Our growth and development is primarily driven by our environment, and one of the things that we can do to manufacture a more positive, inspiring, go-getting environment is to set goals. In order to get anywhere in life we need to know where we’re going, and a clearly articulated goal gives you that destination to work toward.

However, there’s a science and art to goal setting. Some goals are too big and impossible to comprehend that they don’t seem achievable, and paralyze you in inaction. On the other hand some goals are too uninspiring or easy to actually motivate you to make any major adjustments to your life.

That’s why we need to have the right tension for our goals, and the way we do that is by ensuring our goals are two things: Difficult and doable.

When a goal is difficult, it creates a demand on you. In order to achieve a difficult goal you need to do things that are difficult for you to do. As Jim Bunch puts it, goals are in place to “evolve you” and it’s the personal evolution you experience in pursuit of a goal that causes you to become capable of achieving it. 

When a goal is doable, it means that you see a path forward to achieving it. You’ve seen others accomplish something similar or even you’ve already done it once yourself. When a goal is doable it inspires you with a willingness to try.

I’ve found there are 3 ways to know if you’ve found the right tension for your goals. First is based on your own past experience. If you have metrics or reference points that you can build around, it helps you find that right degree of difficulty and doability. Second, if you don’t have personal experience, enlist someone else who does. They can fill in the gaps of your awareness and offer reference points that help you home in on the right amount of tension for yourself.

And last, there’s the intuitive way that you feel. Good goals are meant to make you feel a little nervous. You want to feel the quiet anxiety of knowing that pursuing this goal will challenge you, because not sensing that means your goal isn’t difficult enough. You pair that with the confidence to know that you’re prepared to give it your best. You notice yourself already stepping into a heightened state of focus and resilience, and if you don’t have that response then maybe the goal isn’t difficult enough. Your intuitive feeling layers on top of the reference points you’ve established to help you confirm that your goals have the right tension

So based on whatever is most important to you right now, set a goal that strikes that right tension. As Jim Bunch also says “Goals are written in sand not in stone,” so if you gain more awareness or information that your goals need to be adjusted to match the optimal tension, then make those changes.

There are almost 8 billion people in the world today and no two people are the same. We have different genes, were raised in different environments, learned different lessons, had different life experiences, and came to value different things. Everything about you comes together to make you who you are.

And because you’re the only person to live a moment in your body and experience the world through your eyes, “No one knows what it’s like to be you.” 

On one hand, this is why it’s so important that you communicate with other people to help them understand. It’s important to articulate the ways that you feel and the factors you’re weighing in decisions you’re making - otherwise you’re operating off of unclear and potentially misaligned assumptions. And people may not be giving you what you need even when they’re doing their best to.

On the other hand, it asks that you have patience and grace with others. Be aware of the fact that others don’t have the perspective you do, and perhaps that’s why there’s disagreement or frustration. It’s by keeping an open mind about the differences you have with others that lets you collaborate with them better.

And equally important to note, just like no one knows what it’s like to be you… You don’t know what it’s like to be anyone else. That’s why it’s best for us to approach others with curiosity and not judgment. It’s the reason why your ideas and solutions aren’t always well-received. We all live at our own level of consciousness, which means that we we see, experience, and perceive is unique to us.

So if you’re going through hard times and other people are having a hard time giving credit to what you’re experiencing, it’s because “no one knows what it’s like to be you.” Or if you have big goals and dreams that other people don’t understand or find worthwhile, it’s because “no one knows what it’s like to be you.” 

If anything, let all of this be a reminder that you deserve to be the most authentic version of yourself. As Oscar Wilde famously put it, “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Get clear on what you want out of life, pursue it relentlessly, and when necessary let others into your world by telling them about it.

The single greatest influencing factor that determines your actions, and as an extension your results, is your environment. It provides an ever-present pull force that guides you in a certain direction. Take the metaphor of being in a canoe on a river. With no effort the river’s current will take you exactly downstream. In order to go anywhere else, you need to fight the current and row.

Your environment is a collection of all the forces that are acting on you at once and determine the flow of your river. It determines the path of least resistance, and it’s so impactful that Jim Bunch is known for saying “Everything is an environment and environment is everything.”

I was reminded of this in a very simple but relatable example: My alarm going off in the morning. I’ve had a lot of success putting my phone on a charger across my bedroom so that I need to get up to turn it off. It’s textbook environmental design.

However, a few weeks ago we were experiencing a heat wave so I was sleeping with a fan on. The noise of the fan drowned out my alarm, so I made an adjustment. I started setting my alarm on the Amazon Alexa device next to my bed. When the alarm went off, instead of being forced to get up and turn it off, all I had to do was speak. I found that it made getting myself out of bed way harder than it used to be because it required more will-power than necessity.

So I made the switch back, am putting my fan on a lower setting so I can hear the alarm again, and have been getting up in the morning with more ease.

When it comes to life change, many people overlook the simplicity of changing your environment. We think about willing ourselves into new actions until we build habits, but the far more effective approach is to change your environment so that the desired behavior is a natural byproduct of the design. That what you want to do is downstream, and all you need to do is let your river float you to it.

I’ve found the most effective forms of environment are incorporating accountability to add consequences for poor choices, and implementing systems that make impactful things easy to do. If you want to change your environment in the most positive of ways so that you become extremely consistent with your health habits and choices, and ridiculously productive and focused in your work, check out what I’ve put together about the 9 Super Habits. They make an extraordinary life effortless.

Recently I’ve been using a new expression to add more resilience, spontaneity, and adventure into my life. Feeling like I’m fully alive is one of the things I’m pursuing most in my life right now, and I’ve been choosing to do things that are memorable to create more life-giving experiences.

The expression is "When’s the next time I’ll be this close to (insert blank)."

Asking myself this question has pushed me one level further than I was planning to go. It pops the bubble of comfort that I find myself naturally staying in and puts me in more vitalizing spaces. There are two examples in particular I’d like to share.

A few weeks ago I went to Atlanta for a Running event called Runningman. Basically it’s a wellness festival where lots of vendors, health related activities, and camping are crammed into a mile long trail loop. On the Saturday of the event everyone runs the loop as many times as they’d like to. I trained for a half-marathon, which I had never done before, and when I completed it I felt an urge to continue on. What if I doubled it? When’s the next time I’ll be this close to running a full marathon? So I did. 

And as I was running that, I learned that a 50k was only 5 miles beyond a marathon. So when I finished it, I asked myself “When’s the next time I’m going to be this close to doing 50k?” Well it requires that I run a marathon again… So I completed another 5 laps. I achieved a physical feat that I didn’t even know was possible simply because I used a mantra that pushed me outside my comfort zone.

Another example - I’ve driven the 500 mile stretch of the 5 freeway between Northern and Southern California dozens of times, and many times I’ve considered stopping off at a random lake in the middle of trip called Pyramid Lake. As I was pulling up to the exit for it I asked myself “When’s the next time I’m going to be this close to it?” So I pulled off and made my way to the sand. Then when I got to the sand and enjoyed the view, I asked myself “When’s the next time I’m going to be this close to swimming in Pyramid Lake?” Well it would require that I disrupt my trip another time. So I went in!

The point is, there’s more life to capture in the moments we already have. But fear and excuses keep us living at our current level. When we push just past it and invest that little bit of extra time or effort, we experience disproportionate returns.

Something that is fundamental to improvement is feedback. Feedback fuels a cycle of giving something a try, observing the result, understanding the factors that led to the result, and trying something else. Tom Bilyeu calls a version of what I just described the “Physics Of Progress” and John Assaraf has his process of “Think Plan Do Review”.

What I wanted to highlight today though is how commonplace feedback is, and how we’re constantly using it in ways we aren’t even aware of. And I want to demonstrate that by providing a few examples.

Earlier this week I was preparing lunch and trying to get a thin plastic film off the top of the container. I gripped it with my fingers once and slipped off. Twice, and slipped off. A third time and slipped off. Then I took a corner of the shirt I was wearing, pinched the film through the material, and was able to rip the plastic off.

The results of the first three attempts gave me feedback that my technique wasn’t working. I identified what the problem might be, having wet hands, neutralized that with a different technique, and it worked.

Another example - I’m focusing on my hydration right now. Two days in a row I missed my goal for the day, so I paused to understand why. I had realized that for those two days I wasn’t using hydration salt and was drinking flavorless water. So I took that feedback, made an adjustment by prioritizing using my hydration salt, and started hitting my hydration goal again.

And the classic example, someone who puts their hand on a hot stove. They experience pain, associate the pain with the stovetop, and change their behavior to be more careful next time. That all happens unconsciously as a feedback loop.

Feedback is simply observing the results you achieved, interpreting them to understand how they vary from what you expected or wanted. With feedback you can then take action to implement a new strategy that you think will get you better results, do it, then observe and interpret those new results. 

When you seek feedback from someone else they’re doing the same thing - Observing the results and interpreting them. They’re communicating their perspective on why things went the way they did, pulling from their experience. Multiple perspectives on a problem present a more well-rounded understanding, which accelerates your ability to solve the problem.

If you’ve been trying to improve or get more consistent in an area, but you’re doing so blindly and don’t have an intentional feedback system in place, I’ve got something for you to check out.

Recently I’ve had a really incredible opportunity presented to me that I’ve been thinking a lot about. It’s the kind of decision that could change the trajectory of my career, and it’s impossible to know what the right choice is until after it all unfolds. To get some clarity on it, I consulted one of my mentors, Adam Braun, to help me figure out what I want to do.

Adam is an inspiring entrepreneur and social impact leader who has dedicated his life to driving positive change in the world. As someone who has navigated territory just like this in his own career, he gave me some very pointed perspective:

“Make the little decisions with your head, and the big ones with your heart.”

This was exactly what I needed to hear because I was aware of how “heady” I was making things. I had already arrived at a perfectly crafted story to explain how this opportunity was the culmination of everything I had been working toward. That this opportunity was only possible because of the years of hard work I’ had invested in being of service. And while all of that is true, it’s a thoughtful rationalization rather than an intuitive knowing.

Now, I’m giving myself space to do the real soul-searching. It’s insightful to observe some of the feelings and leanings that have already come up, and some of the factors that have been influencing my thinking behind the scenes. It makes sense to make the little decisions with your head. It’s strategic, thoughtful, and orchestrated around creating a certain result. But the big decisions, that has to come from the deepest parts of you.

In our conversation, Adam recounted how many times his head and heart had different things to say. How the thing that made logical sense wasn’t what he intuitively felt was right. And he shared how for the few times he trusted his head over his heart, it didn’t pan out like he thought it would or go according to plan.

So as you take in this wisdom, I want you to think about any big decisions you might be facing now, or decisions you might be facing soon. Tap into what your heart is guiding you to do and let that weigh heavily in your decision making process.

Two other tips he gave: 1) Engage your partner in the decision, because it impacts them, but ultimately communicate that the final decision is yours. And 2) If you can, allow yourself to take more time with big decisions because it creates more space for your intuition to shine.

Something that many people consider an admirable trait is being fearless. We appreciate someone who is willing to go for it, put themselves out there, and take action unimpacted by the fear most people would have in the same situation. 

Some people say being completely fearless is reckless, but I disagree. I think it's possible that being fearless always serves us. What gets people into trouble is not accurately quantifying the risk associated with the action they’re taking fearlessly.

Fear is a universal human emotion. In fact it’s a survival instinct. The reason we’ve evolved to have fear is to keep us out of harm's way, and avoid doing things that may threaten our safety. The emotion hijacks our decision making and keeps us from doing something that may hurt us.

However, our fear is hyperactive in modern society and keeps us from doing things that don’t actually pose a threat to our safety. In fact, it often keeps us from taking action in the big, bold, confident ways required to reach our goals and dreams. 

It’s a fear of what others might think, a fear of failure, or a fear of looking stupid that holds us back. While that form of fear used to keep us from doing something that would cause us to be outcast from our tribe, in today’s world it’s no longer a matter of life or death.

Risk however is an understanding for the likelihood of different potential outcomes. It’s a thoughtful, measured approach to assessing how you want to proceed. You weigh the risks, probabilities, consequences, and upsides against each other to reason how you want to proceed.

Quantifying risk is a conscious process, feeling emotional is an unconscious process. What’s best for us is our best understanding of how we want to proceed, not how our physiology is telling us to. There are plenty of things that we’re afraid of that we shouldn’t do because they’re too risky. But our sense of fear is just one of the inputs we use to calculate the overall risk. It serves us to choose not to do those things because we’ve quantified the risk rather than we fear doing them. 

So the next time you’re feeling afraid but trying to coach yourself into taking action, create consciousness but evaluating the risk. What’s the worst that could happen, and how likely is that to happen? What’s the best thing that could happen, and what’s the likelihood of that? And, what has the highest probability of happening, and what are the pros and cons inherent to it?

Fear is an emotion. Risk is a measurement. It’s better to be conscious and choose our future rather than let emotions choose for us.

Today marks the day that Coach Daron Roberts, an inspiring man and friend, launches his new book called “Microwins”. Daron got his JD from Harvard Law after being rejected multiple times, and turned his dream to coach in the NFL into a 7 year career before becoming a speaker, author, philanthropist, and teacher. For years he has been talking about this concept and living it out on a daily basis.

The main idea of “Microwins” is exactly what you’d expect: You achieve big goals and dreams by stacking small, meaningful wins throughout your day. I haven’t read the book yet, I’m starting it in the next few days, and I encourage you to get a copy and we can read it together.

However given what I know about Daron’s work and human behavior, this is what I expect to be in the book:

First is a conversation about mindset and beliefs. The mind cares more about consistency and frequency than size or complexity of action. In other words, doing small things with consistency leaves a larger imprint on your mind than massive displays of will. By planning out, completing, and celebrating microwins, you reinforce that you have what it takes to achieve your goals - Big, small, or micro.

Second is a conversation about momentum. When you add microwin on top of microwin on top of microwin, you build momentum. With momentum comes power and unrelenting, unstoppable force. Once the train is running, you can point it wherever you want and multiply your ability to do it well. One small victory at a time you improve your skills, belief, and knowledge until eventually you become exponentially more capable of rising to any occasion.

Darren Hardy says that momentum is “the most powerful and enigmatic force in the universe.” He also says that once you get momentum, it’s easy to keep it. That’s what this Microwins approach can do for you - Get intentional about the way you build momentum in your life so that you become unstoppable. 

Again, if you want to join me in reading Daron’s new book “Microwins” you can grab your copy by clicking here! Everything Daron does is exceptional and I'm confident the same will be true for this book!