Don’t Bet On Yourself. Your goals can be better.
The crisp blank planner. The vision board. The office shuffle. There is a magic to a brand new year, and a hope of promise. Let’s cut that crap out right away.
Kidding. Sort of.
Do yourself a favor and stop believing so much in your own Future Self. Sure, you can hope she will be just as motivated as you are today. Or, you could plan to outsmart her.
A “default” is a pathway toward a future hope that skips a step along the way–your own choice. Defaults reduce the need for you to opt-in, circumventing indecision, procrastination, peer pressure, or distraction.
Perhaps the most frequently used default is what I call negative default–removing temptation. We do this any time we buy vegetables instead of candy, cut up a credit card, or get rid of that secret stash of contraband.
But positive defaults are often overlooked, perhaps the best kept secret to goal attainment. My favorite example to get us in the brain-space of positive default is when organizations make it mandatory to opt out of a retirement contribution, rather than encouraging employees to elect their way into one.
In a moment, I’ll share five different types of defaults for you to explore. But before we get there, another often-overlooked hack that will help both your own goals and your expectations of any team members, family roommates, or direct reports: Separate “done” from “doing.” In other words, consider not just the end goal, but the behaviors associated with goal attainment.
These are different from OKR (Objective and Key Results) because they consider not just different ways to describe the end expectation, but behaviors that help individuals reach said finish line. A great manager can be explicit on the objective and key results along the way, while coaching different team members to deploy their own customized defaults that drive behavior toward those key results.
Record scratch–hold up…what?
Here’s an example. Andy wants his sales team to expand to new markets this year. He describes his OKR this way:
Objective: Expand our network of clients to at least 3 new countries by the end of the fiscal year.
Key Result 1: Increase number of trial memberships by 15%.
Key Result 2: Diversify marketing by distributing across 2 additional platforms.
Key Result 3: Improve net promoter score by 5%.
Andy has outlined his mega-goal–his “done.” Including goal-driving behavior,, he goes from being the boss who clarifies “done,” to the coach who identifies and enables the “doing,” individualized actions that stack the deck in favor of each team member.
Separate the goal from the goal-driving behavior. Consider the following:
If we had to accomplish our end goal this week, what would we spend our time doing?
Now, if we spread that energy across the year, what is 2-5% of the work we could do this week?
For Andy, this reflection results in making more handshakes with existing clients. It means his team will reach out to a few potential new contacts each week. Some of his team might do so by expanding trusted relationships. Others might do it by attending new conferences. Some may even light up by cold calling. But the “doing” means there are actions being taken in pursuit of the “done.” Andy will follow up at the end of the month to see which of their predictions for goal-driving behavior are most promising. He plans to fail on at least a few things. He’ll purposefully look for something to stop doing, and something to shift toward more often.
Under each end goal, there are likely a handful of goal-driving behaviors. Once you can see these plainly for building blocks toward something you really want, you can create defaults out of one or more of these goal-driving behaviors. Don’t try to create each type of default. This is about avoiding grind and friction, so see which make the most sense to you…
Types of Defaults:
Financial: This is the “Let’s make this interesting” default. Pay for something ahead of time. Maybe your big goal is to learn new things this year. Enroll in a course and pay up-front. Or subscribe to a full year of a news magazine. The default works by reducing the friction of choice that money can create. If you know you’ve already spent the resource, your path toward the goal-driving behavior is one step more clear. Automatic savings works under financial as well, and is regularly regarded as one of the most helpful defaults among those who thrive in Financial Wellbeing.
Social: Commit to something with someone, ideally someone you know won’t flake on you. A member of Andy’s team (from above) kicked off an existing client session by inviting them to attend a networking event, where they promised to make some fun and helpful industry introductions. A friend of mine (okay, it was me) booked a short retreat with a trusted coach and bff, a goal-driving behavior toward the desired outcome of prioritizing rest. Social defaults skip you beyond the friction of initial interpersonal anxiety. Do not pass go, do not collect on doubting whether you should attend. It’s like going to a party where you know and love the people.
Service: If you are wired to look after others, design a default that benefits you, disguised as a promise to someone else. Bri wants to be more connected in her community, so she promised the elementary school principal she would run the food drive. She also told her boss ahead of time and blocked off a day in advance. Ty wanted to continue his commitment to deep thought and learning, so he told his mentee he would be available to proofread the essays she wrote on new and interesting subjects.
Task: Automate using real automation. Shannon wanted to grow her coaching business, so she invested in software that sent emails to any new clients any time she posted an article. Mason went all digital with his business invoicing, spreading recurring payments over the entire year. Task defaults use literal tools to decrease the effort of doing when it can be done for you. The closer you are to the strategy, the harder this one can be to see. Enlist the help of a friend or coach, especially if you’ve directed the way forward more than once.
FOMO: Fear of missing out. No one wants to feel left out, your Future Self included. This default is like a visit to the future–surround yourself with people already in the “winners’ circle” of your goal. Build your social media feed with the benefits of your goal once it is already achieved. Trish signed up for a conference well in advance, because she knew it would be filled with successful professionals in her industry. Tiffany set news alerts online for her competitors, so when they were in the headlines she would see. Technically, this is more of an exercise than a default because it’s less about removing friction and more about accelerating your future vision casting. It does remove the barrier of disbelief.
Let’s be clear–your goals are improvements upon who you already are. Success that requires you to be someone you are not is misguided at the best, and abuse at the worst. This year as you’re penning your own goals or helping others craft theirs, first break apart the goal into goal-driving behavior. Then, consider how you can visit the future and clear the way for yourself when you are tired, hungry, or otherwise less motivated than you are today. For all her flaws, that Future You is pretty awesome.
