4 Strategies for Achieving Your Career Goals - SWI #2

Read time: 4 mins



We're back for round 2!

Thanks so much for being here again.

Today we're covering the #1 thing you've told us you struggle with:

Going from having a goal, to making it happen.

Only 9% of people who make a resolution in January will still have it at the end of the year.

Having a goal is easy.

Executing is not.

This issue will help you be in the 9%.

It will help you execute your career goals, by making them:

- easier to achieve, and

- enjoyable to execute.

Let's get into it:

If you're reading this, you probably want more career success.

You may have even used our checklist (from last week's newsletter) to define clear short-term
career goals, and set a long-term vision.

That's great - you're on your way.

Here's 1 thing people forget:

Winners and losers both have the same goal:

Winning.

What often sets them apart is having:

- The discipline to get started, and

- The discipline to keep going

Therefore, we're sharing our 4 favourite, research-backed ways to maintain discipline to achieve
your goals.

These strategies have helped us:
- Run a marathon
- Quit smoking and alcohol
- Climb the corporate ladder quickly
- Create a path to financial freedom

We didn't invent these strategies, we're just sharing them because they're so impactful.

Here they are:

4 STRATEGIES TO ACHIEVING YOUR CAREER GOALS


1. Find a better reason

Here's why most people fail to achieve challenging goals:

They don't have a good enough reason to keep going when things get hard.

Discipline and consistency are a lot easier to sustain when there's something meaningful
driving you.

Whether you want to be healthier, a more confident public speaker, make a bigger impact in
your career, or anything else challenging:

You need a reason that matters more than the discomfort you'll experience to
get there.

Find that reason and you're halfway there.

If you still fail, you probably need a better reason.



2. Learn to enjoy the process

Often, when we have a goal, we're not happy until we reach it.

The key is to flip this around: to focus on enjoying the process of working towards the
goal.

How do you do this?

Try reminding yourself of this quote from Ray Dalio:
"Failure + Reflection = Progress"

No matter what, failure will be part of the process, and it's essential to success.

Without it, you're not learning or progressing.

By reframing challenges as essential and worthwhile, you start to enjoy them when they
come up.

It doesn't feel as hard, and there's less discipline required to achieve your goals.

You enjoy it more.
You get better.
You succeed more.



3. Use friction to your advantage

'Friction' is anything that makes it harder for you to achieve your goal.

There are 2 ways you can use it to make it easier to be disciplined:
- Make good habits easier to do by decreasing friction
- Make bad habits harder to do by increasing friction

Want to increase your productivity?

Put your phone in the room next door.

Want to actively network more?

Put the time in your diary now, so it's blocked out for you when things get busy.

Accelerate your career and improve your communication skills?
Before you scroll through your social media, take 4 mins to read our newsletter 😊.



4. Your secret weapon: Accountability Partners

The thing is, holding yourself accountable doesn't work very well.

When it gets hard, you will (consciously or not) find the path of least resistance, and rationalise
your way out of doing the hard yards.

When this happens, it helps a lot to have someone you trust call us out, and lovingly but firmly
help you get back on track.

If you don't know where to start, try vocalising your goal (and your reason why it matters) to
someone you respect.

This will help you have skin in the game with someone you don't want to lose trust with.

It still starts with you.

But when we're doing something big, we all need supporters.



Actions you can take now

Here are 4 ways to implement these strategies today:

1. Find a better reason:
Write down the reason you want to change something important in your career.
If you're not on track by the end of the week, you need a better reason.

2. Learn to enjoy the process:
Practice taking the worst thing that happened yesterday, and reframe it by listing the reasons
why it could be a good thing.

3. Use friction to your advantage:
Choose 1 activity that you want to start or stop and increase / decrease the friction on it.

4. Activate your secret weapon (accountability partners):
Vocalise this week's goal to someone you respect.
Over time, you can formalise an accountability partner relationship.

We would love to hear you're going to try, and don't forget to reach out if you get stuck.

Thanks so much for reading!

Speak soon,


Lynne and Steve




Looking for extra resources?

If you loved this and want to learn more, dive deeper with James Clear's book Atomic Habits
(https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits).




TLDR (i.e. Too Long; Didn't Read Summary)

- Wanting to achieve your career goals is easy. We all want to win. Executing is hard and
requires discipline.
- 4 strategies to improve your discipline and achieve your goals:

1. Find a better reason
2. Learn to ENJOY the process
3. Use friction to your advantage
4. Your secret weapon: Accountability Partners

- Decide what next steps you want to try and do them!

When you're ready to accelerate your career, here's how to ask about working with us:

We offer career coaching & mentoring to support leaders to build confidence and achieve their goals, and are developing career-building courses coming soon.

Find out more here.