10x Goal Setting

A 10x goal takes whatever target you’d normally set and multiplies it by ten before you start planning. A goal that big can’t be reached with your current approach, so it forces you to find a better one.

The idea

Incremental goals invite incremental thinking. If you want 10% more, you keep doing what you’re doing, just harder. A 10x goal makes the old approach obviously insufficient, which pushes you to question assumptions, drop low-value work, and look for different methods. 10x is not always achievable. Aiming for it surfaces better strategies than aiming for a “reasonable” increase would.

When to use it

• Annual or quarterly goal-setting, when last year’s plan is just “more of the same.”
• When a team or individual feels stuck making only incremental progress.
• Early in a project, before the plan has hardened around the current way of doing things.

How to apply it

1. Take an existing goal and multiply it by ten.
2. Ask what would have to be true, or different, for that goal to be achievable at all.
3. Identify what current work would need to be eliminated or delegated to make room.
4. Build the plan around the new approach, not the old one scaled up.

Watch out for

• 10x goals without a capacity or resource check can produce burnout instead of breakthroughs.
• Treating “10x” as a slogan rather than an actual planning exercise.

Related models

• Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). The organizational version of the same idea.
• Goal setting. The general practice this model deliberately breaks from.
• 4DX. A framework for executing a small number of ambitious goals once set.

Sources

Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy, “10x Is Easier Than 2x”; Grant Cardone, “The 10X Rule.”