How do you create the core objectives in your life?

Grant Leboff: One of the things you talk about in the book is having core objectives, and you talk about having 3 core objectives. How do you go about starting to define what those should be?

Pete Wilkinson: Okay. You go about it by thinking once you’ve clarified your vision, what we spoke about, having that succinct vision, you then start thinking about what would be the objectives that I would need to have in order to achieve that. If you were doing this from a business context, normally the objectives are around strategy, operations, and people, so having a great strategy, having a great operation to deal with the strategy, and then having a great bunch of people, the team that can execute the operation.

In a domestic or a personal action plan scenario, most people go for a business core objective. They have a self-core objective, and they have a health or relationship core objective. The idea being that most people are focused on too many things, Grant. The whole concept of 3 core objectives is that in order to achieve more, you need to focus on less. By just getting down to the 3 and being quite ruthless almost to the point of giving way to the good in order to focus on the great, means that your energy is focused in just 3 areas.

Those 3 core objectives are what you really should focus on at least 80% of your week. They’re the main objectives that’s going to deliver your vision, so it’s about giving you real clarity on where to direct your focus.

Grant Leboff: Does this mean when you’re putting a vision together for a business, for your own life, for whatever else, do you think people are too wide in their scope? Your vision should be reasonably narrow and, therefore, so you’ve got certain behaviors in order to achieve that. Do you think some people are just, they almost get nothing done because it’s almost too…

Pete Wilkinson: Yeah. The whole purpose of having the action process is that you understand very clearly what are the actions to get to where you want to get to. I think most people watching this would probably be honest and say they’ve got too many things going on, too many projects that are 65% complete. Too many spinning plates. Too often they finish the week feeling unfulfilled because they’re just overwhelmed, so by narrowing the focus and doing those things better, becoming more effective on those 3 core objectives and the steps to achieve those, is a much more efficient way to delivering your vision.

Grant Leboff: How does someone distill it down to the 3 because for so many of us, like you said, we’ve got so many things going on? We’ve got such complex lives, business relationships, home relationships, all sorts of other things going on. How do you finally decide these are the 3 that for the next 12 months, 2 years, whatever it is, I’m going to concentrate on?

Pete Wilkinson: I like to ask people to do what I call a check back. What the check back consists of moving out to the 3 years or 12 months and saying, “I’ve achieved my vision. I know exactly what I’ve done. I can feel it and I’ve achieved it. Were these the 3 things that I needed to focus on?” You’ve really got to make sure they’re absolutely core, so that when you’re working through your working week or you’re working month, you can think to yourself, is what I’m working on core? You’re doing a check back because sometimes we focus on things that just aren’t central, and you’ve got to really ask that question, is what I’m doing core, that’s going to get me to my vision?

Grant Leboff: How much should someone be taking with their week worrying about their core objectives? You’ve got these 3 core objectives, but obviously you’re getting on with your life. You’ve got things going on, children happening and business happening and this, so how does this influence day-to-day living, these core objectives?

Pete Wilkinson: Yeah. For me, you should be focusing on your objectives 80% of the week… of your working week. If, for example, you have a holistic plan, if you as a whole person, then you could have a core objective, which could be a relationship with your family, with your children and with your partner, your significant other. That could happen, or you could have 1 for self, self-development, and then 1 for your business, but you should be focusing on these most of the time. There is guys, of course, Grant, that have more than 1 plan. They have a plan for business and a plan for home life, and that’s possible as well, if you needed to segment it.

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