Build the Launchpad

Oh, I'm fine. Thanks for that. I'm on vacation somewhere. I'm not going to tell you where I am. No. I'll tell you what I'm doing. Some of that's with my wife, and it's private.

Others is in public, and I just don't want you to know that I'm doing that stuff, all right? Forget it. It is the Daily Boost. My name is Scott Smith.

Welcome to the show. Everything I do is at motivationtomove.com. Three words all spelled out. If you can spell motivationtomove.com, I type it so fast with my thumb now.

It's scary. Have you ever, like, even my thumb, my fingers, I type on a keyboard, right? We all do that. Ever been blown away by the fact that there are certain words that just seem to fly out of your hands?

It's like, how'd that happen? How'd my brain even do that? I'm impressed by the smallest things I am. It's good to have you here today. We're talking about a very exciting part of my world and one that I just love to deal with.

I don't like goal setting. I don't like to set goals. I don't like the process for setting goals. I don't even like to teach goal setting. Why? Because it's boring.

It's not the fun part. I know we have to do the boring part, the discipline part to get to the fun part. I got it. So I'm spending time doing that. And I'm making the assumption that this week, as I talk about building freedom, because you have a peaceful base last week that we built this week, you're actually setting goals with the express intent of creating freedom in your life.

That's not just setting goals. So you can, you know, I need to get through somewhere and lose 10 pounds. You can do that without even thinking about it.

I'm going way beyond that right now. And I'm leaving some people behind. But I'm very specifically talking to people who have been at this 20, 25 years maybe. People who have set the goals and still, still you're like, man, I ain't on Mars yet.

So that's why we're going to Mars this week, okay? Because you've been thinking about it wrong. If you missed any of the previous shows, go back and listen to the one, two, and the three. That's a show of four.

We're going to build a launch band today. So let me start by saying this. A goal without a launch pad is what? Think about it for a second. If I were in front of you, what would it be?

Raise your hand, please, and give me your answer. Well, it is a daydream. You've heard that before, but it doesn't have a deadline. You've heard that before as well.

I normally wouldn't say anything I've heard before, but the truth is everything's been said before. So sometimes we'll save the calories. We'll just say it as it is. So you get it right away.

Oh, I can make up a fancy acronym. That's what people like me do. Then you'd have to figure it out. It doesn't make sense. Your daydream without a deadline is nothing.

That's a goal without a launch pad. So we want to build a structure. That makes it real before you move an inch. Yeah. Now this is kind of interesting.

I would have a little bit of chit chat about this too, because sometimes I think that's like smart goals. I think smart goals are absolutely stupid. I do. Because part of the smart goals is to make it time-based and make it realistic and all that kind of stuff.

Well, when it comes to goals, first thing is time-based. It's just bogus, man. But you have a big goal. Going to Mars goal? Ask Elon. He's trying to do it.

When you have a goal that big, can you effectively tell me how long it's going to take? Oh, you didn't do it in six months. You're a failure. People actually say that to Elon Musk about his mission to Mars.

Is he? Really? Come on, man. Realistic? If you have a real goal today in mind that you want to do... Do you think it's realistic? You can believe it. You can say you deserve it.

You can say you've earned it. But do you really believe you can get it to happen? Answer, no. Does anybody around you really believe you can do it? No.

But we need a structure that at least sets us up for success. Listen, I'm giving some common sense here. You know this. I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

But Scott, if you don't believe it, you can't accomplish it. I'm not saying that. I can believe it and understand that I might not get it all in the same breath. I can believe in miracles and facts at the same time.

How about you? So a lot of people are kind of slow to enter. There's one moment that you fully control how you start. The decision to begin. Recent psychology has told us this.

There's one thing that will give you the motivation to continue your goal, and that is the decision to begin. Some people say, Scott, you need commitment. Nope.

You need a decision. You decide to go, you go. Scott, you need commitment, not motivation. Nope. You need to kind of be thinking about what you want to do.

You need to decide to do it. The motivation kicks in. You're going to do it. Your commitment is automatic. If you're motivated enough to reach the freedom goal on the other side of your goal.

If you rush it before that decision is solid, you're going to wobble. said it deliberately, and everything after that steadies. If you didn't catch what I just said, figure out what you're going to do, decide to do it, and everything else follows.

People get all caught up in the other stuff. You need discipline and free will and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're one-on-one self-personal development people. I make a decision.

Things happen. Period. You too, right? Oh, man. Am I getting too strong this week? Am I in your face? Hang on for the ride. That's just this week. You got to make things real before they are real.

You know that, right? You need to put on your calendar. You need to name a date. You need to say it out loud, maybe to someone, maybe to everybody. Verbally, that's one of the things I do.

If I decide there's a goal, I like to say it out loud and see how I hear it. It's easy for me because lots of times you hear me say it on a podcast. I'm like, wow, that was weird.

But sometimes you just say something, you're like, man, that sounds good. Anticipation is fuel. You know, I talk about the anticipation engine all the time.

You make it real. You get anticipation going. You start moving toward, and you can feel it coming. So if you have something percolating around in your brain right now, and the only thing that's in your mind is, Ben, I need to decide to do it.

My guess is that the reason you have to decide to do it is the fact that you think, well, I don't really know how. I might have to get some more information. I might have to ask ChatGPT. I might have to listen to a podcast, see what Scott says.

Maybe I could talk to him a little bit. We can sort it out. Nope. All that happens after the fact. When you decide, everything changes. That's when these goals, that's your launchpad, really, right?

So we want to do something we talked about a little bit yesterday, but designing it to pull and not to push. So when you build a goal, whatever you want to go after, you need to build that goal so the next step is really obvious and momentum carries you. Now, I said next step. I didn't say the next 25 steps.

I said the next step. I have a goal I'm working on right now as I'm recording today. Today is Monday, the whatever, this is 29th, I think. And I'm going on vacation.

But I have a goal that divides the first half of the year and the second half of the year. So therefore, every single thing I'm doing today and tomorrow is absolutely kind of cleaning up stuff and getting rid of stuff for the first half of the year. That's it.

The reason I'm doing that is because everything I'm taking care of right now is setting up momentum. The obvious step is on July 1st, when I kick into my next stage, I have momentum carrying me there.

If you're white-knuckling it every single morning, the setup is wrong. We have to step things in our success. We have to look for the right way to get there, right? If we're going to build a launch pad and set this goal to go to Mars, small little visible markers, if you will, between here and there.

If you ever go down a runway, by the way, just an airplane runway, you ever see the markers? They're every thousand feet. Everything is measured. Why?

So when you're racing down the runway at 65, 75, 100, 200 knots, whatever it is you're trying to take off the runway, you're counting down how much runway you have left.

That's what you're doing. As a visual marker, you need to do the same thing. If you're going to set a big-ass goal, it's going to take you to Mars. Not to crowd the goal, no, but so you can feel yourself moving.

And you don't get stuck in the middle, man. It's dark there. Happens all the time. If you don't put these markers on, these benchmarks that tell you that you're actually making some progress, you'll lose track.

You will. You'll just be like, nothing's happening. I have news for you. Things take time. Have you figured this out yet? Things take much longer than you think.

I know in the personal growth world, people sell you courses and all this kind of stuff. They want it to happen overnight. Sure, you want it to happen overnight. And some things do happen overnight.

But sometimes the decision you made today needed to be made next week. You needed some clarity between here and there to get there. And all you need to know is you're on your path and you're making progress and you will get there. That's how it happens.

So the launch pad is built now. We have an idea that we can launch and get in in momentum. The runway is kind of clear. The date is set. You know when you're going, right?

Only one thing kind of left. And that is the part almost everybody will skip, but you're not going to skip it. And you've heard me say it for 20 years, but you're going to hear it again tomorrow in a different perspective. Because if you do the next thing, you're going to get your goal.

Yeah. It's a real thing. Oh.