Eric Siu and Neil Patel break yearly goals into monthly, weekly, and daily tasks, then keep them visible with post-its and phone reminders. Eric tracks three business goals, three personal goals, and fun ones like travel or language learning. Both use morning routines and 90-day cycles to stay consistent.
Welcome to another episode of Marketing School. I'm Eric Siu.
And I'm Neil Patel.
And today we're going to talk about— it's the new year, 2021 is here. We're going to talk about how to get off to a blazing start. Happy New Year. Yes, Neil, happy New Year.
Uh, yeah, Eric and I, we want to help you get off to a blazing start, and you probably have a lot of options. You're like, hey, we got these goals, we got these resolutions, We probably both have different advice because Eric and I both think differently. Neither way is right or wrong. More so, it's just different. So I'm going to give you my way to start off the new year, and then Eric's going to give you his advice on how you should start off your new year. So what I want you to do— everyone looks at goals and objectives and what you want to hit in the year, but very few people actually achieve them. The reason very few people actually achieve them is because you got these big audacious goals that are really hard to imagine. What I want you to do is come up with your goal, even if it is big, and then figure out what you need to do over the next 12 months. Literally like break out the things you need to do within each month for 12 months to hit that goal. And then once you have the goals, the tasks that you need to do within each month to hit that goal, I want you to break down those tasks to weekly and then daily. So now you'll know what you need to do each day to hit your goal. And I know it may sound crazy, but don't go to sleep until you hit those tasks and you complete them each and every single day. That's how I model out my whole year. And when you do that, you'll find that you'll grow faster and you're much more likely to hit your goals. Yep.
So some of this is the— some of the stuff Neil and I are talking about right now is pre-work that you, that you should be doing before the year begins. But this is assuming you've done part of it. You have thought about, okay, I've reflected on the year already. These are the goals I want. So the way I do it is I do have goals set for the year. So we've talked about personal goals, going traveling to certain places, riding 2,500 miles on a bike or something like that. So you might have personal goals like that, but then I try to focus on 3 big goals, business, 3 big goals, personal, and then some for fun stuff. I'll do that. So for fun stuff—
That's a unique way to think about it. I've always done business. Sometimes I do personal, but I've never done the third category.
I actually got this from Noah Kagan. So his fun stuff is— so his is a couple thousand miles on his bike. And then again, travel to certain places. He might have something around like learning things. So for me, it might be learning Spanish as an example, just for fun. So it's like, what are your goals exactly? And what's on your bucket list? And I'll try to get that in there. So that's what it is. And then I have a Post-it right on my computer. So those goals are constantly being reinforced and I have a Post-it in my restroom. So when I'm brushing my teeth, I'm reading the goals as well. So I don't forget it. So that's how you get off to a good start.
But the home screen works out really well too on your phone.
My home screen is a slowdown. It's like the turtle that I have over here. So it's— I'm constantly looking for reinforcement. But in the morning too, what I've done— and Neil, this would be good for us to tell people what we do in the morning— but I remember the only thing I took away from Think and Grow Rich, reading it when I was like 21 or 22, is there's like this thing that you do for positive reinforcement, right? So it's like You know, what are your plans? What are your goals? Okay. 5 things. Do you have the desire, faith, plan, action, consistency for it? I don't know. I can't get it out of my head. And then I fill out my 5-minute journal. 3 things I'm grateful for, uh, 3 things I'm going to do today. And one, one big thing I'm trying to accomplish. And then when I go to bed, it's 3 things, 3 amazing things that happened today. And then it's one thing I can do better. Right? So I'm constantly reinforcing because I know if I start to fall off the train tracks, if I don't have a good routine, Then everything's going to fall apart. So that's the mornings. We talked about the year. And then the final thing I'll say, Neil, is I do have goals for every 90 days, right? And then you want to get your company aligned with where you're trying to go every 90 days, because 90 days goes by quickly. So to have a quarterly planning, also to have a weekly meeting to keep things on track. And if it's a high-paced thing, a daily standup, because that forces people to keep thinking about it.
And for me in my mornings, I do something simple, which is I wake up. check my emails, literally while I'm in bed, I check my emails on my phone. Once I'm done responding to the ones I need to, I get up, I go brush. I literally just brush. Then I work out and then I go take a shower. Then I pick up my daughter from bed, feed her breakfast. By then the nanny ends up coming and then I start my workday. There you go. And I literally do that almost every single morning other than Saturdays and Sundays. I still do the same part, but there's no nanny. So then I watch my daughter along with my wife, of course. Of course does more work than me, but I'm a morning person. She's more a late night person. So I like doing the morning shifts. And funny enough, when she wakes up early, I still like doing the morning shift because it's the time that I get with my daughter, just me and her, no interruptions and no one else.
I think the key thing that we're saying here is that you should have some type of cadence that you're used to, because if you're all over the place and you're haphazard, some days you get started when it's 6:00 AM, the other day you start when you're 11 and, um, you're just all over the place. It's hard to get into a rhythm and that's what you're looking for. So to have these things, Neil and I are probably a little more structured, I would say, than a lot of people, but have some type of structure. And if you're not that type of person, that's fine. But structure we find to be relieving.
Yep. And if you really want to do well and hit your goals in 2021, check out marketingschool.io/pro. We have this community, costs $1 to join, and then you can do your trial and then go from there. See if you like it and we'll help you grow. All right.
That's it for today. See you tomorrow. Hey everyone. So Neil Patel and I are doing an education program around Marketing School Pro, and all you have to do is put in $1 for a 14-day trial. And what you will get is exclusive content. You get monthly ask me anythings, you will get an ad-free version of the podcast, you'll get monthly show notes as well, and you'll get access to a marketing community of geniuses such as yourself. So if this is something you're looking for, I always talk about the power of peer groups, then all you have to do is click to learn more. All it is is $1 for 14 days and you will get massive value or you lose a dollar. All right, so that's it for this. Hope to see you inside.
