Goal Setting Workshop 2025: Design Your Master Plan for Success! AROOTAH Advisory & Coaching | NYC

Welcome, everybody. So this is our seventh annual goal setting event. You're going to walk away from tonight with a master plan, which is your handy guide throughout the year. When the going gets tough, you can refer back to your master plan, which will have your action items. And we'll get into all of that tonight. Okay, so we're going to start with mission. And mission is an interesting thing because it's kind of the guiding light, a guiding compass. If we don't know what mountain we want to climb up, we might end up climbing up the wrong one. And you're going to be at the top of the summit thinking, I don't feel fulfilled, I don't feel happy, I'm miserable. And there's no worse failure than accomplishing or achieving something and still feeling unfulfilled. So the key to overcoming that is definitely making sure that you know where you're headed. And so the first step, we're not going to get there yet. The first step is to choose an area and a category, just sort of a direction that we want to be facing in. It's like having a piece of clay. We're not going to make a masterpiece quite yet. We're going to start carving out a shape and then a little bit more of the features and then more of the detail. So it is going to be a process. Trust in the process. And the first step of that is choosing what area of our life and what category within that area that we want to focus on. So if you've ever felt like you were super busy and not really achieving anything, it's probably because you're climbing up somebody else's mountain or the wrong mountain. So today we're going to choose your mountain and we're going to make sure that it feels right for you. About 10 years back, I had a goal in mind and the goal was to change my mindset. Actually, I had gone. Nobody gets through life without any trauma or any adversity. And it was a particular time in my life where I felt weighed down by past forms of thinking. And I was on a meditation retreat with a teacher who at the time had seen me meditate, seen the agony in my face and my body, and said, this isn't for you. You need to be climbing up a mountain. And he had forced me into a goal of climbing up a Himalayan mountain, to be exact, in bare feet, carrying his luggage, a lot of things. And I'm going to use this story a little bit as we go through each of the steps to kind of describe what it's like to set a goal and to really carve that masterpiece out of clay. And so in this particular instance, you might think the mission was to climb to the top of the mountain. The mission was actually, in fact, to change my mindset, to step into the person that I wanted to be stronger, more confident, less self doubt, all of those things. And so when we're setting goals, it's really important to think not necessarily about the things that we have to do or need to do or should do. Those are the languages that are really associated with goals. When we think of it, it's like a chore. Okay, here's goal setting. We've got all these things we need to do for work, all of these things we need to do are for our family, et cetera. But when we use I need to, I should, I have to, that kind of is a really limiting frame of thought and it changes our perspective in which we think that this is an obligation rather than a privilege. I want to remind everybody today that setting goals for your life and your year ahead is an absolute privilege. It is the best way to show gratitude for what's ahead in your life. This is a privilege to be here. And the thing that we can do most is to enjoy it. We should enjoy it. We should be having fun. It's a playground. And so think of the things in your life that you've always wished you could achieve. Yes, we're going to be setting goals for the things that need to happen in our career, in our business, in our family life. But also think of the goals that you want to set, of things that you always wanted to do, but have a little bit of doubt that says maybe I couldn't or maybe it's too late. I promise you it's not. We can embody a little bit of that inner child essence that knew we could achieve anything that we wanted to with the right plan, with the right execution and to think outside of the shoulds. I have to, I need to into what is it that I want? What is the thing that's going to bring me joy and what is going to make me excited to get out of bed and to work towards because otherwise we're just going to be making a to do list. And that's not really a fun way to spend our evening. And this is valuable time. So I want everybody to keep that in mind when we're choosing the area and categories to think of some area and categories that deserve our attention, deserve a little bit of a thought of what we want to work on. And to really invoke that emotion. Because the quality of our life is dictated by the quality of our emotions. And one thing I've learned, especially in coaching, is that a lot of the things that people think they want is just surface level. We want feeling, we want experience, we want to become somebody. We're working towards things more than just a certain achievement. We're looking to become the people that we know we can be. And I think everybody here who is a high achiever knows that peak performance isn't a destination, it's a journey. And there's always one step ahead. It's always going to continue. So when you're picking your areas and categories in a few minutes, I really want you to keep in mind, am I setting a goal that I'm really excited about, or am I doing something that I feel like I have to do? Am I? And there can be a balance between the two.

When we're doing that, people have different missions. I loved your analogy on, you know, climbing the mountains. Like literal, literal, literally climbing the mountains is how a goal works. And first part of our goal setting, our goal setting, probably route to goal setting processes. Thinking about the big picture, big mission, we come up with the bigger piece of it, the mission. And then the goals are subsets of that, you know, of that mission. And then goals are just mini mission statements in order to achieve them. In order to achieve the mission, you need to accomplish certain goals. So you might have health, you know, a health mission statement. You want to be, you know, have energy. Usually I'll include energy as part of my one, I have super, super amounts of energy for my mission in terms of health. Within that, then you have particular goals. In order to have that, you'll have some goals, such as your nutrition, you'll have exercise goals, you'll, you'll have sleep goals.

And it is a holistic approach. Life and work, though they may seem like separate entities, there is only one life and work is in it. And your work should feel fulfilling the same way that your whole life feels fulfilling. And they're not separate entities that way. So trying to as much as you can, when you're picking your area and categories, considering the entire life as a whole, making sure that you're not forgetting any of the aspects of your life that you really want to focus on. So now we're on prioritization. Now we have a good idea of a mountain, maybe multiple mountains, depending on what area category combinations we've chosen. And nobody can climb up all the mountains at the same time unless Maybe you are a superhero or a bit delusional, and I'm probably a bit of both. And I promise you, you can't do it all at once. So you have to decide where are you going to spend your time. All leaders know that it's not about doing everything. It's about doing the right things. And how do you know? How do you know what to focus on? What activities are going to lead to the highest return on your time? What are going to move the needle the most? To make sure you're achieving the goals that you're setting out to do. And this happens by really understanding of the goals that you're planning on, setting of the area and category combinations, which one has the most momentum and bringing you closer to what you're trying to achieve. This is where it comes into play of who do you want to become? What is it that you're actually trying to achieve? Goal aside, what are the feelings? What are the emotions? Who is the person that you're trying to aspire to be? These come into a little bit of the mission statement process, which we skipped over here. But again, you can use your results code coaching call to get a little bit more specific and clear on those parts. When I was climbing up the mountain with my teacher, there are a million obstacles, there's wild animals, it's below zero, it's dark sometimes. What are we going to eat? There's all of these things. You can't focus on everything at the same time. You have to say, what is the best thing to focus on right now. So the process of comparing your list is going to look at what's the number one combination you have, Compare it to the second one, which one's more important? You choose 1 or 2? You pick 2. Is 2 more important than 3? Is 2 more important than 4? And you kind of keep comparing along the list until you've decided what the number one priority is. You're going to move that to the top and then you're going to start again to choose the second. You'll see that there's a little lockbox on the side. I'll bring the app up in a second. But I just wanted to remind you that it's not really about doing everything at once. It's about making sure you're spending time, resource energy, creative energy, mental energy, all of it. Are you focusing on the right thing? And a key thing to look about this is keystone goals. Like I said, which goals are going to be a catalyst to leading you to achieving other goals. There's A rule called the Pareto principle, which is that 80% of your effort or 20% of your efforts come from 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts. Can I speak? I can speak. 20% of your efforts result in 80% of your success. And so the key is understanding what is that 20%. I know Rich often talks a little bit about a story about Warren Buffett, who had a conversation with a pilot and he said, write down your top 25 goals on a piece of paper. And he goes, now circle the top five. You've got five goals here. Now everything below those five goals are distraction. And go even further. Everything below the number one priority is a distraction. And here's the lesson here. Distractions aren't always things that you shouldn't be doing. Distractions are sometimes things that you really want to be doing. Sometimes they're great things. The key here is to be courageous enough to say no to good opportunities, to say yes to even greater opportunities. And it takes a really keen eye. Coaching can help with this. You have to understand what is it that I'm really aspiring to do? And is this specific thing leading me closer to it, or is it taking up my time? Am I busy for the sake of being busy, or am I busy because I'm actually, like, climbing halfway up that hill that I'm trying to get to? And only you're going to know this. You have to really be asking yourself the right question of what is that 20% effort? What is that thing that if I didn't accomplish anything else and I only accomplished this one thing, would I feel fulfilled? Would I feel excited? Would I feel like this is a worthy use of my time? And we'll get more into it, into a later stage. But not everything that you do has to be done by you. Delegation is a really big thing. We'll talk about that in step six, when we're thinking about our actions. But think about the things that really need to be you. What do you really need to be spending your time on? And making sure that the energy is right there. And it's a skill. We're not born with this ability. We have to put it into practice. We have to practice the ability to spend our time wisely. It's like a budget. We have a certain amount of time. What is it? 160 hours a week? 160 hours a week. How are you going to spend it? You got to spend some of those sleeping, some of those eating, some of those with your family, with your loved ones, all of that. The things that are dedicated to work, to accomplishing your goals, how are you going to spend that time without having buyer's remorse? Think about those things.

This is it in terms of time management. People are so focused, you know, oh, time management. Time. Time is by far our most precious resource. It is my favorite book that we've written. It's our most precious resource. Once it's gone, can't get it back. So like Christina said, you have 168 hours in the week. Where are you going to spend them? Theoretically, 56 are gone from sleep. If you get eight hours of sleep, which is rare or for people, but they're gone. You've got to get your highest return on time. So this formula below, what's the impact of your time roti return on time invested? What's the impact you're going to get on the time? You know now what your top goals are if you do this. We've got the goals, now we gotta prioritize them. Where are we gonna spend our time?

I also encourage you to thinking about a stop doing list. The things that you're doing that are actually just wasting your time, your valuable resources of energy, attention, focus, all of those things that could actually be given to somebody else or just eliminated off of your to do list that can maybe help you. Just because you've done it before doesn't mean you have to keep doing it. This is a time to make a change. I didn't mention it before, but this is a very auspicious day to be setting goals. It's when the sun exits the southern hemisphere and enters the northern hemisphere. It is a transition in the world, which means it's a transition for us. And it's a perfect time to start doing things that you've always wanted to do that you weren't doing before. So keep that in mind when you're prioritizing. Pick the thing that really is in your best interest, not because you've done it before, for however many years before this. Pick what's going to be in your best interest going forward. Yeah, hopefully you have at least your 1 and 2 goals prioritized in terms of priority order. You'll always have an option to be able to change the priority order as we move through the steps, which is on the left side of the screen. You can see you can drag and drop the different way area category combinations that you have, which will allow you to change the order if you feel like you have to. At any time, we're going to be talking about the Goal setting portion. Right now, without goals, you're kind of just wandering around hoping that you accidentally stumble onto success. Wouldn't that be nice if success just washed over us as we were laying down and watching Netflix? It doesn't happen like that. You have to put in some effort. You have to know where you're headed if you're going on a long trek. Even like when I was walking up the mountain, if I didn't know even small manageable goals that I was achieving, it would have been completely overwhelming and I would have given up a thousand times. So we have to have checkpoints. We have to know exactly what we're looking to achieve. And within that we're going to be sending actions. Everything's going to be broken into smaller steps. So even the biggest mission is achievable step by step, one foot in front of the other. So even when things feel impossible, you just know that you have to reach this one thing and you'll be okay. And that's what clear goals do. They break down overwhelming missions into manageable steps. And we do that by setting smart goals. Smart goal. You probably heard of we've got smarter goals written here. But just to keep it simple, smart goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. So when we're writing a goal statement, and you'll see in the app there is a section to put in the measurement, we're not going to use that step now because it can be a little bit cumbersome to work with. We're just going to make sure that the goal statement includes all of these things. Now, one of the pitfalls of goal setting is making it too vague. For instance, if I said I'm going to be healthier in 2025, what does that even mean? What does healthier mean that could be different to every single one of you? You can't just write a goal of I want to be healthier. It has to be exactly what you're achieving. Do I want to be able to run a marathon? Do I want to be able to lift a certain weight? Do I want to be a certain weight? Do I want to be eating healthier? What does that goal specifically look like? And don't fall into another category. What happens is when we're setting a goal of, for instance, I want to grow my business by 50% revenue. Well, that sounds great. Sounds specific. Sounds all of those things, but it's not really achievable. You have to make sure it's on that verge of being challenging. Exciting. Is it Helping me step into that person I want to be. Am I out of my comfort zone? Am I trying something new and is it actually possible? Because one thing about goals are they should be challenging. But if you can never achieve it, it's so discouraging. If you're setting goals that are absolutely impossible, you're not going to be taking it seriously. You're like, that's never going to happen. I'll never be able to do it. And what are we doing? We're creating a mindset of negativity that's supporting this idea that it's not possible. So you have to be in this realm of making sure that you're setting something that is just hard enough that you're actually going to try, that you're going to work for it. Because if you're not working for it, you're not going to feel fulfilled. You have to work for it. You have to bring on all of those skills, the mindset, all of the energy that you have within you to achieve that goal and have to make sure that it's possible. So you want to make sure that you are being specific in exactly the roadmap to get there. And the measurement is going to help you understand what does success really look like. If you don't know how to measure it, you won't really know exactly what you're trying to achieve or if you've even gotten there. If the goal was, I want to be healthier, it's like, well, how do I know I've been healthier? What's the guidepost? When do I know that I've gotten there? Or do I just decide? No. If the goal has specifics about what weight I want to be, do I want to be able to deadlift one and a half times my weight? Okay, that's something I can work towards and I can know, and I can measure the progress and. And if my plan to achieve it is actually working. So it can be a really difficult process if you've never really set a smart goal before. But you have to think about each of these things. Specific is measurable. How do we know what success looks like? How will we know when we got there? Is it actually possible to get this within the time frame that I've allotted? And what resources do I need to make sure that it is possible? Do I need a team involved? Do I need to have additional support here? Do I need a new skill? What are the things that are needed to make sure that it is achievable and make sure that it inspires you. If you're not inspired by the goal at this stage, there is no hope for you. It's going to be a list on your fridge. It's never going to be addressed. So make sure it's something that you feel excited to get out of bed, read for.

It has to be written down. One of the beauties of you being at this workshop and putting in this hard work just to kind of motivate people, it's got to be written down. You don't write down your goals. Not happening. A lot of times you talk to people, where's your, oh, I've got goals. What do they do? Where are they? They point to their head. That's not happening. That goal is not happening. Not taking it seriously. You've got to keep them in front of you. One of the beautiful things that you're going to come up with at the end of this process, which I should have mentioned in the beginning, is a master plan. You're going to come up with a plan, a written plan at the end that's going to have all that you're documenting on one piece of paper, maybe front and back. If It's. If it's 10 goals, we had it. Have it set up so you can keep it in front of you. Keep it right in front of you. They've got to be written, reviewed periodically. If you don't review them periodically, it's not happening. It's also one of the beauties of coaching, by the way. They don't let you forget about your goals. Like, oh, shoot, I forgot about that. Goals like, hey, you said you're supposed to get sleep when you're setting goals. Have other people participate in them, get feedback from other people. Again with a coach accountability strategy. We're going to talk about that later. Got to have an accountability strategy to achieve goals. That's why we have. We have 10. I didn't like smarter goals, I like tens. So have an accountability strategy to achieve that goal and then have a purpose, which we're going to talk about as well. But remember, goals are just part of your mission. They're subset of your mission. They will help to guide you where you're going to spend your time, what actions you're going to take, what decisions you're going to make. They guide you in making any of these decisions. One of the biggest things in business especially is resource allocation. Number one, time. Time, but also money. Where do you want to spend your money? Right. Where do you want to spend your money? Where do you want to spend your Time. Where do you want to spend your valuable resources? Where do you want the people that are working for you spend their time? Right. Where are you going to spend those resources? And then they help to motivate you. They get you really excited. These are your dreams, right? These are your dreams. Your goals are your dreams.

Let's start with purpose. Purpose, which involves rewards and consequences, is arguably the most important step that you will work on today. Purpose is the most critical step of what you're working on today. Otherwise, all of your goals are just items on a list. If you do not think about the why, then you're never going to actually act upon any of this. Purpose is the thing that halfway through a tough climb keeps you going when quitting looks really good. How many times I've been in a zoom meeting again, thinking, I'd rather run away to some. I'd rather run away to the Bahamas than be on another zoom meeting. Purpose is what keeps me going. And when I was climbing up that mountain, and believe me, the obstacles were plenty. Snow, leopards, cobras, freezing cold, fire going out, sleeping outside. There was a spider this big above my head once, and I thought, why am I doing this? I'm doing this because I want to be a better version of myself. I want to be somebody who does the hard things. I want to be somebody who, even though they're afraid, keeps going. That's the purpose. Without that purpose, any of the actions feel very inviting to just say, forget it, I'm going to the bar. Forget it, I'm going to bed. And so this is why it's the most important step to me. You're invoking the reason behind why this is even deserving of an iota of your attention, of your energy, of your focus, of your time. So the purpose I invite you to spend the most amount of time thinking about not only why it's important that you actually achieve this, how are you going to feel like really envision it? Say, okay, I've achieved this thing? How do I feel? What does my life look like? How do my relationships change? How does my position in my company change? How do I sleep differently? Think about it all. Because if you don't really know what it feels like to achieve success and you don't actually feel, when you're visualizing it, the joy that comes from it, it's the wrong goal. It's the wrong goal if you don't actively feel how exciting it is to have achieved this and who you've become because you've achieved this. It's the wrong goal, it shouldn't be your priority one. And additionally, because as humans, as a survival mechanism that we are given by the great Creator, we are more motivated by avoiding pain. And so if we think about, what if I didn't do this? What if in a year from now I'm sitting at another goal setting seminar and I say, you know that thing that I set out to do last year, I haven't even made an ounce of progress on, I haven't done it, I haven't thought about it, I put it off to the side. How does that feel? If it doesn't feel agonizingly painful because of the shame, the guilt, the waste of time, if anything, the waste of time if you haven't become that person that you know you can be because you gave way to things that were distractions. And we all know distractions are very inviting at times. But how are you going to feel? You have to really envision this because the rewards and consequences consequences statement are only as strong as the emotions that they evoke. When we talked about the goal statement, we were saying the equality of real life is the quality of your emotions. This is the emotion stage. This is where we get to say, what does it actually feel like to fail at this? What does it actually feel like to succeed at this? And can I put that to words and articulate it in a way? So when I am climbing up that mountain, when I am trying to achieve that goal and some obstacle challenge which is inevitably going to come, and to be honest, thank God they do that, doubt those challenges, those obstacles, they're there for you. It may feel like, why God hates me. Whatever it is that you believe in, you're thinking, this is the worst possible scenario. It's not. Those things that are in the way are a gift to you, and they are a gift that leads to your fulfillment. Because if I told you to write your name on a piece of paper, you would do it and forget about it and never think about it again. Why? Because you know you can do it. You know you can do it. If I said write your name in a different language like Tamil, and you don't know the Tamil script, and you think, oh my, well, wait, I can't do that. You have to put in the steps. What's the plan? How am I going to learn the script? How am I going to learn how to write the letters? How am I going to learn how to use my body to make sure that I know the shapes, Whatever it is, there's a certain effort involved and you overcome that. I can't do this. It's impossible into oh, wait a second. With the right focus, with the right mindset, I can and I did, and it's done. And that's more of a memorable moment in your life because you worked past that adversity of I can't, it's impossible into oh, actually, I can do anything with the right framework of mindset, of effort, of time, of energy. So the rewards and consequences statement, again, the most important part of this journey, and you're going to do it for every single goal. You're going to think of every single goal. A visualizing exercise of what happens if I achieve this, what happens if I don't. And make sure that that is a mantra I can say when things get tough. And for me, when I was walking up that mountain, like I said, there's multiple times where I was the obstacle. I'm so tired. I'm so cold. I just want to collapse. I want to fall down. And the thing is, if I did that, I'd probably still be somewhere lost in the forest up on some side of the mountain. But because I knew this isn't about getting to the top. This is about becoming the person that I know I can be. And this is the vehicle that I'm using to get there. I was able to overcome every challenge, even myself. I was able to overcome myself, the most limiting belief of all of the things to get to where I wanted to get. So I can't stress it enough, really pay attention to this. I know AI is a tool for you. Don't let AI be the voice. Use it as a tool and make sure that it resonates with you. Because if it's just words, they're just words. They have to be feeling. You have to feel it.

That's what we call it. We say rewards and consequences here, but that's. That's more the business version of it. In terms of. To Christina's point, you have to feel it. It's pain, right? And pleasure. That's what we're talking about here. The consequences are pain. You have to feel the pain, right? The rewards are the pleasure. We're programmed. This is our survival instincts. Pain and the pleasure. That's how you really have to feel. You got to think about this pain where this really. Where you can really identify with this is when you're getting up early in the morning to do something. I don't want to get. Ah, right. We used to, you know, in our seminars, we would have a picture of the gym Part gym, parking lot in February, empty, pretty full in January, people setting their goals. But towards the end of February, everybody's like, ah, no big deal. Then again, in early, maybe it's packed full. Why is it packed full in early May? At least on the. In the eastern world, right. You got to get to the beach more inviting. Yeah, right. You got to get to the beach. Right? You got to people do you look like and see if you've been getting up early and working out.

I can't hide behind my cashmere sweater anymore. I got to show it all.

You're right. You're out there. So rosicos. So, so crazy now. I don't think this one takes a lot of time. I agree with Christine. It's the most important one. The plans will take the most time for us to come up with the plans. Achie them. But this one, it'll. It'll give you to give it. AI should give you some great ones. This is one where you can just click on AI tell me some rewards and consequences present. It should give you some great ones. But yeah, take a look at it. Make sure that you're identifying whether you feel real pain. For those of you who attended Tony Robbins seminars, I take the team there every year. This is what he calls the Dickens approach. The biggest part of his and the most fun part is where you really identify with the purpose. You have a goal. Why?

Mindset's a really big part of it, too. If there's a goal, for instance, to like, lose weight, sometimes that feels so much in that chore mindset. But if you really want to be healthy, if you're like, I'm a healthy person, I make healthy choices. When you're looking at the menu, it's no longer about dieting. It's about choosing things that really align with that person that you are. So there's a lot of mindset involved in this step. So think about, again, that person that you're trying to become and the things that are applicable to that within the rewards and consequences of not becoming that person. Now we get to work on the action plan. We have got a little bit of clarity on what it is that we want, and now we have to find out how to get it. So this is kind of a cool part of the process. We're going to write a lot of different actions. It's more of a brainstorming process. Quantity over quality at first because we want to think of every action that's going to help us move closer to this goal that we've set in mind an action plan is a little bit like packing for a climb. You can overpack and be weighed down or underpack and be under prepared. And so there's a sweet spot of knowing exactly what needs to be to be done to make sure you have everything that you need to get where you want to go. And the beauty of this app actually is that it's going to allow you to see both a plan progress and a goal progress. And if you see that you're actually achieving the plan to close to 100%, but you're not achieving your goal means that the plan's probably not right. And that's the beauty of life in general, is that it can always be redefined, being looked at again and redeveloped to make sure that the things that we're working on, where we're spending our time, are actually leading us closer to where we want to get to. So even on this trip that I took up the mountain, of course there were things that we let go along the way. Hey, we haven't used this in a few days. We probably don't need it. We thought that we would need this thing, but we don't need it anymore. And that's what an action plan is. It's not set in stone. You don't write all of your actions down now and forget about it. You start to complete the actions as you see whether or not they're leading you towards the goal or not. You start to change things, drop things, delegate things. What is actually going to work to make sure that this goal is achievable. And you learn really quick about what's going to weigh you down on a trip, because something that even weighs a gram feels like £1,000 after you've been carrying it 12 hours up a mountain. And not only did I have to carry my own bag, I was carrying my teacher's bag as some sort of lesson or laziness on his part. Either way, I was very particular about what we were bringing with us. So think of your action plan sort of as a bridge of this is where I am, this is where I want to go. The actions are the rungs on the ladder or the pieces of the bridge that are leading you there. And they're small steps. I think the beauty of designing actions for these goals is understanding that one, we're not after perfection, we're after momentum. Nobody's perfect. Perfect doesn't exist. That's the lowest standard for everything. It allows you to not try. But if you're moving, even if those actions are not as great or effective or efficient as. As they could be. You're not going to know until you start moving. Efficiency comes after knowing that the steps are actually needed to be there. So when we're writing down each of the actions for all of these goals that you've set, think about anything that is possibly going to contribute to the success. There's going to be a ripple effect, some goal. Some of the actions are going to be necessary for other actions to take place. You'll worry about that sort of in the prioritization space, but you're going to think about anything. If it was a meditation practice, you might think, I need a meditation cushion. I need an alarm. It could be this small. Anything. Anything that's going to contribute to the ability to make sure that this. This goal is achievable. You want to write down. It is like a project plan, just.

Kind of like brainstorming the. And we. We do a whole seminar on just plans. Plans are, you know, in and out of. So this is kind of a baby plan. But the first part of a project plan is just brainstorming, throwing everything out there, right? Don't. Don't worry about the priority order. Like Christina said, throw everything out there. Then we will. The next step will be to prioritize that.

So we're going to work on the timeline. This is the schedule portion. We're going to talk a little bit about deadlines, a little bit about start lines, and a little bit about procrastination, which all of us probably know a little too well. If it's not on your calendar, it's just a wish. And wishes don't climb mountains. They just don't. Scheduled action items do. So if it's not scheduled, it isn't real. I think this really sums it up for us. I know when I was climbing up the mountain, schedules were necessary. Otherwise we'd be hiking in the dark. We wouldn't know where we were going to be sleeping. Who's supposed to stay up, who's supposed to watch for wild animals, who's supposed to keep the fire going? Everybody needs to know what they're doing and when they're doing it. And if it's not on their calendar, it's not real. And I stressed this to my father, actually, on Christmas. He asked me what I wanted, and I said I wanted a weekly call from him. And he said, okay. And I said, it's not okay until I see that Zoom invite from you. I want to see you send it to me so I know that you Take it as seriously as I'm taking it it. So it has to be on your calendar. And that's what this step is all about. So when we start a deadline, which you'll see in the step, the deadline comes first. Why we need to know where we're headed before we know where we have to begin. Seems a little bit strange. We have to know how much time do we need to get to that point. And we're going to choose a start line based on that. And there is a sweet spot. I know Rich talks about it a lot, this mindful procrastination. There's something around that if we leave too much space, it'll take that long. We use as much time as we have for something, and sometimes if we give ourselves too much time, it is very inviting not to start, just to, like, go out with friends, sleep in a little late, do all of those things that are in the way because it's not so urgent. It doesn't require our full focus, our full attention, our full energy. So there is a sweet spot of when that deadline is and when that start line is, can we get it into the right area where we're incredibly focused to make sure that it happens? So again, if it's not scheduled, it isn't real. So this isn't just putting something into the app, which we're going to do shortly. We're going to set deadlines and start lines for the goal level and for the actions itself. The actions will have to be completed within the goal level, top time frame that you've set. You'll see that you're not going to be able to set times outside of that range. So you're going to be setting all of those kinds of things, and you're going to want to make sure that you're not starting everything at the same time, because we can't be doing that and you don't want to finish everything at the same time. We're not superheroes. You have to actually make it achievable, just like we did in the smart goals. Is it actually achievable? Challenging enough, but possible. And we're gonna wanna make sure it's in that sweet spot to make sure that we're actually making progress on these things. Because focus is a really good resource as much as time when we're trying to achieve something. And focus is only really brought on when it's a necessity. And these deadlines create the necessity. And even more so, a deadline without a consequence is really not a deadline at all. If I Say, oh yeah, I'm going to do that next week. And next week comes, I'll just do it the next week. I'll just keep extending the deadline. I can do that to infinity. It's not doing anybody any favors. When we're working with deadlines within work where other people are involved, we're a little bit more serious about them. If Rich gives me a deadline and I don't meet that deadline, I'm going to face some consequences.

We start with the deadline and, and then, and then go to the start lines. You have to know when you're going to need to finish them to, to know when to start. This is when we want to get it done by so then you can decide when you're going to start. That is the procrastination buster. If you have it in your schedule, you're going to start. Invite other people there, make sure you start. It's the hardest thing, right when you work out, you want to get on the treadmill, start running whatever it is, the hardest thing is to start. Why don't you start? It's like, oh, it's not so bad. Listen to music, not so bad. The hardest thing to start, get the start line in there and like Christina said, have some consequences, right? Invite somebody to go running with you, there's consequences. You don't do it, you don't start. Hey, I'm gonna go run. Like, you know I'm gonna go to yoga at 5:45am like, oh, I would.

Say accountability is like that friend that texts you like, are we meeting at the gym in 10 minutes? You're like, I was just about to bail and now I feel like, yeah, consequent, annoying, but necessary. Yeah. Accountability strategies. If purpose isn't the most important step, accountability is definitely a close second, if not the first. And why? Because accountability means execution. And anybody who's ever created a plan, run a business or done anything in life knows that accountability, that execution is at the heart of anything worthwhile. A really good idea, a really good business idea with terrible execution is going nowhere. And even crappy or shitty idea business wise with an amazing execution could make it to something. Execution is everything and accountability is a way to get there. For me, that was my coach. I don't necessarily climb mountains anymore. That was a one time thing. I think I'm done with that. But I do climb, climb mountains in a different sense now. Whether that is in my career, in my personal life, mentally on my own mountain, a lot of the times overcoming it. And my coach is a really Good source for that. Not only understanding where I think I want to go, but helping me go beyond that and helping me refine the plan as I go. So accountability is really important. If you don't have an accountability strategy, these ideas will go forgotten and we'll be talking about it next year. And that purpose statement you wrote about consequences is going to be a reality for you. So take this part seriously. We're going to put an accountability strategy for both the goal level and the action level. And making sure that there's something in place, whether you're telling somebody, a public declaration, maybe you post something on social media, maybe you just tell a friend, maybe you're working with a coach. You have to have something in place which is also kind of like the consequence of not achieving your goal. And again, it's not about perfection. A coach, for instance, is going to tell you, okay, we didn't get it this time, but there's another way. There's always another way. We don't give up. If you run out of bullets, you grab a knife. I know it's a weird strategy, but you do. There's always something else. You don't have a knife.

You.

You use your fist. There's a way. And accountability strategy, coaching specifically helps you find that, harness it and own it. This is an example of a master plan for an analyst.

No real celebrating to execute.

The real celebration is when you execute 100%. Nothing feels good unless you actually work.

For it and have worked for the right things. As you pointed out it out, Christina, getting to the top of the wrong mountain sucks. Now you've got these plans. We've got through these first two parts of clarity, strategy and accountability. I call it csa. That's what I view coaching as, csa. Get really clear on what your goals are and prioritize them. What are your most important goals? Then the strategy. What's your plan to achieving the goal? You have some semblance of a plan here. And then the hard part, hardest part is the accountability. This is why I love my coaches. They will not let me get away with not achieving a goal that I really want to achieve. Right? They'll hold me accountable, figure out a way to hold me accountable. Now one of the things that, you know, we talk about in print, procrastination is really two types of procrastination now. People procrastinate on things. What's the big deal, right? Something with a deadline, you get it done. Some goals with a deadline, you get done most of the time. Let's say taxes, April 15, you're going to get it done. You have a term paper that's due, you'll get it done. Might not be the best. We're going to get it done. They're real deadlines now. They're real deadlines that Christina said there has to be consequences. Things without consequences are not real deadlines. So what's the big deal? If you procrastinate, you get it done, but it might not be the best. Now, goals that don't have a hard and fast deadline, like going to the gym, spending time with a loved one, maybe writing a book, you've always wanted your bucket list. These goals, right, their lack of a hard and fast deadline with consequences, they can be deadly. Literally can be deadly. Goals without apparent deadlines are the ones that don't. You don't take seriously enough. Even though they may in fact be the most important goals of all, they usually won't get done without some type of external force. By the way, there is a deadline, right? That's why I say apparent deadline. There usually is some type of actual deadline. Just don't know when it'll be. But when it comes, it can be very, very painful. And then it's oftentimes usually too late. Too late. For those of you guys in the in the alternative investment industry, the mock SEC exam, you had a goal, right? To plan for the mock exam, right? And then the SEC shows up at your door. The dream career you never transitioned to, and then it's too late. Started. The giant perfect client you intended to approach, but you never did. And then somebody stole them. The child or the parent or the siblings might have had an argument with and never made up with them, right? Then it's too late. Something happens too late. Maybe the exercise regime you never started or the health coach you never hired, he's going to take care of your health. You end up in the icu, or worse, doctor comes and tells you, hey, you got the big C. Hey, you had a heart attack, doesn't look good for you. You got three months left. There's usually tremendous amount of internal pain or even depression that people have to deal with because this insidious form of procrastination, the procrastination on goals that don't have real deadlines. You know, it's not even that people don't realize their dreams. They never even start on their dreams. They don't even start. When I first heard about this concept, I remember the exact moment. It hit me like a ton of bricks. And I knew this was why I love my coaches so much because I can never quite put my fingers. Like, why do I love my coaches so much? They wouldn't let me get away with not focusing on those crucially important things in my life that didn't have deadlines. They kept me on track for achieving the goals without deadlines. It's precisely why I went into this business, quite frankly. I love coaching. It's made such a difference to me. I wanted to give back. This is my time in my life where I'm giving back.