100 Followers: How I Identified a Breakthrough Goal

A breakthrough goal is one that leap-frogs you waaaay ahead of everyone else.

Whether in a business or a personal context, a breakthrough goal moves you ahead further and faster than you thought possible.

Background

This article illustrates how I think about and utilize breakthrough goals. In How to Set Breakthrough Goals, I identified the process used; this article provides an example of using that process.

Medium authors require a minimum of 100 followers to receive payment for their work. Every Medium writer has faced that challenge. Every writer wants to achieve it as quickly as possible.

I will examine how I overcame the challenge faster than expected.

Understanding the Goal

Identifying the goal is the first step of the Cynical Project Management process.

To the average person, acquiring 100 followers is the goal.

You may agree that 100 followers is a goal. If you asked 100 people, 99 of them would agree with you.

I suggest that those 99 people have been “programmed” to think that way by their life experiences.

Let’s discuss why you may think like that.

The first reason is that you are a DOER!

You “do things” from when you wake up until you go to bed. You don’t question what you do and why. You are programmed to do things.

A large percentage of what people do during the day is:

1. Habits: a settled tendency or usual manner of behavior [source], or
2. Routines: habitual or mechanical performance of an established procedure [source].

You don’t even think about most things you do during your day. You execute on autopilot: shower, dress, coffee, breakfast, go to work, … (or whatever your routine is).

The second reason is that you are a success junkie!

You get a dopamine rush from achievement. That’s the way you are wired. Society has emphasized and structured itself to provide a fix whenever you do something.

For example, people are addicted to their cell phones. They need the immediate fix of having access to information and conversations. They can’t handle not being in the loop 24/7.

Why is gaming so prevalent in society? It is the immediate dopamine rush of winning (however that is determined for the game)!

The third reason is that you haven’t trained yourself to think deeply!

I don’t mean to insult you. You think at your job, to communicate, or to make a grocery list. But I suggest that even at your job, your thinking becomes routine.

You may have knowledge and experience that others don’t, and you may require creativity to find solutions to the problems you encounter at work; I suggest that your thinking becomes constrained by your work environment.

For example, an accountant thinks creatively about recording an expense to maximize the benefit for a business client. The accountant relies on specialized knowledge of GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), business objectives, and tax laws to make a recommendation.

Does the accountant’s on-the-job thinking or creativity extend beyond the job duties? Does the knowledge of tax laws contribute to creative thinking about organizing a company event, planning a wedding, or building a website? My answer is: “no.”

I’m not saying, “You don’t think.”

I’m saying, “You don’t think about thinking.” Your thinking pattern becomes habitual and routine because you don’t challenge yourself and question your thinking.

You begin to accept the answers that have been programmed into you and never question if there is a better answer.

How Not to Be Average

If you desire to be better than average, you need to THINK DEEPER!

I view getting 100 followers as a problem or challenge. When faced with a problem or challenge, I stop and think.

If you do not invest in learning to think for yourself, you become a follower. You follow what everyone else does. You think the way everyone else thinks.

The result is that you drift to the average.

If you want to be successful at anything (and everything), you HAVE TO THINK!!!

Learning to Think

Unless your professional job description is to perform critical thinking (entrepreneurs, scientists, academics, scholars, designers, etc.) it isn’t a skill that gets exercised regularly.

Fortunately, it is a skill that you can develop.

You may be impressed with someone because they seem to have THE ANSWER! You are impressed because they thought of the answer — you didn’t.

I don’t need to know all the answers; I only need to know the right question.
- Gary Bozek (1986)

When you develop your critical thinking skills, you can determine a suitable solution for yourself.

Thinking About Goals

A Goal is the most important thing to think about because it contributes to significant life improvement.

I hope you aren’t one of the masses who don’t think about goals. (They are the ones that bring the average down.)

Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.
- Bill Gates

Goals are the key to unlocking success; a breakthrough goal supercharges your progress.

The Right Thing

Goals are easy to identify — it’s just something that you want. You can be overwhelmed with goals because your wants are unlimited. You should evaluate goals, eliminate those that aren’t crucial, and keep the most important ones.

The first step is to determine if it is the right goal.

My approach is to ask, “Is this a ‘goal’ or a ‘milestone’?”

New Medium writers often identify acquiring 100 followers as a goal.

I suggest that acquiring 100 followers is a milestone toward a bigger goal. It measures how far I have progressed toward my ultimate goal.

Calling it a milestone doesn’t mean it isn’t an important task; the focus changes slightly. You still need to figure out what to do to reach the milestone. The subtle difference is that a milestone is not the end — it’s the means to the end. It won’t distract you from your bigger goal.

If your opinion is 100 followers is the goal, then I suggest it means you haven’t identified a bigger purpose. When you achieve the goal of 100 followers, what then? You are left to determine what is next.

That’s fine if you want to operate your life that way (and many do). But great success isn’t achieved by jumping from one thing to another without an overarching, coherent idea of what you are doing and why. You can’t make a plan and be effective if you don’t have a road map of where you want to end up.

When you understand decisive, higher-level goals and don’t let problems or challenges distract you, you identify and focus on what makes a significant difference in your life.

The Right Way

There are seven ways from Sunday to do everything; same with acquiring 100 followers.

The options are:

• letting the algorithm take care of it
• following and engaging with other writers in the community
• participating in a follow-for-follow scheme
• a combination of any of the previous methods

Which method or combination you choose is a subjective decision based on your goals, philosophy, and personal constraints.

How did I approach it?

I did research. I did experiments. I used feedback to guide changes in my strategy. The cornerstone principle was THINKING!!!

I didn’t approach the problem haphazardly. I used the Cynical Project Management methodology:

• What is the goal?
• What are the options?
• Analyze the pros/cons of each option. Decide a course of action and make a plan.
• Do it…
• Monitor, measure, and adapt based on the feedback

I achieved the result I wanted quicker than anticipated.

For the Right Reasons

On the surface, “getting 100 followers” seems like an obvious goal. That’s the problem at hand; that’s the thing we should focus on solving.

The downside of such thinking is it’s too shallow. If you reach 100 followers, are you done? Was that the last task? Can I celebrate now? The answer to these questions is “no.”

Another question to ask is, “Is this a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)?" Again the answer is “no.”

When you don’t identify the right goal you don’t understand the big picture. You will limit yourself to doing small things and garner minimal progress.

I’ve had people quibble that this argument is simply semantics. I agree it seems like a subtle distinction.

But have you ever thought about what the purpose of a goal is?

The layperson will often answer that it is to achieve, accomplish, perform, or succeed at some objective. It seems obvious, but it is superficial thinking. Achieving the goal is the “result” that you want, but setting a goal itself does not equate to a result.

You don’t just set a goal and auto-magically get a result. You must do something.

A goal’s purpose is to guide decisions.

When you understand that goals guide decisions, the importance of establishing the right goal becomes obvious. The types of decisions you make when pursuing a BHAG are different from the types of decisions you make for an “ordinary” or “milestone” goal.

Often decisions are influenced by a short-term versus a long-term focus. A BHAG often leads to decisions that involve more effort, time, or money than an ordinary, short-term goal. You are willing to invest more resources because the reward associated with the BHAG is so much greater.

You will stay motivated until you attain a BHAG, in particular, if the BHAG aligns with your “higher purpose” (it should!!).

With a BHAG, issues don’t cause as much stress since they are just little bumps on the road to a big success.

The right reason clarifies your focus when making decisions to achieve a goal.

My Breakthrough Goal

Confronting a problem (like 100 followers) shouldn’t be the genesis of a breakthrough goal. When you encounter a challenge but lack goal clarity, you are lost; you are missing guideposts to help clarify the decision.

Because I knew my BHAG, I quickly reviewed my options, evaluating them against my knowledge and experience, created a plan, executed a plan, and achieved the milestone within a month.

I established my breakthrough goal many months before I tackled the 100 followers problem. I knew what I needed to do and why. I quickly made decisions that delivered the results I desired.

Acquiring 100 followers was a milestone along my journey. A milestone is a beacon that illuminates the direction to expend effort to achieve your BHAG.

If you don’t have a breakthrough goal or a BHAG to guide you when you encounter a challenge or a problem, then utilize the problem to help identify the goal(s) that are important to you.

The main lesson is to think about your goals, identify your breakthrough goal (if you don’t have one), and use your BHAG to guide your decisions. Thinking is the key that will unlock immense success!!!

Be Cynical,

GB

Summary

TL;DR: Thinking is the key that will unlock immense success!!!

Wisdom:

• To be better than average, you need to THINK DEEPER!
• Goals are the key to unlocking success; a breakthrough goal supercharges your progress.
• Determine if you have a “goal” or a “milestone.”
• A goal’s purpose is to guide decisions.

To extract the best value from this article, you should have read this first: Good News - Everything Is a Problem. If this is the first article of mine you have read, you should start at Read This First!.

The next article in this series is: How I Reached 100 Followers in Less Than a Month..