A short micro-class by Brian Johnson (inspired by Alden Mills' Be Unstoppable) that explains “3D planning” for achieving goals: (1) Define goals very specifically, (2) Divide large goals into small, manageable "pebbles," and (3) Do the pebble-sized tasks daily to make steady progress. The episode emphasizes specificity (citing research) and that small, consistent progress sustains motivation, and ends with a brief promo for Johnson’s newsletter and membership offerings.
Chapters
You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less Time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on 3D planning. It's inspired by Be Unstoppable by Alden Mills. 3D planning. After you figure out what your dream is and you figure out your why, then what do you do? Then you do planning to achieve it. So here's your goal. What would you do if you knew you could not fail? We want to start there. Then we want to figure out your why. We just talked about how to do that in the last micro class. You write your goal there, and then you have a plus and a minus and you document. Okay, so we assume you've got clarity on your goal and then you have a strong why. Now we need to do some 3D planning. Three dimensional planning. What does that mean? It means you take the three Ds and you rock it. The first D is you define your goal. Define it. Second one is you divide it. And the third D is you do it daily. Let's look at each of those. First, you define it. You need to be specific. As we talk about quite a bit, the number one rule of what makes successful people successful vis a vis not so successful people, according to scientist Heidi Gran Halvorsen in her Harvard Business Review article, is they're specific with their goals. That's number one. You need to be very, very clear. You can't have a fuzzy goal. You need to know precisely what you will do and when. Define it. Then let's say that this is your goal. That's a rock may look like a cloud, but it is not. It is a big rock. Right? He says you need to take a huge sledgehammer to that rock and just beat it up. You need to divide your goal. Once you've defined it, you need to divide it. You can't be overwhelmed by this big goal. You got to take a sledgehammer to it and just crush it, pound it again and again and again. What happens when you do that? Well, little pebbles fall off, right? These little flakes fall off of that big goal. He calls those pebbles. He says, look, if you divide a big goal into small pieces, you can take care of this pebble. You're not going to walk away with this huge rock in one day. No goal is going to be achieved overnight. But if you pound it like this and divide it, then you can carry that off and you can go do what? You can do that thing daily. Then tomorrow you can do this one day after that you can do that one day, after that you can do that one. And you don't need to have all the pebbles on the ground in order to take the first one away. You pound away a little bit, you get some pebbles, some clarity, and then you go do that work. And every single day you take a little baby step in the direction of your biggest goal. And so you handle this big, big milestone goal by taking care of the little pebble goals. This is really, really cool idea. I love that vision of the sledgehammer dividing up your goals into little parts. We've talked about this in different metaphors, right? We've got the dominoes that add up. Doom, boom, boom. Right? But this is awesome because it really helps us key in on how to make progress via super small micro goals in pursuit of something much, much bigger. And remember, researchers are unequivocal that progress is the best way to sustain motivation. Doesn't need to be huge. Little things in pursuit of a meaningful goal make a big difference. Let's do 3D planning. Define it, divide it, do it daily. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that micro class. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson. Me. Two basic things. One, our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome. And two, our Optimal Living membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. Ten bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there, philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes. When you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my optimal living classes. This is where I take all the ideas we cover in the Philosopher's Notes and boil it down to the most practical stuff you can apply today. Classes include Confidence 101, Getting Stuff Done 101, Relationships 101, Habits 101, etc. You'll also get access to what we call micro classes that I think you'll love. We aim to astonish, and we're blessed to have thousands of members telling us we're helping them change their lives and that this is the best 10 bucks they invest in themselves every month. Go to BrianJohnson ME membership to learn more. Thanks for your support and have an awesome day.
