How to Set Your Goals

But one of the things that I've found is that if you're setting your goals and you've never really set many goals before, maybe you just written them down, or maybe you've just come up with New Year's resolutions, is you really have to have a strategy to create your goals, to identify your goals, to plan your goals, and to actually make sure that you achieve your goals. Because all too often we set goals, but we have no strategy behind them, and they're more like a wish if we don't have a strategy. And so to increase the likelihood of achieving our goals, we're. We need to make sure that they're clearly defined. We need to make sure that they're measurable, that they're actionable. And that's what I'm going to teach you with a method that's called the smart method. It's actually one of the simplest forms to putting your goals down, figuring out what they're going to be, making sure you put a deadline on it, and actually making sure that you achieve it. And when you use this method correctly, it can really transform vague ambitions and things that are like, hey, it'd be nice to lose 10 pounds, or it'd be nice to make $100,000 this year. It takes them from being vague ambitions into really clear plans of action. So let's div. The acronym that we're going to be working off of is smart S M A R T. So when you're sitting down, you're going, okay, I want to plan my goals for the next six months. I want to plan my goals for the month, for the week, for the year, whatever it is. The first part is the S, which is to make sure that they are specific. And a specific goal addresses the what. Like, what is your going to goal going to be? Why is it your goal? How are you going to hit your goal? It isn't enough just to say, I want to be fit. Instead, you want to be really precise. And if you've listened to me talk about goals before, in previous podcast episodes, I always talk about get clear on your goals and then get more clear on your goals, and then get more clear on your goals. The clearer that you can be, the better. It's like, if you're going to try to shoot at something that's 100 yards away, you could try to shoot at it with a gun and just shoot. Or if you have a sniper rifle and you actually have a scope that you're looking through, it makes it a lot easier to hit that goal. Because you have a really clear target of exactly what it is that you're trying to hit. One of my first mentors used to always say this when I was younger. He used to always talk about when you're setting goals and why. The reason why you want to get clear is the example of if. If you went to go shoot a bow and arrow, right, and there's you, and you're competing against the number one archer in the world, they're going to beat you every single time. But if you blindfold that archer and then spin them around, you have a better chance of hitting the target for only one reason. Simply because you can see the target and. And the archer cannot. And so when you're thinking about your goals, think like, how clear can I get on my goals? And so really what you want to do is you want to start to ask yourself detailed questions when you're starting to write out your goals. And so, like, what is my goal? Who is involved in my goal? What is it specifically that I want to achieve? Why do I want to achieve that thing? How can I make it easier on myself? How can I remove roadblocks? How can I remove distractions? What do I need to stop doing in order to achieve this goal? What do I need to start doing in order to achieve this goal? Where will this goal happen? Where will I make sure that I achieve it? Why do I want to achieve it? How will I achieve it? Who can help me accomplish this goal? And you sit down, you actually ask yourself questions around the goal. So you write down what the goal is. So if it's like, I want to lose 10 pounds, okay, cool, you've got it. But now you've got to start to get a lot more clear by sitting down and asking yourself those types of questions. You can ask yourself the questions that I just asked, or you can come up with your own set of questions to help you get more clear. Another thing that helps you get really clear and specific on it is to visualize the outcome. Imagine in as many details as possible. When humans sit down and actually try to visualize their goals, they are more likely to hit their goals, and they're more likely to get there quicker than someone who does not. You know, if it's a. If it's a fitness goal, if you want to lose 10 pounds, visualize yourself and in the beach and looking amazing in this bikini, because you've never really thought that you were confident in a bikini before. How do you see yourself? Could you imagine that body and what you would feel like when you look at yourself in the mirror and know that you put in the hard work and you accomplish it, you know, if you're running a marathon, can you imagine yourself waking up and running every single day and what it would look like to cross that finish line? People who actually visualize working out and the actual muscle, like if you're doing a bicep curl, if you visualize a bicep curl and you visualize the tensing of the bicep and the releasing of it, that actually just the visualization of sitting down, visualizing you working out on that bicep, makes you stronger. Now, it's obviously not going to make you huge, and it's not going to be something that you could just use as a substitute for working out, but it's just like. It's like adding gas to the fire. Another thing to help you get more clear, which obviously I've said, is to write down your goals. Like, write down all of your goals, take them out of your head, put them on paper. One of the reasons why we're so we're not really clear on our goals is because they're not on paper. And when they're on paper, they can be planned. There's been multiple studies around why writing your goals down is actually going to help you hit your goals. Dr. Gail Matthews, who's a psychology professor at the Dominican University In California, in 2007, she conducted a study with 267 participants. And the participants were divided into groups, and they found out that those who wrote down their goals and shared their weekly updates with their group and their friends were on average, 33% more successful in accomplishing what their goals were over the people who just decided to create goals and do nothing with them. And so they didn't write them down. So the ones. If you just look at that, you're 33% more likely to be successful in your goals if you just write them down. There's also another really famous study that many people have heard about before, and Mark McCormick writes about it in his book, what they Don't Teach you in Harvard Business School. And the famous study is this. In 1979, Harvard, of their graduating class of people who are in their MBA program, they went around and they asked all of them about their goals. And when they went through and they surveyed all of their graduates and the people who were graduating in 1979, they found out that 13% had goals, but only 3% actually wrote down their goals. Ten years later, in 1989, they followed up with all of Those people and the 3% who had written down their goals were earning on average, in money in their bank account 10 times more than the other 97% combined. So those 3%, that tiny little bit of people, were averaging 10 times more in income than the other 97% combined who did not write down their goals. So when you write down your goals, it forces you to get more clear on exactly what it is that you want. So if you want to get better at playing guitar, right, and you want to learn some songs, and you've got something coming up that you want to get better at, instead of saying, I want to get better at playing the guitar, you could have a really specific goal. Like, I want to learn three new songs that I can play within the next two months so that I can play them at my next show. I want to learn. Do you want to give it more clear? I want to learn Time by Pink Floyd. I want to learn Dazed and Confused by Led Zeppelin. I want to learn Hotel California by the Eagles to perform on my show at September 24th. And then you get really clear versus, like, you see the difference. I want to get better at guitar versus I want to learn time. Dazed and Confused, hotel California by September 24th in my next show. You're like, oh, okay. It makes it really easy to go, well, now I've got to start working on learning how to play time. And you start figuring out how to do that. So that's. The first part is be specific. Next part, which is the M, is to make sure they are measurable. A measurable is something that is quantifiable because numbers don't lie. And the characteristic enables you to. This. This characteristic really enables you to kind of track your progress and know when your goals are achieved and how you're. You're measuring up according to those goals. And so what you want to do is you want to break down your goals. If it's a big goal, split into smaller milestones so you can track your progress. So if you say, I want to lose. Lose 30 pounds by the end of the year, and there's exactly six months left, okay, 30 divided by six, that's five, five pounds per month, which means I need to average about 1.25 pounds lost per week. And then what you do is once you break it down and you have those numbers, you can start to track your progress and review it. And you can sit down every single week and say, well, how am I tracking to try to get those 30 pounds lost by the next six months? And what it does it keeps you accountable and really allows you to adjust something if you need to. So let's say that last week you didn't lose your 1.25 pounds. What adjustments do you need to make to make sure this next week that you not only get the 1.25 pounds, but you also account and make up for the pounds that you didn't lose last week? So you start to think about it, what adjustments, how can I change it? Or let's say you're ahead of track. Maybe you lost three pounds last week. Well, then you're like, damn, I lost three pounds. What did I do? Well, so I can make sure I do that again this next week because I'm ahead of pace. And you start to actually figure it out. So you can measure all of your goals. So that's number, or that's number two, which is M measurable. Three is a, which is achievable. So, you know, you want to make sure that obviously I want you to set big goals and I want you to think big and I want you to shoot for the moon, because even if you don't land on the moon, you'll end up on the stars or whatever the hell people say, right? So is your goal actually realistic? Is it achievable? I want you to think back, I want you to think big, but I also want to make sure it's achievable. Right? So if you want to, let's say you want to launch a brand new business today, then you say, well, I want to make a million dollars in the next three months. Sure, maybe, but that's probably like 99.99% of the time not achievable. And if you set this goal and you don't achieve it, that could actually be demotivating for you and in the long run can actually hurt you more than it will actually help you. And so really, can you figure out a way to make sure that you, you go, is this, is this something I could definitely do? Like, is this possible? This is possible. Is it probable? Okay, it is probable. Okay, perfect. And then what happens is you adjust as you need to sometimes, you know, you have a lot of life constraints and you might have children, you might have a job, and you might have things that you have to do and extracurricular activities. And so you might have to change your life around a little bit to make sure. Like you might say, okay, well, it might not necessarily according to where my life is right now, it might not be realistic to do X, Y, Z. But if I make adjustments, and maybe I have my husband take the kids to soccer practice, and I make sure that I outsource this thing and I don't have to this thing. And now I decide that, you know what? I'm not gonna go to hang out with my friends on Friday because I'm gonna work on myself or whatever it might be. You can start to shift your life around, because in order for your life to be different, you must be different. And when you're saying yes to something like achieving a goal, you are gonna have to say no to some things. If we go back to the example of losing 30 pounds, you must adjust your lifestyle. You're going to have to free up some time to be able to work out and to be able to go for runs. You might have to go to bed early, you might have to wake up earlier. And you adjust so that you can. You adjust your current life so that you can hit that goal. So it might not be realistic now, but can it become realistic? If you make some shifts and you might need to adjust what you're eating in order to lose weight, you might need to eat more in order to lose weight. Sometimes it's not about eating less. Sometimes it's just about eating right. I know people who, the way the metabolism works, they actually have to eat more in order to lose weight, but they're eating the right thing and they lose weight by doing that. So that is the third one, which is the A, and then we go into the R, which is relevant. What relevant means is, does this goal actually achieve with your larger life objectives? Does this. Does. Does it align with. If you achieve it, does it align with everything that you want in your life, with your objectives, with your values, with your ambitions? And this was really where it's important to ask yourself the question which I talked about in the first one, which is why. Why is this goal significant to you? My very first coach I had when I was 19 years old, he used to always say this, and I've said it over and over again on this podcast, but when your how. When your why is strong enough, like why you want to achieve that goal, your how will reveal itself. And so if your why is strong enough, you'll figure out a way to get it done. If you can't find a really compelling reason, it might not be the right goal for you. And so just make sure that it aligns with the life that you want. If you say, hey, listen, I want to make $500,000 this year, cool, that's great. And there's adjustments that you could make and you could do it and it might align with your life because you could say, okay, listen, if I make this $500,000, I could put X amount of dollars into investments, X amount of dollars into savings. We could pay off our house, we could put money into the children's college fund. That might align with you. Or you might look at it and say, $500,000. You know what? It's, it's, it might take some time away from my children and they're really young and I just don't want to take time away from my children right now. So maybe I'd like to spend more time. So would you be okay making 200 grand this year? 250 grand this year. And you really start to decide, does this align with my long term goals and my plans of what's going on and what I want my life to be? And so really, is it relevant or is it just something that's like, yeah, I want to make money, to make money, whatever it is, see if it actually aligns with the life that you're trying to create. And then what happens is when you're looking at this, you can start to prioritize these goals. Usually when you sit down and write down goals, you're probably going to write down multiple goals, right? If you have multiple goals, can you prioritize them and ask yourself, okay, based off of what's going on in my life and where I want to be in the next six months, what is the most important goal for me right now? If I were to put all of my, instead of putting, you know, 33% of my focus into this goal and 33% of my focus in this goal and 33% of my Focus in this goal, is there one goal that I could put 100% of my energy and effort towards? So therefore, you don't divert your focus to different goals, but you can actually just focus on just one goal and one goal only. And so is it relevant with your life? And then the last one, the T which is really important is time, boundaries. That means every goal should have a deadline. And the reason why is because if it has a deadline, it creates a sense of urgency and that allows for better planning when you have a deadline as well. And then once again, you can start tracking, you start writing them down, all of that. And it's like that phrase, a goal without a deadline is just simply a dream. And so can you actually sit down and decide how you're going to plan out your goals, what it's going to look like when you plan out these goals. And can you then go, I'm going to get it achieved by this date. Same way that I said, I'm going to learn three songs by September 24th. You've got to give yourself a deadline. Because you guys know right before you go on vacation, the day before you go on vacation, the week before you go on vacation, it's the most productive week that you have. Why? Because there's time constraints. If you have an exam tomorrow and you're not fully studied up for it, you'll throw everything else to the wayside, and then you'll just go directly into studying for that thing. And so what you want to do is put simply, put little tiny constraints on yourself to make sure that you're going after your goals. And you set really clear deadlines. Whether it's a day a month from now or a year from now, you want to be really, really clear on when you're going to achieve this goal. And the reason why is because this really helps you review and adjust your goals. The same way that I said, if I'm going to lose, you know, 60 pounds, I'm going to lose 30 pounds the next six months. Well, then at the halfway point, I can sit down and say, okay, that's been three months. Now I've got three months left. How am I tracking? Am I ahead of pace? Am I behind pace? And what do I need to adjust and change in my life to make sure that I achieve those? Because if you find yourself ahead of schedule, you can make sure that you do what you need to do. If you find yourself behind schedule, you can reevaluate your goals. You can reevaluate your timeline, or you can say, listen, I gotta put my pedal. I gotta put the pedal to my. I gotta put my foot down on this thing. I gotta make sure I put every ounce of energy I can into this. And so an example would be, instead of saying, like, I want to lose weight, we can go back to, you know, I want to lose 10 pounds in the next 10 weeks. Okay, awesome. And so what you're really trying to do with this is you're really trying to have an actual strategy. This is one of the best strategies. It's very simple. It's very smart, and it's very smart way of sitting down and planning out your goals. Because all too often, we come up to our New Year's resolutions, and it's January 1st, and we say, this year, I want to make $100,000, and then you just say it out loud or you say it in your own head and you say, that's my goal for the year. But you don't actually sit down and make it a smart goal. You don't actually sit down and say, you know what? Okay, what am I going to do with this? I want to make sure I'm very specific on what this goal is. I want to figure out a way that I can make sure that this goal is very measurable. I want to make sure that this goal is achievable for me. I want to make sure this goal is relevant to my life, and I want to make sure I have a time constraint so that I can make sure that I'm hitting this goal by this date. Ultimately, if you do this, it will make you much more likely to achieve your goals. The one thing I really want you to really understand from this is whether you use this strategy or another strategy. I just want you to have a strategy to hitting your goals. Because ultimately, if you just let another year go past and you go, oh, man, what was. Oh, it's New Year's again. What was my New Year's resolution last year? I think I wanted to make, like, $100,000 this year. But how'd that go? Well, I only made $40,000 this year. Well, okay, I'll try again next year. No, it's. How can we actually take our goals and try to make a plan with it? If you are working for a company and that company was saying, hey, we want to do X amount of dollars in revenue, you're on the sales team. You're going to figure out a way to hit your goals and to train and to actually train yourself to be better. But track your goals, plan your goals, put everything together to make sure that you're doing it right. And that's really what it comes down to is can you do the exact same thing in your life as if your boss said, okay, you want to lose 30 pounds. Okay, you're wanting 30 pounds in six months. Okay, you have to get it done. If your boss said that, you'd probably much more motivated to get it done because someone else is putting pressure on you. And so can you make your goals smart? Have some sort of strategy, this strategy or another one? Make sure you get it done. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. YouTube thinks that you should watch this video next based off of your preferences. And if you want to make sure that you don't miss any more videos, hit that button right there to subscribe.