting for the now, if you don't break that down and work your way backwards, you just don't have the tools to be able to make those changes.

Nikki Miller:

And I always tell people that this is really just a process of training your mind how to think, right? You're really just training your mind how to think here, how to connect one goal with the next goal over time until you know the most important thing to do right now. And to your point just now, so many people overestimate what they can accomplish in one year. And then when they get discouraged because they didn't accomplish that, they stopped trying or think that that someday goal that they have isn't achievable. And that's quite simply not true. You just didn't make a plan that was achievable within that year. By the way, if you stay on track, you could have made a plan that was achievable in the next five years.

And so this is the ultimate focusing question because we're asking ourself, okay, based off what I want to do someday, how will I know if I'm on track in five years? Based off what I want to do in five years, what's the one thing I could achieve in one year to know if I'm on track for that five year goal? Based off what I want to do in that one-year goal, what's the one thing I could do to make sure I'm on track for that one year goal this month or the next six months or whatever it is, however you're breaking it down.

And this is how you actually get to the behavior of right now. And that's what I think most people miss. They don't actually know how they need to show up today in order to be alignment with the future they're saying they want.

Chris Dixon:

So true. So you got some good clarity on your purpose. Hopefully, as you're going through this now, you're set up for success because you can begin it someday and work your way backwards through five years and one year and this month, the next month, this week, today, et cetera, goal setting to the now. So you are able to prioritize what matters most through this process so that you can be ultimately productive.

And being productive, it means achieving. It means being on the path to achieving. It's seeing the results of the work that you're doing. There's definitely some tools that you need to have in place to stay productive because for sure, habits not formed, you're going to end up off track and things are going to happen.

Nikki Miller:

Well, at the end of the day, it's one thing to set goals, like we talked about at the beginning of this podcast. It's something entirely different to actually achieve them. And ultimately, if we want to bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be, it's going to require action. There's no magic plan. There's no hoping. There's no wishing. You're going to have to take action in order to make the dreams in your head a reality. And you're likely going to have to have some accountability along the way.

I mean, most of us need accountability in order to continue to be on track, in order to stretch ourselves when we are feeling down or low energy, or when we're feeling like we want to give up. Those are normal feelings and that's where having a coach and having a rhythm of accountability is so important.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. I mean, you said it, the rhythm of accountability. And that's what that rhythm is, it's really the -- it's like the rigor and the routine and the behaviors and the habits that you need to establish so that you can form this relationship with the goals that you set so that you're communicating, you're making changes and it's something you have to work your way to and find what fits best in your workflow and your schedule and your lifestyle and all of that. And I'm sure Nikki, we can share some best practices, things that we do and that we've seen, but you do have to adapt that rhythm for you. Okay. But it means forming some habits around when you're checking in and making changes to your goals.

Nikki Miller:

For sure. I mean, we already talked about the 411. I already gave our shameless plug for the 411 episode. So for me, that's the number one way to stay on track. But when we talk about rhythm accountability, often that rhythm of accountability will require assistance from another person. Again, whether it's an accountability partner, whether it's a coach. And typically, you're going to want to share these goals so that you can have someone, just someone that you report to.

I mean, study after study has shown that if you have to show progress on something to somebody else, we're far more likely to actually achieve that goal. So that's definitely a best practice. Get yourself a coach, get yourself an accountability partner, get somebody who's checking in to make sure that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, knowing the different levels of accountability that exists and how to leverage them to set you up for success is so important. It's knowing that you have to have some level of self-driven accountability to be accountable to the things you commit yourself to. That needs to be there. Then it's leveraging the accountability of others that you just mentioned. And that can be that extra like exponent on your success, which is having a coach hiring someone to do that for you in your world, or an accountability partner, spouse, partner, something like that. There's groups you can be in, just finding a community of like-minded people, just elevating that accountability.

I think there's something really important to the kind of schedule that you build around your accountability too. And you shared something earlier around a habit you form, Nikki, and I have a very similar one, but maybe we could share some of that. So every single day, before I start my work day and look at my email and start to go down the path of seeing everybody else's priorities, what I'll do is I'll pull up my calendar. I'll pull my 411 and I'll get out my digital notepad. I don't waste paper anymore. I'm pretty proud of that. And I'll write my daily goals, like the one thing I need to accomplish for each one of my weekly goals. And I get clear looking at my calendar about my priorities for the day. And I do that every single day.

Then at the end of every single week, I'll update, review, reflect, and update my 411 for my weekly goals. At the end of every month, I'll do the same thing with my 411 for my monthly goals. And at the end of every year, you're rebuilding your annual goals. But it's very, very simplified to go through it quickly. But that's what I've found has helped keep me clear. And that's the relationship that I've formed with my goals that set me up for success. But what do you do that either is the same or different there, Nikki?

Nikki Miller:

First of all, you all, I just need to call out Chris's hating on all of us still using paper. You are so on this new remarkable notepad. He's been trying to convert me. I'm like, no, you can fry my notebook out of my cold, dead fingers.

Chris Dixon:

Cold dead fingers.

Nikki Miller:

I mean, mine's very similar, Chris. I would say the only stark difference on my side is that I do mine at night. I spend -- and by the way, you all, some people hear us talk about this and they think that this ends up being some time consuming, exorbitant, like I need to light the candles, meditate for a while before I do this exercise. This takes 5 to 10 minutes at most. Sometimes I do it. Yeah, I do it in front of the TV when my husband's watching football or whatever. Like this isn't something you need to make a whole scene about.

But at night, before I go to bed, I've had a routine for a long time that I look at my 411. So same exercise. And then I take a look at what I set out to achieve this week. And then I'll take a look at my calendar for the next day, and I'll make sure that I'm time blocked for those priorities. So I absolutely refuse. I have a fundamental habit that I have not infringed on for a very long time since I built it, which is that I will not enter a day without knowing exactly what I'm setting out to achieve that day.

I will just absolutely not start a day without knowing exactly how I'm going to behave that day because I found that if I woke up in the morning and didn't have absolute clarity about what I needed to achieve that day, the day sort of ended up running me instead of me running it. So I do it at night. And then I also do a reflection at night. Just a quick reflection of I look backwards in that day. And I asked myself was how I showed up today in alignment with how I needed to basically? Did I achieve what I set out to achieve?

And by the way, if I didn't, I'm not going to sit there and beat myself up over it. I'm just going to ask myself what got in the way because it allows me to sweep for minds. We talk about this when we talk about time blocking, it allows me to sweep for minds the next day. So there's a lot of small changes that I've made. I've turned off certain types of notifications on my phone and on my computer because there were too many days in a row that I was looking backwards and saying, oh, I got that text message and it totally put me off track.

Our internal ONE Thing team knows my absolute like loathing of Slack. And if that thing shows up, I'm going to stop what I'm doing and I'm going to get distracted and I'm going to go into that. And that's a never-ending Pandora's box. So I had to look up and say, what are the things that are distracting me from what matters most? And how do I get rid of those? How do I sweep for minds ahead of time so that I can actually be as productive as possible tomorrow?

Chris Dixon:

Awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. And having your own routine, like you said, that fits your schedule and finding the time that makes sense, and just getting into that, that could be the one habit that unlocks everything for you. And you talk about the shifting your perspective about time to being an investment. And you want to talk about getting a really solid ROI from a small period of time. I mean, 5 to 10 minutes a day, it could change your entire life. I'd say that's something worth considering.

Nikki Miller:

A hundred percent. And I tell people again, I'll just keep going back to it, just don't make this too complicated. It really just doesn't take that much time. It's just about being as intentional as possible with your time that you're going to spend. If you're going to spend the time anyway, you may as well spend it wisely.

And that really brings us to what I think is a grossly misunderstood process around time blocking. And I love how Brooke, one of our amazing trainers, walked everyone through this at the goal setting retreat. She did such an amazing job at really giving people new perspective and new tools around time blocking. And I think this is often a misunderstood process from The ONE Thing that people get really stuck in the timing of doing activities.

And what I often offer to people is that time blocking can look a little bit different for different people, but the Genesis, the basis of time blocking is that you allot a specific amount of time for what needs to be achieved that day. And then you also zoom out to time block the things that matter most, or have you time blocked for the year, your family vacations, because we all know that if you get really busy and if you haven't time blocked those, you're just quite simply not going to take them.

Have you time blocked the activity that's going to bring you closer to your health goals? Have you time blocked the activity that's going to make sure that you show up for your family the way that you want to. And so this is just about allotting the time and making sure that you're staying appropriate in the moment and in the time period that you allotted for that thing.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. Another one of those that it's easy to overcorrect around time blocking too if you're going from zero or very little time blocking, trying to just time block every single possible thing you're doing, I mean, you got to kind of have to earn your way to a more complicated calendar through experience and finding what works because last thing you want to do is time block everything. Say no to half your time blocks, not see the value in the process and then just abandon it. If you do nothing else, just figure out the most important thing you need to accomplish in one day and time block that and work your way into adding anything to it.

Again, there's intellectual rabbit holes kind of littered throughout the process. But remember, it's the surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results. Keep it simple. It's intended to be simple. There's enough complexity in everything you've got going on in your life. You don't need a complicated system. Keep it simple. Focus on the things that matter most.

Nikki Miller:

Totally. Well, at the end of the day, complexity is the enemy of execution. If we make it too complex, it's just going to be an excuse not to take action. I remember I was in a training with Ryan Holiday. And obviously, his one thing is writing. He's an author. And so he showed a picture of his calendar. And basically, every day, it was the morning blocked off for writing and the rest the day was nothing else. And it was a great example and a great reminder of he's got a big life. I'm sure there's a lot of other things that he needs to do, but not at the expense of what matters most.

So to your point, Chris, if you're listening to this and you're new to time blocking or you've tried it and it's never worked for you before, you're probably just time blocking too much. So just time block the thing that matters most. And then, by the way, if the rest of the day goes to heck, like you can still make sure that you did the most important thing. Like you can still look backwards on that day and say, I still achieve the most important thing, even if the rest of the day didn't go as planned.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. I mean, it's the old 80-20 rule. If you're clear on the 20 percent focus or the minority focus that will deliver the 80 percent or the majority of the results you need to accomplish throughout the day and you time block that, I mean, you're way ahead of the curve. The remaining stuff will kind of figure itself out.

Nikki Miller:

Absolutely.

Chris Dixon:

We also really wanted to share an awesome opportunity and a product that we're putting together that could support you as you go through this in our virtual on demand goal setting retreat course that we're building exclusively for you this year.

Nikki Miller:

Well, Chris, after the goal setting retreat, which sold out, we had so many people who came to us and said, we can't make it, or the ability to leave my family or my home or whatever for three days, it's just not on the table for me, but I still want to go through this process and I want support to be able to do it. And we just got an influx of requests for a virtual option.

And so you ask, we listen, and we are, starting December 1st, we're going to be launching the virtual goal setting retreat where you will be able to walk through our really renowned goal setting retreat that we do every single year, but on your own timeline. So you're still getting our incredible trainers. You're getting not only them walking you through each of the modules, but also some content from the actual live goal setting retreat that we did, that we reviewed today. And you're going to be able to walk through this on your own timeline. You can do it with a partner. You can do it by yourself. This is your ability to go through it at your own pace from wherever you are in the world. And to be able to use these tools to set yourself up for your best year yet. If you've never had the ability to go through this in a guided fashion, it's an incredible opportunity. I'm so excited about it.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. And we've done some virtual access to goal setting retreat in years past where you could stream the live event, or you could have some clips from the live event. This year we're doing something much better and different. We're actually building a course specifically and recorded specifically for the virtual experience led by our coaches.

We go through everything that we just went through on this podcast, in much more detail and we guide you through the exercises and we take you through the experience as Nikki mentioned. So you can do it on your own terms and your own time. We don't do it between dinner and going to bed. You can, but try to find a dedicated space to work on it. And it's set up for the virtual experience so that you can have this opportunity.

Nikki Miller:

Yeah. I would offer that best practices are if you can take a day or two days to go through this whole thing and walk out of those couple of days with a clear plan, then that's the best. But if you can't do that, if you got to take bites out of it, that's better than not doing it at all, for sure. So if you want to access this, go to the1thing.com. That's the, number 1thing.com.

We'll also have the link to this in our show notes. If you follow us on Instagram, it's also linked in our bio there. If you are in our newsletter, you'll see it there as well. So there's lots of ways that you can access this. And like I said, I couldn't be more excited for this. I know that this has been so meaningful in my own life. Like I said, we're both coming off the heels of getting to do this in person and getting to see the life changing effects of the goal setting retreat. And I'm just so excited to be able to offer this to a wider group of people, for more people to be able to leverage the magic of getting anything you want, pretty much.

Chris Dixon:

Yeah. And holidays are coming up. Maybe it could be an awesome opportunity to give this to somebody else in your life that would benefit from getting clear on their goals. So an awesome gift opportunity as well,

Nikki Miller:

For sure. I mean, I know in our family, we don't do stuff anymore because gosh knows I've got enough of that, especially with a toddler in my house. So we're always looking for ways that we can give something that keeps giving so to speak, whether it's a piece of knowledge or a class or a book. And I can't imagine anything more powerful than teaching people how to build a plan to, like I said, get anything that they want to achieve anything they want, and then have accountability and a plan in order to be able to get there. I mean, it's just, to me, it's the greatest opportunity that we could give.

Chris Dixon:

Awesome. Nikki, if you could have everyone take away one thing from our podcast today, what would you have them take away?

Nikki Miller:

I think I would go back to what I said earlier, which is that a ship with no direction doesn't care which way the wind blows. In order to build a great plan, you have to clearly identify what you want to achieve. And then you're going to have to do the right actions in order to get there. You have to build a plan backwards. But the only way to do that is to get clearer on, on what success looks like for you. What about you, Chris?

Chris Dixon:

Make the investment. Make the investment in figuring out what extraordinary life you want to live and then forming the relationship with that vision of success with a simple process. And we believe we have one that can support you, but that's it, make the investment. It's not significant. You can do it on your own. You can follow the tools we gave you in this podcast. You can take advantage of the VGSR, virtual goal setting retreat that we mentioned, but make that investment. It will change your life.

Nikki Miller:

All right, you all. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. We hope that this was helpful. If you want to leverage the virtual goal setting retreat, like I said, you can find it online. We're also going to put it in the show notes here. If you want more of these types of trainings on the podcast, send us a message at podcast@theonething.com. If this was valuable for you, leave us a five-star review, share it with us on social. We love hearing from you. And we will see you next time on The ONE Thing podcast.

Chris Dixon:

Bye, everybody.

Outro:

Thanks for listening to The ONE Thing podcast. If you're a bold risk taker who wants to dream big and achieve a higher level of success in your life or business, visit the1thing.com. There, you'll find information on one-on-one coaching, our exclusive community membership program, and customized workshops that will help you get your team or organization aligned and rowing in the same direction.

That's T-H-E, the number 1.com to start living the life you've always dreamed of today. Be sure to follow the show to stay up to date on weekly episodes, guest interviews, and more. Plus, we would love to hear from you. Send us a voice note by going to speakpipe.com/theonething or email us at podcast@theonething.com. We'll see you next week.