1% Slow, Methodical Growth
vs. Hyper-Focused, All-or-Nothing Goal Achievement

The 5 AM Miracle Podcast, hosted by Jeff Sanders

Episode #590: 1% Slow, Methodical Growth vs. Hyper-Focused, All-or-Nothing Goal Achievement

Jeff Sanders
Good morning and welcome to The 5 AM Miracle, episode #590: 1% Slow, Methodical Growth vs. Hyper-Focused, All-or-Nothing Goal Achievement.

I am Jeff Sanders and you have reached the podcast that is dedicated to dominating your day before breakfast.

I am a keynote speaker and corporate trainer and if you want to learn more about that, head over to jeffsanders.com

slash speaking. Now, in the episode this week, I'll break down seven strategies for

goal achievements with a distinct focus on slow versus fast growth, why each

strategy has a key role to play in your life and work, and how to know when

to deploy the right strategy at the exact right time. Let's get to it.

So my recent project to go caffeine-free, well, it's underway right now.

It's been happening for almost two weeks.

But that project is not what I thought it would be.

I thought that I could take a quick.

break, and then bounce back and continue with my life as normal. Well, no,

that's not what my mind or body had planned for me. The exact opposite is

actually required. Slow, methodical growth is necessary for radically adjusting my

energy, mood, hormones, diet, sleep, and especially my own expectations. Knowing what a project

is supposed to be, how fast or slow it needs to move, is critical to getting the best

results and maintaining your own sanity in the process. So this week, let's break down

the difference and figure out the exact right speed for you in this season with your

current focus, your current goals, and really try to nail down which goal achievement

strategy makes the most sense. This week I'm going to share seven strategies or philosophies.

to achieve your grandest goals.

And we're going to focus for the most parts on speed, slow versus fast.

There's a lot to be said about how the speed of your goal achievement strategies

will significantly impact whether or not you ever get anything done.

There is so much to be said about my recent caffeine-free break,

which I'm going to go into a lot of detail on very soon in the podcast.

But in the context of this conversation, I will say that it has really,

really cause me to pause, both literally and metaphorically.

So when you stop having a stimulant every single day, your life slows down.

For the last few weeks, my life has been significantly slower than my usual pace,

a pace that I've been used to for 10, 15, 20, 25 years.

I mean, just, I've had caffeine for a long, long time.

And so for me to radically shift the speed at which I operate, it changes.

my perspective on what goals matter to me and which ones don't. Which goals require

a methodical approach and which ones I should stop thinking so much about and just

get to work on them. Your perception of your goals will significantly impact

how you approach them, how fast the work gets done, and ultimately whether or not the

goal is ever achieved to begin with. So let's begin with our first strategy, the one that I

think has the most long-term potential, which is the slower approach,

a methodical approach, an intentional pre-planned approach.

If you've read James Clear's book Atomic Habits,

he makes a great case for the 1% rule,

and 1% meaning that you are striving for 1% growth,

essentially with each rep, each iteration.

For example, if your goal is to build muscle mass,

you might go to the gym to lift weights for five days a week,

And when you do, your intention is 1% growth based on your previous workout.

So if you were to have done an upper body workout last week, your goal this week is to do 1% better.

Lift 1% heavier weights.

That's a simple example of growth over time that on paper sounds very, very slow.

1% is so small.

Can't I push harder?

Can't I do more?

You can.

That's one of your options.

But there are certain goals, certain strategies that when they're deployed

at a very slow methodical manner, actually have the best chance for long-term success

with the example of exercise.

You can't just build a ton of muscle in a weekend.

You can't lose 100 pounds overnight.

These things take time.

You have to really put in the work day by day, month by month, year by year, decade by decade by decade.

These things will scale over time, and our tendency to want results now that impatience is what stops us from the actual growth.

We might put in two to three weeks of work in the gym, but we look the same.

We weigh the same.

Nothing changed, right?

So we quit.

We walk away.

We give up, negating the reality that 1% is still happening, that we can still grow and push ourselves.

The phenomenal book The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy really breaks down this very simple concept that over time your efforts will compound into enormous hockey stick style growth in the long run, meaning that for a long time, it looks like nothing.

You're just plodding along, doing your thing, little itty-bitty growth, but then at some point that growth scales.

That 1% is stronger.

It's more impactful.

things begin to add up in a way you otherwise would never have seen had you

quit when it all first started.

I mean, compound interest is the greatest force on planet Earth.

You can watch your money grow very slowly for years and years.

But if you use a compound interest calculator, you can actually put in the numbers

to see, well, wait a minute, if this money was in this account for this long,

oh my gosh, there's a lot more potential than I ever thought was possible.

Growth is growth at the end of the day, whether it's muscles or money, growth is going to happen over time.

And when we neglect slow growth, when we dismiss it as being way too slow, we can't wait that long, we're impatient, we want results right now.

We miss the biggest long-term success.

From my perspective, yes, I have been someone who's wanted results now.

I've also been the kind of person who's okay to wait.

And which person I am, which kind of personality comes out, depends on the goal.

It depends on my season.

It depends on how I feel, that sense of urgency or not.

And so it's very dependent.

It's very subjective.

But the real trick here is to figure out when to deploy a slow methodical process, when to back off your patience and really say, like, I don't have to push this that hard.

I can take a slower approach, and I should.

When you look at the benefits of a slower approach, typically they're much easier to begin.

You can just start and do very little.

And then the continuation of that is also very simple and potentially effortless.

Go to the gym, do a small workout.

Go back next week, do a slightly bigger workout, but not too much.

And then again and again over time, and it becomes very habitual and very easy.

and the process starts very small and it can because over time, a long, long time, it will grow naturally.

There's also a lot less urgency, which means there's less stress.

So you don't have to make a million dollars overnight.

You can just let that grow over time.

And so because of that, you can calm down.

Like, we don't have to get overly excited about immediate results today because we're not looking for those today.

We're just asking the question, did I put in the effort today?

Did I do the next step?

That easy, effortless next step.

And if the answer is yes, you're fine.

You're good.

And in fact, you did the job you were supposed to do.

Another great benefits of a slower approach is that it allows for many pivots and

evolutions and necessary changes over time.

And one of the things that I have seen in my business and my health and

fitness goals and my finances is that I change my mind all the time. I change

strategies. I change philosophies. I change programs to follow. I read a new book,

a thousand new ideas. I try a bunch of them. When you have time to let something

simmer, to let it grow over the long haul, well, then you can make a lot of changes.

And you're not really in a hurry, right? There's less urgency. So you're allowed to pivot this.

But the key to this, the key to the pivots and the evolutions is that you're in the game.

You're doing the work.

You're not just ignoring it.

We're not just saying, because I have a long time, I will wait to start later.

That's just procrastination.

And we're not going to say, because I can wait for a long time, I'm going to do nothing and let this current system just stay as is indefinitely.

We have to come back and review our systems and pivot them and change them and evolve them because life demands it.

Change is part of life. No system that you built 20 years ago will be in effect today and be as effective as it was then.

Life is too dynamic for that. We have to be willing and able to pivot as needed, but a longer term approach gives you plenty of time to do the research and to step in and make those changes.

The experimentation process is huge. I've said before this podcast many times that most of my 20s were spent in person.

personal growth experiments. In my 30s, I did some, but not as much. Well, now in my 40s, I am back at it again. I'm doing a thousand new experiments all the time. My health, my fitness, my supplements, my business strategies. Everything is now up for grabs yet again. Call it a midlife crisis if you want to, but essentially, I have started over. And part of that allows for me to pivot and change and evolve and take the long-term approach, understanding that, to a certain

to have less time here on earth, but also I have a lot more time if I'm in the

game doing the work each and every day. So there are tons of benefits here. I'm a huge,

huge fan of slow growth. But there are some drawbacks. And dropbacks, the very first one

that is impossible to ignore is just that area of impatience. And the idea that we want results

today and we cannot sit around and watch our money slowly grow, watch our muscles

slowly grow. It's kind of maddening sometimes because you want results now.

But as we know, patience is a virtue. Another key drawback to the longer term approach

is that there is less motivation without really compelling data to keep you going.

So the biggest challenge that I see that pairs with impatience is the fact that because

we don't see tremendous results on day one, well, then where's the motivation to continue?

And the real answer is going to come from data.

It's going to come from you seeing those results over time on paper

before you actually see it in real life.

Simple example, if you go to the gym and you are trying to build muscle,

you've changed your diet to lose weight,

well, you might be actually on that path for growth and improvement,

but you're not going to see the scale move for a while.

You're not going to see your reflection in the mirror change dramatically for a while.

So where's the motivation?

Well, it comes from the data.

It comes from you documenting your progress.

Here's the work you've put in.

Here are the foods you've eaten.

Here are the workouts that you've done.

And you rest in the data and trust that the data will push you through because it will.

This is how this works.

The data is your friend.

And honestly, it's the thing to really latch on to because it will tell the story.

It will show your growth over time whether you can see it or not.

Another key drawback is that, let's imagine you're not as motivated and you are impatient.

Well, there is a potential that this key project, this goal may never get done at all.

You might quit or you might just at some.

some point just burn out on the process because it just drags on for too long.

This is possible and honestly this is likely in a lot of scenarios.

Whether it's a workout program, a financial service you're working through,

a career path that you're on.

There are so many things in life we pivot away from.

And I'm okay with that.

I love this idea of failure, kind of in quotes, meaning that quitting things on purpose

is likely a very smart move.

If that's part of a pivot to move to a best.

better solution. So there are ways to change your perspective on the choices that you

make and have them actually play out long term. Another key drawback here is that

your slower approach may produce worse results if you're not hyper focused on it.

So this is my big rub with long term goals. There is definitely the possibility that

you may go an autopilot and you may hit a plateau and you because you're not thinking about

this thing frequently. You ignore it, which on some level is actually a smart move.

We want to automate as much as we can in life so we can focus our energy in a few key areas.

But if you've automated and plateaued and ignored for too long, well, then it's

possible you're not giving your attention in the way that you should to all the areas

of life that you want to see grow over time. Now, the simple solution here is to have

a review process. To be able to look at each key goal you have in your life.

and ensure that at least once a month, let's say.

You review those goals, you see where they are,

and you make sure they're still on track.

And if they're not, then you add in a pivot and make some changes.

But the key here is to have systems built in so you know when the review process takes place

and what moves to make when those dates show up.

So a slower approach is not a bad one.

In total, I'm a huge fan.

But there are some tricky ways for this to play out in a way that actually is effective

long term. Now here's some examples of when to use a slow growth method.

The first would be your typical daily or weekly routines, your habits,

your 5 a.miricals, let's say, where you're doing things on a consistent basis over

and over again, but you're not really expecting results. Now you just know this will add up

over time, whether that's meditation once a day or a healthy meal for breakfast every

day. You're going to guarantee those certain routines, whether you see the results

today or not, they're baked into your lifestyle, they're automated, they're

systematized. Also, nearly all health and fitness goals are slow growth goals.

Once again, building muscle, changing your diet to lose weight. Even meditation,

which is effective in the moment, actually has better effects long term.

So if you're trying to get in really great shape right now, just know this is a slow process.

And then, of course, long-term investing, financial goals, retirement goals, these are very long-term things.

Along with that, you have things like relationships or large home projects, career developments.

The list goes on and on of anything that you know in your life just takes time and will require patience.

And it's going to require some really great systems and routines and reviews and the daily discipline to continue to work on things when you don't

see the results that you want every single day in the mirror. I want them. I

struggle with this conversation because I am such the impatient person, the

normally very caffeinated Jeff Sanders who wants to do things now and see results now.

So as much as I value the long-term goals, I'm also very aware that they kind of

strike a conflicting cord with me and how I operate every day. But speaking of that,

Let's shift now to the second, probably more aggressive opportunity here.

The second strategy is a hyper-focused, all-or-nothing surge.

It is your approach to say, I want something.

I'm going to make it happen right now.

We know this.

This is the typical type A, caffeinated, aggressive, high achiever.

I've got big goals, and here we go.

There are obvious benefits here.

The very first one being massive results in a very short time frame.

You also likely will see increased quantity and quality of the goals you're working on.

I have seen also historically you will guarantee you hit deadlines a whole lot more if you're working in a very focused manner towards something you care about.

And the last major benefit that I think will probably strike a chord with most people most of the time is the emotional draw.

It feels amazing to finish something you've worked really hard on.

and if you spend your time in something in a very intense manner for a couple of weeks,

a couple of months, and you have put your blood, sweat, and tears into this project,

it has been all you've thought about.

When you finish, it is incredible.

That emotional release is such an addiction.

It's such an incredible thing.

And so for me, what I think about the kind of lifestyle that I want to live,

well, I want more of that feeling more often.

So I want my goal achievement process to really double down and lay.

layer upon those motivational factors, the ones that keep me in the game more and

prevent me from being apathetic or tired or lazy or I find myself just in

procrastination over and over again.

You know the drill.

Now, besides the amazing benefits here, there are some obvious drawbacks, the very

first one being high stress.

It's the number one thing I talk against on this podcast.

A high stress lifestyle is a killer.

It is where my second book came from, the free time formula, talking about how I had panic attacks, went to the hospital, yada, yada, long story short, stress is a killer.

And as much as I love to be able to push really hard, I know full well that the more focused and more intense I am, the more stress is a part of that process.

And you have to find a balance to ensure that you don't push too hard.

There is a line.

It's subjective.

It changes all the time.

But you know yourself and you know when you've maxed out.

And when you get those warning signs and that red light is flashing in your face and says, hey, buddy, you've crossed the line.

Stop, slow down, go back to zero.

Then that's what you do.

I'm in a caffeine-free break right now because I hit that wall.

My body gave me very clear indicators that I had maxed out.

So I backed down.

The yen and the yang is important here.

The balance is just as important as the high strength.

stress intensity. Another key drawback is you will likely have an unbalanced lifestyle

when you focus on just one project. Now, that's a major benefit because the unbalance

allows for the productivity, but it also means that whatever you're not focused on

is not going to get any attention. And those areas of your life could potentially fall

apart. And you may experience lots of problems on those when you return back to them,

which depending on your life, could cause more problems than it solves.

And so there's a real challenge here to figure out how to balance all of these various goals and objectives.

And many of them will have conflicts in ways that you can't resolve easily.

And that's the challenge of life, especially a modern life when we have so many things we can and quote unquote should be doing.

Discovering your ideal balance is it is our challenge.

It is the challenge of modern life is to figure out what that means to you and knowing full well that that changes each and every day.

And speaking of that, another key drawback is the fact that a very intense focus on a singular project, let's say, is generally not sustainable, at least not in the traditional sense of being well rested every single day, have your healthy habits every single day, being sure you have time for your family and time for your finances and time for your recreation.

you're not going to have all those things every day when you are intensely focused on one key thing.

So it's not really sustainable because you can't do that forever.

You're going to have to stop at some point and then return to the other areas of life that will then need all of you as much as possible.

So some great examples of when to use hyperfocus.

Of course, the one you probably are already thinking of on this podcast, which are focused blocks of time.

I use my FBots literally every single workday and oftentimes the weekends as well, where I'll have a very focused time period, 90 minutes, two hours, wherever the case may be, and I'll dig in to a lot of awesome work generally on one key area and then I stop and go to the next one later.

Well, during that focus block of time, I am exclusively focusing on one thing.

It gets all of my attention.

Right now I am podcasting.

This is my focus block.

Nothing else is happening right now.

When I am done, I will then return to all the other madness in my life that I have to deal with.

But for now, I'm right here doing this one thing.

And that guarantees that the productivity goals I had set for myself are going to be achieved.

But if I don't have a focus block, if I did not commit to that level of intensity, let's say, it wouldn't get done.

It would not happen.

It would be procrastinated upon.

It would be delayed.

It would be sloppy.

It would not be at the quality and quantity that I'm seeking.

So for you, using an FBot on a daily basis, a focus block of time each and every day is an amazing way to get the results you want in a short burst.

Many of your work projects will fit very well with focus blocks of time, as well as some goals for exercise as well.

Those are obviously great examples of doing something very intensely and nothing else for a little bit.

Skill development is another great area of things to work on where you really dig into learning a new language or learning to play the guitar, whatever it is you're trying for.

Real intense focus blocks are phenomenal for skill development in general.

Also, research-based projects.

So you're really trying to learn as much as you possibly can about anything.

Doing a deep dive for 90 minutes or four hours, whoever the case is, also works great for these.

I would argue that most school assignments, studying term papers, anything along

those lines, are fantastic for intense focus in short bursts.

Now, if you then scale back to a bigger picture, you know, one or two months of doing

nothing but one big thing, let's say, for example, you're going to be in the

school play, you're going to film a movie, you're going to write a book, you're

going to do something that's bigger and that takes more time.

that might take up all of your time for two or three months.

And that is your primary objective.

Well, a primary objective from my perspective is a fantastic way to have seasons of your life mean something.

That's really what it is.

For that season, here's the primary goal.

It doesn't mean everything else is ignored.

It does mean, though, that everything else is on automation.

I think the best way to approach a hyper-focused goal-achievish,

lifestyle is to identify what your primary goal is for a season.

But before you get to work on it, their first step is to automate everything else

so you can ignore those things and not have them fall apart while you're gone.

If that's in place, well, then you've just freed up time to be able to give your

whole self to your primary objective and minimize any consequences you might have

afterwards.

So those first two strategies.

Working slow, working fast, most of what you do will fall into one of those two

areas.

But there are other options.

Let's go through a few of those.

The third strategy is what I call equal growth across many areas, all at the same time.

In this example, you want to make equal progress for each day, week, or month,

on multiple areas of your life and work all at the same time, and each of those

areas gets equal access of your time, attention, and resources. So, for example,

you could say, I'm going to focus on my health, fitness, relationships, spiritual

practice, home projects, career development, finances, social life, hobbies, recreation.

All the categories get equal attention for the next 90 days. You see the problem here.

This is not possible. As much as I love this strategy and many people try for this,

I mentioned this one here because for most of us, when we think about work-life balance, this is actually the example we imagine.

That we just identified, you know, 10 different life areas that we care about.

And we're going to give ourselves equally to all 10 at the same time each and every day, every week, every month, nearly indefinitely.

As balanced as that is, it is so unrealistic.

It's just so, I'm not going to call it foolish.

because we all want to do this.

I strive for this all the time.

But to a certain degree, it is kind of foolish because it doesn't align to reality.

Life doesn't work like this.

We cannot give ourselves equally to everything all the time.

If we were to achieve this on some level, it is sustainable, but it's extremely

slow growth on all these areas at once.

And as I was saying earlier, your intention here is to use the right strategy at the right time.

and not every goal needs the same strategy.

Some do need to go very slowly and some very quickly.

And if you try to give equal weight to everything,

well, you're likely applying the wrong strategy to all of these areas at the exact same time.

So areas of your life that should move fast are going far too slow.

And things that should go slow are going far too fast.

It doesn't add up.

So our goal here is honestly not to use this strategy,

but to keep it in mind as something that we are in effect always thinking about.

We do want balance.

We do want to ensure that in the long haul, all of these areas of our lives are attended to.

But they each get their own individual timeframes, their own individual strategies.

We're not striving for equality here, not in our own lives for every area.

It's unrealistic and ultimately it fails.

So our goal is time management with our brains turned on to really think through

these things one by one and give each area the attention that it deserves with a schedule

and a system and a flow that is best for it.

Our fourth stratified.

is batching and themes. I love to batch things. I'm a huge fan of taking similar

items, having them all in consolidation together, and doing one big focus on one area

all at once. So if you were to batch together various tasks that are all similar and

use a focus block of time to work on them. So it's not just one particular task,

it's 10 or 12 tasks, but they're all really similar and small. You batch those together,

get them all done at once, that's such an effective use of your time.

You could also have entire theme days or theme weeks where you batch together

very similar tasks, but you're doing so for a whole day or a whole week or

maybe longer, a whole month or more, but in that sense, it's a bigger project, a bigger

goal, and a whole season of work being done.

The intention behind batching generally is more short term.

So a few hours here, a couple of days there, and when you do that, you get a lot of

focused work done in a very tight time frame.

This is the practical application of the second strategy.

The way to do really intense work very quickly,

well, the best way to do that is consolidation.

It is bringing similar items together in very tight, batched areas.

Now, for pros and cons of this area,

it is much more focused,

and it still allows for some flexibility as needed,

which I tend to prefer.

It also allows for deeper quality and quantity while you devote your energy to just one area at a time.

However, it doesn't really allow for deep progress in multiple areas at the same time.

You are going to have the unbalanced lifestyle of doing just one thing.

So batching in theme days, once again, though highly effective, you have to make choices about where your time and attention will go.

And be very clear, I made this choice.

Here's what I'm going to give my time and attention to.

and the rest of this stuff is just going to have to wait.

So this is a great strategy once again for your busy lifestyle, intense focus,

use batching and theme days and focus blocks of time to make those happen.

All right, the fifth strategy is what I'm calling goals with predetermined accountability.

So with this strategy, you design a plan,

but you go out of your way to deploy accountability measures that hold you to your plan no matter what.

So imagine an accountability partner or you have penalties for missing deadlines or clear rewards for staying on track.

All of these things reward you for positive behavior and penalize you for bad behavior.

And they give you a sense of having to check in.

I've been able to say, you know, my goal for the last week was to do these 12 things.

Well, did you do all 12 or not?

And if not, well, what's the penalty?

And if you did, what's your reward?

not everyone operates this way.

I know for me that accountability is very internal.

I really don't need an external source to tell me that I failed on something

or to tell me I did a good job.

I know for myself when that is true and when it is not.

So for most of the work that I do, having external accountability, generally speaking, is unwarranted.

It's usually in the way.

It doesn't work for me.

However, there's an exception to this too.

And the exception for most people are the blind spots.

It's the areas of life where we think we have our stuff together, but we don't.

We assume we are making great progress in an area, but we have limited knowledge.

We're not experts in everything.

And we need an expert to come in and tell us.

We're not experts in everything.

And so we need someone who is smarter and more knowledgeable than us in that area of life to come in and tell us what's true and what's not.

and to a certain degree to hold us accountable to making the right kind of progress.

Whether that is a financial advisor, a coach, someone who you're really going to bring into your life and say,

tell me where I failed here.

Tell me what I don't know.

Because whatever it is that I don't know, potentially is going to harm my progress.

So I need to know the important information.

This is where having a beginner's mindset pays off in spades.

When you are able to say, I am willing and able to start again.

I am willing and able to be a beginner, to learn new things, to ask dumb questions, to bring in experts to tell me what I don't know.

You are going to grow so much faster.

We are not all experts at everything.

And sometimes we need accountability in that form.

Sometimes you do need a penalty or a consequence for doing the wrong thing.

Sometimes it is wonderful to get a reward or a vacation or a party when you do something amazing.

Life has all these things built in.

But of course, not every project, every time needs all of these strategies.

The key is to figure out when to deploy the right one at the right time.

Now, there are some pros and cons to accountability in general.

One pro that I see here is that generally if you have accountability built in,

whether it is internal or external, it generally guarantees progress most of the time,

because you have reviews, you have check-ins,

you have a real clear sense of where you are and what your next actions need to be.

However, this can also be pretty stressful because if you know there is a consequence coming for your inaction, your mistake, your failure, that stress can add up and actually work against you and cause you to do worse at your job, worse in your progress.

I know me.

And generally speaking, if someone else is demanding something of me, I will give them that attention first.

So I have a simple rule in my business, which is a client-first philosophy,

which means if I have two projects to work on, one of them is for a client,

and one of them is for me.

The client gets my attention first because the client is waiting for me to do something.

And so if I give them my full attention first, then that stress or accountability from them goes away sooner,

and then I can move on and deal with my own accountability for my own projects myself.

The key here is to figure out where the greatest source of stress is.

and put your energy into that arena first to mitigate any and all stress that may exist.

Now, in this process, it also requires trust in the accountability system or partner you work with.

You have to like your coach.

You have to like the expert you're working with.

I said before in the podcast a couple of months ago that I got really good financial advice from someone in my 20s

and then later on learned that the guy was a jerk.

And it really messed with my mind for a while because on the one,

one hand, the advice was legitimate, and I learned a lot about money I otherwise

would not have known, but I didn't like the person I learned it from.

And so I was really torn with, what do I do now? Do I let go of the advice?

Well, no, it still works, but I don't like the guy anymore. So what do I do?

Well, the key here is we have to find this really nice connection between us and the

people and systems we work with, whether it's a person, a software tool, any kind of a resource

We have to like what's in our life.

When we like it, we use it more.

We take the advice more.

We get better results.

So being connected to having that resonance and that chemistry is very effective at goal achievement in general.

All right.

Now for strategy number six.

This one I call alternating priorities.

With this strategy, you will clarify two to three major goals and work on just one goal at a time.

However, with this strategy, you frequently will switch.

between the goals. You will bounce back and forth as you feel the need to.

What I love with this strategy is the fact that you're able to acknowledge that you

are the kind of person who doesn't like to do one thing for too long.

You might burn out. You might just get bored. You might just hate the project

because you've been doing it nonstop for so long and you just don't want to do it

anymore. So what do you do? Well, what I've seen in myself so many times is I will take a

couple of projects and say, I'm going to do this first one for four hours.

When I get burned out, I'll take a break, I'll come back to work, but then I'll do

a different project altogether wildly different than the first one.

Real contrast here, because then it lights me back up.

It brings back more energy in me.

I have something new to think about and to work on.

And over the course of a couple of weeks and a couple of months, I can spend a lot

of my time on multiple goals at the same time, all of which there are important to me,

and all of which will eventually get done, but I'm not doing just one thing.

I love focus, but I also understand that focus backfires when you burn yourself out.

That repeated just beating of the drum over and over again can wear you down.

And if that's where you are, catch yourself before you feel that way and switch.

Just find something new to do.

And it's a very effective way to move yourself forward and get a lot of goals done all at once.

So as far as pros and cons here, yes, it is highly productive.

It also keeps you fresh and excited about doing something new more often.

Yes, it can delay progress if you never really stick to one area for too long,

but generally I think this is actually a fairly productive process.

The other possibility, and this is what I've caught myself in,

is that if these projects are complex in nature, if they have lots of steps and they're possibly confusing,

if you try to do multiple goals at the same time, you might get lost in the minutia.

And so the real key thing here is to keep things as simple as you can, as often as you can.

And that's going to require real intense focus on the area one at a time,

but then have a real defining line to stop and go on to the next one later.

And being able to wrap yourself up at the end of a work session,

to review your progress and leave off at a good place.

That will help you then pick back up again the next session and be able to begin again.

without having to figure out where you were last time.

Life can get messy.

Big, complex projects require a lot of brain cells,

and you want to build a lifestyle in the system

that allows you to easily pick up where you left off.

And so having multiple projects can make that messy,

but I think the longer term picture here is a much more refreshing lifestyle.

All right, and now for the seventh and final strategy this week,

this one I call emotionally driven goal achievements.

also known as do whatever you want whenever you feel like it

so in this strategy this is where you work only on goals that you feel emotionally

excited about in the moment and you literally just ignore everything else

now the thing about this strategy is that this is human nature we are

emotional creatures and we use logic to justify our emotions emotionally

driven goal achievement is another way of saying we do the easy stuff first

Right? We do the things we want to do or the things that seem the least difficult.

We just flow downstream as much as we can because we don't want to do a lot of hard work, which I totally get.

Nobody really wants to do hard work most of the time.

Now, with this strategy, there are definitely pros and cons here.

It will maintain an authentic experience that draws from your current emotional state.

In other words, it will allow you to stay really present because you care,

about what you're doing. And that really matters. When you are emotionally invested

and you are really engaged and energized by the work, well, generally that leads

to better quality and quantities. So on a certain level, yeah, we should all be doing

work that is emotionally gratifying for what we do. However, not everything in life

is going to be emotionally gratifying. Paying your taxes is probably not gratifying,

but it has to get done. Now, once it is done, you might feel better, and that

that's great, but that goes back to the old adage that mood follows action.

We have to do the work to feel the emotion afterwards.

And if you have that in reverse and you use your mood to guide your action,

there's a pretty good chance you're not going to be in the mood to do a lot of the work.

And that's not going to lead to long-term success.

This strategy tends to favor amateurs who just don't have the discipline to do the work that needs to get done now.

The book Turning Pro by Stephen Pressfield nails this concept to a T.

It is a perfect book to read for this concept.

Turning Pro is such a mental decision.

And once you do, you realize the fact that to be the professional you want to be,

you're going to have to do a whole lot of work.

You don't feel like doing in the moment.

But the key here is once you get started, it gets easier.

Once you get in the rhythm, all of a sudden you forget about all those emotional

hurdles you had in the beginning. All the bottlenecks and excuses and procrastination

techniques, all that goes out the window because you now are in the zone. You're

now doing your thing. You got to the work. That's what we're trying to do.

The emotional drive will be an additive. It'll help and enhance the work we're doing,

but it's not the first step. The action is the first step and the mood comes secondary.

So for this strategy, it does work well between projects. If your goal is to

find something new to focus on. And over the long term, it allows you to really

say, like, I'm able to pivot well between projects because I emotionally connected

with what I really want to spend my time on. And then when the work showed up,

it didn't even feel like work because it felt great to do because I was excited to do it.

That's the ideal we're going for is to find more of that kind of flow in the work

that you do. So those are seven strategies for goal achievements. And to wrap this

up, let's re-examine your current goals. What is your ideal speed? Are you dragging your

feet or expecting too much too fast? Do you have a strategy that fits your current

season? Or are you lacking the discipline required to do the work that is necessary now?

Or are you just emotionally drained and really just need a break for the work that you do?

You know, goals are reflections of you in this current season and your ideas.

is to align your goals to what you want out of your life and work.

If you need to change things up, do it.

If you need to take a break, take one.

If you need to double down and focus on your current goal like your life depends on it,

then do it and don't feel guilty about deeply committing to something that's truly

meaningful to you now.

Goals are us, we are our goals, and they are reflections of how you want to experience,

our lives. And if we choose the right strategies for the right goals in the right

season and we have that sense of alignment, it is incredible how much work you're

going to get done and how fantastic you're going to feel about it. And when these things

are not aligned and you do not have that sense of rhythm or connection, you know it.

You feel it in your bones. And change is then required. So I recommend you have

review periods to guarantee you get yourself back in that alignment, back in that

rhythm, find that zone, and stay there.

And for that action step this week, choose the right strategy, whatever that

means.

You know how it feels to select the wrong strategy and struggle and then fail,

but you also know the opposite, selecting the exact tool, strategy, or resource for

the job and getting the exact solution you planned for.

So be selective.

If the project needs to slow down, then let it slow down.

If it needs to accelerate, then give it all you've got.

Know the difference and act accordingly.

Now, of course, subscribe to this podcast and your favorite podcast app or go to

5am MiraclePremium.com for the VIP ad-free experience.

That's all I've got for you here on the 5 a.m. Miracle podcast this week.

Until next time, you have the power to change your life, and all that fun begins bright and early.

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