The Goal-Setting Coach on Why You Don’t Follow Through—and How to Change It

Junaid Ahmed (0:00)

Thank you for tuning in to Hacks and Hobbies with your host, Junaid. We're visited by our amazing guests coming from all walks of life, want to learn their story, their struggles, and their journey on how they got to where they are today. So stick around.

In part one, we figured out what to build. In part two, we focused on how to build it. Week by week, without getting crushed by decision fatigue. Jason, welcome back to the show.

Jason (0:40)

Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this again.

Junaid Ahmed (0:43)

Yeah, man. It was a really awesome conversation getting to speak with you. In part one, part two, we're going to go deep and tactical.

Let's jump right into it. The first question that I have is, Jason, most people don't fail from lack of ideas. We've got tons of them. That's why they call it an idea is dime a dozen. Right?

They fail from lack of follow through. Why is that?

Jason (1:16)

I don't think they have a system to put it into. Right? It's like once you have confidence in a system for your time management, for your tasks. I know for me, when I put something in my planner, even if I put it in to do four days from now, it's like as good as done when I put it in there because I have so much confidence in this system now. It doesn't have to necessarily be my goal crazy system, but I think that's an asset. Somebody should be building for themselves as how do they organize their tasks, how do they organize themselves so that they can just put it in the system and it gets done. So then it's a matter of once you make the decision, put it in there and keep following your system and it'll get done.

Junaid Ahmed (1:55)

So what you're telling me is that if I set up a system for myself and I follow through that system, I can be successful.

Jason (2:06)

Oh, yeah.

I think that's it. And I think your system is going to go through evolution. So I believe in our first part, we talked about my journey at my dad's car dealership. Yeah.

Junaid Ahmed (2:16)

Yeah.

Jason (2:16)

And maybe I started to realize this there because I was supposed to work in every department for six months, maybe a year to start learning the different departments in the entry level positions. You could just keep track of everything in your head. Right. And then as I moved to more responsibilities, eventually I remember I got post-it notes and I'd write things down on post-it notes. And then eventually I needed to keep an actual notebook of these activities. But eventually I got to a point where I needed a time management system, because there was just so many responsibilities. I had to have a process of how do I schedule things further out in advance? How do I decide what I'm going to delegate? How do I know when I'm trying to fit too much in a day? And I can just know in advance and say, look, I can't do all these things today and I have to pass them off or say no, or schedule them for a different day.

And I think that's an evolution, but you need to be proactive about it, because if I go back to that dealership, the cashier is stressed about her responsibilities.

And it's like, look, there's nothing against her, but she doesn't have a system that's efficient in dealing with these. So that's very stressful to handle even a small level of tasks, versus if I look at people who are in management, they have a process where they can handle a lot more bigger tasks without getting stressed. So it's an asset.

Junaid Ahmed (3:40)

And I love that you're sharing very valuable tactics, not just tactics, but things that actually work. Because if you have a system in place, just like we have the different systems in cars, the different systems in our bodies, if our respiratory system crashes, we're in trouble, right? If any of the systems break in our bodies, we are in trouble. So just like that in our business, we got to have systems in place, so that we can keep moving forward. Jason, what's the most common busy, but not building, behavior you see in people that you work with?

Jason (4:20)

Checking their email. Probably that. Checking their email. They do that. I'm trying to think if there's other general ones across. You know, the people I work with are in very different industries.

When I'm working with a client, I'll help them plan their whole week out.