Any successful person has his or her own unique rituals. After his speech at the Adobe Summit last month, Daymond John of Shark Tank fame told me all about his goal-setting rituals. The founder and CEO of FUBU, a global fashion brand with annual retail sales exceeding $350 million at its peak, told me that he literally sleeps with his goals.
“I have ten goals that I read every single night before I go to bed and every single morning when I wake up,” he said. “Six of them expire in six months, and the other four expire in three years, five years, 10 years, and 20 years. I reset them every six months, and I never reach them. I only get 20 percent there, 30 percent there — but I get closer to there.”
John says he reads through his list of active goals before going to bed each night so that his subconscious can work on them while he’s asleep. He then starts the next day with intention by reviewing his goals again.
Daymond John’s No. 1 secret to success.
During our conversation–initially recorded for my podcast–John and I talked about leadership and growing fast companies. We got to a point in the interview when I asked him about productivity.
The moment shifted as he got intense about success in today’s distracted world. John looked me in the eye and told me he constantly makes a conscious effort to set goals rather than letting other people set goals for him. “I think it’s the No. 1 reason for success or failure,” he added.
Setting goals isn’t new. The difference: John was crystal clear in our chat about setting the goals you want, not the goals you should want, or other people’s goals. Too many people have goals that aren’t deeply rooted within their desires.
The rituals of goal-setting drive the results.
I’ve talked to many people about their goal-setting rituals. Very few have daily habits in this realm. The fact that John makes a great effort on a daily basis to think about what he wants for his life in the same way that most people make sure to brush their teeth and take their vitamins is certainly extraordinary.
While researching others with daily rituals, I found Daniel Mac Sweeney, who has developed a following of 10,000 people around creating financial freedom. Sweeney says he writes and verbalizes his goals daily to align his thoughts with his actions. “When I wake up in the mornings, the only real daily ritual I do is to review my goals before my feet hit the ground to put a fire in my belly as to drive me through the day,” he told me.
My own rituals for goal setting and achieving involve a deep visualization of my goals before I awake. I have been doing this for years. To be specific, I visualize the moment just before I achieve my goals. I let my mind see it through until a few minutes after the goal to experience the feeling.
About five years ago, I would visualize holding my first book and speaking to an audience from a massive stage. I could see it and practically taste it daily for years. It finally happened last year when I published my book, The Trap of Success, and announced it to an audience from the stage.
Finding your rituals.
What does this all mean? There are three steps you should follow:
Get clear on your goals. Take time to set the goals that mean the most to you and your growth. Set your goals to challenge you. Set them in various areas of your life and over different time frames too.
Decide how you create daily rituals that drive you. You may want to do what John does with his goals, reading them before going to bed and when you wake in the morning. You may find a different ritual works best for you. The point is to find the daily practice that keeps you aligned with your goals.
Commit to your rituals for a month. Give yourself 30 days to make it work for you. This may challenge you, which is good. Over one month, you will begin to see a benefit of your new ritual.
When setting goals, Iook to who you are and be grateful for what you have. Focus on a positive emotional state to accomplish the goals you want to reach. That’s exactly what John does before going to sleep each night.
