80 Percent of Your Work Has Nothing to Do with Your Goals

Daily Boost - Motivation and Coaching

Scott Smith

Health & Fitness, Business, Education, Self-improvement

3.9 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Episode Description You wrote that internal mission yesterday. You know what drives you. Then Tuesday arrives, and you spend the entire day defending things that have nothing to do with your vision. Emails that don't matter. Meetings that go nowhere. Drama that isn't yours. Scott reveals the harsh truth nobody wants to hear—80% of what you focus on daily has zero connection to what you ultimately want. But here's the twist: You're not just distracted. You're actively protecting the things stealing your vision. Discover the one word that changed everything for Scott and why relevancy might be the filter you've been missing. Featured Story Scott used to arrive home with a bottle of wine picked up on the way and a bit of an attitude. He'd been told for years to focus more. So he did. He focused harder. Pushed harder. Worked longer. Said yes to everything that seemed important. Things got better in some ways. Awful in others. The real problem? He was producing massive results that had absolutely no relation to what he actually wanted to build in his life. He got really good at getting results, but those results just kept him busy and drove him crazy. Then he stumbled on a straightforward word that changed everything: relevant. Now he comes home and says, "Hey, honey, I'm home," and takes his wife out for spontaneous date nights. Same focus. Different filter. Completely different life. Important Points If you're distracted, you're not unfocused—you're just focused on the wrong things. Every time you say yes to something irrelevant, it creates three more irrelevant tasks to fill your day. You're not being distracted from your vision—you're actively protecting things that are stealing it from you. Memorable Quotes "I began to put my energy and my focus into what is relevant to the result I want to achieve in my life." "When nothing else matters, what's important matters more." "You're not lazy. It's not that you lack discipline. You're defending the wrong things." Scott's Three-Step Approach Pull out that internal mission you wrote and look at your calendar, to-do list, and commitments. Ask one question for each item: Is this relevant to the results I want to reach in my life? Let go of anything not connected to your internal mission—delegate it, automate it, or say no to it. Chapter Notes 0:26 - 80% of your actions aren't aligned today 1:22 - Why focusing harder makes things worse 2:41 - Massive results that drove Scott crazy 3:21 - One word that changes everything: Relevant 5:36 - The Pareto Principle twist nobody sees 6:35 - You're protecting what's stealing your vision 7:39 - Filter your calendar with this question 8:41 - 80% isn't distracting you—it's stealing Connect With Me Search for the Daily Boost on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify Email: [email protected] Main Website: https://motivationtomove.com YouTube: https://youtube.com/dailyboostpodcast Instagram: @heyscottsmith Facebook Page: https://facebook.com/motivationtomove Facebook Group: https://dailyboostpodcast.com/facebook Pareto Principle, 80-20 rule, focus, productivity, time management, relevant actions, vision alignment, mission clarity, defending priorities, distraction management, saying no, goal achievement, relevant results, protecting your vision, busy versus productive, task prioritization, calendar management, avoiding distractions, personal mission, work-life balance, successful living, intentional focus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's happening? Come on in here. And yesterday we're talking about your mission statements. The two, internal, internal.
0:21.9	That usually shakes people up when I talk about this stuff, but it'll work for you.
0:26.1	Today, I want to take you down a path that might sting just a little bit, if that's okay.
0:30.9	80% of your actions today that you'll do today have nothing to do with that mission you've been thinking about.
0:35.7	80% of things that you focus on every single day have nothing to do with what you ultimately want, what ultimately drives you. You're defending the wrong things, and it's stealing from your vision, your mission that you had yesterday, okay, the one we wrote down, 80%. Yes, we're kind of heading toward that 80-20 rule. We'll do it differently today. It is a daily boost from
0:54.2	Motivation Move.com. My name is Scott Smith. Thanks for stopping by today. Can't believe we're at 5,217 episodes. That is a lot of talking. You can tell by the scratchiness of the voice and we're going to continue more. I'm wondering how many more I have in me. Can I get 10,000? It took 20 years to get to five. Can I get to ten? I'm not sure.
1:10.2	Hey, it's the day boost.
1:12.5	Let's have some fun. So we're continuing this week, kind of themifying things a little bit, moving through vision and clarity and things like that. And today I want to talk about where you're wasting your time, if that's okay. You are. We all are. We all waste their time. I have been told for years. Have you been told this before? You need to focus more.
1:29.4	People tell you, you need to focus more.
1:31.1	And you believe them, right?
1:32.0	I know I did.
1:33.9	I have always bought into the raw concept of focus, a central point of attraction, if you
1:38.6	will, attention, activity.
1:40.0	That's what kind of focus is.
1:42.1	And so I did what everyone said.
1:43.9	I focused harder. I pushed harder.
1:46.1	I worked longer. I said yes to everything that seemed important, I thought. You know what
1:52.5	happened? Things that really better when I focused. And they would, right, if you focus on the right
1:56.9	things. By the way, if you're distracted, you're focused just on the wrong things. That's all. Things get better in some ways, awful than others too. How could you focus and things get awful? Think about that for a second. How many times are you in your life when you thought you're doing the right thing, focused right on it, but life got worse. Yeah, maybe today? I don't know. It's got tough right now. As we're, as I'm recording today, we could, you know, this government shut down going on, all kinds of stuff happening.
2:22.5	Oh, it's messy. That's life. You know what else happened? When I focused, I started producing massive results. The problem is those results had no relation to what I actually wanted to build in my life.
2:34.7	You ever done that?
2:38.9	Working really hard, but it doesn't seem like I'm getting what I thought I wanted.
	...

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