Hi Everyone and welcome back to the Hockey Journey Podcast, episode number 81, Have You Set Your 2023 Big Goal? Presented to you by Online Hockey Training dot com. I'm your host Coach Lance Pitlick. If you're new here, please make sure you subscribe, so you won't miss out on any future episodes.Â
Before we head into the boardroom for this planning excursion and begin the conversation, if you want to learn more about me, my hockey experiences, that I have the world's largest database of off-ice stickhandling, passing and hockey shooting drills, what I know, and most importantly, how I've been helping hockey players get really good with a stick and puck, just head on over to onlinehockeytraining.com and gain instant access to my 10 part video series where I'll show you everything. Consider it my gift to you.
Lastly, if you live in Minnesota or are visiting the State of Hockey sometime soon and you want to schedule an in-person off-ice stick skills lesson, I'd love to have the opportunity to show you my little world. Go to sweethockeycoach.com, and watch the video on the homepage for instructions. Thanks and I look forward to working with you sometime soon.
Good-Bye 2022 and Hello 2023. I don't know about you, but the last 365 days had some tough stretches at different times, but also had some solid progress in other areas. In looking back it was a good year and paraphrasing my late Father-in-law, I had way more good days than bad!
But life doesn't let us wait around too long before things can get off the rails if you don't have a plan in place. Why do we need to have a plan in place, do you ask? Great question! Because if we don't have a plan or a roadmap of how we're going to navigate through the upcoming year, you'll probably find yourself in the same spot you are right now, asking where did the year go and did I accomplish anything of consequence?
So it's January 1st, 2023 and one of the traditions worldwide that a lot of people participate in, is what's called New Year's resolutions. For our younger listeners out there that may not know what I'm talking about, let me give you a little background on the custom, with some help from Wikipedia.
"A New Year's resolution is a tradition, most common in the Western World, but also found in the Eastern World, in which a person resolves to continue good practices, change an undesired trait or behavior, accomplish a personal goal, or otherwise improve their behavior at the beginning of a calendar year."
Just reading that to you, got me excited about the new year's possibilities. But when I scrolled down the wiki page a bit more, there were another couple paragraphs, citing success rates for New Year's Resolutions, or should I say, lack of success rates.
In a 2014 report, 35% of participants who failed their New Year's Resolutions, admitted they had unrealistic goals, 33% of participants did not keep track of their progress, and 23% forgot about them; about one in 10 respondents claimed they made too many resolutions.
A 2007 study by Richard Wiseman from the University of Bristol involving 3000 people showed that 88% of those who set New Year resolutions fail, despite the fact that 52% of the study's participants were confident of success at the beginning. Men achieved their goal 22% more often when they engaged in goal setting, wherein resolutions are made in terms of small and measurable goals (e.g., "lose a pound a week" rather than "lose weight").
So why do so many people make New Year's Resolutions, knowing the practice yields a very low success rate? I have no idea, but there is a lot of useful information I just shared with you, that we can now use to our advantage going into the new year. If New Year's Resolutions don't work, the one thing that does work, is goal setting.
The research is conclusive. Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at Dominican University in California, did a study on goal setting with 267 participants. She found that you are 42 percent more likely to achieve your goals just by writing them down. Let me repeat that, 42 percent more likely to achieve your goals just by writing them down. Now tack on an incredible work ethic and you can see how people accomplish their big things.
I recently reviewed my 2022 big goals. I had 3 of them. One was starting this podcast, two was continuing working out 5-6 days a week, and three was spending more quality time with my wife, kids and parents. There was a very important pivot I made in early January last year, as I started scheduling everything in my calendar. Now, when it's scheduled in my calendar, chances are way above average that it will get done.
I never used to do that, but what it visually showed me back then, in order to fit in what was now going to be my new important thing or things, I needed to give up something to make room. Then, all I had to do was execute the day. My weeks are very habitual and I don't deviate from the day plan very often. My wife gets frustrated with me at times, but I guess I've found that there's less energy needed to get through the day and I'm happiest when I operate on a ridgid schedule.
What I'd like to do with the remaining time on this episode, is give you some tips or suggestions of practices I've used this past year that were super effective for me, and maybe you want to apply a technique or two toward your big goals for 2023 and see if you get more accomplished this year, as you did this past year. Remember once you start executing your daily plan, it's crazy how it evolves and starts seeping into other aspects of your life as well. So let's begin.
1. Define Your Day
I try to do certain tasks, or daily habits at the same time most days. For example, when I first got into doing private, off-ice stick skills lessons, I was all over the map regarding times I'd work with players. Some wanted early in the morning, others mid-day or evenings. I was coaching and working all the time. My wife and I have no idea how we got through those years running a couple businesses and raising kids. Lot's of blurriness.
Now I have two blocks of time I do lessons - 11am - 1pm and 4pm - 6pm, that's it. I also schedule a nap from 1:30-3pm, because you know coach loves his nappies!! The more I made things habitual or a daily routine, like sleeping, eating cleaner foods or working out, I don't have to waste time wrestling around with thoughts of when I'm going to do something, which resulted in getting more things done consistently requiring less energy.
2. Only have ONE Big Goal - The Hockey Journey Podcast was my #1 last year, and going to be again my #1 big goal for another year and that's because of all the positive feedback I've gotten from all of you. Thank You!!
So I had the original objective to reach 100 episodes in the first year, but came up a little short for a variety of factors. I figure 52 weeks in a year, 2 episodes per week, and that would give me just over 100 episodes for the year. But I didn't factor in that I'd have to have knee surgery last March, or that pumping out 2 shows per week is hard, takes a ton of time and sometimes, life gets in the way.
As of today, I've got 80 podcast episodes under my belt as we wrapped up 2022, and this episode, #81 is my first mini goal if 2023. Pretty pumped about that, as we are definitely on our way. I like how my days are flowing now, so I'm going to continue to shoot for 2 podcasts per week.
Again, it will be a little out of my reach, but if I have a similar year, without a couple of the setbacks I had in 2022, I think it's totally doable. Time will only tell, won't it?
3. Write Your Goals Down - Put Pen to Paper
We learned earlier in this episode the effectiveness of writing down your goals, to the tune of a 42% greater likelihood of you achieving your goals. But I've never achieved any of my goals I wrote down by just looking at them everyday. Because if there isn't action attached to it, action on a daily basis, it just stays as a hope or wish. I love this saying, "plan quick, then take action quicker!"
4. Light Your Work Candle
This technique I discovered by accident a couple months ago and am using it still as I type this out. Like I mentioned, a couple of months ago, I was working on a script in my office and ate something that wasn't agreeing with me, resulting in some gas being passed, which was not pleasant. You know what I mean.
My wife always has some nice smelling candles in the kitchen in case they're needed after cooking fish or something like that, she'll light a couple candles so people coming over for a lesson aren't gagging as we make our way down to the training area.
So I grabbed one of the candles, lit it and went on a 45 minute tear of writing and just crushed it. I blew out the candle and went to take my afternoon nap. Woke up a little earlier than usual before my evening lessons, so I went into my office, lit the candle again, and got another 30 solid minutes of work in.
The lighting of my now work candles is my intentional trigger to get some deep work done. I think we're all the same in having a wandering mind, distracting most of us from doing what we want to do, when we want to do it.
Another method I've used in the past that was also very effective for me is what's called the Pomodoro Technique.
From wikipedia, the Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980's. It uses a kitchen timer to break work into intervals, typically 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. Each interval is known as a pomodoro, from the Italian word for tomato, after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer Cirillo used as a university student.
I believe that all of us go to bed having a plan regarding what we want to accomplish the next day, at least I think most do? But for me, when the next day comes, it rarely goes as seamlessly as I'd imagined just a few hours ago, and then the wrestling match begins in my head on how I'm going to get everything done. After many years of failed attempts at trying to navigate through my day more productively and in a more positive state of mind, what works for me is keeping my list short. There's practices that are habitual and happen everyday, like your sleep, food consumption windows, daily fitness routine, etc. Those agenda items are non-negotiable, view them like breathing, it's done everyday and you don't think about it, you just do.
The purpose of doing this episode topic was kinda selfish on my part, because I was able to complete a couple agenda items at the same time and that was forcing me to review my year and has my time been spent usefully, productively and with good intention? Was there fear, indecision, negative thinking, or lack of consistency that really hampered or killed my progress on a goal? All great questions to ask yourself at the turn of a new year. Have you had that conversation with yourself yet?
Quoting some lyrics from the iconic band The Eagles, "time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin, into the future." Time, the day, the week, the month, the year will continue to keep slippin away if you don't start keeping score of your process and productivity.
Goal setting is a powerful and proven method to accomplish what you want in life. If you've never tried it, or like me from time to time, failed miserably at achieving some of my written down goals, let me leave you with this as we embark on a new beginning of possibilities that only you can create and manifest for this most recent gifted year.
Significant change or growth is slow moving and most days not really even noticeable. It's the daily consistency, compounded over weeks and months, where when you look back on let's say the last 60 days, and you executed the plan you laid out, there's not a better feeling and you will then understand the power of goal setting!
So let's review and wrap up this first episode of 2023.
1. Define Your Day - What would your perfect day look like, how would it go and what would that feel like. If you've never done any goal-setting exercises and want to add something new to your daily routine, another way to define your day, is to identify when there are blocks of time in-between sleeping, eating, personal grooming, school or work, and target those time blocks as opportunities for personal growth.
2. Only Have One Big Goal
Start with one big goal and commit to getting that one really dialed in. What's happened for me in the past, is once I get one thing set in place, there always seems to be something else that comes up, is added to the day and something disappears, and it's usually something I can absolutely do without it for the rest of my life. We all have one of those things that just keeps hangin around, until we take a stand and say, I don't want this in my life anymore.
3. Physically Write Down Your Goals
You write down your goals, display the piece of paper where you can see it everyday,
and enjoy your success rate possibilities increase by 42%.
The last couple bonus tips have worked extremely well for me in the past and currently. When I commit to do things, I want to do them well, and one of the ways I set myself up for success is to make whatever the new agenda item is, really easy to do. I do this by following a rule, It can't take more than 15 minutes to complete. Who can't find 15 minutes everyday to do something. For example, if I have to take a dump, I don't care where I am, what I've committed to, at that moment, the plan changes and I do what needs to be done.
I learned this from Brian Cain's book One Percent Better. He says, “The best place to start is to intentionally invest 1% of your day into yourself andbecome a better version of you today than you were yesterday. Then wake up tomorrow and do the same thing. Rinse and repeat. It’s actually quite simple.” (End Quote)
The math goes like this. There are 24 hours in a day, which equals 1,440 minutes. What's one percent of 1,440, 14 minutes and 24 seconds. Find your 1% and then start investing your 14 minutes and 24 seconds each day. Do that long enough and watch the compound effect begin.
Finally, this is something I've been working on the last couple days. I taped up a big sheet of cardboard to the door going out to the deck from the kitchen. On it are the numbers of each day of the next 4 months, January till the early part of May. That's my wife and I's next carrot. She does taxes and soon will be settling in to the busiest part of their season. Shout out to Wollo CPA!!
We both don't do much during this time but work, and see each other in the evenings for an hour or two, watching our boys games on tv a lot of nights. A lot of the days it seems like we're two ships passing by each other in the dark of night. The board is our inspiration to keep pushing forward, working when we don't want to, because of the long hours, but somehow find ourselves at the end of the day. That's when we'll go over to the board and X out that day's number as a win, but only if we accomplished our 1 percent intention for the day. Our 15 minutes of becoming a better version of ourselves. For us, it might be journaling, meditating, painting, yoga, going for a walk, you get the picture.
It's so awesome when you start gaining some traction, stringing a number of days or weeks together. You all of the sudden don't want to break the streak. Another suggestion is to never miss 2 days in a row. If you keep to that, you have more wins than losses at the end of each month because, there'll always be at least a couple times during the month you'll get back to back wins.
That's what I've got for you, some practices, suggestions, techniques and methods that have helped me get closer to achieving my yearly goals. I hope you've found something that connected with you and that you'll apply to your process and objective of crushing it this year!!
Well that concludes another episode of the hockey journey podcast.  I can’t thank you enough for stopping by and listening. I hope you enjoyed this segment on Have You Set Your 2023 Big Goal. If you think there’s someone in your circle of family and friends that might like this episode as well, please share it with just one person, it will really help me in growing this hockey community.
Again, I appreciate you being here, don’t forget to subscribe, rate or submit a review, I hope to see you back here soon, and do me a favor, make someone close to you smile today. All the best my friends!!
