You Don't Need a Better Plan to Achieve Your Goals

The purpose of this video is to help you be consistent and productive. I'm going to give you an insight in this video. That's what all my videos are really. Little insights that will help you move towards that goal. Now today's insight starts off with an assumption. The assumption here is that you are naturally productive. You're naturally productive. You're naturally enthusiastic. You're naturally creative. You want to engage with your life. You want to naturally move towards what it is that you want in your life. So if that's the assumption here, it's not fixing anything. It's just understanding how that process works. Okay, so that's who you are. There's nothing wrong with you. You're not lacking in anything at all. Okay, that's the assumption here. So one of those insights that we can look at now is, how does that begin to happen for us? How do we start to be consistent and move towards our goals? Today's insight is, how are you going to do it? How are you going to get your goals achieved? How are you going to do? And you might have two, three, four big goals in your life that you're moving towards. And you might think that you need this elaborate plan to move towards that. Now, really, that elaborate plan is antithetical to the assumption I made at the beginning, that you are naturally productive. You're naturally creative. You're naturally enthusiastic. Because when we believe we aren't, we think we need to have this big elaborate plan to somehow pull off that miraculous thing of getting ourselves to be those things, when actually we already are. So here's the insight. You don't need a big plan. What do you need instead? I'm not just going to take that plan away, the idea that you need this big, perfect, elaborate plan. Here is how you do it. Here is the only plan that you need to get what you want to be consistent and make progress in your life. Now, when I tell you what it is, you're going to say, God, I've probably heard that a hundred times before. But I hope it lands differently here when I tell you what it is, right? The thing, the big secret that you need to know to be consistent in your goals, to see progress and growth in it, right? Here's the big secret. You do the next thing. That's it. You focus on the next thing and you only focus on the next thing, the next commitment, the next stereotype that you have. That's it, right? If you think about it, how did anything get done in this world? How does anything ever get done? How does a skyscraper get erected? It gets built one level at a time. How does anyone learn a language? One lesson at a time. How does anyone write a book? One word at a time, one sentence at a time. I know it sounds trite and it sounds almost like annoying almost to hear it like this, but it makes more sense to really emphasize it because what are we comparing that strategy to? We're comparing it to the big elaborate plan that we think we need in order to override our laziness and our lack of willingness to engage. That's what we're comparing this philosophy to with the one step, one thing at a time idea. And the problem you see is when you have that big elaborate plan and you look at your day ahead and it's this huge complicated thing that you're going to have to engage with, the problem is that it's not that it isn't clever. It's probably a super clever plan, right? It's probably an ingenious plan. The problem is it overwhelms you, right? It diffuses your focus and overwhelms you. So we really have to train ourselves actually to do what I'm saying, believe it or not. It's almost an unlearning we're doing because naturally remember we're enthusiastic, we're willing, we want to take action. But we believe because we were told otherwise that we need this big elaborate plan to keep us on track, to have guide rails, to constantly keep us moving towards that. But if you can accept it, well actually I'm naturally productive. I don't need a huge elaborate plan. How does anything ever get done? One thing at a time. Okay, what should my focus be today? The next thing and only the next thing. That's the only thing that's going to move you towards the goal anyway. Even if you did have the big elaborate plan, right? And you stuck to it perfectly, which almost nobody does. I'll let you know that for sure. I certainly didn't. No one I've talked to has ever stuck to the big elaborate plan certainly for a long period of time. But even if you did have that plan, how would you get things done? You do one thing at a time. My point is that strategy, forget the plan, just focus on what's the next thing that's going to move me towards my goal. Now I also talk about having boundaries with things, right? Having like limits on your action, knowing where you're going to stop. But this idea of that you need a big plan is actually getting in your way. It's slowing you down. It's okay, I know what my goals are. What's the next thing? That's it. Now, other than that, the training is we have to retrain ourselves to forget everything else. It doesn't exist. There is no second step. That's how simple this plan is. Maybe that'll land differently when I say it like that. There's no second step. Another way of saying it is what do you have to do today? One thing, only one thing. I don't have anything else I ever think about. There is nothing else that comes into my consciousness. There is no big plan. There's no 17 steps. What's the next thing? Because that's where all your power is. That's where all your power is. Now, in my books and things I talk about that decision making about, okay, well, I have the decision made. That's the next thing. You may still find yourself procrastinating on it, right? So my book is about, okay, well, let's make showing up for that one thing, that next step, the focus and understanding why I don't. And understanding a different protocol. And it doesn't involve, okay, I didn't show up there. Well, I'll do it soon. I'll do it soon. In fact, my new book, my next book is pretty much only about that one thing. But to get us to show up consistently, it is a huge help for you to become a little bit more skeptical towards that huge plan. Now, I'm not even saying there's no time and place for planning at all. I prefer the word reflection, right? Where you're reflecting on your needs periodically, frequently, and you're figuring out what is the resistance and all that sort of stuff and trying to figure out how to make things easier for yourselves. But the idea that we need this behavioral based plan is coming from a negative assumption about who you are, that you need to be kept on track. And it rejects the assumption that you are naturally productive. There's nothing wrong with you. You're just as good as anybody else, right? You got this. You can do it. There's no reason you can't. Other people have done it. You can do it too, right? You're naturally productive. And all you need to focus on is not overwhelming yourself. And we do that through focusing on what is the next simple doable step that I can take that's going to move me towards it. There is no step two. And I just live in that space. That's my consciousness when it comes to my goals and being productive and consistent. So for some of those other stuff, you know, the resistance to it and understand why I can't show up for that one thing, read the book. My book is, my first book on it is called Procrastination Decoded. I will have the new book hopefully up at some point in the next few months. But in the time being, I'm making these videos. I'm trying to be consistent making these videos because, well, why am I making these videos? It's because the alternative out there, the 17 step formulas or the assumption that is widely held in our culture is that you're not enthusiastic and you're not really, you're not really naturally productive. So therefore, we're going to have to find a way to somehow mold you into that when that's not the truth. And it's not helpful at all. So I'm trying to counter that, my little corner of the Internet here, and I'm hoping that it's resonating. So you got this. You can do it. You don't have to change who you are at all. You can do anything you want to, right? When you understand that this thing's important. I'm thinking, what are my strategies like? What are my assumptions like? And you will be amazed at what you can achieve when you actually just start to unlearn that stuff and start to refocus on how it actually works and what works in terms of being productive and staying consistent. So I hope that's a useful concept. And if you like this channel and you want more of these little insights, you find this one useful, please subscribe and like the video and comment below. Let me know what you've been going through with this and more to come on this topic. Take care, and I'll see you again very soon. Bye for now.