The “Middle Step” of Goal-Setting that Most People Overlook…
I used to think there were only two parts to the goal-setting process:
- Set the goal.
- Make the plan for reaching that goal.
But there’s a middle step in between that most people miss.
In fact, I’ve come to believe that this middle step is the MOST important step of the goal-setting process.
If you skip the middle step, there’s a high chance you’ll give up before you reach your goal.
Here’s what it is:
- Set the goal.
- Determine “The Next Meaningful Experience”
- Make the plan for reaching that experience.
On the path to realizing your goals, you will pass through many experiences.
Some of those experiences will mean more to you than others.
The more meaningful the experience, the more confident and competent you will be in the rest of your pursuit.
So the next meaningful experience is sort of like the next functioning gas station to fill up your motivation tank.
Because it’s a personal thing, determing what this experience will be is as much of an Art as it is a Science.
I can’t tell you what your next meaningful experience will be, but I can tell you what it will consist of.
For an experience to meaningful, it has to involve at least one of these elements:
- Acquiring a skill
- Overcoming a fear
- Producing a result
To illustrate what a Meaningful Experience looks like, I’m going to use my friend Max Hertan as an example.
For the past two years, Max has been taking on monthly skills challenges and documenting his journey on his Youtube channel— Max’s Monthly Challenge.
Some of his challenges include dancing salsa, doing a backflip, becoming a ninja warrior, building a daily meditation habit, and learning to play the violin.
Pretty impressive right?
Here’s how Max achieves his goals by going after meaningful experiences.
Meaningful Experience #1: Acquiring a Skill
In one of his first Monthly challenges, Max shares how he always wanted to become a skateboarder.
To realize that dream, he determined he first needed to acquire four fundamental skills:
The first skill was to land an Olly jump over an object.
He started with his coach holding him on a carpet. Then he was holding him on cement.
After that he practiced jumping by himself. And then practiced jumping while moving.
Then on day 13, after countless failed attempts, Max finally jumped over a small piece of foam.
A piece of foam is about as trivial an object as one can think of.
But for Max that piece of foam was extremely meaningful.
It signified that his dream was in fact possible to achieve. If he could acquire that seemingly impossible skill, why couldn’t acquire all the other skills that build on top of it?
With the surge of motivation, Max pushed through and was quickly jumping over ever larger objects at ever greater speeds.
Then on Day 23, Max had his next meaningful experience — he landed his first kickflip.
When starting a new project, people tend to get stuck in consuming information.
But information is useless until you integrate it as a performed skill.
Think about your current goals — what skills will you need to acquire to in order to achieve them?
Which ones are most difficult for you to imagine yourself capable of?
Or put another way, which relevant skill would you be thrilled to have as part of your personal skillset?
How can you acquire the most basic version of that skill in the next few weeks?
Meaningful Experience #2: Overcoming a Fear
Sometimes we fail because we don’t have the pre-requisite skills.
But most of the time, “I don’t have the skills” is an excuse.
We usually have all we need to take the next step; the only thing that stops us from taking it is fear.
When Max was learning how to do a handstand, he was terrified of kicking his feet up to the wall unassisted.
In his mind, he imagined his arms giving out and his head crashing to the floor.
But the actual movement wasn’t difficult from a physical perspective. He had all the skill he needed.
He was just afraid of hurting himself.
You might be thinking: “What’s the big deal with kicking your feet to the wall — that’s not that scary!”
Don’t be that guy who rubs other people’s fears in their faces — you’ll pay for it later.
Everyone has his or her own idiosyncratic, irrational fears.
I, for example, do a lot of things that most people find scary, but I’m TERRIFIED of putting eye drops in my eyes.
Max was terrified of kicking up to the wall.
That’s why his first meaningful experience came on day 6, when he finally mustered up the courage to overcome this fear:
What are the things you most want to do, and what are the fears that prevent you from doing them?
What is the catastrophe scenario you envision? In that scenario, what step did you take to produce that catastrophe?
Whatever that step was, taking it will be your next meaningful experience.
Once you do the scary thing, and you realize it didn’t kill you, your confidence will soar.
Experience #3: Producing a Result
You can get really far acquiring skills and overcoming fears.
But at the end of the day, goal-pursuit is all about producing results.
That’s why the most meaningful milestones are results-based.
In one monthly challenge, Max took on standup comedy.
In the first week, he acquired the skill of delivering a joke, and he overcame the fear of telling that joke on stage.
But nobody laughed at his joke…
I felt for Max at this moment, because I’ve done open mic comedy twice before. And on both occasions, I received nary a chortle from the audience.
But Max didn’t let the first failure stop him — he was determined to get the result.
So he kept practicing, and he kept seeking feedback from people with more experience.
Several sets and rewrites later, he finally produced the result he was looking for — a genuine laugh from the audience.
The trickiest part of choosing a meaningful result is balancing humility with audacity.
If Max committed to selling out Madison Square Garden, he would have been overwhelmed by the difficulty.
You have to feel like the experience is within reach, or you won’t bother moving towards it.
But if Max committed instead to simply walk off the stage without being booed, he probably wouldn’t have felt inspired.
That’s why he focused on the simple result of getting ONE solid laugh from ONE solid joke.
Once he proved he could do that, he had the motivation he needed to finish his challenge and perform at a stand up competition.
What’s the simplest result you can produce that still holds meaning for you?
If you’re goal is to own a thriving business, your first results-based milestone might be making your first sale.
If you’re goal is to speak a foreign language, your first results-based milestone might be someone complementing you on your accent.
Before you move on to making your plan, really take the time to imagine what your next meaningful experience might be.
Then once you have something in mind, aim single-mindedly at that.
As long as you keep challenging yourself in this way, you will never be bored, and you will always move onward and upward.
