We’ve coached 25,000 Navy SEALs, Google employees and Olympic athletes—what makes them highly successful

The best performers in the world are not born excellent — they learn excellence. 

In our careers as a clinical and performance psychologist, and an executive coach who spent 16 years at Google, we’ve worked with more than 25,000 top business leaders, athletes, military operators, first responders, tech employees, and more.

We’ve found that the No. 1 thing these stars do to become the best is set big goals across six aspects of their lives:

1. Work: Your job and career
2. Relationships: Romantic partners, family, friends, and colleagues
3. Health: Exercise, nutrition, and other aspects of physical well-being
4. Spirituality: Belief and practice that there is something purposeful beyond our physical and mental selves (this can encompass religion, but nonreligious people have spirituality, too)
5. Hobbies: Things we do for fun, education, or community
6. Legacy: What you’ll leave behind

Here are three steps elite performers take to set and achieve their goals:

We give our clients this prompt: One, three, and six months from now, what do you want to be true in each of the six aspects?

It’s better to have a few good goals than a bunch of mediocre ones. You can always add more, and keeping things simple helps ensure your resources are more tightly focused. 

Navy SEALs employ the “SMART” framework:

• Specific: It’s precise and well-defined. 
• Measurable: You’ll know when you have achieved it.
• Achievable: It’s challenging, but feasible.
• Relevant: It matters.
• Timebound: It should be achieved within a specified period. 

So “I will get in better shape” is not a SMART goal, but “I will be able to jog six miles in under an hour by December so I’ll be ready for my winter basketball league” is.

DON’T MISS: The ultimate guide to acing your interview and landing your dream job

It’s fine to set an ambitious outcome as a goal, but for every outcome goal (“make VP by age 35”), it’s a good idea to establish a process goal as well (“spend an hour a day studying the business”). Amateurs focus on…