Don't set goals! Set these 4 things instead

Setting Goals Is NOT Enough, Not Even Close!

If setting goals helped us achieve more, everyone would be successful.

Everyone sets goals.

Most people fall short.

So, what’s the difference between people who manage to achieve most of the goals they set and the majority of people who fail almost all the time?

Mainly, there are 4 things.

4 things that, if put in place, will help you achieve more in less time!

These are:

• The Why

• The Who

• The What &

• The What Not

In this newsletter, you’ll learn about all 4 of them and how to put them into practice practically!

The Why

This is the MOST important thing by a mile!

The first thing to realize about achieving goals is that it gets hard (that’s what she said)! It gets boring at times. You’ll find many obstacles in your way. You’ll meet with frustration, fear, anger, despair and other negative emotions along the way. You’ll get criticism from yourself and others.

The above is inevitable!

My question is this:

How can you expect yourself to stay consistent without knowing exactly WHY you’re doing it in the first place?

You can’t!

Let me give you an example:

Obviously, I want to turn my YouTube channel, this newsletter and my social media into a source of income. However, that is NOT my main why. Because my why goes way deeper than that.

The thing is, I used to be bullied for years.

It eradicated my confidence, shattered my self image into a million pieces, created tons of limiting beliefs, dumped me into a pit of depression and even drove me to suicidal thoughts at some point.

The good news:

I managed to come out of it 129852 stronger!

The bad news:

It took me over a decade to completely rebuild myself from the ground up.

And so, my reason why I’m doing this is to help other people figure things out. To be the mentor I WISH I had in my darkest hours. In a sense I’m making the content that would have helped me when I was younger.

If it was just about the money, I would have given up long enough.

My reason why is what keeps me going.

Note:

If you don’t yet know what your why is, the action steps below are all about finding yours. It contains a useful exercise that I’d like you to go through.

The Who

People often stay stuck because of ignorance.

Setting goals can be intimidating.

Because by definition, achieving things that you’ve never achieved before in life (or at a higher level) requires you to do things you’ve never done before. Which means you’re going to have to figure a lot of things out.

Many people don’t start because they don’t know what they should do.

That’s where the WHO comes in.

This comes in a few forms:

Firstly, and most importantly:

Look for who has already achieved the same thing that you want to achieve. Someone who has already been through the journey that you need to go through to reach your goal.

The reason for this is simple:

Similar actions lead to similar results!

Success leaves clues, meaning that you shouldn’t try to reinvent the wheel. Instead, follow a plan that has been proven to work already. When you follow the same steps, you’ll move towards a similar outcome.

It’s the quickest way to figure out what to do!

There are a few other “whos” you can look into as well:

• Who can support you? Perhaps a friend of yours can hold you accountable by you sharing your journey.

• Who can teach you? A good mentor can help you see your blind spots. You’ll achieve things faster with the right guidance.

• Who can you take along? Maybe you know others who have the same or a similar goal. Going at it together helps motivate all of you.

• Who can help you? If you want to build a big company, you need people. But a babysitter can also help free up your time to do more.

Find the right people and you’ll achieve things a lot faster!

The What

I’ve covered part of this above, but there’s a second element to it.

People often dream big.

Or at least, ambitious people do (assumingly you).

What this means is that you likely have dreams that are a LOT bigger than your current reality. Which means that there are a lot of steps required from where you are to where you want to go.

This often freezes people in place.

Like a deer looking into headlights.

Oftentimes, when people feel overwhelmed, they stop because they need to “figure out” the entire 352-step plan. And as a result, they end up taking 0 of those steps and it becomes just another failed New Year’s Resolution.

For the WHAT, ask yourself these 2 questions:

• What are 1 or 2 things I can do today to get started?

• What is a daily activity that guarantees I make progress?

Simplicity wins!

It’s not the “perfect” plan that is most effective.

Rather it’s a simple plan that you can actually execute on.

Think of it like this:

If you’re walking through a dense fog, you’re not going to see the entire road ahead of you. However, you do see a few steps in front of you. Once you take a few steps forward, you can see a few steps further.

Such wonder.
Much amaze.
Wow.

The What Not

Finally, what NOT to do.

This goes back to what I shared at the beginning of this newsletter:

Everyone sets goals, but almost nobody puts in the work required to achieve them. That’s because setting goals is the easy (and insignificant) part. The DOING of the goal is what requires a ton of effort and sacrifice.

The question is:

What are you willing to give up to achieve your goals?

Of course, there are things that we would all love to do more fun things than the difficult things our goals require. However, achieving any goal requires sacrifices to be make.

For this final part think about:

• What are you willing to give up to achieve your goal?

• What are you not willing to give up?

• What do you value most?

• Do these values clash with your goal?

• Is there a different way that requires other sacrifices?

• For what goal WOULD I be willing to let go of X?

I’d like to shine some extra light on the last 2:

There are millions of goals you can set for yourself and for each goal there are a TON of different ways to go about achieving it. Method A could mean you have to spend a lot of time away from your family (which you’re unwilling to give up) while method B allows you more time with them.

Keep this in mind though:

Everything you want to do requires a sacrifice!

In economics, we call this opportunity cost.

For the second question:

This is about rewards versus sacrifices.

If I asked you to dance through Main Street in just your underwear for $50, you’d probably laugh at the suggestion. Or get mad at me for suggesting it.

But, if I offered you 50 million for it…

You’d probably ask me what kind of dance to do.

The same principle applies to goals as well. While you might not like to give up certain things, there might be a cause or goal that you can SO MUCH about that you are willing to do it for that particular goal.

Sometimes pivoting can make all the difference.

NEW: Audio Message of the day

As I mentioned in the last newsletter, there’s a brand new feature in Beehiiv (my newsletter platform), which is audio. And so, I’m going to start using this to communicate alongside the written word.

In this message, I’m sharing my thoughts on dealing with difficult times. If you’re going through a rough patch, this message is for you.

Also, if you haven’t already, you can subscribe to my YouTube here.

It’s where I post most of my content.

New on YouTube:
Ever feel like life is slipping away?

There’s a painful reason for me making this video…

There are so many posts online about people who think they have “lost life” when they don’t have it figured out at 18, 20, 26, or even at 40. People fear that they’re “behind” so often that it pains me to see.

This video sheds some light on this.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re behind, this is a must watch for you!

Finding Your WHY!

In this newsletter I talked about finding your why.

It’s the most critical part of achieving any goal.

And so, I’d like to give you the gift of clarity. A straightforward process that you can use to find a more deeply rooted reason why you MUST (not want to) succeed at achieving your goal.

Let’s dive on in:

1. Start with a goal that you have in mind or if you don’t have any, this might be a good time to start thinking about it lol. My recommendation would be to write it down on paper.
   

2. When you’ve got your goal in mind, I’d like for you to ask yourself the following question: “Why is achieving this important to me?”. Write down your answer.
   

3. Look at your answer and then ask yourself: “Why is this thing I have written down important to me?” And write down your answer again.
   

4. Take the answer you just wrote and ask yourself the same question again. I know, we’re really going for originality here.
   

5. Repeat this process until you’ve asked the question “Why is this important to me?” at least 5 times. However, you can continue further until you feel like you’ve reached the very core.
   

6. At the end of “The Trail of Whys” as this technique is called, you should have a deeply rooted emotional reason for your success. Keep this top of mind and reinforce it, use it as your driving force for success!

Example of The Trail of Whys

To illustrate the process, let me give you a fictional example.

Person A has the goal of starting an online business.

When he’s going through The Trail of Whys, these are his answers. Remember that at every stage the question is the same “Why is this important to me?”

• I want to start an online business [goal]

• Because I want to make $5k/month.

• I’d like to quit my job.

• My job requires me to spend a lot of time away from home.

• I’ve got 2 young children that I want to spend more time with.

• I’d like to give them an awesome childhood and be there for them during these times.

• My parents were never there when I grew up and I was always with a nanny or at a friend’s place. I don’t want that for my children.

• I want to be the father that I didn’t have growing up.

Now, let me ask you one simple question:

Which do you think will keep this dude more motivated?

A. I want to have an online business.
B. I want be there for my children all the way.
C. I haven’t read a thing and am just skimming this email.

That’s the power of The Trail of Whys!

Go through the process yourself to find yours.