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To recover from failure, revisit your goals and redefine them.

"Failure doesn’t mean that you haven’t worked hard; it simply means that you need to take another approach to achieve what you want."
- Ruturaj Kohok

Most of us set goals that look something like this:

• Fitness: Lose 10kg
• Business: Turnover £200K pa
• Social Media: Reach 5K followers

That’s how I’ve been setting goals for the last 10 years.

After my last business failed, I learned a valuable lesson, which resulted in changing my approach to goal setting.

Instead of focusing on outcomes, focus on the process.

Great results come from focusing on inputs, not outputs.

Here’s why:

• Setting input goals helps you understand the levers that drive your output.
• Inputs are controllable AND actionable; outputs are not!

The impact this has on the goals you set is significant:

• Rather than losing 10kg, commit to working out 3 times a week and eating low carb, high protein meals for 6 days a week;
• Instead of targeting £200K turnover, commit to making 25 sales calls a day and going to weekly networking events;
• Focus on creating and posting one piece of valuable content every day on your social channels instead of aiming for 5K followers.

With these inputs, the actions you have to take are controllable and measurable.

Input goals encourage you to stay consistent because they are daily or weekly actions that you can execute.

Next time you set or revisit your goals, make sure you focus on inputs, they lay the foundations for long-term success.

🚀 Performance Hacks

The 2 Minute Rule - How to get stuff done (3mins)

I've been using the 2-minute rule a lot! It's helped me to build momentum and consistency in various aspects of my life. It’s a very simple mental tool that helps you to start taking action. Action creates momentum. Momentum creates results.

How a 41-year-old solopreneur regularly uses an After Action Report (2mins)

An After Action Report (AAR) is a structured review process that you carry out after completing a project. It helps you analyze what happened, why it happened, and how things can be done better next time. The aim of an AAR is to help you learn from actions and decisions that you’ve taken in order to avoid failure or promote success in the future.

🧠 Brain Food

Book: The Power of Discipline: How to Use Self Control and Mental Toughness to Achieve Your Goals. I finished this book last week and my Kindle is full of notes. We know that self-discipline is important for success. What I enjoyed with this book is how it incorporates mental models, habit formation, Zen philosophy, and the 80/20 principle and gives you a practical handbook for you to build your own self-discipline. Definitely worth a read.

🎙️ Blog Post: What’s an Asymmetric Opportunity? I didn’t know before reading this post. What I’ve since learned is that if you want to build wealth, you want to make small bets that have more upside than downside. You want to seek out and bet on Asymmetric Opportunities.

📱 Tools + Tech

💻 App: Blinkist. I’ve been using Blinkist for a couple of years now and it’s a great app. In just 15 minutes a day, you can learn the key insights and ideas from 5000 of the most popular non-fiction books. They’ve also introduced a new feature called Shortcasts, which brings you the key insights from the most popular podcasts! The best thing is that you can enjoy unlimited access for 7 days with this link to see if you like it.

🐦 Tweet: 5 tips to help keep you disciplined with your personal growth.

Haha: Here, have a repository of groan-worthy dad jokes.

✍🏾 Quote of the Week

“When you focus on what you can control, there is always an action you can take to put yourself in a better position. When you focus on things you can’t control you tend to freeze, unsure of what to do, and you wait.”

From The Mindset Gap by Shane Parrish. Resurfaced using Readwise.