Focus On One Goal

Too Many Goals Cause Conflict

The majority of your behavior is directed by goals.

Basically, you’re goal-oriented by design.

Don’t believe me?

What made you get up to grab a drink of water? Thirst — your goal was to quench your thirst.

A similar process happens when you grab a snack or go pee.

Your goal was to satisfy a need at that moment.

Hopefully, that’s all the convincing I need to do cos I’m hoping you already agree to some degree…

The first thing people do when they wanna make a drastic change or direct their life in a certain way is set goals.

This is good.

Except most people go about it wrong.

Just call a friend and ask them what their goals are. I’m pretty sure they’ll spew out a list of things —

“I wanna lose weight, make more money, and start reading.”

This is a problem.

Goals are supposed to simplify your life. They’re supposed to provide you with one clear path — having three doesn’t do that.

Too many goals cause conflict.

Your mind doesn’t know which one to optimize for so they all end up being mediocre.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you can’t achieve all three…

I’m saying you don’t need to have two or more goals — it’s too complex.

There’s usually one goal that if accomplished gets you everything else you want.

This is what you need to find and focus on.

Your keystone goal…

The keystone concept

The Romans were the first to use keystones in architecture.

Sometime later, it was adopted by the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and virtually everyone else.

Now, its significance has expanded far beyond the context of architecture, but its representation holds.

Let me break it down further to paint the picture…

A keystone is the last piece arch. It’s used to distribute the weight from the supporting side blocks. Remove the keystone and the arch collapses.

Inspired by the keystone concept, Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit, took this analogy and applied it to habits.

He called it “keystone habits.”

A keystone habit is a single habit that leads to a cascade of other actions.

For example, let’s say you start walking.

As you start walking each day, you realize it’s a good opportunity to listen to some self-improvement podcasts for motivation.

Listening to those podcasts leads you to pay closer attention to your diet cos you learn what you eat gives you more energy and you need energy to get stuff done.

Eating healthy leads you to make better financial decisions cos some of that healthy stuff doesn’t come cheap.

This pattern continues on and on with no definitive end — James Clear wrote an interesting piece on this called “Habit Stacking.”

Benjamin Hardy, PhD, my mentor who doesn’t know I exist, then came along and took this concept a yard further…

He proposed the concept of a “keystone goal.”

It’s similar to a keystone habit but more definitive and deliberate.

You can define a keystone goal as one goal that when achieved unlocks everything else you want.

In other words, a keystone goal allows you to focus on one definitive goal that sets you up to achieve all the other goals you want simultaneously.

This is the most effective way to set goals.

Here’s why…

A lack of focus isn’t the problem

“Success does not mean perfection. I’m not concerned with avoiding distractions every minute of every day. The perfect, uninterrupted day is impossible. It’s about figuring out what matters most, and when you’re doing that ONE Thing, eliminate distraction.”

— Garry Keller

People often email me stressing about their lack of focus.

“I lack focus. I already know I should be doing but I just don’t do it.”

A lack of isn’t the problem my friend.

Nobody on the planet lacks focus.

… Maybe except for those with a chronic disorder like ADHD — I’m not too sure about them (I’ll do some research).

But back to my point; no one lacks focus.

You just apply it wrong.

There’s a mechanism in your brain used to prioritize incoming information.

It’s been developing over centuries…

The mechanism only allows you to focus on relevant and important information while the rest is ignored.

This mechanism is called “attention” (you’ve probably heard of it).

A price must be paid to attention for it to narrow down your focus— I wonder if that’s where the saying “pay attention” came from.

In other words, a trade must happen cos the attention resource is finite.

Trying to focus on several goals at one time depletes your attention quicker.

When your attention deposits are low, your ability to focus is broken. You just lose control and typically regress to your default mode…

Instead of doing the things you know you should be doing (what serves you), you’re indulging in short-term dopamine boosters.

I had this conversation with a coaching client not too long ago.

She felt guilty cos she knew what she’s supposed to be doing but couldn’t find the energy to do them.

When I asked for her goal, she told me “I want to become an expert in my field, travel more, support my family, and get in shape.”

Can you see the problem?

That’s a big tax on her attention balance.

While her goals are well-intentioned and positive, achieving them all is exponentially harder.

Her attention mechanism is allowing in too much information at any one time so her focus is all over the place.

She’s not lacking focus; she’s just deploying her attention mechanism wrong.

Not to worry though, it’s a super easy fix.

How to define your keystone goal

In the book “The One Thing,” the author, Gary Keller, posed the question —

“What’s the ONE Thing I could do, such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?”

He was alluding to what Benjamin Hardy calls a “Keystone Goal” — the one goal that when achieved unlocks every other goal.

If you already have multiple goals you’re in good hands.

Identifying your one thing is just about finding the link between all of your current goals.

Let’s take the lady from the scenario above…

She wants to become an expert in her field, travel more, support her family, and get in shape.

The undertone of what she said is simple —

“I want to earn more money.”

This makes identifying her keystone goal as clear as daylight.

It just involves slightly reframing the question…

“From all of my current goals, which ONE could I focus on, such that by doing so all of my other goals are achieved easier or become unnecessary.”

This was a massive revelation to her.

When I said it, she gasped — “Gosh, I need to be focusing on becoming an expert.”

Putting all her focus into becoming an expert will inevitably unlock the resources required to travel more, support her family, and get in shape in the process.

This isn’t to say she wasn’t studying her craft already, she was.

… now the path is clearer.

If she wants to be an expert, she knows she needs to find another expert in her field and learn everything they know to guide her steps.

This filters out 80% of the garbage she was consuming in the past and focuses her attention on the 20% that makes the most impact in her life.

Basically…

It allows her to achieve more by doing less.

Final thoughts

You don’t need several goals to get extraordinary results.

There’s one goal that ties all your goals together. Achieving it unlocks all the others.

Your aim should be to find this one goal — your keystone goal as my internet mentor would say.

This approach creates one definitive path to success, which allows you to narrow down your focus on making it a reality.

Knocking out a hundred tasks is a poor substitute for doing your ONE most meaningful thing every day.

This is how you make insane progress.

Thanks for reading!

Get your hands on a FREE copy of “Don’t Just Set Goals. Build Systems” if you’re tired of setting goals and not achieving them.