Goal Setting: Defining the Minimum and Setting the Foundation

Nowadays, it seems the one-size-fits-all approach is what is heard loudest when it comes to pursuing our goals. The David Goggins, up early, no excuses, push yourself to your limits mentality – and if you aren’t achieving this, well, that is due to your own weakness.

How one works towards their goals can be quite a sensitive topic. Every influencer, author and researcher out there believes they have cracked the code. And in many ways, they have - for their intended purpose. If you achieve a goal by sticking to your own process, that’s objective evidence that it works.

Alternatively, many people that are working towards a goal that appears destined to fail often become resistant to feedback, no matter how well meaning. Unless someone has specifically sought your advice, they probably aren’t ready to take it on board.

I love David Goggins, his first book ‘Can’t Hurt Me’ reinforced in me the truth about taking accountability – that many of us have gone through tough times but it is still incumbent on us to take control of our future. That wallowing in self-pity, or time lost, serves nobody, especially you. And if you are ever feeling like giving up, just watching a quick Goggins Reel is as good as anything to give you that dose of perspective we all need. Best get after it!

Goggins is great at showing us what can be achieved if when we take ourselves seriously. However, I’d be interested to know how many people truly want to live to this extreme?

I worry people think this is the only way out. That it’s all or nothing, otherwise it’s not worth doing. I question: Is it still worth doing if it takes you a decade longer to get there? Or if it doesn’t achieve the ultimate outcome? Of course it is! Unless the goal is just plain ridiculous and fraught with unnecessary risk.

So, what is needed for those of us that want to try and achieve a goal while keeping life in balance? It’s not an acronym or a motivational video – it’s a framework! Something that uses simple and profound imagery that allows you to dissemble all parts of the goal so your life can be structured accordingly. This is The HABIT House Framework.

And the first part of the HABIT House Framework, and for that matter, the most important part (just like any house), is the foundation. Get that part right and your structure can last the test of time.

The foundation is your ‘minimum for progress’. It asks the question: What is the minimum I need to do over the longest period of time I am willing to allow to achieve my goal? And if it’s a lifestyle goal: what is the minimum I need to routinely do so I can keep this habit going for life? This foundation allows the structure you’ve built to not collapse during the storms of life. And even if it does for a brief moment, it’s easy to pick up again where you left off.

So many times I’ve set out in pursuit of a goal and got some way in to only have life get in the way. I’ve then felt shame about the regression and have not wanted to begin the journey again. My pass mark was now fixed at the point I was before I stopped, not where I am now – making it far harder than necessary to get back on the journey.

If I had set a foundation in concrete – a ‘minimum for progress’. I may never have fallen off and burnt out in the process. I may have taken longer to get to where I was, but consistency would likely be maintained, and I would eventually supersede the progress achieved by the ‘all-or-nothing’ mentality of my past. And if I did fall off for a while, I certainly wouldn’t have felt shame about regression and needing to build back up gain.

Today, I now have a few minimums I adhere to. First, my fitness routine: I must do at least 50 reps of my target muscle group per workout. Depending how I feel on a particular day that workout may take 1 minute or much longer. I may just achieve the 50 and stop or I may go further. It may be 80 quick reps, or 50 gruelling reps. I can adapt to what the day brings. I also ensure I go for a minimum of two runs per week. No phone or watch, no technology - I run to how I feel. If I get out there and do a 10k, great! If I get to the end of the street and stop, I’ve still completed my minimum of going for a run – goal ticked, and more progress achieved than eating chips on the couch.

Second, I’ve always been a reluctant reader. I can read perfectly well but growing up I far preferred to be out playing sport or watching TV. As I have aged, I’ve really wanted to enjoy reading, as I know it is one of the most important habits that attribute to one’s success. As an adult, I’ve bought many books and straight away felt daunted by the amount of time it would take to read. What if I put years into reading this and it was a waste of time? I’d always give up. Then I set to sort my process rather than worrying about the outcome. I no longer worry about how much I should read or how long a book will take; I’ve simply set a minimum to read for at least 10 minutes every weekday. It didn’t matter how many pages I got through, so long as I read for at least 10 minutes. From the ages of 15 to 35 I had finished one novel. I am now on track to finish 5 books over the last two years. Maybe not an overly impressive feat, but at 10 minutes a day, anyone could achieve this. And it just shows how the minimum requirements add up over time. I can honestly say, I now look forward to my book more than I look forward to my TV show - something I never thought possible.

The third - this blog. I want to hold myself accountable to writing. My goal, at a minimum, is one blog post, on average, per fortnight. If this doesn’t work for me, I will adjust, but at this stage it feels like a nice balance.

With all of my minimums the idea is to go further and do more where possible - and I often do. But there have been way more times than I expected where I have needed to revert to these minimums. I know if I didn’t have this in place, I would have broken these attempted habits many times over.

Is this ‘consistency before intensity’ that we hear coined in so many self-help texts these days? No – I believe it is better than that. It is saying that the minimum is your launchpad and you should do your best to achieve what this current day allows, to at least your minimum standard. And if the day requires you to achieve less than yesterday, that is okay, so long as you keep accountable to your minimum requirement and keep progress alive. It’s probably kept you going, right at the point where you would normally quit. But if the day allows it, and most days will - go further – push to your ceiling!

Is it time you defined your minimum and set it in concrete?