Problem: You have too many goals

Take a second to think about the goals you made for yourself this year. Some people have very clear goals starting January 1. Others have goals their working on with no specific due date. Others have lofty goals that you've probably rolled your eyes at.

I don't think our problem is the lack of goals or even ambiguous goals.

Our problem is that we have too many goals.

How often have you seen someone post "Here are my goals this year" on some social media platform? Most are then given up on or abandoned soon after and you're none the wiser.

Dreaming up something you want to achieve is easy. Goals, however, are extremely difficult.

We build too many goals. Too easy of goals. Too hard of Goals.

And then we never achieve them.

But Mark does things differently. Let's take a look.

Build Zuckerberg Goals

Mark's 10 year's of Goals

Here is a list of all the public goals Mark Zuckerberg has made in the last 10 years starting in 2009.

2009: Wear a Tie to Work Every Day

2010: Learn Mandarin

2011: Become a Vegetarian (He did allow himself to eat animals he killed which led to some bizarre stories)

2012: Code Every Day

2013: Meet More People Outside Facebook

2014: Write a Thank-You Note Each Day

2015: Read a Book Every Other Week

2016: Build an Artificial Intelligence System and Run 365 Miles

2017: Visit Every US State

2018: Fixing the issues of abuse on Faceook

What's amazing to me is none of these are extravagant. They vary in degree of effort quite a bit and yet most of them are things we could all achieve as well. There is also only one goal a year (with the exception of 2016 where he added a physical goal as well)

Breaking Down the Themes

#1 Focused

It's not hart to see that Mark's goals are focused. They are simple and concise (the longest one is 9 words).

But…

they are not SMART goals as the expert goal-setter would have begged for. "Meet more people outside of facebook" is incredibly ambiguous. How many people? Where outside? When has he achieved it? This is exactly why his formula is genius. He only has one goal.

The one goal (other than in 2016) is so focused that even if the target is ambigious it's achievable. Simply by having this one goal, he shapes his decisions throughout the year.

Imagine he gets 2 requests one day. The first is to attend a dinner with Scott Harrison of Charity water and some of his team members. The other is a meeting with his team to discuss a new potential acquisition.

One is not required, and one is incredibly important to his role. But in light of his goal, the decision is easier. Move the internal meeting and take the dinner where he'd meet more people outside of Facebook.

This doesn't work as well if he has 10 goals that year, or even 3 goals. The lack of focus completely negates the impact and clarity one goal has.

Let's say his goal was to "Acquire new companies, and meet more people outside of Facebook." Now instead of his goal making decisions for him, he's now forced to make more decisions because of his multiple goals. Which goal should be prioritized and which is more important?

It's these, small and thoughtless decisions, that decay the drive to achieve your goals.

When you have a lack of focus and clarity, your goals don't just get harder, they become exponentially harder. And as Newton taught us, the equal and opposite reaction of having harder goals is their inevitable demise.

Your Turn: Try Setting one or two goals this year. Instead of having 5+ goals this new years, set 1 or 2 you really want to focus on. And if you're really amitions set just 1 goal for the entire year.

#2 Requires Some Time Investment

Most of the goals people set fail from the start because they don't just require a time investment but a complete overhaul of their life.

People want to lose 30 lbs., learn Spanish, workout 5 days a week, and read 12 books.

We already know from above that the lack of focus is the first point of failure. Trying to accomplish all of these in 1 year is like trying to catch 4 squirrels at the same time. Along with the lack of focus is the fact that this goal would require finding an additional 790 hours per year not counting the time to lose weight!* That would mean finding an extra 15 hours per week just to hit your goals! You would have to do a complete overhaul of your life. Yes, people have done it, but more times than not you set yourself up for failure. It's DIFFICULT to change your entire life overnight.

*(roughly 350 hours to learn Spanish. Workouts take 1.5 hours on avg. with commute which translates to 390 hours. People read 250 WPM on average, and the average book is 250 pages requiring 50 hours for the 12 books.)

On the flip side, Mark's goals all require time, but not enough that it would mean completely changing your life. You'd have to invest time for sure (Learning Mangrin is a huge time investment) but his goal is singular and focused. He won't have to quit his full-time job to complete it.

Keep this in mind. Goals are perfect when they require some time investment but don't upend your schedule. The time commitment per week can vary, but as you design your goal, imagine how much time you'll have to find each week and determine where you can pull it from.

Your Turn: As you write your goal, figure out how much time it will take total or how many hours you want to devote to it each week. Then find several areas in your schedule where you can block that time off.

#4 Build your Future Self

Looking through the last 10 years of goals you can see some growth in terms of what Mark is accomplishing and going after. But you can also see that he designed is goals with one thing in mind:

Who do I want to be tomorrow?

Take for instance the habit of writing a Thank You every day. It's clear he wanted to be a more grateful person; someone who acknowledges and recognizes the kind acts of others.

We see the same thing in building an Artifical Intelligence System. He wanted to be someone who not only better understood how A.I. worked but wanted to know it so thoroughly he could design it. This was 4 years ago when A.I. and voice recognition wars starting really heating up (He created the goal one year after Alexa was launched).

Mark's goals clearly go after one purpose: How can I be a better person at the end of the year, than I am right now. What would he need to work on if he wanted to grow?

Your Turn: Think about your future self. Write a list of 5 to 10 attributes you'd like to see in yourself in 10 years. You may wish to "Have a Bachelor's Degree", "Be a good cook", "Speak French", "Be able to talk intelligently about climate change." Once you have the list pick one (maybe two… if it's smaller) and work backward. What would need to happen for that goal to be true? Do you need to sign up for a cooking class? Buy a Cooking course?

#5 Habit Goals

One of the things I appreciate most about Mark's goals is that some are simply habits. The goal is the habit and the habit is the goal. Which goes against every goal-setting advice book out there.

But it's genius.

There are some things that, by doing it 365 times over the course of 12 months, you'll instill something really incredible. 365 days of continued investment on a small scale creates huge growth.

If instead of doing something every day, you did it once a week, you'd have to do it for 7 years to get the same amount of repetition in.

That's why yearly habit goals can be simple and transformational. A simple habit done over and over and over again can have huge effects.

There is one key thing to remember: A habit goal needs to be 1. clear and 2. have a conclusion. Writing a thank you is super clear. You know exactly when you're done and if you've done it —it has a conclusion. Let's say instead you said you want to "workout every day." A workout can be 7 minutes or 4 hours. You know you just want to do some physical activity every day. But it easily gets too ambiguous that it causes more decisions, which we know kill your goal achievement. You may get to the end of the day thinking "I walked around the store for an hour… was that "working out? I suppose so."

Instead, make it super clear what "finished" looks like. It may be "walk 10,000 steps every day." That's clear and you know exactly when you're finished.

Your Turn: Maybe this year you want to focus on one small habit every day. The trick is to make it super simple and clear. How will you know you're finished with the habit at the end of the day?

#6 Be Accountable

A while ago, Tim Ferriss put out this amazing series of T.V. shows where he tried to learn something he'd never done before in one week. In one episode he learned to play drums, in another, he learned how to race rally cars.

One of the most critical lessons I learned from watching this was to be accountable.

Tim wanted to learn the drums so he set up a date in the future where he'd be the drummer for a band's live concert. It was an actual date, on the calendar, in front of a live audeince. He set the stakes.

It's obvious that when you have accountability you're more likely to achieve your goal. But the less obvious outcome is that you actually learn it better.

Mark is accountable because his goals are so public. A few of them are hard to see if they were actually completed, but for most, he's held accountable by the public. Simply by sharing it online people will hold him accountable.

Unless you have the notoriety of Mark, I'd suggest you take Tim's approach. Set up a date in the future that holds you accountable. Are you losing weight? Maybe buy an outfit in the size you want to be and schedule a family photoshoot 3 months down the road. Want to learn to cook? Send out invites to your friends asking them to come eat judge your food. Want to learn Spanish? Set up a time to translate something from English into Spanish for a public function.

You may also want to choose just one person who knows your goals. Someone who's firm enough to hold you accountable in achieving your goals.

Whatever your goal, you need to have some form of accountability if you want to actually achieve it.

Your Turn: Knowing your personality, what accountability works? Do you need someone to speak truth to you on a consistent basis? Do you need a date in the future? Find out what that is and put it in place. Find accountiblity or don't set goals.

Less Is More

Everyone has goals, but rarely, do people achieve them all. As I stated in the beginning, this is more often due to lack of focus. When we're going after everything we end up getting nothing.

We can change, we can grow, and we can achieve our goals. It may just require pulling back a little more. Setting fewer, more specific goals.