How to Achieve Ambitious Goals: Observations from Stephen Duneier

by | Jun 4, 2020 | Living Well

Here is an opportunity to look into the mind of a super-achiever. Hedge-fund manager, artist, world-record holder (and much more) Stephen Duneier explains, in his TED Talk titled, “How to Achieve Your Most Ambitious Goals,” how he went from being a subpar student to living a life filled with variety, adventure, and hyper-achievement.

Duneier spells out the process that enabled him to achieve his goals: “You have to break this big ambitious goal into manageable decisions . . . the types of decisions that need to be made correctly along the way in order to improve the odds of achieving the outcome you desire.”

Achieving big goals entails making numerous decisions, and to make the right decisions effectively, we must identify which decisions are worthy of our limited time and attention. The skills of good decision-making form the foundation of Duneier’s process.

Here are two reasons I found Duneier’s presentation valuable: First, his message reminds us to focus on what we can control—our own decisions—when attempting to tackle ambitious goals. This is important because to spend any time focusing on things we can’t control is to waste our time and fail to advance toward our goal. 

Second, I appreciate the range of Duneier’s examples. Goals as diverse as learning German, knitting, or managing a hedge fund can be achieved by focusing on small yet important decisions that compound into significant results over time. The wide-ranging success of his process is an indication of its effectiveness.

For example, when considering the goal of learning German, Duneier focused on adjustments in his daily routine that would facilitate this. Because his daily schedule was already full, he decided to use his commute time more effectively by listening to German lessons instead of his favorite music playlist. This relatively minor adjustment, carried out for ten months, enabled him to learn basic German, which he then supplemented with a sixteen-day trip to Germany.

Here is the TED Talk in which Duneier explains his process: 

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