Mindset - Microgoals

Welcome to the first day of Mindset coaching. You'll be learning 12 strategies that will help you optimize your mental toughness and mental health. In Mindset coaching, I will provide an introduction to 12 strategies.

Mental toughness and mental health are actually the same thing, they are both defined as your ability to be calm, effective and happy no matter what life throws at you.

So, if you'd like the ability to be calm, effective and happy in any situation no matter how challenging you've come to the right place.

Today I will be introducing you to the first of the 12 tactics micro goals.

Let's begin with a question;

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.

Think about it. One bite at a time. There is no other way you could do it. You can't eat an elephant two or three or fifty bytes at a time. The only way you can eat anything, elephant or otherwise, is one bite at a time. But it turns out everything in life is the same as eating an elephant. You can only do it one step at a time. When you compare people who are really mentally tough with people who aren't so mentally tough, there is no difference between what those people can do, everyone can only do things one step at a time. But there is an enormous difference in what mentally tough and mentally weak people focus on. The mentally tough focus on the only thing they can do, completing the next step. The mentally weak on the other hand, focus on completing the entire task, or series of tasks, rather than just thinking about doing the next step.

Here's what I mean, think about when you feel stressed or overwhelmed by an undertaking. You are almost never overwhelmed by what you are doing now. You're overwhelmed by what you think you have to do in the future, whether writing an essay, or running a marathon, writing that next sentence, or taking that next step is never an issue. You can always do that. The stress, anxiousness, and the panic come when you think about how you still have to write another 5000 words or run another 15 miles before you're finished. That's when you get stressed overwhelmed or quit. Focusing on the whole task, rather than solely the next step, is what leads to the loss of your calmness, effectiveness, and happiness.

It's the same in SEAL training. Hell Week is the toughest part of SEAL training and is a 5 1/2 day stretch that goes from Sunday night to Friday morning in which trainees are only allowed a total of three hours of sleep. 99% of the people who quit during hell week quit before Tuesday morning. In a 132 hour (about 5 and a half days) long Crucible that goes from Sunday all the way to Friday, everyone who quits does so in just the first 36 hours (about 1 and a half days)!  Why would that be? Wouldn't people be more exhausted and thus more likely to quit later in the week?

The reason that makes people quit is not the fatigue, it's not eating the elephant one bite at a time.

Interviews with people who quit during hell week always reveal the same rationale, they'll say “I just kept thinking about how much time was left and I didn't feel like I could make it that long.” All the SEAL trainees could do was take the next step whether one more lunge or one more push up or one more moment than the freezing water. They quit because their focus was on so much more than that. They were focused on making it another four or five entire days without sleep. Because their focus was on such an enormous, brutal, seemingly impossible, undertaking, they became overwhelmed and quit. Even though they could all manage what they were doing in the moment. That one pushup or one step. Thinking about the enormity of the entire task was too much to handle.

When you are faced with adversity in your life, take the goal you're trying to accomplish, and break it down into the tiniest possible pieces called micro goals, and then focus only on completing the next little micro goal.

If you think about having to write a 20 page report that could make you stressed. If you just focus on writing one next sentence you won't feel overwhelmed at all. Or if you think about all the things you have to do to get your kids out the door for school in the morning, you might feel frenzied, but if you just focus on completing the next step, whether it's picking one lunch, or tie one child shoes, you'll feel perfectly calm and in control.

Or maybe you're in a dark place and just getting through the next day feels impossible. Don't think about getting through the day, just focus all your energy on getting out of bed, or just taking a shower, putting on a pair of jeans, or texting one friend, or going for one walk, or applying for one job, and before you know it you're up and moving and you're crushing your day. You didn't even feel you could begin an hour ago. Your brain does not make you stressed based on how much is going on in your life. Your brain makes you stressed based on what you are focusing on. If you allow yourself to focus on the enormity of the challenges, and to do lists you're facing, you will feel stressed. If you just focus on doing the next small step, that small step is so manageable and doable, your brain won't make you feel stressed or overwhelmed at all.

And to be absolutely clear, you should certainly plan for the long term, but once you've finished planning and have begun doing it, focus only on completing the next micro-goal – whether doing one more rep or studying one more fact. Give that micro-goal everything you’ve got. Once you’re done, turn your focus just to the next micro-goal. And then rinse and repeat, never allowing your focus to wander beyond the very next step until the job is done. You and use this for work, school, physical training, everything.

You have incredible capabilities, but your mind will quit on you before you reach your potential if you give it the chance. Your brain is programmed to conserve energy and avoid hardship. So, when your mind focuses on all the struggle and energy that will be required to accomplish a challenging goal, it makes you stress, panic, or even give up entirely. Don't give your mind the chance to hijack your goals. Discipline yourself to only focus on the next micro goal.

It is important to remember that no one you admire has ever accomplished anything remarkable. What they actually did was accomplish hundreds or usually thousands of tiny steps and tasks that eventually combined to be something remarkable. Babe Ruth didn't walk up and hit 714 home runs. He hit one home run, and then another, and another, and all of those singular efforts added up to an incredible body of work. Babe did things one step at a time, and so must you. Never again set out to do something big. If you're doing something challenging, focusing on the big picture will harm your calmness, effectiveness, and happiness. You should only set out to take the very next step. And after that, just the next one, and as long as you have a thoughtful plan, those little steps will add up to something meaningful.

To accomplish big things, think small.