S1.E2: Why Vague Goals Are Garbage (The Binary Rule and The Floor)

"I want to save money." "I want to get healthier." "I want to build a business."

Those are not instructions. Those are wishes. And you cannot execute a wish when you're running on three cups of coffee.

In this episode, I introduce the two tools that replace every vague goal you have ever written: the Binary Guideline and the Floor. A Binary Guideline has only two outcomes — you did it or you didn't. No gray area, no negotiation. The Floor is the minimum viable action that keeps the habit alive on your worst days.

I also tell you about the guideline I set for myself that had nothing to do with work, and the night I drove home from Atlanta at 2 AM and still showed up.

What you'll take away:

• Why vague goals require a decision every single time and why that kills execution
• The anatomy of a Binary Guideline: action plus constraint
• What the Floor is and why it protects your identity, not just your habit
• How to write both for your Anchor Goal from Episode 1

Mentioned in this episode:

• EricaFiguresItOut.com — download the free Season of You Starter Series
• Apply for coaching at EricaFiguresItOut.com

On August 8, I’m hosting a live 90-minute Season Starter Workshop where we build your 90-day plan together on Zoom. Workbook included. 16 seats per time slot. ericafiguresitout.com/workshop

Follow along on Instagram: @ericafiguresitout
Read the newsletter on Substack: ericafiguresitout.substack.com

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Erica Figures It Out, a podcast about behavior change, real talk, and figuring it out as you go. I'm Erica. Let's get into it. I want to learn a language. I want to save money. I want to build a business. We've said all of these things, some of these things, and we say them with total sincerity. We write them in our journals on Sunday night feeling incredibly motivated. I actually wrote down read two books a week at the start of my summer. Two books a week. However, I did not read two books a week. Some weeks I've read more, and some weeks, most weeks I've read a lot less. Uh read two books a week isn't a guideline. It's a wish with a number attached to it. So that's the real problem. Those are not instructions. They're intentions. And you can't execute an intention on a Tuesday afternoon when you're tired as hell, or when your boss has just sent you an annoying email and you haven't had enough water. These vague goals are kind of garbage just because they require you to make a decision every single time you try to act on them. And decision fatigue is the enemy of execution. Welcome to Erica Figures It Out. I'm Erica, a run coach, a behavior change nerd, and someone who's spending the summer figuring myself out. This season we're going deep on the season of you, a 90-day behavior change methodology I built to help people stop diagnosing their problems and actually do the work of fixing them. Today we're going to kill the vague goal and replace it with the only two tools that I've found that actually work, the binary guideline and the floor. In episode one, we talked about finding your anchor goal. That is the destination. But how do you actually get there? You don't get there by trying harder. You get there by building a system that doesn't require you to try at all. You need a binary guideline. A binary guideline is a rule that has only two possible outcomes. Yes or no. You did it or you didn't do it. There is no gray area. There is no, well, I kind of worked on it. The anatomy of a good guideline is simple. It's an action plus a constraint. Work on my business is a bad guideline. It's vague. It requires a decision. And when I sit down at my desk with the goal of working on my business, my brain immediately has to figure out what exactly that means. Do I check email? Do I redesign my logo? Should I write a blog post? And by the time I figure it out, I've already spent half my energy. Um, so let's try this. Send one outreach email before 10 a.m. That's a great guideline. It's an action plus a constraint. Yes or no? Did you send the email before 10 a.m.? Let's look at another one. Get healthier is a wish. We hear that a lot. Go to the gym three times a week is a little better, but it still leaves too much room for negotiation. Which days? What time? What if I'm busy? A true binary guideline is I will be in the gym parking lot by 6.30 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. You're either in the parking lot at 6.30 a.m. or you're not. When you make the rule binary, you remove the friction of choice. You don't have to decide what to do. You just have to look at the rule and execute it. You are taking the negotiation completely off the table. But what happens on the days when everything goes wrong? The days you're sick, or your kid is sick, or you're traveling, or you're just entirely burnt out. This is where most systems break. We build our guidelines for our best days, and when a bad day hits, we abandon the system completely. That's why every binary guideline needs a floor. The floor is the absolute minimum acceptable action that protects the habit on a bad day. It's the baseline. It's the thing you can do even when you have zero motivation and zero energy. If your guideline is to write for an hour and a half every morning, your floor might be open the laptop and write one sentence. If your guideline is run three miles, your floor might be put on my running shoes and walk to the end of the driveway. The floor keeps you in the game. It prevents the zero. Because once you hit zero, it's infinitely harder to start again tomorrow. The floor is not about physical results. Walking to the end of the driveway is not going to improve your cardiovascular health. It's not going to help you run a marathon. Writing one sentence is not going to finish your book. You maintain the identity of someone who executes. When I set my guidelines for the summer of Erica, I didn't say I'm going to write more. I said I will write for 90 minutes a day. Action plus constraint. Binary. But I also gave myself a guideline in a completely different domain. At least one concert a week. Not listen to more music, not go out more. One concert a week. Yes or no? Did you go? That guideline has sent me to some random shows I don't think I've ever would have chosen on my own. And I've discovered some artists that I genuinely love who I don't think I would have found otherwise. That is what the binary guideline does in a domain that isn't about work. It forces action before your brain talks you out of it. Now the floor. Sunday night, I drove back from Atlanta after seeing Kevin Morby. Um Atlanta's about four hours away. It was about two o'clock in the morning when I got home Sunday night, Monday morning. Um, and my writing guideline is 90 minutes a day, but that certainly was not going to happen on about four hours of sleep. My floor was open the accountability club. I run a month a weekly uh morning uh session for folks to come in and it's like a body doubling session. And so I need to be up to open the Zoom call. So that's my floor. I have people in the community who are showing up who expect to see me. So I got up, I opened it up, and then I'm sitting at my computer. And because I was already there and already present, I wrote. Was it good writing? Maybe not, but the system held and I didn't hit zero. I didn't break the streak in my own brain. The floor is not about the quality of the output, it's just about proving to yourself that you are the kind of person who shows up. So if you're here from episode one, let's go back and look at your anchor goal. What's the smallest, most binary action you can take uh on it tomorrow? Don't give a vague intention, give me an action and a constraint. And once you have that guideline, ask yourself, what's my floor? What's the version of this action that I can complete even on my absolute worst day? And write them both down. So now you have your anchor goal, you have your binary guideline, you have your floor, but you're human, which means eventually you're gonna break the rule. You're going to miss the floor. And what happens when you break the rule? Well, that's gonna be up next in episode three, where we cover the weekly scouting report. It's the most important tool in the entire system because it teaches you how to fail properly. And it's up next. So I'll see you there. If you're tired of listening to podcasts about changing your life and you're ready to actually do it, it's time to design your own season. Go to Erica FiguresItout.com to download the free season of you starter series. It'll walk you through exactly how to diagnose your friction and reset your week. And if you want me to guide you through the next 90 days personally, you can apply for my coaching programs right there on the site. I love you, I miss you, and I'm rooting for you.