by Ryan Michler
The second step in the Battle Plan is to articulate your objective. What is it that you’re actually after? How will you determine if you’re winning the battle for your sovereignty?
One of the most challenging times in my life was my deployment in Iraq. I did believe we were engaging in a noble calling. I saw the victories we had with the civilians we dealt with. I saw Iraqi men overcoming fear, threats, and potential violence to volunteer for the Iraqi police force. With so much good that came from our operations, it was hard to see the men and women I served with give so much of themselves without a clear objective. At times, it felt as if we were spinning our wheels without getting anywhere. Quite honestly, it’s hard to win a battle in which a victory or failure has not been defined.
So it is with your life. Go ask ten people how they’re doing today, and you’re likely to be met with, “I’m doing great. Extremely busy.” It’s as if somehow being busy is the benchmark of victory. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be busy. I want to be effective. I want to be efficient. I want to be pursuing an actual objective.
It’s easy for a man to do a bunch of work, but if that work isn’t getting the job done, does the work even matter? Developing and identifying an objective is the benchmark by which you judge your work. Remember, the goal isn’t to be busy. It’s to be effective. (We’ll talk more about this in Chapter 22.)
In order to be effective, you have to know what you’re working toward. You have to have an objective.
THE FOUR QUADRANTS
Before we move ahead, it’s important that we narrow this down even further. A lot of times, when I talk with men about developing and identifying objectives, they want to change every single thing about their lives. While I can appreciate the desire and initiative, it isn’t feasible to change it all—at least not right away. Some of that change will take years, and other changes will simply be a by-product of focusing on four key areas, or quadrants, of your life. The Four Quadrants are Calibration, Connection, Condition, and Contribution.
It’s so easy to get overwhelmed. It’s likely that, since you’re this far in the book, you have a huge desire to get started and reclaim your sovereignty. Good. That’s what I want for you. But if you can’t sustain the activity, it’s not going to do you any good.
Besides, if you spread your attention too thin, you become ineffective at it all. I want you to focus on four key areas. And, even deeper, one element in each of the quadrants I’ll be sharing with you. When you give your utmost attention to these quadrants, everything else in your life will seem to align. These quadrants represent the low-hanging fruit and have the greatest potential to permeate every aspect of your life.
Calibration. Calibration is about getting right with yourself first. Too many men focus on others first because they believe that is what is required of a man. Unfortunately, they focus too heavily on others at the expense of their own well-being. If you truly want to help others on your journey, you have to ensure you’re capable of doing so, which means taking care of yourself. Calibration represents your mental and emotional health, mindset, psyche, soul, and spirituality.
Connection. Connection is the focus of building deep and powerful relationships with your family, colleagues, neighbors, coworkers, and band of brothers. There is no such thing as a self-made man. Every man must learn to connect with others across all facets of life to ensure he and others are successful.
Condition. Condition is the focus on your physical health—more specifically, diet, nutrition, fitness, exercise, sleep, stamina, strength, and conditioning. It is impossible to become the man you are meant to be without the ability to keep your body in optimal working order.
Contribution. Contribution is your ability to become a man of value. At times, you will be compensated for your contribution (employment, for example). Other times, you will not (service and charitable work). Whether you’re trying to connect with your family and friends, launch a business, and/or grow your bank account, your ability to contribute more than you currently do will make all the difference.
As we move into the recommended time frame for your objectives, I want you to think about the one thing you want to focus on in each of these quadrants that will help make your vision a reality. I know there’s a lot you want to do, but you’ll have time to get to all of it. Right now, start thinking about the one thing that will make the absolute biggest difference.
THE NEXT TWELVE WEEKS
Now that you have an idea of where you’ll be focusing your attention, let’s talk about the time frame for your objectives. There has been a lot of talk on the length of objectives. Should you have short-term objectives (less than twelve months) or long-term objectives (longer than twelve months)?
Personally, I opt to go with Twelve-Week Objectives. Now, some people will tell me I should have long-term objectives for myself. Some even suggest I should plan things out for five years. I don’t even know what I’m going to have for dinner tonight, let alone what I’m going to be doing in five years and what resources will be available to me at that time. Don’t get me wrong, having a sense of direction for long periods of time is powerful, but anything longer than twelve weeks should fall under the category of vision, not objectives.
Twelve-Week Objectives have served me best because they’re long enough to make a meaningful and measurable difference in my life, and they’re short enough to keep my attention and focus.
If you make your objectives too long, you run the risk of burning yourself out before you produce the results you’re after in your life. If you make your objectives too short, you’ll likely produce less than you’re capable of producing because you don’t have adequate time to produce significant results.
Another benefit of Twelve-Week Objectives is that you’ll have an added level of flexibility in your Battle Plan. Life happens. We get sidetracked. We get sued. We get hurt. Plans change, as do priorities. The last thing you want to do is lock yourself into a plan that relies on your working at it for the next five years with no room to maneuver and shift should there be changes to your life internally or externally.
The purpose of Twelve-Week Objectives is to create laser-like focus in your planning. Everyone can be focused for twelve weeks. That’s ninety days of undivided attention toward your objectives in each of the Four Quadrants.
SPECIFICITY
Before I give you the questions to ask yourself and the time to identify your own Twelve-Week Objectives in each of the Four Quadrants, I need you to understand that the more specific you can get in your objectives, the more likely you will be to experience results.
It’s not enough to say, “I want to be healthy.” Welcome to the club. Everyone wants that. What exactly does that look like for you? Is it being twenty pounds lighter? Is it having 10 percent body fat? Is it the ability to run a certain distance without stopping? Is it the ability to deadlift a certain amount? What exactly are you after?
I’ve often found that if it can be objectively measured, you’re on the right track. If you say, “I want to be rich,” that’s relative. The answer is different for everyone. But if you say, “I want to be making twenty thousand dollars per month in the next ninety days,” that can be objectively measured. There’s no guesswork as to what that means.
Let me give you some alternatives to common (and overly general) objectives.
“I want to do more things for myself” should be measured by time engaged in an activity, proficiency at a certain skill, development of a specific hobby, time alone, books read, etc.
“I want to have a great connection with my wife” should be measured by conversations had, dates had, frequency of sex, arguments neutralized, vacations attended, etc.
“I want to be healthy” should be measured by body weight, body fat percentage, weight lifted, distance run, time run, hours of sleep per night, daily caloric intake, daily caloric deficit, etc.
“I want to be better off financially” should be measured by income, expenses, debt r
atio, savings and investments, assets, liabilities, etc.
As we get into the questions and your own twelve-week objectives, get hyper-specific. Don’t worry that you’re not focused on all you want to accomplish right now. You’ll have time to get to new objectives in twelve weeks.
TWELVE-WEEK OBJECTIVES
Now, let’s move on to identifying your Twelve-Week Objectives in each of the Four Quadrants. As you identify your objectives, I would urge you to be assertive. Instead of using soft language like “I’d like to,” “I hope to,” “Maybe I will,” “If I can,” and “I’ll try my best,” use assertive statements like “I will.” For example, “I will lose twenty pounds in the next ninety days.”
Let’s get started.
What is your Twelve-Week Objective for Calibration?
Examples:
I will read five books in the next ninety days.
I will shave three strokes off my golf game in the next ninety days.
I will finish the woodworking project I started in the next ninety days.
I will rebuild the engine I’ve been working on in the next ninety days.
I will meditate for twenty hours total in the next ninety days.
What is your Twelve-Week Objective for Connection?
Examples:
I will plan and finalize our family vacation in the next ninety days.
I will give my wife fifty hours of undivided attention in the next ninety days.
I will coach my son’s basketball team over the next ninety days.
I will hold performance reviews with all of my employees in the next ninety days.
I will plan and finalize a hunt with my friends in the next ninety days.
What is your Twelve-Week Objective for Condition?
Examples:
I will run a Spartan Race in the next ninety days.
I will perform a four-hundred-pound deadlift in the next ninety days.
I will lose twenty pounds in the next ninety days.
I will reach 15 percent body fat in the next ninety days.
I will run a marathon in the next ninety days.
What is your Twelve-Week Objective for Contribution?
Examples:
I will complete my book in the next ninety days.
I will secure a promotion in the next ninety days.
I will increase my income to ten thousand dollars per month in the next ninety days.
I will launch my new business in the next ninety days.
I will serve on a charitable board in the next ninety days.
Armed with your Twelve-Week Objectives, you now have a goal for each of the Four Quadrants. This doesn’t necessarily make things easier, but it does give you the power that comes only from having direction in your life.
Please understand, before we get into the tactics, things are going to come up that may keep you from accomplishing your objectives. If you do get derailed, do not get discouraged. Simply wipe yourself off, recommit to your objectives (tweak them as needed), and re-engage in the battle.
Answering the questions below in each of the Four Quadrants will also help keep you from getting distracted and failing in the completion of your objectives.
Why are these Twelve-Week Objectives important to me?
What will it look and feel like when I accomplish these objectives?
What is the cost of not achieving these objectives?
What situations could arise that would keep me from accomplishing what I set out to do?
How will I handle these situations when they arise?
How will I celebrate the completion of my Twelve-Week Objectives?
CHAPTER 22
TACTICS
“Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us; and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips and shows itself in deeds.”
-Theodore Roosevelt
We’ve all heard the adage to “begin with the end in mind.” The key word is “begin,” which suggests there’s more to it than simply articulating a vision and a few objectives for your life. Unfortunately, too many men focus solely on their ultimate objective and never give any real consideration to how they’re actually going to accomplish it.
Great, you want to lose weight or start a business or make money or connect with your wife. How are you going to do it? Usually when I ask this question I get the deer-in-the-headlights stare. It’s as if these men believe that just because they’ve dedicated a very limited amount of time and energy to thinking about what they want, they’re miraculously entitled to the reality of their desires. Do you honestly believe it’s just going to happen? Do you really think that the world is going to bow down to you and your every wish simply because you hope it will?
The answer is obviously no. I think it’s safe to assume we’d all answer that way, but when it really comes down to it, there are way too many men whose actions (or lack thereof) would prove otherwise.
Up to this point, we’ve done a lot of reflection about what you’d like your future to look like and what exactly you want to accomplish, but that’s the easy part. What I’m asking you to do now is to identify the action required to produce the desired objectives.
What can you do on a daily basis that will naturally and inevitably produce the result you’re after? This is where your time and energy should be spent—not daydreaming about what could be but actively making it happen.
See, the process of articulating your vision and identifying your objectives is simply a means to an end—a starting point for developing an actual strategy to recapture your sovereignty.
REVERSE ENGINEERING
The first thing you need to wrap your head around is the idea that you are reverse engineering a plan that will accomplish the desired objective. Think about the last time you took a road trip. You started with where you were, you looked where you were going, then you researched the routes available to get from point A to point B. After that, it was a matter of picking the best route and starting to drive.
The same holds true for identifying tactics. Very simply, your tactics are the route that will get you to where you’re going most effectively.
Now, to stick with our analogy, let’s say that you have three days to get to your final destination. Once you know that, you can work backward into markers along the journey that you need to hit by a certain time—checkpoints.
Armed with these checkpoints and tactics, you can now execute the plan and measure your progress along the way. This is a very simple process. Many men will overlook it because it is so simple. But nowhere does it say that your planning has to be a challenge for it to be effective. Occam’s razor states that the simpler option is typically the better option. Do not overthink this process. If you do, you’ll stall out and abandon the system that has the power to transform your life.
CHECKPOINTS
Let’s cover checkpoints first. I’m not going to go into too much detail on this because it’s pretty self-explanatory. Knowing that you now have a ninety-day objective in each of the Four Quadrants, you are going to create two checkpoints along the way—one at thirty days and one at sixty days.
This is an often-overlooked part of the planning process. The reason it’s crucial that you come up with two checkpoints is twofold.
First, having two checkpoints along the way will help you maintain motivation on your journey. These checkpoints will allow you to see your progress and that your actions are truly producing results. It’s easy to get discouraged if you can’t see or don’t track the tangible results of your efforts. If in thirty days you see progress, you’re likely to continue the course of action. If you have to wait until ninety days, you may not.
The second reason you’ll want to identify checkpoints is to “adjust fire” along the way should you need to. Look, it’s possible that your plan isn’t working. If that’s the case, we don’t want to wait until the twelve weeks are up to come to that realization. You want to find out quickly and
make the required adjustments to ensure you hit your objective on time and on target.
In the questions below, you’ll find room to identify both your thirty- and sixty-day checkpoints along with examples based on sample Twelve-Week Objectives.
Sample Calibration Objective: I will read six books in the next ninety days.
Thirty-Day Checkpoint Example: I will have completed two books.
Sixty-Day Checkpoint Example: I will have completed four books.
What is the Twelve-Week Calibration Objective you identified from the previous chapter?
What are your thirty and sixty-day checkpoints?
Thirty-Day Checkpoint: ____________________________________
Sixty-Day Checkpoint: _____________________________________
Sample Connection Objective: I will plan/finalize our family vacation in the next ninety days.
Thirty-Day Checkpoint Example: I will have completed the logistics and planning.
Sixty-Day Checkpoint Example: I will have fully funded the vacation.
What is the Twelve-Week Connection Objective you identified from the previous chapter?
What are your thirty- and sixty-day checkpoints?
Thirty-Day Checkpoint: ____________________________________
Sixty-Day Checkpoint: _____________________________________
Sample Condition Objective: I will perform a 400-pound deadlift in ninety days.
Thirty-Day Checkpoint Example: I will have completed a 360-pound deadlift.
Sixty-Day Checkpoint Example: I will have completed a 380-pound deadlift.
What is the Twelve-Week Condition Objective you identified from the previous chapter?
What are your thirty- and sixty-day checkpoints?