How to set Goals

Welcome.

You must set Goals

Without Goals, your chances of success are infinitesimal

That's harsh, I know.  But this is Advancing to Greater and we're not here to make you feel better, we're sharing the very best information that has been collected, filtered, and distilled down through a decade and a half of daily reading on principles of success.

Without goals, how are you going to know if you've succeeded?

Said another way, how can you hit the target if you don't know where it is?  What it is?
In which direction it is?

There is a ton of research that does, and ongoing research that certainly will, show that those who set goals are much more likely to achieve them.  There is also research that shows that those who are high achievers (who've already "made it") are people who set written goals for themselves and refer to them often.

So, how do you put yourself into this category of those more likely to achieve?

Simple, 

get out some paper...

goals that aren't written down aren't goals, 

With the blank piece of paper out, I find that it is wise to jot down some notes about the goal or goals that I'm about to write out.

Goals should be:

• They should be Specific and they should matter to you
• They should be Measurable - how will you know if you're making progress of if you've achieved your goal
• They should be Attainable or Realistic - not so huge that they seem impossible.
• They should be Relevant or Rewarding to you.
• They should be Time-bound or Trackable.

People often use this "SMART" mnemonic to help them think about their goals, but there are few other notes to keep in mind before you write out your goal in its best form...

It is important to use positive wording - for example, if you were making a goal about your healthy food choices, you should avoid saying "Don't eat junk food."  Instead, you'd want to word it "Make healthy food choices" or "when I'm hungry, I will eat foods that are in accord with my diet plan."

Words like "don't" and "never" and "no" and "not" have their place, yes, but they set a negative, limiting tone.  I find that with careful wording, you can use positive word choices that set a more uplifting, agreeable, hopeful tone in your goals.

Goals should be few, I have found.  

Ben Franklin identified all the things about himself that he wanted to improve upon and set about tracking them all, but he found he made no progress.  

He did figure out though, that when he limited his focus to a few things that he really wanted to change - he was able to do accomplish his goals, set new habits, and then move on to the next set of things he wanted to improve about himself.
Winners Focus, Losers Spray

Goals need to be reviewed frequently.  Once you've written them out, set out a schedule for tracking your progress and reviewing your goals, updating and changing them as necessary.

Now, it is time to start writing your first draft of your first goal - this is going to take some time and some re-writing, but it is not hard.  Let's begin.

One goal per page.

The first line of your goal is going to be your positively-worded "TO" statement.  For example:

• To reduce my bodyfat percentage from 25% to 23%

This statement is specific, measureable, attainable/realistic, relevant/rewarding and positively worded.


Next, we add the time-bound/tracking to it on the next line by writing when we want to achieve it, starting with the word "By"

• By July 15, 2017.

Next, the best thing that we can do is map out how we plan to make this goal happen, line by line, starting with the phrase "I will accomplish this by"

• Exercising 5 times per week where I either elevate my pulse into the "fat burn zone" as indicated by my FitBit and keep it elevated there for 45 minutes, or by accomplishing one High Intensity Interval Training workout as led by Lisa Marie from Bodyrock.tv 
• When I shop for groceries, I will buy only healthy foods to stock my refrigerator and pantry.
• When I am hungry, I will eat only those foods which are specifically allowed by the diet plan I have chosen to follow while I accomplish this goal,  "Eat to Live" diet from the book, Eat to Live, by Dr. Joel Fuhrman.
• Logging my weight and bodyfat percentage into my FitBit app every four days, starting today, May 16, 2017.

Remember that this is your first draft - you can add a bunch of items to your plan of how you will accomplish your goal.  You can also revise this later as you work on other parts of this goal, or after you have been working on actually accomplishing your goal - maybe you notice that you forgot something and need to edit your goal.  That's cool.

The next step is confronting the challenges that you will face and overcome as you achieve this goal.  We put these expected challenges into our written goal so that we think about them and plan for them now, before we have to "make a decision on the fly" which might prove unnecessarily challenging.

Start by writing out "Challenges I expect to face and how I will overcome them are:"

• Unexpected hunger or cravings while I'm at work where the only options are unhealthy snacks in the vending machine in the hall.
• I will overcome this challenge by bringing into work a couple different healthy snack options which I will keep in my drawer so that I do not have to think about the vending machine in the hall.
• Tiredness when I get done with a long day at work and don't feel like leaving my house after I've just gotten home from a tiring day at work and I would rather not go to the gym.
• I will overcome this challenge by waking up earlier so that I go to the gym first thing in the morning, and then going to work after that.  Or:
• I will pack my gym bag the night before and put it in my car, so that I have everything I need with me at work.  I will then drive straight from work to my gym so that I get my workout in!

These are just examples, and you can write out as many challenges and solutions as you can foresee.  Keep going until it feels "right."  Then consider revising your first draft of your first goal which you have done in the best way possible.  There are often some wording changes or spelling mistakes that you will catch and choose to correct.  Making your goal more "perfect" will make you prouder of it, and therefore, in my experience, you will work harder to achieve it.

That's it.  You've done it.

You've written out your first goal in the best way possible.  You are advancing to greater!

The next step is where the rubber meets the road though - now you must have the self-discipline to put your goal into action and actually start working on it, start working to achieve it!

Perseverance is the final element.  It is what will separate the achievers from the quitters.  Perseverance is the single most important element.  Get after it.

You set a good goal, and you created a great plan to achieve it.  

Now, stop thinking about the goal and work the plan!

Invest Your Emotions

Welcome.

I have realized more and more that much of what is covered here on Advancing to Greater (especially the stuff that relates to early-retirement) is in line with the tenets of Stoicism.

A great friend of mine has knowledge of this philosophy which is greater than my own and whose writing I happen to quite like.
As a result, I asked him to write this guest-post (the first ever!) for you to enjoy and, perhaps, learn something from.  Please consider following his work on his blog.

Thank you, John.

Some things are under our control, while others are not.

This is one of the core teachings of the ancient philosophy of Stoicism: that
we should be always aware of which things are inside our control, and which
things are outside. What purpose does it serve to maintain an awareness of the
limits of our control?

Knowing the limits of our control tells us where to focus our emotional
energies.

Simply put, if a thing is outside of your control, then your emotional energy
is better invested elsewhere.

The Tide

Consider an example: the tide. The relative motion of the Earth and Moon cause
the sea to rise and fall in a regular cycle. The tide is extremely powerful
compared to you and I, and it's entirely indifferent to (indeed unaware of) our
needs and desires. Suppose the tide is troublesome to you for some reason.
Perhaps you want to build a house, but the tide keeps rising and flooding your
preferred building site.

What would be the effects of your becoming upset about the tide? The tide itself
will certainly not be affected. A house built in the way of the tide will continue
to be flooded, regardless of your feelings about it. The primary effect of your
upset will be to injure your well-being.

I have intentionally chosen an example where it is plain to see that it's
futile to get upset. Now, let's move on to less obvious examples.

My Personal Malinvestment

Here's one from my own history. I used to become very emotionally invested in
political matters. I saw wrongs being committed on a massive scale - enormous
violations of my personal ethics committed by politicians. Because the scale
of these wrongs was so large, it seemed natural to me to be very upset about them.
It took me quite some time to realize the futility of spending my emotional energy
in this way. It just seemed so . . . right . . . to be indignant about all
that wrongness.

But my angry rants, fist-shaking, and even letter-writing to my Congresspeople
made no detectable impact. Politicians kept on being politicians, and I kept
on being upset, and losing sleep, and feeling grumpy, and sometimes genuinely
depressed - until I realized I didn't have to be upset.

Now, I am certainly not saying that I've changed my opinion of politics and now
approve of the behavior of politicians. No, I still think they're by and large
crooked. What's different is that I now try and view politics as I might view
the tide: It's a part of my environment - a very powerful and potentially
dangerous part - over which I have very little control. Getting upset can be
reasonably expected to have no impact at all on the problem, and to have a
significant negative impact on my well-being.

Out of Control

Consider this short list of things that are mostly or entirely out of your control:

• The behavior of other people, including
• politicians
• your kids
• your spouse
• your boss
• other drivers on the road
• that person who's wrong on social media.
• The weather
• Disease
• Death

Think about these and other things outside your control. How much emotional
energy are you investing in them? How much value are you getting out of that
emotional investment?

Within Control

What, then is within our control? The Stoics said, and I think they got it
right, that we have control only over our own thoughts and actions. And since
this is where we have control, this is where our emotional energies are best
invested.

We serve ourselves best when we put our emotional weight not on our
circumstances, which are often outside our control, but instead on our
responses to those circumstances. Not on past events, which are always out
of our control (being in the past), but instead on learning from what has
happened. Not on anticipated future events, but instead of preparing
ourselves to face those events in our preferred ways.

When, as is often the case, we find ourselves astray and investing emotional
energy unproductively, the Stoics recommend repeating to ourselves the maxim
with which we began: "Some things are under our control, while others are not."

Learn More

Don't take my word about Stoicism. I'm a student, not a master. To learn more
about Stoicism, I recommend the following resources:

• Stoicism Today, home of the annual Stoic Week, which I strongly recommend.
• How to Be a Stoic, a blog by Massimo Pigliucci, who originally introduced me to Stoic Week.
• The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius

Do you actually know how to read?

Welcome.

Of course we do.  We're reading this right now!

Well, yes, if you are reading this, you are at least literate.

Keep in mind though that you are at Advancing to Greater.
I'm going to show you how to get more out of everything you read.  (Well, maybe this isn't the best way to read your latest fun fiction novel of whatever genre you're into...let's read those normally.)



Too often, we all notice that we have to re-read something we just read because we realize that we had merely passed our eyes over the text, without actually reading the words - or at least without comprehending what we took in.

Here's how to advancing your reading skills to a higher level using ogres.

Well, not really ogres.

That's just a mnemonic for OGRRS, a five-pronged approach to being better at reading which I've developed through much effort, research, and effortful study.

Overview

First, try to get an idea of what you are going be reading.  Get an overview, take a general survey of the material so that you can then...

Guess

Next, guess what the material is going to teach you.  Writing down questions that you expect the material to answer for you is extremely helpful, as your brain will immediately bring information to your attention when it provides an answer that you were looking for.

The purpose of the first two steps is prepare our minds for the material that we are about to read, this primes our mental faculties and our brains start thinking about all we know about the given subject.  This makes it easier for our brains to critically examine, comprehend, and assimilate the new knowledge that we are taking is as we....

Read

At last, we arrive at the actual reading part of the material.  Read the material thoroughly and with the expectation that the answers you guessed that you might find will be answered.  Do not allow your attention to wander though - we're not going to go looking for the answers to the questions we wrote down, we're just thoroughly reading the material here.

Sometimes, it is helpful to jot notes as you read.  If you're using your own book, jot notes directly into the book as you go, underline and highlight passages that jump out at you.  This is also a great time to note when your questions are being answered as you read the material.

Now we can...

Review

Were your questions answered?  Review the material again, focusing on the notes you took, the parts you underlined and highlighted.  If your the answers you guessed that you'd find were not there, why not?  Was it simply not covered by the material?  Or did you miss something?  If you missed anything jot down those answers now before we move on to...

Speak

That's right, we're going to talk to ourselves now!  I know, I know, it feels weird, especially at first. Super-especially in public.  You can choose best for yourself when and how to employ this step.

Recitation is however, the way we are all best-able to retain the information.  Start by reading aloud your notes and underlined and highlighted portions first.  Next, we will read aloud our questions and answers.  The last step is to see if you can recite a short summary of all of the important information within what you just read.  If you can, it is most likely that you will remember it.  If you are realizing that you cannot recite some parts, go back and re-review those parts aloud.  Then try again to recite a summary - covering all the important points - from memory.  Once you can do that, you are done.

Whew!  That's a little bit more effort than what normally goes into reading something, but it is well worth it.  As you put this into practice, you will join those of us who use this awesome technique to advance their reading, comprehension, and retention of information to a greater level.

This is also a technique that is easy for us all to apply to smaller sections.  You can use the OGRRS method of reading not just for a whole book, but for a chapter at a time.  This is especially helpful if you are reading through material in a structured way, such as when we take classes.



That's it.  Using the ogres to help your reading advance to a greater skill level is awesome, and it will pay many dividends in life.  Being the one who remembers more is helpful, and it is certainly faster than having to look things up all the time.  It helps at work, in our hobbies, and in our private lives.

Enjoy, and I wish you the best of luck as you make use of this technique.

Let me know what you think, please.  My email address is rich at advancing to greater dot com.
Thanks!