3068: The Unsexy Way to Make Massive Progress Toward Your Goals by Michael Mehlberg on Incremental Achievement

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Living Daily, Episode 3068, The Unsexy Way to Make Massive Progress Toward Your Goals by Michael Mehlberg of MichaelMehlberg.com and your narrator Justin Malik reading you blogs every single day of the year including holidays. And I'll just get right to it as we optimize your life.

[00:00:23] The Unsexy Way to Make Massive Progress Toward Your Goals by MichaelMehlberg of MichaelMehlberg.com What A Kids Baseball Game teaches us about winning big by aiming small. They finally got three outs. After 45 minutes of disappointing hit after hit,

[00:00:41] the opponent's pitcher finally ended the inning by picking off our third base runner. The runner wasn't upset. Our team of 10 and 11 year old boys had scored an impressive 15 runs in the bottom of the third inning completely dominating the opponent and going on to win by 8 points.

[00:00:57] Two things about this score were surprising. One, we lost against the same team in a walk-off hit just an hour earlier and two, out of 17 plays at inning, only one was a home run. Celebrating big achievements. Our kids celebrated the f**k out of that homer.

[00:01:16] The entire team ran out to home plate and bounced in unison chanting the player's name as he rounded third. When he finally touched home their collective cheer must have scared away the local wildlife. It was awesome. It was exciting. Even us parents cheered for the team.

[00:01:31] Big achievements like a home run deserve celebration. When you're a kid, it takes a lot of effort to put a ball over a 10 foot ball fence over 200 feet away.

[00:01:40] When you're an adult, it takes a lot of effort to get a promotion, write a book or run a marathon. Whatever your big goal should you achieve it, you're justified in throwing a party and patting yourself on the back. You earned it. You deserve it.

[00:01:56] But it's important to remember while big achievements are fun and exciting, if you want to win games consistently, you need to aim small. Strive for small achievements. Late Sunday after our double header, our coach sent the following email,

[00:02:11] quote, the offense really came alive in the third inning of game two scoring 15 runs. How did we score 15 runs in the inning? Noah walked, AJ singled, Luke singled, Tyler walked, Tal singled, Will singled, Anderson walked, Jack M walked, Jack B walked, Landon homered, Noah singled, AJ singled again,

[00:02:35] Luke singled again, Chris singled, Tyler doubled, Tal walked, and Will reached on error, end quote. One base on error, six walks, eight singles, one double and a home run. Put another way, 82% of our plays came from walks or singles. Nothing fancy, nothing big.

[00:02:57] Just player after player achieving one measly base, the bare minimum necessary to eventually score. The lesson here is probably clear, elementary even. While big achievements don't come often enough to add up to a big win, multiple small achievements do.

[00:03:15] The trouble is while it's easy to visualize a single in baseball, it's exceedingly difficult to do so in life. We set big goals for ourselves, then wonder why we haven't achieved it a year later. We have a grandiose vision for our lives, but hit middle age

[00:03:30] and wonder why that vision hasn't become a reality. The concept of small wins leading to big achievements is easy enough to understand, but it's a paradigm shift in how we need to act. To truly apply this lesson and start consistently winning,

[00:03:46] we'll have to do the opposite of what we do now. Focus on getting more singles and cheer wildly when they happen. Small wins aren't sexy, they're essential. Too often we get hung up on making big progress while forgetting that without achieving small steps along the way,

[00:04:04] we're missing the vast majority of opportunities to eventually score. Small wins simply aren't sexy. So you've led an important customer meeting big deal. So you've written for a week and finished a draft of chapter one, who cares? So you've run the first mile in a marathon, so what?

[00:04:21] Here's what. Small wins are the steps along the way and necessary to making big progress. Without a successful first customer meeting, you'll have no chance of closing a deal and getting a promotion in the future. Small wins help you build momentum and make progress faster.

[00:04:39] Once you've written a draft of chapter one, you'll feel excited about your progress and carry that momentum into writing chapter two and beyond. Small wins provide you motivation and energy to keep working toward a larger goal. Once you've scaled the first half of the mountain,

[00:04:54] it'll be too hard to give up on progress. Your forward motion will propel you another tenth, then another and another until you reach the summit. More so, the people who seem to continually make progress toward their goals are always extending themselves by either learning more,

[00:05:11] doing more, or being more. Not a lot, just enough to complete their next milestone. Small, manageable enhancements to their abilities, which help them grow. Small wins are essential. Not just because small achievements add up to big goals, but because the steps you take, the momentum you build,

[00:05:31] the motivation you nurture, and the value you create within yourself all enhance your intrinsic inner value. Then like interest on your savings account, this inner value compounds over time allowing for even greater achievements in the future. In other words, once you learn how to hit a single,

[00:05:49] you can do it again and again loading the bases, scoring 15 runs in a single inning, and ultimately winning the game. Think big, aim small, win big. Don't get me wrong, creating big goals is a good thing. After all, whatever game you're playing,

[00:06:07] you've set out to win, not come in second. If you're writing a book, maybe you want to hit the New York Times bestseller list. If you're going for a promotion, maybe you want your boss's job, pay, and responsibilities.

[00:06:19] If you're running a marathon, maybe you want to rank nationally and receive sponsorship. Whatever the game, it's great that your goals are big, hairy, and audacious. The ideal goal is inspiring. Sizable goals represent some future, better version of yourself that doesn't currently exist,

[00:06:36] giving you a lighthouse toward which to sail. As Tim Ferriss once said, Think big and don't listen to people who tell you it can't be done. Life's too short to think small, end quote. But to achieve big, aim small.

[00:06:51] Just as you can't get the promotion in one day, you can't write the book in one sitting or run a marathon in one step. Making massive progress doesn't mean hitting a home run every time. Big wins are often made from a series of smaller ones,

[00:07:05] incremental steps that get you closer to your goal. So focus on them. Focus on the small, immediate wins that will make everything else easier more unnecessary. Steal small victories to continually improve and step toward your goals. Take your big, hairy, audacious goals

[00:07:22] and break them down into small, manageable chunks. Set measurable milestones as stepping stones along the way. And every day make sure the tasks you're working on lead to the next milestone successfully so that you never stray from the path to winning big.

[00:07:38] Operating in this way will be the difference between hitting the occasional home run and running up the score, dominating your game and achieving far more than you might have originally thought possible. Quote, So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable,

[00:07:56] and then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. Christopher Reeve Focus on getting singles and the game will take care of itself. What next small step can you take? You just listened to the post titled The Unsexy Way to Make Massive Progress Towards Your Goals

[00:08:19] by Michael Melberg of michaelmelberg.com and I'll be right back with my commentary. Big thanks to Michael. If there's one major takeaway from narrating over 3,000 articles, at least on the habits side of things, it's definitely the importance of small steps forward. Baby steps.

[00:08:39] Literally when it comes to exercise, just walking five minutes is a step in the right direction. There's puns all over the place here, but you get the point. Reminds me of that classic movie, What About Bob? But it's true, the all or nothing mentality is our biggest challenge

[00:08:54] when it comes to making new habits. We want to start at the beginning of the month or worse at the beginning of the year for some reason. We want to wait for the perfect circumstances to be in a project when everything seems in order

[00:09:07] and the stars are perfectly aligned and when they do finally align and we begin, inevitably something happens. We don't feel good, friends or family issue, money, our jobs, whatever. Something happens because it always does and then we put that project or exercise routine on hold

[00:09:27] because the circumstances have changed. It happens all the time and for me too. But if we can commit to just that one small step or just a five maybe ten minutes towards keeping the routine and habit alive, it could really make all the difference.

[00:09:43] The other piece of it is something I was mentioning to a very kind listener who wrote in recently. She had quit smoking, found meaningful relationships, changed jobs, and made a ton of progress in different areas over the course of listening to this podcast but was struggling with progress

[00:10:00] in other areas like waking up early consistently or writing a book just like the example in this post. The first thing I wanted to mention was wow, quitting smoking is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Then changing jobs, not easy. Finding more meaningful relationships

[00:10:16] all of these things are huge and should be celebrated. These are almost like home runs to me. The other things, waking up early, writing a book. Yeah, they'd be great to work in but it's also maybe not as big of a priority as changing that job.

[00:10:30] Maybe that's why progress feels more difficult. Now there are definitely baby steps that can be taken in this case and that is important. There's something we truly care about in the first place. Well, it's something we have to figure out. After my reply, she said

[00:10:45] something important that she had heard recently. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. That statement doesn't work perfectly for building something like a rocket ship where it's really important but it does apply to most of the habits we're trying to build or projects we want to work on.

[00:11:01] Doing something just a little bit is better than doing nothing at all. So thank you to that listener for your kind message and for sharing. I really enjoy hearing how people have changed their lives and how the podcast has helped in the process.

[00:11:14] And thank you for being here every single day. It means a lot. Have a great rest of your day and I'll see you tomorrow. Where optimal life awaits.