Goal Setting Isn’t Conducive to Long-term Success, Present Living Is
Goal setting is a top-down approach, but a bottom-up approach is better.
Much of our ability to perform, in the long term, hinges on our ability to focus in the short term.
Countless gurus on the internet propose a top-down approach to focusing your mind. They say “You just have to set clearer and bigger goals! Then you’ll be motivated to focus!”
I don’t know about you, but imagining something that’s 2-10 years away only adds more distraction. Usually, I’m more concerned with the details I’m dealing with on only this day. Imagining those grand goals does nothing if I can’t even get clear with what I’ll be doing day to day.
David Allen, a productivity consultant, proposes that to get more focused, we just need to “flip” how we aim to achieve things:
“Intellectually, the most appropriate way ought to be to work from the top down, first uncovering personal and organizational purpose and vision, then defining critical objectives, and finally focusing on the details of implementation. The trouble is, however, that most people are so embroiled in commitments on a day-to-day level that their ability to focus successfully on the larger horizon is seriously impaired. Consequently, a bottom-up approach is usually more effective.” — Getting Things Done pg. 21
Often, people idealize the process of getting productive and focused. They think that if they spend enough time aligning and focusing on their longer-term commitments, they’ll eventually develop the perfect method for managing their entire lives from the top-down.
But, fortunately, achieving your long-term goals is more about learning how to manage your day-to-day minutia from the bottom-up.
A Trick I Learned For Working “Bottom-up”
Back when I was working in SaaS sales, I learned a cool trick for how to work “bottom-up”.
Every day, I had to make 70-80 calls. To ensure I would stay focused on the phone (and increase the likelihood I would book a meeting) I made a habit of “completing the call”.
Completing the call is when you aim to have a quality conversation with a lead whether or not you make the sale. No matter what, I aimed to provide the lead with some sort of value, even if they didn’t buy the product I was selling. After months of completing the call with thousands of leads, I had previous leads who would email me and because needs had changed in their company and the product I was selling was now on their to-do list. The way I treated them planted a seed that grew for me later.
Completing the call doesn’t just apply to sales. It applies to anything you are doing. For anything you do on a day-to-day basis, ask yourself “What does the best version of me doing this thing look like?” or “What does the best version of completion look like for this task?”
Whatever your answer to that question is, write it down as a reminder, and consciously aim for that vision each time you do that thing.