Setting your goals

Grant Leboff: Pete, one of the things you talk about in the action is setting 3 core objectives. Then you talk about goals, sort of under pinning these objectives. Just want to explain how you see the difference between objectives and goals, because I think a lot of people haven’t made that … Haven’t distinguished between the two before.

Pete Wilkinson: Okay, in the process of the action plan, for me the core objectives are the major objectives that must be in place for the duration of the plan. If the plan is 3 years, your objectives are for 3 years. They’re really major objectives, huge objectives. The goals, for the purpose of the plan, are just intended to be stepping stones, that’s all they are. They’re very simple check-ins, if you like, and they are dynamic. So athough you’ll have 5 for each objective, the goals are dynamic, they could be achieved and replaced. In the basis of the action plan, the whole purpose of the goals is that you have the very simple stepping stones so you can tick them off, feel good, get momentum on the side, and then proceed to the next one. For this basis the goals are just so you’ve got the actions identified where you need to focus on the shorter term to keep you on track. They’re like compass bearings, if you like.

Grant Leboff: I understand. Take us through an example, if you would. You’ve got a core objective of X, how do you then decide which are the goals that under pin that objective. As you said, you’ve got 3 core objectives and each one has a set of goals underneath it. This becomes all encompassing in some ways. How do you start to define what those goals should be?

Pete Wilkinson: For me I do a thing called “Rapid goal setting.” I literally sit someone down and I give them a very short space of time and say what would be the 5 things, the 5 first things you can think of that you would need to do to take some steps closer to that objective? I just kind of push people to not over think it, just to think what they are. Sometimes by just literally saying, “Okay, so if I achieve this objective, that’s the 5 steps.” Just getting them to write down, rapidly, what are they. People, then, are easily able to see what they are. When I over think it, I can give people 50 minutes for that exercise and I can give them 3 minutes and you’d be very surprised how in 3 minutes they can come up with 5 goals very quickly, because the thing is, Grant, most of us know what we should be doing, we’re just not doing it. The goals are there, we just need to formulate them and write them down, very rapidly.

Grant Leboff: Is it, to an extent, some of these goals could be perennial? Could you see, do some of these goals end up being things that you just, are things you should be doing all the time?

Pete Wilkinson: Yeah, once you tick the goal off and you’ve achieved it, it may be that the goal was one of the habits that we talked about earlier. The goal could be the habit once you’ve formed it. You don’t need to record anymore, it just becomes what you do, but you should always have at least 5 so you know, because success is sequential. Have a look at the next 5 steps so you can take the next 5 steps. That’s the basis.

Grant Leboff: The importance of these goals, from my understanding from the book, is these are practical things that you can do. The whole point is that at the top of your plan you’ve got some sort of vision, but what you’re doing underneath is giving yourself a kind of plan, a road map, to achieving …

Pete Wilkinson: Yes, that’s all it is. It’s just these are the steps that I need to take, and the goals, to achieve my 3 core objectives. If I achieve my 3 core objectives, I can by default, will automatically achieve my vision. It’s a very simple cascading process. Just so you’ll understand, doing this little thing over here will help me get to this big vision in 3 years time.

Grant Leboff: I know in the book you share with us your own plan for Iron Man and others … Just give us an example, just so people can understand, what one of the objectives were and then the goals that set behind it.

Pete Wilkinson: Okay, the main objective, well, the main middle one was the bike section of the Iron Man. That’s a 112 mile bike. You’ve already done a 2.4 mile swim. You’re doing a 112 mile bike and you’re getting ready to do a marathon at the end. What you need is, not surprisingly, is fairly strong legs. The goals for the bike section was to finish the bike in under 6.5 hours. The goals in that area were around building stamina, building muscle leg strength. The goals were in relation to what condition my legs needed to be in to finish the bike within 6.5 hours, which was the objective. So I had the strength to then do the 3rd core objective, which was the marathon run. They were in relation to strength and conditioning of their legs, specifically to be able to come off the bike and do the run. These were the very simple milestones to achieve.

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