How to make GOALS

[IJB063]

“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” - Pablo Picasso

"A goal without a plan is just a wish"

"A man without a plan is not a man" - Friedrich Nietzsche

 

So I'm going to make some posts on habits, goals, journaling etc... , from what I've been listening to and reading. I've been meaning to write on this topic for my notebook, so I'll put my thoughts on this forum to get some responses & and maybe its of help to some people. Links to the other post will be linked.

So with the corona virus I've been isolating myself for past two weeks, spent most of this time playing videogames, watching Netflix ... Basically doing stupid shit. My schedule is warped, because I'm not in the usually rhythm of my day. Its starting to feel like its fucking groundhogs day. For that reason I'm trying to break out of that rut, so the past few days I've been spending my time more productively, reading more, exercising, meditating etc... I've been meaning to make a methodology on how to get shit done, and with the corona virus I think that its the best time to. So I'm going to spend a chunk of today writing down some basic ideas and making posts to this forum, hopefully they're of some help, the main reason though is to just crystallise my thoughts and get some feedback.

Congrats on those who read the posts, I'll try to keep them brief

So two important questions to ask before you make your goals

 

1. Who do you want to be?

2. What do you want?

 

Pretty simple questions - the questions rely on your intuition

You have to answer those questions yourself

Here's a actualised.org video

[Considering its the actualised.org forum I'm gonna try to link a bunch of Leos vids that relate to what I'm writing about]

For the most part though we can pretty definitively say x person is a loser and y person is a winner. 

E.g. Bob who comes home from his shitty job and says "today sucked, time to order some pizza, drink a six pack and watch some tv for the next few hours".

Compared to Jack

Jack who comes home and says "I'm going to go straight to the gym, come back and make a healthy meal then catch up on reading and meditate for the next few hours"

I think most people would say Bob has a loser mentality and Jack has a winners mentality.

Now it is relative, Bob could be a perfectly content person, and Jack could be miserable.

But we can make generalisations on positive habits that make you feel better.

For example its better to be physically fit and have a good BMI, rather than be obese. Why? because your more likely to feel better in your body if you're fit than fat (as well as numerous other benefits).

So although you don't have to perfectly define, who you want to be and what you want to do, although you should, its somewhat intuitive to know what is good behaviour and bad behaviour.

You know this after a shitty day of eating junk food and binging Netflix all day that there was a better use of your time.

With that said, and your knowledge of good and bad behaviour , you have to now set goals.

Now people willing don't set goals, as they serve as a poor reflection onto themselves. When they fall short. For example if I make a clear goal such as

 

Lose X amount of weight by following y diet plan in z amount of days

 

When I fall short of that goal it negatively effects their self image. So people avoid making goals

 

Here's is a link to a transcript by Leo on How to set goals

The video is linked below

https://www.actualized.org/articles/goal-setting

Here is a quote from the video

"The first thing I’ve got to tell you, and this is a very important realization for you to have, is that right now, you probably don’t have any goals at all. This is the number one reason why people are not getting much more success in life, simply because they do not have goals."

Leo goes onto explain how people deceive themselves into believing they have goals, but them fall into the same ego defence mechanism trap mentioned before of obfuscation, so that they don't hurt their feelings, when they fall short of their "goal".

"A goal without a plan is just a wish"

The video states five points on how to make a goal - your goal has to be

 

Specific and clear

Big and compelling

Written down

Reviewed daily

Aligned with your values

 

Now back to the example I gave before

 

"Lose X amount of weight by following y diet plan in z amount of days"

 

This can meet all five of the criteria above

Here are some other examples of goals

 

Meditate for x number of minutes each day

Find work and make X amount of money per month by working X number of hours per week

Lean x song in y amount of days

Write 1000 words on your book per day

Find a girlfriend by approaching x number of women per week

Etc...

 

Now if a goal is linked with your values, it ties into who you want to be and what you want.

If a goal is big and compelling it will invoke these feelings in you

Excitement about achieving something you truly care about

Hope for a reduction of some form of chronic pain or suffering

Just a little bit of fear & worry over about whether you can pull it off

Now in a separate video [linked beneath] Leo talks about SMART objectives

 

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Time Based

 

SMART goals are used by companies to evaluate whether a goal is viable to be a goal. Its a simple acronym that can also be applied to self development goals e.g. 

 

"Lose X amount of weight by following y diet plan in z amount of days"

 

Specific - Check

Measurable - Check

Achievable - Depends upon the amounts

Relevant - Depends upon your values

Time Based - Depends upon the days

 

If you adjust your goal based upon those 5 factors then your goal is smart.

Whether a goal is achievable - you should have taken into stock of yourself and defined clearly your own

Strengths and Weaknesses

Now after you've defined your goals

Based upon your values - Who you want to be and who you are

Made sure they are specific and clear

Big and compelling enough to be worth pursing and to invoke emotions

Written down and reviewed daily to check progress and to keep it in the minds eye

And have made sure its aligned with your values

Meets the SMART goal 5 factors

Its now time to make a plan to achieve these goals

Which ties into the theme of these posts

To achieve your vision/dream - you must define your goals - to achieve your goals you must change your habits - to change your habits you must know yourself  - These require solitude

This post is how to define your goals - So basically this is step 1

Here are the video links

If you have any different way to make your goals leave it beneath

If you want to share an example of any goal you're hoping to achieve leave it beneath

Thanks for reading

Edited March 29, 2020 by IJB063
Add links

[Artiekee]

Thanks for sharing!

[IJB063]

@Artiekee Hope its of use

[Pilgrimage of Self]

Thanks I think these are really helpful!

[IJB063]

@Pilgrimage of Self Great

Glad you find it useful

[flowboy]

This is great. I commend you for forcefully pivoting into a better path.

Also a good overview you made.

My 2 cents: in my experience the really awesome, out-of-this-world vision of who you want to be, it becomes really crucial. Because starting to improve your habits, you'll have ego backlash many many times and will have to drag yourself back on to the right path again and again. Only way to be motivated to do that is if you have your long term vision.

[IJB063]

@flowboy

What’s your vision for who you want to be? I don’t really have one, if you choose to be one person you stop your self from being another, the best advice that I can give is just to avoid being who you don’t want to be and then all you can hope for is the best 

I get the point you made about ego backlash, that’s why I made the post on self image, all changes stem from a change in how you view yourself, that’s really where motivation comes from

[flowboy]

5 hours ago, IJB063 said:

the best advice that I can give is just to avoid being who you don’t want to be and then all you can hope for is the best 

You do realise how this is in total contradiction with all the stuff you summarized above, right?

5 hours ago, IJB063 said:

if you choose to be one person you stop your self from being another

I used to think that way. In fact, I remember making that argument to my parents when explaining how hard it was to choose what to study.

I could not choose, because I did not want to let go of the many different dreams I had.

That's ten years ago. It took me 10 years to realise and accept that that doesn't work at all.

[flowboy]

On 29-3-2020 at 4:57 PM, IJB063 said:

If you want to share an example of any goal you're hoping to achieve leave it beneath

I want to have 20 million in the bank and retire before 35.

That's my goal.

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by flowboy

[IJB063]

On 25/04/2020 at 7:36 AM, flowboy said:

You do realise how this is in total contradiction with all the stuff you summarized above, right?

I used to think that way. In fact, I remember making that argument to my parents when explaining how hard it was to choose what to study.

I could not choose, because I did not want to let go of the many different dreams I had.

That's ten years ago. It took me 10 years to realise and accept that that doesn't work at all.

Sorry for the late reply, this is the first time Ive seen this and I thought as I was going back through the thread that I should respond to it

No I don’t think it’s a contradiction, back in late April I was reading a book called Mastery by Robert Greene, listening to his appearance on JRE (I saved a time stamp to my OneNote on this exact topic linked here around the 1 hour and 20 minute mark) linked here

If you listen to where I timestamped for five odd minutes you’ll see what Robert talks about is how he found out what he loves doing (which is writing) is through a process of deduction. By figuring out the things he didn’t enjoy doing and the person he didn’t want to be and adjusting. You can have a vague picture of what you want and who you want to be, but you lack any certainty without life experience, and the best teacher is pain (I believe) to tell you what you want. Not just blindly following what you’re told is success, it seems to me that’s something unique to people as individuals. I get the point you make about all the different dreams you have, but how can you know what you want with out pursuing each different path and finding that out for yourself.

[flowboy]

@IJB063 Thank you for posting this great interview. It's actually very nice to hear from mr Greene that there are benefits to not having it figured out at 25, haha

I fully agree with his telling of how he had to try many things and course-correct, to find the right thing.

If that is what you meant from the start, I apologise because then we actually agree.

My point was that you can't do that process on paper, from your couch. You have to start somewhere. And for that you need to choose an initial direction, thereby choosing to not take all the other directions (for now). Can't steer a parked car

[Espaim]

After reading this I noticed I'm lacking the goal-setting skillz. I used to be so productive but something happened in the way and I went totally lazy. Now I think that maybe I lost my ability to set meaningful goals.

I watched so many of Leo's videos but some of the basics went over my head.

Thanks!

 

[IJB063]

@flowboy

4 hours ago, flowboy said:

My point was that you can't do that process on paper, from your couch. You have to start somewhere. And for that you need to choose an initial direction, thereby choosing to not take all the other directions (for now). Can't steer a parked car

Exactamundo dudearino

Amen

Godspeed in making that ? 

[IJB063]

@Espaim No problem buddy, hope it’s of help

[Godhead]

Thanks! Loved it. Also love your profile pic @IJB063 ahaha.

[IJB063]

@Godhead Cheers buddy