Do you always seem to find yourself falling short of your goals? Do you have the best intentions to achieve incredible things, only to lose steam partway through and just…stop?
Well, look no further: the likely culprit is probably none other than “The Boring Middle”. For the majority of my life I’ve wondered how to achieve my goals when motivation would fade away once the initial excitement wore off…
…but then I found out how to beat the Boring Middle. And today I’m going to tell you how.
What If I Hadn’t Stopped?
Have you ever looked back on a goal you were working on but never met and wondered, “What if I hadn’t stopped”? I absolutely have, and imagining what could have been if I’d just stuck with it is awful.
For a long time I wondered what would have happened if I’d kept at it with education, fitness, nutrition, dating – you name it. But I always just shrugged my shoulders, thought that it was beyond me at no fault of my own, and felt sorry for myself.
I failed because of “The Boring Middle”. This is the point of a goal where the excitement wears off, the rush of learning or doing something new fades, and you have to fall back on your routines and systems to get you to the finish line. My problem was that I didn’t set up my goals properly, and I’m willing to bet this may have been an issue for you at some point as well.
Before we get into the details of how to consistently achieve your goals, let’s look at what they actually consist of.
The 5-Phase Structure of a Successful Goal
FIVE PHASES?!
Absolutely! But these apply to goals that are built to succeed, not just make you feel good. What you’re about to read is my roadmap to achieve your goals and accomplish more than you ever thought possible. Let’s dive in, shall we?
Phase 1: Conception
Coming up with goal is great! Having a moment of clarity in which you think of something amazing you want to accomplish is the most basic part of the process. These can be anything!
- Get into shape? Great!
- Save more for your retirement? Awesome!
- Be a better partner or spouse? Fantastic!
Unfortunately, this is where most people probably think they’ve taken all the steps needed to achieve their goals. Take a moment to think about your past efforts. Have you said you were going to do something awesome only to find your motivation putter out after a week or two? You may have forgotten the next (extremely) important phase.
Phase 2: Planning
HERE is where the money is made! If you want to achieve your goals, they need to be better than “I’m going to do/have/get X”. In order to achieve your goals consistently, they need to be specific and realistic (I know all about SMART goals, but I’m proposing something a bit different here).
Let’s look at the first example from Phase 1 and see how it can be better.
- Get into shape? Not specific
- Is the goal to hit a certain weight? A specific number of pounds lost? Weight you can lift in an exercise? A distance you can run? Etc. etc.
- Lift 225 lbs on bench press 4 times in one set? Much better!
- This goal is specific. It provides the exercise, the weight to eventually lift, and the number of reps to get to.
Something is missing, though – the timeline!
Yeah, I’m suggesting that you be careful when setting timelines or deadlines. I don’t believe that setting a strict timeline is required, or even beneficial, to goal achievement. Instead, I recommend that you focus on the systems that will get you to the finish line. Your daily routines and good habits are the key, and you need to follow them religiously. How? Make them fun so that it’s easy to stick with them!
Example: If you haven’t been to the gym in years, don’t set a goal of going 7 days a week from the start. You’re very likely to miss a day or two, feel frustrated, and abandon the goal entirely. Instead, start with 2-3 days a week and increase your frequency as you progress. This allows flexibility and helps avoid burnout!
Once you have a solid plan laid out, make sure you don’t let yourself forget it! Write it down and put it somewhere that you can see often, moving it every so often so it doesn’t blend into the background over time. Set reminders on your phone to keep yourself on schedule. Do whatever you can to remove the opportunity to forget or lose track.
Phase 3: Execution
Now that you’ve got your plan set in stone, it’s time to GO!
“Starting next week? Sure, that sounds reasonable.” NO! Take the first step and get started today. The single hardest part of building a new habit or routine is taking the first step every day. Don’t wait until next week – what’s to stop you from saying the same thing on Monday when you’re tired in the morning? Or after work when you’re exhausted and just want to relax and decompress instead? You’ll get to it “tomorrow”, right?
Do you actually want to achieve your goals? Then you need to stop procrastinating and just start.
Don’t have the gym membership you need to work out? Set it up today, or hop over to our Home Gym Buying Guide for some of my personal recommendations to buy the basics to get started.
Having trouble getting outside to run? Lace up your shoes and just start walking.
Haven’t gotten to setting up your retirement savings? Hop online and set up the accounts or change the distributions on your phone right now.
The main point is that you just need to get moving – and that’s the hardest part! Once you start, the rest will follow naturally. That’s the beauty of momentum!
And last but not least, be flexible. Life tends to hit in unexpected ways and things don’t always work out as planned. Be willing to adjust your systems to meet your goals. Let’s look at an example.
Let’s say you have a goal of losing 10 lbs but you aren’t seeing any progress. Check the math – did you calculate your calories correctly? Are your macros properly distributed for weight loss? If so, drop those calories a bit more or increase your exercise intensity and frequency. If you’re using our Daily Calorie Target Calculator, make sure you’re being honest with how active you are when setting it up.
Don’t let a lack of progress get you down – own the process and make the results happen.
Phase 5: Success
All right, you made it – Goal Achieved! You’ve tasted the sweet, sweet flavor of success and you can’t wait to set up your next goal to knock out of the park.
But wait…where was Phase 4?
The Hardest Phase
Here we go. A lot of people set up everything properly, but don’t account for the hardest part. They’ve planned for their goals, set up the routines and habits, and hit the ground running with great momentum! So what could stop them in their tracks?
That would be Phase 4: The Boring Middle.
What is “The Boring Middle”?
The “Boring Middle” is the stretch where your excitement isn’t the driving force that pushes you forward anymore. You’ve gotten the previous phases out of the way, you’re set up for success, and now you have to…wait?
The Boring Middle is where your systems will make or break you. Unless you have tremendous willpower and enjoy the challenge (you masochist), you’re probably going to fail here if you don’t have enjoyable systems set up.
Let’s assume that your goal is to lose 10 pounds and you’ve done everything right in Phases 1, 2, and 3. You’ve got really solid systems in place – you’ve calculated your calories and macros, you track your food to make sure you’re in a caloric deficit, you eat wholesome, nutritious foods, and you exercise regularly.
So what’s the problem? You’re getting frustrated with the fact that the results aren’t showing as quickly as you’d hoped – I mean, it’s been TWO WEEKS! At this point you can choose one of two paths forward.
Path 1: Abandon the goal and focus on something new and exciting
Will you give up and move on to something that seems better in the moment? This new thing is just a better idea overall, right? This next one will be the success story you’ve been shooting for, you just know it.
While that may be true, there’s also the risk of that being the next goal that you’ll look back on and think, “I wonder how things would have turned out if I’d just stuck with it”.
Path 2: Keep on, make adjustments as necessary, and trust the system
Will you trust the system you’ve taken the time to research, calculate, build, and put into action? Will you be flexible with the speed bumps that life throws at you, changing the parameters of your systems to make sure that you’re still moving forward?
This is hard to do if you haven’t experienced the success that will eventually come. I get it. But take it from me as someone that didn’t believe it before: once you see the results and have met your goal, the feeling of accomplishment is overwhelming. Nothing can stop you. You’ll want to take on the world (and you will!) because you know you can do it.
Still not convinced?
Let me tell you how I’ve successfully applied this to achieve a few personal goals in my life.
- Finish college with honors
- I struggled with school throughout my entire childhood and quit college at 19 after a couple semesters. After military service, though, I put in the time and studied. I avoided the stereotypical partying and any other distractions, taking on amazing internships to build relevant experience instead. All said and done, I finished with just shy of a 3.8 GPA from a major state school and snatched an amazing high-paying job that was ready for me immediately following graduation. Oh, and I became a dad partway through to stay on my toes.
- Acquire, rehab, and rent out an investment property
- I researched everything I could find on real estate investing for 3 months, DIY’d the rehab after finding and purchasing the right property, and have been renting it out for more than 3 years now with an 18% ROI.
- Build significant wealth toward Financial Independence with a plan to retire at around 43 years old
- I’ve done the research and continue to learn more every day, built an ideal balance between frugality and leisure spending (both my wife and I together), learned the tax implications and wealth-building strategies through countless articles and books, and am now saving and investing around 60% of my annual income.
- Get to 9-10% body fat while minimizing muscle loss
- I did the research, completed 75 Hard, stuck to my diet with meticulous food tracking, exercised twice a day, and lost 14-15 pounds to finally have the 6-pack abs that I was always convinced I couldn’t.
- Current Goal: Bulk for muscle growth and gain as much lean muscle as possible before cutting to 8% body fat for a natural bodybuilding show in September 2023
- I’ve done (and continue to do) the research, track my food intake religiously, follow proper technique to maximize strength gain and avoid workout injuries, and adjust the exercise and nutrition variables based on body response and progress
As you can see, this is applicable for any goal – the possibilities are limitless. The only question is whether you’re willing to put in the time up front to make sure that your systems are sound enough to fall back on when Phase 4 rears its ugly head.
The 3 Types of Goals
To wrap things up, I want to briefly cover the 3 types of goals and why the method I’m proposing is the best.
- Open-ended (Least likely to succeed)
- Lacks details, milestones, or benchmarks
- Specific with timelines (Better)
- Milestones/benchmarks will let you celebrate successes
- The “hit goal by X date” timeline will be stressful and frustrating if results aren’t visible as expected
- Specific with systems (Best!)
- Builds systems to reach your goal that are satisfying and enjoyable
- Allows for celebration when milestones are met
- Lets you “enjoy the ride”
- Instead of failing, you regularly adjust the parameters of your systems to make sure you’re making consistent progress
If you enjoy the journey, you’re far more likely to meet and exceed your goals and be happier in life overall.
Conclusion
All right, we made it! Let’s summarize the strategies we’ve covered to help you achieve your goals.
- The Boring Middle is where the initial excitement for your goal has faded, and the only thing to do is continue onward with the “boring” routines you set up at the start.
- There are 4 phases for a successful goal:
- Phase 1: Conception/Idea
- Phase 2: Planning
- Phase 3: Execution
- Phase 4: The Boring Middle
- Phase 5: Success!
- The goals I’ve achieved in the last few years using this article’s strategies:
- Finished college with honors after struggling academically my entire life
- Successfully purchased, rehabbed, and rented out a property on my own
- Built and continue to grow significant wealth through smart investment strategies (currently investing around 60% of my annual income). The plan is to retire around 43 years of age (9 more years!)
- Most recent success: Completing 75 Hard and seeing a complete transformation of my body
- There are 3 types of goals:
- Open-ended (Most likely to fail)
- Specific with timelines (Better)
- Specific with systems (Best!)
