By: Michael Hudock

One rainy afternoon many years ago, a 15-year-old boy named John Goddard sat down at his kitchen table and wrote three words:

“My Life List”

His list consisted of 127 goals.  Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, Fuji, and Vesuvius.  Photograph Victoria Falls.  Dive underwater to explore the Great Barrier Reef.  Become an Eagler Scout.  Learn how to play Clair de Lune on the piano.  Even light a match with a .22 rifle! 

If you’ve ever read the book Chicken Soup for the Soul, you might be familiar with Goddard’s name.  (His story was included in the book.)  While he didn’t achieve every single one of his goals before he passed away in 2013, he did accomplish most of them.  109, in fact!  He was one of the first people to explore the entire length of the Nile.  Still thirsty for more, he was also among the first to ever explore the length of the Congo.  He climbed the Matterhorn, lived among native tribes in Brazil, Borneo, and New Guinea, and somehow found the time to learn how to fence, fly a jet, and play the violin.

He was, by any measure, one of the greatest “achievers” ever. 

For many people, me included, this is the dream — or at least, a scaled down version of it!  There are so many things to see, learn, and do in this world.  Far more than we could ever pack into one lifetime. 

But you and I both know that setting a goal is not enough to achieve a goal. 

There are all sorts of barriers to achievement. For one thing, not all goals are as aspirational or fun as the ones on Goddard’s list.  Some are more ordinary, like getting our life organized, setting aside more of our paycheck for the future, or putting our estate in order.  It’s easy to procrastinate on these types of goals, because they can be deceptively difficult, require the most change, and don’t come with an immediate emotional payout. 

Another reason achieving our goals is hard is because it’s so easy to get sidetracked by more immediate concerns.  How do we have time to exercise when so much of the day is spent working, cooking dinner, cleaning the house, and a hundred other chores?  How can we afford to put money into our IRA every month when there are house payments, medical bills, and a toilet that won’t stop running to deal with? 

A third barrier — and honestly, this is the one I often see the most — is that it’s so easy to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of what needs to get done.  Goals are rarely a one or two step process.  They take time. 

Finally, many people manage to overcome these barriers and still get stuck…because they ended up going down a false track and have to start over. 

As a financial advisor, my life’s mission is to help others achieve the dreams they care about most.  While there have been many books and articles written on the subject, there are a few basic strategies that I often see go ignored.  In this post, I want to share four of the most important.  These strategies, as simple as they are, can have a profound effect on how much you can accomplish…and they can sure make you feel better about your progress! 

Let’s start with:

Strategy #1: Plan — Not Just Once, But Continuously

Everyone knows that it’s far more effective to lay out a road map to your goals rather than simply wing it.  To quote the baseball legend Yogi Berra, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll wind up someplace else.” 

The training wheels version of goal planning is to allocate a few hours to it up front.  You figure out what you want, where you need to start, and maybe a few milestones you expect to hit along the way.  That’s not a bad approach, but it means the rest of your efforts will always be reactive.  Why?  Because even the best plans can go out of date very quickly as your situation changes. 

A more proactive approach is to update your plan at least once a week.  Take an hour each week, sit down, and write what needs to be done the following week.  (I’ve taken this one step further and will do this task every evening after getting home from work.  But for most people, once a week is plenty.)  When you do this, it gives you a consistent awareness of where you are in your journey.  It enables you to see that moving forward doesn’t require big leaps, but small, simple steps.  And it enables you to adjust your plan as your circumstances change…or even as your goals change! 

When you do this, you will create more efficiency and actually free up time for personal priorities.  This strategy will also help you from getting sidetracked, ensuring your long-term dreams always have a seat at the table with life’s short-term demands. 

Strategy #2: Group Similar Steps Together

Many people feel overwhelmed when it comes to goal planning.  We feel like there are a thousand things beating us up.  Then, when we climb into bed, we lay there feeling guilty about not making a sizeable dent in that gigantic list. As a business owner, I know that this definitely affects me from time to time. 

These feelings all get in the way of a more efficient approach to handling our daily tasks.  Fortunately, there’s a way to overcome this.  By planning continuously, we will often see that many of the items on our to-do list — or steps we need to take to reach our long-term goals — are often similar or can even be tackled simultaneously. Do you remember learning how to simplify math equations in school?  We can do the same thing with our goals — and discover that what looks like thousand steps is really just five.     

Five sounds a lot more manageable, doesn’t it? 

I’ll give you an example.  I have a client whose husband recently passed away.  They were together for many, many years, so when it happened, she told me it felt like the world was crumbling around her.  There were so many decisions to make, and so many things to take care of, that she felt paralyzed.  It was just too overwhelming. 

So, we sat down and identified what actions could be grouped together.  We did this both by time horizon and by breaking down the various parts of her life.  For example, all the decisions that needed to be made soon were grouped together.  The decisions that could be made in a few weeks or months went into their own group.  And the decisions that had to do with five, ten, even fifteen years down the road got moved to the side. 

Right away, this made everything seem a lot simpler and a lot more doable.   

When we apply structure to our list of things to do, suddenly that list becomes much less paralyzing.  As a result, our goals feel much more reachable. 

Strategy #3: Identify the Consistent Gaps in Your Schedule

We all have these: The odd hour here or there where there are a thousand things we can do, but no one thing we must do.  The time between getting home and when you have to take the kids to soccer practice or get started on dinner.  The ninety minutes on a Sunday morning between waking up and when you have to start getting ready for church.  The golden hour on a summer’s evening when there’s still a bit of sunlight left, so it’s too early to start getting ready for bed. 

These “scheduled gaps” aren’t always set in stone, of course.  But in my experience, they do occur predictably.  That’s why it’s worth tracking your time for a month or two so you can identify when these scheduled gaps are most likely to occur. After you do that, you can factor them into your continuous plan and use them in a way that gets you closer to your goals.  For example, maybe within those gaps, you commit to a thirty-minute exercise program.  Maybe you use it to become more engaged with your children’s activities.  It could be as simple as quality time with your spouse. 

The point is that when you know those gaps are likely to occur, allocate them toward something specific.  If you know you have thirty free minutes every third Friday at 7:30, make it non-negotiable that you use that time to go for a walk with your family.  Or read a book.  Or open your bank account and move a little bit of money from checking into your vacation fund.  Doesn’t matter what it is — just identify the gap, fill it, and make it as non-negotiable as brushing your teeth.  

No ifs, ands, or buts about it.  

Strategy #4: Ask For Help

This one is the simplest and easiest…but often the one that gets ignored the most.

Have you ever started a new fitness regimen but end up bouncing around from exercise to exercise, machine to machine, because you weren’t sure which one was most effective or right for you?

Have you ever tried to pick up a musical instrument, but ended up quitting after a few months because it seemed like you just weren’t getting any better?

Have you ever installed a language app on your phone, hoping to become bilingual, only to never actually feel comfortable speaking in a foreign language?

Have you ever tried to save or invest for a specific goal, only to consistently see your money end up going to other things?

All these scenarios, and a thousand more just like them, happen every single day. Why? Because learning a new skill is hard. Changing your body is hard. Adopting a new lifestyle is hard.

And for many people, becoming financially independent is the hardest of all.

Society often conditions us to think that we must do these things through sheer effort and willpower. As a result, we often fool ourselves into trying to do them alone.

But you don’t have to do it alone. In fact, you shouldn’t! There’s a reason why professional athletes have trainers. Why musicians have teachers. Why even Fortune 500 CEOs work with coaches. Having someone to hold your hand, keep you motivated, answer your questions, get organized, and help you see the big picture is invaluable. John Goddard didn’t learn how to land on an aircraft carrier, build his own telescope, or circumnavigate the globe — all actual goals he achieved, by the way — on his own. At every step, he had mentors, teachers, and guides along the way.

So, if you ever find yourself struggling to move forward to your goals…

Or if your dreams seem to be moving further away…

Don’t try to tackle it alone. Ask for help. 

After all, our dreams are always the most meaningful when we share them with someone else.

***

Not all of us wish to skin dive to 40 feet, ride an elephant, or even type 50 words per minute.  (Yes, those were all on Goddard’s list, too.)  But we do all have our Life List. We all have aspirations. We all want to experience the world around us in our own unique way. The good news is that while tackling our Life List isn’t always easy, there are always ways to make it easier.

Sometimes, the simplest strategies yield the biggest gains.

I hope you found this information helpful. Remember, if you ever need help with your long-term goals, my team and I would be honored to assist. Serving the members of our community is one of the items on my Life List — and it’s a goal I will never check off.

Now, go write down all the items on your Life List. I wish you joy in achieving them!

— Michael Hudock

P.S. If you want to see all the goals on John Goddard’s list, including which ones he actually achieved, you can check them out here.