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Michael Hyatt: In 2008, Tommy Caldwell looked across Yosemite Valley at the 3000-foot rise of El Capitan. And that’s when the crazy idea came.

He’d already climbed El Cap about 60 times, but this time he focused on the Dawn Wall. He describes it as “the biggest, steeped, blankest wall on El Capitan.” Reflecting back on the moment, he said, “Its sheer improbability fascinated me.”

The Dawn Wall had been climbed once before in 1970. But the pair of climbers had to use bolts and ropes to support—and even hoist themselves up—on portions of the featureless rock face.

Tommy Caldwell wouldn’t have it so easy. He was a free climber. Yes, he used ropes, but only to catch himself in a fall. The rest of the time he had to rely on his fingertips and the rubbery soles of his shoes alone.

The climb was a long process. In 2009 he started rappelling down from the top to identify possible routes up the wall. He explained, “That’s how you solve the puzzle of a big free route. You figure out a move, link a sequence of moves together, then connect these sequences until you come to a logical stopping point that marks the end the pitch.” The route up the Dawn Wall had 32 of these individual pitches.

Soon, he said, “I had a macro-concept of the line, even if plenty of question marks remained at the crucial level of putting it together.” But the climb seemed impossible.

That is until he met up with another top climber, Kevin Jorgeson, in 2009. Jorgeson thought they could pull it off. A partnership was born, and the two began training together, rehearsing moves, and building their strength and stamina.

After several failed attempts—if you do it right, Caldwell says, “failure becomes growth”—they started back up the mountain on December 27, 2014.

They almost didn’t make it. No matter how much preparation and practice you have, unforseen problems emerge that force you to change your strategy. One obstacle seemed impassable. That’s when Caldwell noticed a way around. He said, “The solution escaped my notice because it’s so bizarre.” To make it work he had to loop two hundred feet out of the way to make just 12 feet of forward progress. But it worked.

Achieving any goal can be like that. We get fired up by the challenge but then face hurdles. We need to do what Caldwell did—find another way.

Hi, I’m Michael Hyatt, and this is Lead to Win, my weekly podcast designed to help you win at work, succeed at life, and lead with confidence. In this episode, we’re going to explore the surprising new science of achievement, especially how some counterintuitive findings can help you loop around your obstacles and, as the climbers say, send your goal. I’m here with my co-host, COO, and eldest daughter, Megan Hyatt Miller. Thanks for joining me, Megan!

Megan Hyatt Miller: It’s great to be here! I’m really excited about this episode. As you mentioned, Dad, our topic today is the science of achievement and you have four surprising, research-backed tactics to help us achieve our goals. Are you ready to unpack the first?

Michael: The first tactic: challenge. In other words, goals should stretch us without overwhelming us. I spent decades in the corporate world where basically we always set our goals in the comfort zone. Occasionally we’d go outside of that, but for the most part we were trying to sandbag our numbers. Do you know what that term means?

Megan: I do.

Michael: You’re basically getting the lowest possible increase you can because you know you’re going to be accountable for it, and you’re probably going to make commissions and bonus incentives and all that above plan performance, so you want the number to be as low as possible, so there ends up being this negotiation between management or the board and the CEO, or whatever, to get the number as low as possible. The problem with that is it doesn’t really work.

I think of goals as being set in one of three areas. They can be set in your comfort zone where you’re absolutely or pretty confident you can achieve the goal. You’re clear about how to do it. You’re confident you could hit it. Then there are goals in the discomfort zone. This is where you begin to feel a little bit of fear. You begin to have some uncertainty about how you’re going to accomplish it, and you’re not at all sure you have the capability to actually pull it off.

Megan: But you’re not terrified.

Michael: You’re not terrified. That’s the third zone, which I call the delusional zone. That’s where you just go crazy, and there’s just no chance. You don’t have a plan. Maybe you’re trying to impress somebody, but the chances of you pulling that off are slim and none. To be in the sweet spot is between the comfort zone and the delusional zone, which is to set it smack dab in the middle of the discomfort zone.

Megan: That makes sense. What’s the emotional effect when we set goals that are too easy?

Michael: They really don’t capture our imagination. They don’t challenge us. We don’t really think about them because there’s no great benefit if we achieve it. Maybe we get to keep our job. Woo-hoo. There has to be something more than that. It has to captivate us, it has to compel us, it has to keep us focused, and it has to be something we really want, something that opens up new possibilities we can actually get excited about.

Megan: It’s funny, because when you set goals that are too easy it actually drains your energy instead of gives you energy, which sort of sounds counterintuitive, doesn’t it?

Michael: Yeah, it’s true. It’s just kind of ho-hum. It’s like, “Meh.”

Megan: You really have to use a lot of energy to motivate yourself because they’re not naturally motivating goals.

Michael: Definitely.

Megan: So what about goals that are set in that delusional zone that are really pie-in-the-sky, moon-shot kinds of things?

Michael: I remember a trainer I used to have was talking about basically 10-xing his income over the course of a year.

Megan: That’s a big jump.

Michael: I just thought, “That’s the delusional zone.” He didn’t really have a plan. He didn’t have a strategy. He didn’t have anything except that he wanted to do it. He was actually very energized about that for a couple of days, but then it wasn’t exciting because he realized he had shot too high, that there was no chance. Then it was just a reminder that “Goal setting is a waste of time. I’m always a failure. I never achieve what I set out to do.” The worst part about that is he had shared it with his wife. That probably got her excited for a little bit, but then when he doesn’t achieve it, it dings his credibility and the trust they’ve built.

Megan: Spouses are pretty good at knowing what’s realistic and what’s not.

Michael: They are. And it doesn’t help with bosses either.

Megan: No, that’s really true. When goals are set too high, in the end they cause us to disengage and check out or give up altogether.

Michael: Exactly.

Megan: The research supports this too. In fact, it shows that challenging goals yield higher performance. According to Steve Kerr and Douglas LePelley of Chancellor University, when goals are set too low people often achieve them, but subsequent motivation and energy levels typically flag, and the goals are usually not exceeded by very much.

They go on to explain that difficult goals are far more likely to generate sustained enthusiasm and higher levels of performance. According to Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, two leading goal-setting theorists, there’s a direct link between the level of challenge and our level of performance.

Michael: This really should be a motivation to us to set those goals so they’re more difficult and really command our attention and our focus. I don’t know why this isn’t applied in more corporations and why CEOs and other leaders allow people who are under them, or even for themselves, to set goals that are too low, because it’s basically a built-in way to sabotage your goals and make sure you don’t accomplish even that.

Megan: It reminds me of something I’ve heard you say often when people have asked you why you continue to set bigger and bigger goals for your future. I think your response to that has been that you do it because it requires something of you that you don’t already have, and that’s really motivating to you. It’s not so much that the goal itself is a primary motivator; it’s that the desire for growth you have as a value for your life is really important.

Michael: That’s partly it, and then research also shows that challenging goals yield more motivation. Locke and Latham mentioned one multi-year study where professionals reported an uptick in satisfaction and well-being only if their goals were tough enough. In other words, we get a bigger emotional payoff for harder work. So there is value in setting these goals that are a little bit higher than we would otherwise set.

Megan: Part of what keeps us from setting challenging goals is that stretching into our discomfort zone is usually accompanied by tough emotions. We’ve all experienced that. Right? You have that anxiety or fear or uncertainty, all of those things. In episode 9 (teaser), we’re going to tackle those seemingly negative emotions that are usually positive indicators that you’ve set a good stretch goal.

Michael: It’s not called the discomfort zone for nothing. The reason it’s called that is because when we’re in that zone we’re uncomfortable, and there are a lot of negative emotions that rise to the surface. Most of us shrink away from those, but as you mentioned (great teaser, by the way), when we get to episode 9 we’re going to talk about why those are really positive indicators and why they should be something we lean into, not lean away from.

Megan: The research is clear: we need a challenge. But what if you’re afraid to set ambitious goals because you think you might fall short? This is true for a lot of people. It keeps them from setting goals at all, much less goals that are in their discomfort zone.

Michael: Well, first of all, it depends on the kind of environment you’re in. Are you in an environment where it’s safe to fail? If you’re not, then there may be some wisdom in not getting too crazy, but I would argue that if there’s nothing ventured, there’s nothing gained.

If you want to be a hero, if you want to get those promotions, if you want to make those bigger commission checks, whatever the financial reward or other kinds of non-monetary rewards, you’re going to have to take some risk. We don’t typically reward people for not taking risks. We reward people for taking risks. So it has to be reasonable, but at the same time your chances of hitting it are better if it’s challenging, and that’s the first tactic.

Megan: I like that advice. So when those thoughts come up, the uncertainty about goals and the hesitancy about setting goals in the discomfort zone, what are some practical words of wisdom you can give for how to overcome that? What you just shared was a great mindset, but when those thoughts come up, what can you say back to yourself?

Michael: I think one of the things you can do is actually identify the threat.

Megan: Like the perceived threat? Is that what you mean?

Michael: Yeah. Like, am I going to be fired? Just to say it out loud. No, probably not going to be fired. Am I going to be publicly humiliated? Maybe. Am I going to be personally embarrassed? That may be the real thing people are afraid of. To just say it out loud…

You go, “Okay, so I can not be embarrassed by not actually aiming too high and then just stay stuck. Is that really what I want out of life or out of my career, or am I willing to risk something, raise the bar a little bit, put it in the discomfort zone, but with the risk and the acknowledgement that if I don’t hit it there’s going to be an accounting?” I don’t think that’s so bad.

Megan: That’s really helpful. Tommy Caldwell, the climber you introduced us to earlier, is obviously a great example of what’s possible when you set challenging goals, kind of to the extreme. Listen to what he has to say.

Tommy Caldwell: I noticed that when I was lost in pursuit my world would be filled with wonder and color. It was only when complacency would encroach that it would cloud over. So I decided I would have to come up with an elevated dream-something that would completely consume me.

Fear, doubt, uncertainty-all those things existed. But when I framed the experience as an opportunity to grow rather than just a mile marker, it’s as if the pressures to succeed or fail largely fell away. So many factors have to come together to pull off the impossible but yet it keeps happening. The world over. We keep doing it.

We are so much more than we so often inherently believe. To be clear, I don’t think there is a magic recipe for success. But I do know that it doesn’t happen alone. And anything worth having doesn’t come easy.

Michael: Okay, the first tactic was challenge. The second tactic is competition.

Megan: Competition gets a bad rap. Why do you think competition has gone out of fashion?

Michael: I think we’re overly concerned about people’s feelings. Certainly, to the extent we can, we want to be considerate of other people and consider their feelings, but competition by necessity means some people are going to win and some people are going to lose. That’s also what makes it fun, and that’s where we grow, and that’s what’s motivational.

Not everybody in life gets a participation trophy, so there are going to be winners and there are going to be losers. But when it comes to goal achievement, competition is the thing that can sometimes give you the edge to not quit, to stay in the race, and some other benefits we’re going to be talking about.

Megan: Competition actually shifts our perspective on what’s possible. Going back to Kerr and LePelley, I found one team exercise they discuss especially compelling. A team was able to make marginal performance improvements with a given task, but when they were told that another team was able to do it 85 percent faster they got more creative and figured out how. By changing the perspective of what was possible, they triggered a new level of performance.

We see this, by the way, all the time in sports. Like when you think about the marathoners and how long it takes to complete a marathon or a mile or whatever it is. It’s constantly being beaten all the time, which would never happen if it wasn’t for the fact that those runners were competing against one another.

Michael: Yeah. Sometimes competition just shows you what’s possible. Your competitor does something that heretofore you thought was impossible, and then all of a sudden, “Whoa! I didn’t see that coming. Maybe that is possible. Let’s see if we can beat them at it.”

Megan: Right. You want to go to the next level.

Michael: Competition also drives us to win. I read a fascinating study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, headed by Jingwen Zhang, who examined the effect of competition on fitness goals. I love this. Gym members were unknowingly separated into four groups. Two of those groups were given access to an online portal that created a sense of competition by showing them their own scores, calculated by the number of classes taken, stacked up against the scores of other individuals or teams.

Guess what happened? As reported in Chicago Booth Review, “People who competed against others, either individually or as groups, took significantly more classes than anyone else—90 percent more than in the control group.” Megan, 90 percent.

Megan: That’s incredible.

Michael: All because of the presence of competition. That’s pretty compelling.

Megan: It’s like when you’re on the treadmill and the guy next to you is running at a certain pace and you click it up a few notches to be on pace with him.

Michael: Think about this. I know you’ve run some half-marathons, as I have, and I always have my best performance out there on race day. Why? I mean, I stay in it. First of all, I usually don’t train up to the full length, but when I’m out there and I’m running shoulder to shoulder with 35,000 of my best friends, I’m going to stay in the race.

Megan: You kind of mark that guy ahead of you in the neon shirt and think, “I have to pass him.”

Michael: By the way, funny story. My first half-marathon ever, there was a guy in front of me who was really old. He had a tee shirt on, and when I got up to where I could read it, it said, “I may be 80 years old, but I’m ahead of you.”

Megan: That’s awesome. So, a warning. Competition only works if winning is actually possible. For team goals you have to be really careful. Different team members have different levels of doubt and risk aversion, and very often, as leaders, our risk aversion and tolerance for risk is pretty high. We’re able to tolerate being in our discomfort zone more than people who are not wired that way, so we need to be aware of that. As one Harvard Business Review piece on stretch goals explores, team members need to believe the game can be won for competition to have a motivating effect. If they feel like they’re set up to lose, it’s actually demotivating.

Michael: That’s why we spend so much time on our compensation plans with bonuses, where we try to prove to the team… I wouldn’t say realistic is the word we’re looking for, but this is an achievable or attainable goal. It’s going to be in the discomfort zone. We want everybody to feel a little bit uncomfortable, like we’re going to have to stretch to get it, but at the same time we want that belief that we can actually do it. We may not know how to get there, we may feel a little fear, we may not be confident that we have the current capabilities to actually pull it off, but we want people to feel like, “Yeah, we have a shot at this. Let’s go for it.”

Megan: That’s a great point. One of the other things we do is our executive team will very often have another set of stretch goals we don’t share with our larger team publicly, because we all have a tolerance for risk. We have a lot more control of the situation and sometimes inside things like that that allow us to set a bigger goal that would be unwise for us to set for the larger team because they just don’t have the tolerance necessary for that to not be demotivating.

Michael: Right. And there’s a part of that, too, with our maturity among the executive team, where we feel like we can process failure and we have a higher tolerance for failure because we know failure is a necessary condition, often, for success. Well, let’s talk about some practical ways we can leverage competition to achieve our own goals. Do you have some?

Megan: One of the things we do in our business is invite other peers in our industry to participate with us in regular promotions we do as affiliates, kind of like distributors. They take our products to their markets. But we have to motivate them. Right? So we came up with a really fun idea of doing a getaway at a luxury resort a few hours away from here, and I tell you what. They vie for those spots.

There are only three people who get to come out of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of affiliates. Only the top three are eligible to come, and, man, they just pull out all the stops. One of the things we do to help drive the competition is we have a leaderboard, so they get to see their stats on a daily basis, if not more often, sometimes almost in real time as a promotion is nearly closing. It’s almost like they’re actually racing each other. It’s like if this guy did one email, this other guy over here is going to do two. They’re fighting it out till the end.

It’s amazing, because then when we get there, they’re all very friendly with each other and there’s another level of competition where we’re sharing ideas about our businesses and people are getting big breakthroughs and going away and trying new things they would have never thought of except somebody else they respect is doing their business at a higher level than they had even thought about yet. It really kicks it into high gear.

Michael: This is really harnessing the power of competition to achieve your own goals. Rather than resent the competition, let that competition drive you to produce a better product, to offer a better service, to achieve a bigger result. Competition can do that for us, so we need to lean into it, not away from it.

Megan: The great thing in that example is everybody actually wins. They may win at a different level, but they win at a greater level because of the competition than they would without it. They all perform much higher.

Before we continue our conversation on the science of achievement, Dad, I know you have a great resource to tell us about.

Michael: Yes, and it ties into being intentional about the way you live, especially in this season. A few years ago, I created this tool called the LifeScore Assessment to help people get crystal clear about how they’re doing in 10 essential areas of their lives. If you don’t know where you are, you won’t know where to go next. It’s a self-assessment, so no one else is grading you, and it really shines a light on your priorities and your areas of growth.

Megan: A lot of people don’t reflect on the past year or how they’re doing until the new year rolls around. We kind of blaze our way through the holidays and forget to take a breath. How does the LifeScore Assessment help you set a direction for the coming year?

Michael: Well, you get to take a clear look at how you’re spending your time and where you’re struggling, such as your physical health or your intellectual pursuits, your financial status, and so forth. Then you get a score, a hard score, and instructions for what to do next based on your overall level. You get to see how each of these different domains is scored relative to the other ones, so you identify the places you’re doing great, the places you’re not doing so great, and what you might need to do to improve.

Megan: This is a fantastic tool, because one of the things we’ve found in our research is that people get stuck on where they should set goals and what kind of goals to set. They start thinking about it, and they kind of feel overwhelmed, and they’re unsure. This tool provides a lot of clarity. So how do people get access to the LifeScore Assessment, and does it cost anything?

Michael: Actually, it’s completely free. My favorite price. You can get access to it at bestyearever.me/lifescore. It’ll take about 10 minutes or less, and then you’ll get your results. Thousands of people have taken this assessment over the years we’ve offered it, and I even recommend taking it quarterly so you can see how you’re improving.

Megan: That’s awesome. All you have to do if you want to take the LifeScore Assessment is head over to bestyearever.me/lifescore, and you can access it now for free. Now let’s get back to our discussion on the science of achievement.

Michael: The first tactic was challenge. The second tactic was competition. The third tactic is community. I love this one.

Megan: Me too. The question is…Why go it alone? The self-made man is a myth. Success requires help and usually a lot of it. Have we ever accomplished anything that mattered on our own?

Michael: No.

Megan: Rarely.

Michael: I think that’s one of the reasons you and I love playing with a team. Here’s a historical example. After the surprise success of The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien was asked to write a sequel. Do you know this story?

Megan: I don’t.

Michael: When he began writing The Lord of the Rings he couldn’t make any progress, and that frequently happens to authors when they have a success. So how did he finish what became one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century? The constant encouragement of his friends, especially C.S. Lewis and others who kept him focused and energized.

Megan: That group was called the Inklings, and I think they met at a pub at Oxford University called The Eagle and Child. Right?

Michael: I’ve been there.

Megan: Me too.

Michael: Do you know what it’s also called?

Megan: No.

Michael: The Bird and Baby.

Megan: Doesn’t sound quite as serious. The phenomenon of mutual encouragement happens in the fitness world too. This is not surprising. New research from MIT Sloan shows that exercise is socially contagious. Examining the daily record exercise patterns of more than one million runners over five years showed that runners stayed on track longer and went farther when they had visibility into the performance of their friends.

Michael: Even just the physical visibility. I’m in the gym yesterday doing some strength training, and there’s this guy next to me doing some free weight strength training. He’s doing some curls, and I’m kind of looking at, “How many pounds is he curling there?” It motivated me to go up another five pounds. I’m very competitive. So yeah, it had an impact on me just being in the community of other people working out.

Megan: That’s great.

Michael: Goals are by definition outside your realm of expertise.

Megan: This is really important.

Michael: It’s really important, because again, it goes back to that discomfort zone idea, but it also means that if we don’t know how to accomplish them or we feel a little bit concerned that we may not have what it takes to get there, that’s okay. You’re going to need help to reach them, and often that comes in the form of other people.

Megan: That’s a great point. Common wisdom says to share our goals with everybody. What do you think about that?

Michael: Well, I used to teach this. In fact, I’ve actually blogged on my goals before and listed my goals on the blog, because I thought, “Hey, if I go public, if I hang it out there, I’m going to be on the hook. I don’t want to be embarrassed, and I’m actually going to follow through and do it.” But not so much.

Megan: Research does say to share your goals selectively. In his TED talk, Derek Sivers makes the compelling case that sharing your goals with everyone makes them less likely to happen. According to Sivers, that’s because you get the psychological satisfaction of accomplishing the goal without ever having to actually do the work. In other words, talking becomes a substitute for doing. That’s a problem.

Michael: Among other research, Sivers cites this fascinating study that was conducted by Peter Gollwitzer of NYU. In four separate tests, Gollwitzer had 163 people write down a personal goal. Half of them announced their commitment to their goal; half of them didn’t. Then they were given 45 minutes to work toward their goal but told they could stop at any time.

Those who had kept their mouth shut worked the entire 45 minutes. Afterward, they said they still had a lot of work to do in order to accomplish their goal. On the other hand, those who had gone public stopped after 33 minutes on average. They felt they were already close to accomplishing their goal and didn’t need to work the entire time. It turns out that sharing your goals widely actually backfires. It did on them, and it will on us.

Megan: So bottom line, you should only share your goals with people who are committed to helping you achieve them. So where can we, as high-achievers, find a supportive community to pursue our goals with?

Michael: There are a lot of different places. It could be just our friends and acquaintances at work or maybe in church. It could be online friends. We’ve created a lot of private Facebook groups ourselves for our various products so that people who are like-minded, who are pursuing similar goals, can have a supportive community to help them get there. We’ve found that community aspect of whatever we’re doing in helping people achieve their goals is sometimes the X factor that enables them to accomplish them, more than anything else, really.

To introduce our next tactic, I want to introduce you to my friend Stu McLaren. He’s an entrepreneur, a business coach, and a philanthropist, and he’s honestly better at implementing this tactic than anyone I’ve known.

Stu McLaren: So the question is “How does celebration move performance?” Well, first and foremost we all got to realize that driven human beings crave progress and celebration fuels that progress. So that’s the first reason why celebration moves performance because we as humans crave progress. And if you don’t celebrate the brain doesn’t get the signal that hey what you’re doing is actually moving you in the right direction. It would be like playing a game, not keeping score, and then at the end asking “Who won?” What do you mean, Who won?” If we don’t celebrate a score then we are never going to make the kind of progress we need to. So we need to celebrate  progress because that’s what tells our brain that our performance is moving us towards our goals. So number one, we like progress.

Number two, it feels good. It feels good to celebrate and when it feels good we want to do more of it. So listen it serves to reinforce the type of performance you want to see. On a subconscious level, it makes clear for everyone else that isn’t perhaps performing well that hey this is the behavior we want to see. This is good. Do more of this. So bottom line number two is it feels good to celebrate.

And number three is that we like to be acknowledged. I know I’m in this category but some of us will do more to be celebrated by others than we will just for our own satisfaction. Because we’re driven externally. From that external acknowledgement comes the internal satisfaction because we like progress and we like not only making progress but we like others acknowledging that progress. That feels good like we talked about earlier and that comes from external motivation. Now here’s the key thing with this. If you really want to drive this, celebrate in public versus in private. Any public celebrations just amplify the whole impact.

So at the end of the day, how does celebration performance? Well number one as human beings, especially driven human beings, we like progress. We crave progress, in fact. And it tells the brain, “This is good. Keep moving forward.” Number two, speaking of good, it feels good to celebrate. Listen, we want more of the things that feel good in our lives. So when we celebrate, it tells and indicates to the brain, “This is good. Do more of it.” And thirdly, we like to be acknowledged. It’s nice to be recognized for the progress that you’re making or for the performance that you’re having.

Now this can be with both your team but also with your customers. If you’re teaching your customers anything, celebrate them too because they are motivated for the same reasons. And the key thing here is amplify it by doing and celebrating in public versus in private. So there you go.

Okay, that brings us to the fourth tactic: celebration.

Megan: The first thing you need to do is to assign a reward. Why do you recommend assigning rewards when setting a goal? Isn’t the goal the reward in and of itself?

Michael: Well, it can be for sure, but sometimes people like to work for a reward. It’s a way of gamifying the goal so you realize something at the end of the pursuit that gives you… Kind of back to that dopamine hit or that sense of satisfaction or accomplishment. It’s just a way to celebrate it.

Megan: I love that. Oleg Urminsky of the Chicago Booth Review cited a study he performed while he was a graduate student at Columbia. The team gave people reward cards to be punched each time they bought coffee. They found that people bought more coffee the closer they got to earning a free cup. I feel like I have just cracked the code on all of those reward cards I have.

Michael: That’s so sneaky.

Megan: I know. As Urminsky said, the closer you get to the reward, the more likely you are to pursue it.

Michael: So that’s why that works.

Megan: Oh my gosh. I need to say no when those are offered to me now.

Michael: Yeah, but even more importantly, we have to figure out a way to use that in our own business.

Megan: Probably true.

Michael: This whole thing is underscored by a 2017 study conducted by Kaitlin Woolley and Ayelet Fishbach, which found that people ate almost 50 percent more of a healthy food when they focused on the positive taste compared with another group that focused on the health benefits. That’s interesting. Different kinds of rewards offer different kinds of motivation. We’re hardwired to respond to immediate rewards.

Megan: That makes sense. It’s also important to measure the gain.

Michael: Our mutual coach, Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach… We love his program. I’ve been a member of it for three years now, and you’ve been a member of it for a couple of years. It has been hugely helpful to us. One of Dan’s signature concepts is something he calls the gap and the gain. The idea is that instead of measuring the gap, which us high-achievers like to do…

We set a goal, and then after the goal achievement period comes to the deadline and, let’s say, we’ve missed the goal, then we tend to measure the gap, how far we fell short. Then we just flagellate ourselves, beat ourselves up. We missed the goal. Woe is me. What Dan says is that instead of measuring the gap you need to measure the gain.

The reason that’s important (and I think this is brilliant) is because, particularly for entrepreneurs or other leaders, you have to protect your confidence, and when you’re measuring yourself against the gap it’s going to ding your confidence. It’s going to make you less likely to take on big goals in the future, less likely to stick your neck out, and you’re going to pull your head into the shell, so to speak, and not pursue those big goals. But if you measure the gain, that’s going to build your confidence and give you the desire to keep pressing forward. So I think it’s really important to measure the gain.

Megan: I love that concept. I’ve even found in leaders we’ve coached together that they can get (and we’ve done this too) so fixated on the small miss they had…it can be just a few thousand dollars on a multi-million-dollar goal…they feel like it was actually a loss and not a win. You can’t afford to get perfectionistic or overly fixated on the precision when you’re measuring the gain. That’s really, really important because you don’t want to count something a loss or a failure that wasn’t.

Michael: It’s particularly important as a leader of a team. If with your people you’re constantly measuring the gap… Say that your team breaks its neck to hit a goal and it misses by a little bit. If you turn around and just say, “Well, I’m sorry; you missed the goal” and beat them up for it or don’t acknowledge them for what they did accomplish, how likely are they going to be to take on something big in the future?

Megan: Sandbagging is going to happen.

Michael: That’s exactly right. This has serious ramifications inside of your company. A lot of leaders are just unaware of this.

Megan: I think you’re right on that. Timothy Pychyl of Carleton University tells us that people who make consistent progress toward meaningful goals live happier, more satisfied lives than those who don’t. That makes sense. When we make incremental progress toward our goals and stop to notice it, it creates positive emotions, or what Pychyl calls an “improvement in subjective well-being.” I love that idea.

Michael: I like that too.

Megan: He goes on to explain that those positive emotions have been shown to motivate goal-directed behaviors and volitional processes that are necessary for further goal progress or attainment.

Michael: Basically, this is the scientific affirmation of what Dan teaches. That is, if you’ll stop to notice the gain, it’s going to give you that emotional satisfaction that actually makes you want to go farther in the goal progress in the future. This lesson, by the way, is also echoed by endurance athlete Christopher Bergland, who says that when we accomplish small tasks and hit deadlines our brains give us a hit of dopamine and we feel good. The dopamine hit reinforces our perseverance.

Megan: Dopamine for the win. Finally, it’s really important to stop to celebrate. What do you think regular celebration does for our energy as we’re pursuing goals?

Michael: Well, the short answer is it energizes us. When we stop to celebrate, when we stop to acknowledge the win, it’s a reminder that we’re succeeding. It makes us feel more confident, and it’s easier to take on new goals when we’re in that state of mind. Consequently, if we don’t celebrate, then it just becomes a grind. We’re focused on the process; we’re not focused on the win, and we don’t get that dopamine hit we were talking about before.

Megan: I totally agree with that. Not every leader is a natural celebrator. We talked about this earlier. It just doesn’t come naturally to everybody. So if that’s you and you’re listening (and that, to some degree, is us…it’s all of us), what can you do to put in place some activation triggers to make that celebration happen automatically?

Michael: I think one of the best things is find somebody on your team who’s good at this and task them with the responsibility. You don’t have to beat yourself up if you’re not good about it. I’m not good about it, but you are actually great about it. I can always count on you to stop and make sure we acknowledge our successes and celebrate our wins. That’s easy advice.

Megan: Today we’ve covered four surprising new tactics to achieve your goals: challenge, competition, community, and celebration. As we come in for a landing, I realized something. You never finished that Tommy Caldwell story.

Michael: I didn’t?

Megan: And I have to know. Did he ever make it up the Dawn Wall?

Michael: As a matter of fact, he did. The full ascent took 19 days. Can you believe that? Nineteen days living on a rock face like that? I can’t imagine. But he and Jorgeson made it. You know how you said competition shows us what’s possible? Well, just last year, Czech Republic climber Adam Ondra was able to make that same climb in just eight days.

Megan: That’s incredible.

Michael: This stuff works.

Megan: As we close, I want to remind you about LeaderBox. It’s automated personal development in a box. Check it out at leaderbox.com. If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, you can get the show notes and a full transcript online at leadto.win.

Michael: Thanks again for joining us on Lead to Win. If you like the show, please tell your friends and colleagues about it, and also please leave a review of the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

Megan: This program is copyrighted by Michael Hyatt & Company. All rights reserved. Our producer is Nick Jaworski.

Michael: Our writers are Joel Miller, Mandi Rivieccio, and Jeremy Lott.

Megan: Our recording engineer is Matt Price.

Michael: Our production assistants are Mike Burns, Mike Boyer, and Aleshia Curry.

Megan: Our intern is Winston.

Michael: We invite you to join us for our next episode, where we’ll establish that you really can design the coming year, and we’ll show you how. Until then, lead to win.