Goals

• gain more clarity on your long term goals
• learn how to break down goals so you'll actually make progress without losing your mind

Introduction

I know what you're thinking: Ugh, another one of those "achieve your goals, hustle, hustle, hustle!" posts... Well no! Time for a true story:

Timmy is a nice little boy, his parents love him because he doesn't make a fuss, ever. One day they taught him how to clean his teeth using a toothbrush, all on his own. They told him it's fun! Just brush, brush, brush, never miss a spot!

Timmy was a quick learner, and he wanted to make his parents proud. So he brushed his teeth. At first, he was methodical and careful, but as he got the hang of it, he got more ferocious. He brushed and brushed... Later that day, his parents found him lying on the bathroom floor, in a puddle of pink foam. He brushed until his gums were bleeding!

One week later, he died. The reason was unrelated to brushing his teeth, so I don't know why I'm telling you... Let's pretend it's because Halloween is approaching.

Anyway. The point I was trying to make is: Setting and breaking down goals is a skill similar to brushing your teeth. It's about being efficient and doing barely enough to get the maximum benefits. But if it takes over your life, you're fucked. Don't become obsessed with productivity and goal setting. Don't be stupid. Don't be like Timmy.

Still, you got to learn the basics.

Don't have any goals? Start here!

To break down goals, you need goals, duh. If you don't have a clear vision for your future, I recommend the following exercise:

Take a pen and a couple of sheets of paper. Writing goals down instead of just typing digitally can help to program them into your subconscious mind. Also, it shows you're serious about this, writing shit down like one of those boomers!

Go over the different areas of your life, and ask yourself these questions for each of them:

• What should this area of my life ideally look like? Be ambitious, dream big!
• What do I need to start doing in this area to get what I want?
• What do I need to stop doing in the are to get what I want?
• What do I need to continue doing to get what I want?

For the different areas of your life, I suggest using this list, it's quite all-encompassing:

• Health + Body
• Mental + Emotional
• Partner + Love
• Family
• Friends
• Mission
• Experiences + Fun
• Finances
• Learning

This might take 1-2 hours, maybe even longer. But in the end, you'll have gained more clarity on your goals, so it's worth it.

Long term goals

Based on the outcomes of the previous exercise (plus some general goals you might already have had before), write down your 3-5 year goals. What do you want to be, do, and have achieved 3-5 years from now? There will be some big ones in there. Don't be afraid if you have no clue how to get there. Let the magic of "breaking down your goals" do that for you.

1-year goals: 12 months are fucking short!

3-5 years is a long time. Enough to slack for the first year and just grind like a maniac for the remaining ones. But let's not do that. Let's be smart about this and get a head start. For each of your 3-5 year goals, ask yourself: What do I need to have done 1 year from now in order to get there?

Also: Live is about more than just goals

You might be a little overwhelmed by your big plans right now. Understandable, maybe you just found out about them. If that's the case, maybe you should do some more self-reflection. I've got some recipes for that...

Certain things tend to be missing from these sorts of lists though. That's why you should also write down your answers to these questions:

• Will this be enjoyable?
• How do you feel about this and your life in general?
• How will you make sure to still have enough downtime, live a little, and have some fun? Actually, that's the whole point here: Being efficient and planning ahead, so you can save time to relax and enjoy life!
• Are there some things missing?
• Imagine you're 1 year in the future and have achieved everything. Are you thrilled about that?
• Which parts are most likely to fail, and why?

Aaaaand action! From goals to action items

Taking your 1-year goals as well as your general comments into account, it's time to break them down into concrete action items. Go through your notes and think of the steps needed to get there (there's more detail on how to do that below). I recommend setting a 1 month deadline for these actions. Therefore you should repeat this goal setting and breakdown (hopefully not a nervous one) routine about once a month. Why even set a deadline? It will make you much more accountable. Writing down action steps without some completion date in mind won't do much good. You'd give yourself permission to do them when you feel like it, therefore never. Don't do that. Also, with one month in mind, you'll be forced to be realistic about them. Getting rich in one month? Yeah, good luck with that.

Goals → actions step 1: Clueless? Do some research

Don't know how to achieve a certain goal? Don't worry. Doing some research is a perfectly valid action item. Write that down!

Goals → actions step 2: Define baby steps

Size matters. In this context, smaller is better. This is where you think about the individual steps needed to achieve a certain goal. Want to have a big party with all of your friends? Then you might need to pick a location, organize catering, think of some theme, pick a date, send out invitations, calculate how much booze you'll need, come up with an excuse why you can't work the next day, and so on...

You can also use those "SMART Goal" criteria if you're into that sort of stuff. I think it's overkill. Just make sure your action items are achievable and impactful, better spent the extra time getting shit done as opposed to crafting fancy "smart goals".

Goals → actions step 3: Consider obstacles

Sometimes you just want to get shit done, and then life hands you lemons. Right in front of your feet, you stumble, and fall face first. Bananas might have worked better for that metaphor... Think about potential obstacles you might face in the upcoming month, and how to avoid/deal with them. If you're gloomy and want to focus some more on how your life is gonna fall apart, read my article on negative visualization. You'll have a horrible time, I promise!

Goals → actions step 4: Knowledge and skills needed

Is there something you could learn to significantly speed up the process of achieving your goals? Imagine trying to lose weight. Yeah, you can do the default of "working out and eating less", but maybe asking a friend that happens to be a personal trainer for some tips might be a smart move. Heck, you might even want to learn something about healthy eating habits on your own!

Goals → actions step 5: You're not alone - others can help

There's a secret trick to reduce the required effort for a given task down to zero: letting someone else do it. Chances are, you don't have an army of willing servants at the ready, yet... But maybe there are some people out there, who for whatever reason might want to support you for free, like friends or family. Others can be convinced by throwing money at their face, like assistants, trainers, mentors, and coaches. Don't forget about them while breaking down your goals.

Goals → actions step 5: Prioritize

Roughly prioritize these actions based on how much impact they have on achieving your big picture goals. High impact, high priority. You'll work on these goals in the order of their priority. No excuses, this is crucial. Let me explain why:

You'll likely have overestimated your commitment to those goals, as well as the time available during that month. To make matters worse, you'll have underestimated the time it takes to complete these action items. The result is you not having done everything you originally set out to do in this one month. That's fine. Don't beat yourself up about it. You still made progress, that's what counts. Unless you picked the easy tasks from the bottom of the priority list while ignoring all of those that matter at the end of the day. Then all you did was being "productive" for the sake of being productive. Remember Timmy? It's as if you spent the whole day brushing your teeth, but you actually forgot to use toothpaste. Oh and the toothbrush? You never bothered to pick that up. So you just flailed your arm next to your face the whole day, achieving nothing apart from sore forearm muscles. You could have done that more efficiently while having some fun as well... And to make this immature reference even more awkward, I'll leave it at that. See you next week!

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