THE SURPRISING TRUTH—FOUR THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT REACHING GOALS


By Jennifer Shike


Why don't we finish goals? Jon Acuff, best-selling author and motivational speaker, says we often focus on the wrong thing when we talk about our goals. It’s kind of like a marathon, he describes. Everyone cheers you on at the beginning and the end, but no one’s there in the middle— and that is the toughest part.


“Most people think a goal is like this,” Acuff explains. “If you have 30 days, the beginning will be days 0 through 10. Te middle will be days 11 through 20. And the finish will be days 21 through 30. Tat feels right mathematically; unfortunately, that's not how it goes. Usually, the beginning is day one, the middle is days 2 through 29. And the finish is day 30.”


Tere's a lot of middle to every goal. Tat’s why he says our focus should be on finishing, not starting. He wanted to dig into this topic more and commissioned a research study with a PhD student at the University of Memphis. Tey studied 900 people for six months who were working on a variety of goals to see if people could go from being chronic starters into consistent finishers. Acuff shared the results and what it takes to finish the goals that matter during the Online Top Producer Summit.


Get the Size Right


Te very first thing to do with any goal is to figure out what the size of the goal should be. After all, Acuff says goals in and of themselves are not complicated. Tere are four parts of a goal: the results you want, the timeline, the actions, and the motivation. “Te problem with these four different components is we tend to be really terrible at estimating what we can accomplish,” Acuff says.


In the study, researchers asked participants to cut their goal in half and evaluated what happened. Tey learned that people who cut their goal in half were 63 percent more successful. Acuff says this proves how bad most people are at figuring out their goals. But he says there is hope because most people are good at results and timelines. Tat leaves more time to focus on the parts of a goal that people can actually have the most control over: motivation and actions.


Choose What to Bomb


One of the most important things you can do with a goal is choose what to bomb, Acuff explains. Recognize some things matter, some things don't.


“When you lean into new goals, you have a really simple choice: shame or strategy. Shame says you should be able to do it all. Strategy says these are the things that matter, these are things that don't. It's important to figure that out because there's so many things trying to take your time right now,” Acuff says.


66 TPI Turf News July/August 2021


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