“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.

Make at least one definite move daily toward your goal.“

-Bruce Lee

Stop setting goals. At least, not without a plan of attack to knock those goals out.

Goal-setting is advice dictated in a myriad of ‘self help’ books. That you should always be setting goals that you want to accomplish. Unfortunately in my experience it kind of stops there in that regard.

I don’t think that’s good advice. You can set all the goals you want just to stroke your ego but if you don’t hustle hard to make those goals into accomplishments then what good was making them?

You see it every year. The first of January… “This year I’m going to lose X pounds.”

“This year I’m going to read more.” “This year I’m going to blah blah blah”

And it never happens. Another year with no change whatsoever. And we can only blame ourselves for it.

So what should we do about it?

Here’s some advice that has helped me.

1) Smaller Goals and tasks

If you want to lose 50 pounds, you’re going to have to lose 5 pounds first. If you want to dead-lift 5 plates, you’ll have to dead lift 2 plates first right? It’s a lot easier to keep definite, feasible and small goals than it is to keep a big, vague and long term goal. Instead of telling yourself that this year you’re going to lose 50 pounds, tell yourself that this week you’ll lose 2. Humans suck at long term thinking. You’ll be able to keep yourself much more accountable this way.

2) Daily Goals

Like the Bruce Lee quote above says, you gotta make one definite move toward your goal every day. Don’t become stagnant or procrastinate and push it back. That’s why I recommend making daily goals. These should be mini-goals that over time will bring you to accomplish your real goal. Take a page out of Charles Schwab’s book: Make a to do list for the next day every night.

Write down 6 things you want to accomplish tomorrow. Not projects. Just tasks. Rank them 1-6 in order of importance and cross them off as you finish the daily goals. Don’t do it tomorrow morning, do it tonight so you’ll be ready to wake up and kick the day’s ass. If you don’t finish a goal, don’t sweat it. Just put it on the list for tomorrow. For some reason this ends up being a killer life hack that has taken me far. I invite you to try it out. It’ll just costs you 5 minutes of time tonight. What do you got to lose?

3) Stay focused and hustle hard

This is probably the most important piece of advice I can offer you. The world belongs to those who hustle. Those who fight for what they want. Nobody woke up one day and had success handed to them. Every Mr. Olympia, Gold Medalist and Billionaire Entrepreneur had to fight hard for their success. You have to wake up every day and be able to motivate your ass into doing what it takes to get what you want. That’s all there is too it. Hours of grueling effort and focus is what lies between you and who you know in your heart you have to become. You can make all the to-do lists you want and set all the goals your heart desires but if you don’t wake up every day with the conviction to get up off your ass and get that it done…then you won’t be successful. Period.