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Micro Goals VIP- Audio

Hello, I’m A.J. Hoge and welcome to this month’s VIP lesson. The topic this month is micro goals. Micro means very small, tiny and of course, a goal is something you want, something you want to achieve, something you want to get or something you want to accomplish.

We often talk about very big goals. I know that you have big goals. I know that you have big dreams and that’s fantastic. You need big goals. You need big dreams. Big goals and big dreams inspire you to try harder, to grow more, to learn more, to move forward, to achieve and get your dream life. Big goals have a lot of strengths. They can really make us move forward and accomplish great things. Big goals also have some weaknesses, and that’s why we also need micro goals, tiny little goals.

A big goal usually is something in the medium future or maybe in the far future. A big goal might be to do something at the end of the year or after two years or after five years. Sometimes the problem with big goals is that in the beginning they inspire us, they give us energy and we feel really excited. Anytime you’re working for something that’s big and new and maybe difficult, there will always be challenges. Maybe sometimes you’ve already had this. You had a big goal, you were very excited in the beginning and then you had some big problems.

Maybe things became tough and very difficult. Maybe they became difficult for a long time, and that’s when a big goal can actually hurt you. When things are really, really tough right now, when you’re really feeling bad right now, when you feel weak right now, when you have a lot of problems right now, then when you imagine this big dream you actually can feel more weak because it just feels too difficult and too far.

If you’re thinking about that big, big, big dream and that big, big goal all the time, then sometimes you can actually get less motivation because you start to think I’ll never do it. It’s too much. It’s too far. Right now things are so tough. I’m never going to do that. In this way, sometimes a big goal or a big dream can actually stop you from moving forward. It can actually stop you from getting the success that you want. That’s when you need micro goals because micro goals have a different kind of strength. There is always more than one micro goal. You don’t have a micro goal; you have several micro goals, little tiny goals.

The power comes from the fact that they focus you in this moment right now on something very small and tiny to move you forward. It’s a lot like this idea that we’ve talked about in the past of constantly improving or kaizen, making small little improvements. This is actually how you do that in a very specific way.

A micro goal is for now or in the very short future. Maybe your large goal is for six months from now or one year from now or five years from now, but a micro goal is for tomorrow or next week.

It’s much closer in the future, maybe just one week from now or maybe a month from now at the most. A month would be the farthest but usually it’s more like one week or one day.

If things are really, really tough it might just be one hour from now that you’re going to accomplish this small tiny little thing to move you forward one step closer. That’s the power of a micro goal and they’re most useful when you’re feeling tired, when you’re feeling bored, when things feel difficult or when your motivation is low. When all those things are happening, use micro goals to move forward again.

I’ll give you an example that probably you’ll understand. Maybe you want to speak like an American. Maybe you have this big dream that you want to speak excellent English. You want to speak like an American or like a Canadian. You want to have excellent and amazing English.

That’s fantastic. That’s great.

You can imagine it. You imagine speaking English very powerfully. You imagine speaking English in a strong voice. You imagine speaking English correctly with a really nice accent, very clear and easy to understand. That’s all great right now, but at some time maybe in the past or maybe now you had some trouble. At some time you probably felt I’ll never do this.

Maybe it was during English class when you had to study a lot of grammar. Maybe you had a conversation with someone in English and you felt nervous and shy, and you couldn’t remember words and it was not fun. It was difficult. Maybe you just got bored and tired of studying English at some point. Probably when that happened and you thought of this great and wonderful goal to speak English like an American, maybe you felt I’ll never do it. I might as well quit. I’m never going to do that. It’s too much. It’s too far.

That’s the danger. What do you need to do at those times? They have probably happened to you in the past and they’re probably going to happen again in the future. That’s when you focus on something very small right now. You just ask yourself one simple question. Ask yourself, what’s the next step to move one step closer to that big goal? Not 10 steps and not all the way, but just what’s the next tiny little thing?

For example with English, maybe a micro goal would be this week you will listen to English 14 hours per week. This week you’ll count your hours of listening and that will be about two hours per day. That’s your micro goal. That’s all. Will that help you? Will that improve your English a little bit? Yes it will. Will it make you speak perfect English suddenly right now? Of course not.

It’s a micro goal. It’s a very small goal but it’s something that you can achieve right now.

Even if you’re bored, even if you’re tired or even if you feel like you’ll never have big success, it doesn’t matter. You can at least do this one small micro goal. If 14 hours feels like too much, you could decide to listen to English for seven hours this week. You count your listening time each day and at the end of the week you achieve your goal. If you don’t achieve your goal, you keep that same micro goal for the next week, and the next week you do it. What happens next?

It’s real easy. It’s just a step-by-step tiny approach. After you achieve that micro goal, you make a new micro goal, a new tiny little goal.

Let’s say that you listen for 14 hours this week. Then for the next week you might make a micro goal to listen to English for 15 hours in the week. You count your hours again and just add one more hour. Maybe the next week you’ll say I will again listen to English for 15 hours this week, and also I will read for two hours this week something interesting in English.

Step by step you just focus on now. You don’t think about that big goal at all. If you’re inspired and feeling fantastic that’s the time to think of that really big goal and get excited about it. When things are tough, when you’re tired or when you’re not sure, don’t think about that big goal. It’s always there. Just focus on the next step in front of you. When you finish that step, focus on the next step. When you finish that step, what’s the next step? Don’t think about the big one. Just think about these little tiny ones.

Each time you achieve a little small goal – a micro goal – celebrate. Jump around, get yourself something good to eat or whatever you want to do, but have a little small celebration of each little tiny goal. In this way, you pull yourself forward step by step. You’ll have much more energy and motivation by just focusing on these small things.

Let me give you two examples from my own life. One was a failure and one was a success. The first one was before I started Effortless English. I had the same dreams. I had the big dream of having this international life and having enough money to travel around the world, having enough time and freedom to travel around the world and have great adventures and do all this wonderful stuff, but I was working at a job that paid almost nothing.

I hated the job and I had almost no vacation. I think I had two weeks per year, so I couldn’t do any of that stuff. Every day I thought about the big dream and then one day I decided to try this nutrition business, selling vitamins and stuff. I started that business and every day I focused on my big goal.

I had pictures of places that I would visit, nice beaches or countries that I wanted to go to. I had pictures of the new car that I would buy with all the money I was going to make. I had all these wonderful big dreams and that was fine.

The thing is that each day was very difficult. I didn’t really know anything about business at that time. I was terrible at selling and quite honestly I really didn’t know a lot about the nutrition business and supplements and all of that. Each day would be very, very difficult. I wouldn’t do very well and then I would focus on my big goal and think about the big dream. That worked for maybe a week or a few weeks but then I actually started to get more discouraged. The more I thought about the big goal, the more it felt like an impossible dream and my energy went down, down, down. My motivation went down, down, down. It felt totally impossible because where I was and where I wanted to be was just too big a gap.

Eventually I failed at that business and quit, and I didn’t start another business for several years.

That was the failure. I didn’t establish or create some nice little small goals to help me go forward during the tough times.

Here’s a success story. The first time that I wanted to run a marathon, it seemed very, very big and tough and difficult. At that time I was running about three miles a day usually, about five kilometers. A marathon is 26 miles, which is a lot of kilometers. I thought from three miles to 26 miles is a big, big, big difference. Every time I thought about running 26 miles, I thought it just seems so impossible right now.

I thought I don’t think I can do it. It’s too much. Eventually though I got this book by a marathon runner and he basically had a micro goal approach. He basically said each day run your normal amount. Maybe it’s three miles or maybe four miles. Then just one day a week on Sunday, you do a long run and you just add one mile per week.

The first week I ran four miles. That’s all I focused on. I didn’t think about 26 miles. It seemed too scary and too tough, so I’m not going to think about it. I’m just focusing on this week and just on Sunday I will run four miles. I can do that. Then I did it and it wasn’t so tough. It was easy.

Then I thought next Sunday I’ll run five miles. The rest of the week doesn’t matter. I’ll rest if I need to. Just on Sunday next week, I’ll run five miles. I thought I can probably do that. I just did four. Then Sunday came and I ran five miles. It was maybe a little tougher but not too bad.

In this way, I just focused on the next little step and that’s all. If I started to think about the big goal and get scared, I just pushed it away and thought about just the next one. Some weeks I didn’t achieve my micro goal. Maybe I wanted to run eight miles on Sunday and I wasn’t quite ready, so I had to stop at seven. I thought no big deal. I just need some extra rest. I rested a couple of extra days and I thought okay next Sunday I will run eight.

Then I ran eight miles and I took little steps week by week until I got up to 26. Then I did indeed finish my first marathon, and then I ran another marathon basically using the same approach. It really didn’t feel so difficult because I didn’t focus on this whole huge thing. I just focused on the tiny step ahead of me, and little by little I just moved forward.

It seemed a lot easier than I thought it would be. It was mostly just psychology. So you understand, yes the first step is you need to have a big goal, a big dream, probably a few big dreams. I’m sure you have at least two or three big dreams. Think of them. Write them down. Be specific. Write down the date when you will achieve the big goal.

You can put that on your wall somewhere or think about it for several days. Do what you need to do. You can imagine it in your mind. All of those things are great. Eventually, however, you will need to focus on the tiny steps to get there and not be thinking about the big goal so much because that will be too much.

The next thing that I want you to do after you have your big goals is I want you to look at the first big goal and ask yourself just one question. What’s the next step to take right now this week?

What will you do this week? Write that down. Write down exactly what you’re going to do and when you will finish it. Do that for each of your big goals. Then at the end of the week, you finish it. What will do you then? You ask yourself again, what’s the next step? You write that down. You write down your date – maybe Sunday, maybe next week – and then you finish that. Then you just keep going. It’s a never-ending process.

If for some reason one week you don’t finish your goal, don’t get upset. Just keep that goal and accomplish it the next week. Maybe you need to go a little more slowly. It’s okay. Just focus on that next step until it’s completed. When it’s completed ask yourself gain, what’s the next step?

That’s it. It’s simple but powerful. This is how you achieve big things. Yes at first you’ve got to get excited about them and imagine them, but then you actually have to do something. You can’t just dream about it and it’s all magically going to come to you. That’s a nice idea but it doesn’t usually happen. Usually what needs to happen is that you focus on just that little next step and then you take a step forward. Then you do it again and again. That gives you power. That gives you confidence that grows and grows, and that’s how you achieve really big dreams and big goals in the real world.

Do that and I will see you again soon, bye-bye.