Pod Insights Change Wired Why you'll lose at most of your goals this year. The dark side of too much ambition. EAST framework for following through. Why you'll lose at most of your goals this year. The dark side of too much ambition. EAST framework for following through. Change Wired
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About this episode Ready to stop sprinting into burnout and start winning your year with calm, focused momentum? Focus not Frenzy? We dig into why so many smart, motivated people fail on their goals and how a few design choices can flip the odds in your favor. Instead of spreading energy across a dozen ambitions, we show how to pick the one that matters most, translate it into daily behaviors, and engineer your environment so doing the right thing becomes the easy thing. We ...
Transcript 0:09 Speaker 00 Hello and welcome back to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Sharina, I'm your host, I'm your partner in change, transformation, personal and collective evolution, executive coach 360, mind, body, work, and just someone with a lot of passion and hopefully now more focus for human potential, for helping others and myself to unlock and use more of this potential to create the most extraordinary world and live the most extraordinary lives. Today, guys, we are talking about one of the major reasons why so many of us fail
0:53 Speaker 00 at our new year goals. So we're going to talk about how to do it better, how to make it almost impossible to fail with your goals when you do it right. The question then becomes, will you do it right? Or just keep doing what you've been doing, hoping that this time will be different? So that's the main question to think about. Yesterday, guys, was the second day of the challenge I'm leading. It's High Performing Entrepreneur Reboot Challenge. Five-day challenge where for another day we get together and we learn,
1:33 Speaker 00 discuss, work through certain aspects to fuel, to condition your best performance. It's health, it's body, it's mindset, it's performance and productivity, and focus, and strategy, and goal setting, and stress management, and resilience. So we're touching on some of the most fundamental strategies and tactics and something that is research-backed, something that has been proven by practice to work for humans a lot better than just, you know, doing whatever and trying strategies that actually do not work. Like, for example,
2:16 Speaker 00 Well, I'm gonna start with an insight from one of the participants. And that actually is something that I wanted participants to understand and really start thinking about it differently. So the participant shared that he was thinking about all of these goals in his business. And when he started thinking about what it will actually take to win with any of those goals. He decided to drop like one of the items on his Enchanted. Because he said, I realized that if I'm gonna be trying to do that. It's gonna take away so much, like so many resources, my energy, time, I don't know, money, et cetera, right?
2:59 Speaker 00 From all the other goals and actually it might not even be worth it or pay off. And so he decided to drop that item for perhaps later. And instead, use these resources, dedicate, relocate those resources that he has. And all of us have limited resources to other goals that have much bigger potential to be the winning kind of goals. And you know, there is this beautiful phrase by somebody wiser than myself. I'm not actually sure you can chat G P T, maybe I'll chat G P T as well. So the phrase is, you can have it all, just not at the same time.
3:41 Speaker 00 And what I learned over the course of my eighteen year coaching career and living life and setting goals and having high ambitions and aspirations. What I learned is what kills our goals and what makes us fail more than any hard challenge ever could is diluted focus. We start new year with this noise in our head, feeling behind, feeling like we are already failing and not where we wanna be by this stage in our life. And so we feel like we gotta have it all, we gotta do it all, and we're gonna start it all now.
4:23 Speaker 00 Diluted focus. And that's what happens. And what kills our aspirations and a lot of our goals. What makes us fail is that urge to do, to have it all now. You know, to achieve anything in life, that might sound very, you know, basic. But to achieve anything in life, you gotta keep going. But in order to keep going, you gotta do things that are sustainable with your level of skill, with your contacts, your life, your resources. Now, you can increase that ability. You can grow. You can create the circumstances that you don't have right now.
5:06 Speaker 00 But trying to act from the space like you already have it all, it's kind of like trying to win some marathon and sprinting into it. And thinking, you know, I'm just gonna overcome it. Everyone overrun everyone from the start. And you will start and overcome and sprint over everyone in the first like few minutes. And then you'll burn out because you don't have the skill to maintain the space. And guess who's gonna be winning? The guy who paced themselves and studied slower, but actually balanced his resources so he can make it to the end.
5:51 Speaker 00 And also because probably they build that capacity by training for many months and years before you. And so thinking that you'll just make it through sheer well without very rudimentary skills. You're just setting yourself up for failure. That's what it is. And that's why so many of us fail. We hear these words, dream big, have ambition, go for it. And then we go for it and they fail miserably and we don't wanna ever try again because it feels impossible. But the only reason why it feels impossible is because we didn't realize. But if we took it step by step, we actually could have a very chance of making it. Take any business that you, that is super successful right now, whether that's.
6:31 Speaker 00 Whether that's, you know, Bill Gates or Elon Musk, they did not start with trying to do it all, trying to become the biggest, the best at everything. They did not start there. And they had different circumstances that contributed to their wins. So one of the key things that I wanted participants to take away from this challenge is, think about your goals and ask yourself, what would it take for me to realistically not hoping for some luck and extraordinary willpower that nobody has? Think about your goal, look at your goal and ask yourself, what would it take realistically for me to win? With time and effort and, you know, consistency, but what would it take to win?
7:16 Speaker 00 And can I do that? And if I can, then how do I need to pace myself? How do I need to break it down? What are the sequential, segmental skills that I need to start building step by step to have a chance over longer time horizon to actually get there? And one of the again key things when we started also working through different health habits like nutrition and sleep and exercise and stress management. One of the key things I asked participants to share what they're gonna work, like one behavior, they're gonna work in each of those areas. And when participants started sharing with me, what I noticed is that we are still in this mindset
8:02 Speaker 00 and I was nudging people to reconsider and redesign their goals. We were still in that space, like I'm gonna
8:12 Speaker 00 drink more water and eat all the, you know, vegetables and sleep all the time, on time and have this elaborate exercise routine, even though I can't, I couldn't walk consistently for the past 10 years. You know, now when you hear that, that might sound silly, but when you look at your goals, you actually might be trying to do exactly the same thing, being unspecific, overshooting with your ambition with that.
8:41 Speaker 00 Breaking down your goals into like the sequences and segments that you can actually handle while you are building your capacity. So the first takeaway from this podcast, guys, again, look at your goals and ask yourself, what would it take for me to win realistically? Not with all the luck in the world, luck in the world, helping you, but realistically, right? And then I realize also that the more you delude your focus, the more you divide your focus, your energy, your attention, your resources, the less chances each goal has to succeed. So if you have ten goals for this year, each goal will get ten percent of you, of whatever resources you have. And if you have just one goal, it's gonna have one hundred percent.
9:24 Speaker 00 So which scenario do you think will more likely to succeed? Something to think about. But then, once we start breaking down each goal into behaviors that we need to do consistently every day in order to succeed, here is another thing where we make mistakes. And I'm speaking from a perspective of a coach who spent, again, close to two decades helping people to achieve the things that they struggled with achieving for decades. So we create a goal, we might break it down into very specific behaviors, sometimes not.
10:04 Speaker 00 And then we don't build systems that make this behavior actually more likely to succeed. Here is this, there is this framework that I love for behavior change that has been proven to work one-on-one and to change people's behavior at scale. And I shared this framework that I'm gonna share with you right now to maximize chances of your behavior to actually stick with you, to make failure almost impossible if you do it using this formula. So this formula is It's abbreviation, it's the word east, like west, east, north, south, right? So east, E A S T.
10:46 Speaker 00 So it stands for is easy, attractive, social and timely. Let me explain you what you do with this. So let's say you are trying to sleep better. And let's say the behavior that you choose to start with is going to bed on time. Let's say it's ten P M. So you take this behavior and you ask yourself, how do I make it easy, simple, clear? Well, spelling it out very clearly, like I'm gonna go to bed at ten P M. That is step number one, making it clear, making it simple. So your brain understand exactly what is your plan of action, right? Being in bed by ten P M. Now, how, making it easy also means removing all the obstacles from that.
11:30 Speaker 00 Asking yourself, like, why am I, why do I usually not do that? Like, what gets in the way? Is it I stay up working on something? Do I watch Netflix? Do I do social media? Is it my social commitments? Like, what is it that's usually in the way and doesn't allow this to happen naturally? Because if you were just sitting there, ten P M, doing nothing, you'd probably be in bed, right? So what's in the way? That's the part of making it easy that a lot of people really underestimate. Like, what makes you not do it now? What's in the way? So remove that, so you clear the way, so it is easy. The second thing is making it attractive. And making it attractive has two parts. A, it's gonna be visible, it gotta attract your attention.
12:15 Speaker 00 Like, how will you know that this is, this is the time to go to bed? Do you have alarms? Do you have something popping on your screen telling you it's time to bed? Like, how will it attract your attention? And also attractive means rewarding, understanding you why? Like, why is this important to go to bed on time, on, at ten P M? Is it just because? You know, your brain doesn't work well with just because. You really gotta understand with your values, with the person you are, with your aspirations, your goals. Maybe the example that you wanna send to your family or your friends or at work, becoming the rested leader, not overworked and burned out leader. So why is it? Why do you wanna do this?
13:00 Speaker 00 That is a part of making it attractive. Social, I also like to say, social and stakes.
13:07 Speaker 00 It's commitment. We humans, creatures who value status a lot, like how we are perceived by others. So when we wanna create new behavior, if we commit to someone, and that was part of the assignment in my challenge as well, choosing that person and telling them, hey, for this year, I'm committing to going to bed on time to get good trust and next day be a better version of myself, whatever that means, right? But you tell this person, whoever that person is, maybe this person online who you do things together and they also might be going on some sort of challenge or commitment on change. So you commit to the person and saying, I'm gonna go to bed at that time.
13:47 Speaker 00 Can you please follow up on that and check in with me, maybe, you know, once every couple of days? Because it is so much more harder to say to someone, you know, yeah, I just forgot about my commitment. I decided to do, you know, something else. It is much harder to just say, you know, I'm not doing that to the other person when you commit to that than to say to ourselves, you know, I'm just not gonna do it, I failed, or it's just not that important, etc. And also that raises stakes, because now all of a sudden, part of your status, social status, like how you perceive yourself and how you wanna be perceived by others, is also at stake.
14:28 Speaker 00 You know, some people also do all kinds of online commitments, but put some money on the table and put their like credit card information somewhere. And then if they don't follow through with behaviors, then that money gonna go to some charity, but basically you're gonna lose that money. So the stick with it, or but similar to that, websites online are available, but you can look it up, you can Google it, online commitments for following through with habits, something like that. But social, you know, making commitment to other people, making, creating some skin in the game, raising the stakes, saying it publicly, hey, from now on, I'm committed to becoming a rested leader,
15:12 Speaker 00 because I believe that the burnout steals human potential. And because of that. That I'm committing to going to bed at that time, right? Commit to as many people as possible and you are almost guaranteed to follow through or at least be more mindful about not doing that and saying, hey, I said I'm gonna do that, but it seems to not working for whatever reason. Maybe I need to reconsider my commitment, et cetera, right? But it's gonna be so much harder to just pull yourself out of it because you made this commitment public. So that is S in east. And then T is for timely. And that has several components. It's about scheduling, putting the time on your schedule.
15:53 Speaker 00 Like when it comes to sleep, not scheduling anything, not putting more work in night, not making social commitments and not agreeing to go anywhere. Or if you agree to go somewhere, you can say things like, you know, but by nine thirty, I'm gonna be out of there because I committed this year to prioritize my sleep, right? So making time on your calendar, committing to keep that time on your schedule. Maybe even putting time block on your schedule, like this is time for sleep. Setting alarms, setting triggers, asking someone to remind you of that. So it's, you don't forget, so you don't have a chance to forget. And so when the time comes, let's say ten P M., you actually are in position to go to bed
16:37 Speaker 00 instead of having so many things to do because you didn't handle your schedule or it took on on more than you could. And because of that, not having that time, right? One big part about timely for when you do it is at the moment when you need to do it, maybe, you know, if it's, let's say, eating better breakfast. So at the moment when you need to eat that breakfast, that you actually have things and it's easy, again, back to that easy, for you to have that healthy breakfast. It's very difficult to have healthy breakfast when there is nothing healthy in your fridge and you're hungry and you have no time, right? So having these reminders at the right time when you actually have the ability to perform the action, that is also a big part of it.
17:22 Speaker 00 And so when you start breaking down your goals into very specific behaviors and then ask, designing those behaviors with this framework in mind, making it easy, making it attractive, making it social and raising the stakes, and then making it timely and creating a systems that won't allow your brain to forget.
17:45 Speaker 00 When you work through the design of each behavior using this framework, it becomes almost impossible to just not do it and forget and, you know, have an excuse. Because in order to have an excuse, you would have to, well, first of all, you will have commitment and you really have to explain not just to yourself but other people. But then also, if it's the easiest things to do, if you really understand why it's important, if everything is in place, it becomes almost impossible for you not to follow through or not follow through mindfully, maybe choosing something else that actually fits your life better. And then maybe reassessing your goals at the same time. Hey, I said I'm gonna hit this goal, but it seems like I cannot do the actions.
18:30 Speaker 00 And therefore, maybe there is another goal that actually can work in my life better. Somebody commented on my Substack, I moved my daily blog, guys, so please do follow. I'm gonna do a live Q and A's, there are live videos, like a lot of cool stuff. But anyhow, I moved my blog and somebody, for the first time, like, oh, commented on my blog and said, yeah, you're so right. It's like, we have all these ideas, whether for career pivots or business pivots. And then we don't realize that actually we don't have the context. Like, our life doesn't work with this idea. Just because you got an idea doesn't mean this idea is gonna work for you, contrary to popular belief.
19:16 Speaker 00 And what successful people do, actually, when they get an idea, they evaluate this idea against their life. Like, do I have the resources to make it happen? And if I don't, maybe I'll leave this idea to someone else, right? Just because you got an idea doesn't mean that's a good idea for you to work on. It's like, idea is like a seed. And if you drop it in a dry soil, it will not deliver its potential, no matter how, like, I don't know, much of it it has. The soil has to support the growth of the seed for this idea to flourish. And that's about it. So, guys, to sum it up, first of all, if you found this podcast valuable and you're gonna think differently and use different framework.
19:59 Speaker 00 To approach your goals and to set yourself up for winning this year. If it changed things for you, please do share, please review, please read for us to reach more people and unlock more human potential and to create more impact, more positive impact in the world. So please do that. And now to recap, we talked about how when you focus on many things, you give each thing you focus on less and less chance of success. So really consider what is meaningful to you. What do you want to succeed with? And if you choose too many things, none of those things have a very chance to win in your life.
20:41 Speaker 00 And then after that, ask yourself, what do I need to do to be able to do for this goal to succeed? And then, once you choose the behaviors, break them down, work them through with EAST framework, E A S T, easy, attractive, social, timely. And then do it, because just like we said at the beginning, any achievement requires one thing, you keeping going. Thank you, guys, for learning. Thank you for your attention. I hope you found a lot of value and most importantly, you're gonna apply that value, because any change requires doing. If knowledge was the answer, we'd all be billionaires with six bad apps.
21:27 Speaker 00 That is it for today. Till next time, keep growing.
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