Chapter 2: The Formula: How to Structure Goals and Make Your Plan

Now you know the basis of what makes a great goal, it’s time to actually start building these kinds of goals for yourself. In this chapter, we’ll lay out some simple instructions that you can follow to begin putting these ideas into practice.

Later we’ll be applying this same formula to different areas of your life, so that you can start going after a better body, better salary and better love life. But in each instance, we’ll be reapplying this same strategy.

Step 1: Visualization

The first and most important step is to visualize what you want and to really understand what you want. We already discussed this a little in respect to becoming richer. Often you’ll find it’s not really the money that you want but rather what that money represents in terms of your lifestyle or your status.

The same goes for being fit. It’s not enough to want to be thinner or healthier, you need to understand your own motivations for wanting that. Do you want to feel more physically capable, perhaps become a professional athlete? Do you want to prevent the deterioration that many experience as they age? Or do you want to look amazing so that you can be more successful with the opposite sex.

The best way to get an idea of what you want from life in any given area is often to just visualize your future. That means closing your eyes and just calling to mind your ideal future. Where are you? What do you look like? What do you do for a living? Who are you with?

By picturing your future in this abstract way, you’ll be able to start analyzing what it is that you’re actually trying to accomplish and from there you can begin to look at the more concrete steps you’d need to take in order to get there.

Some other strategies that can help with this are:

Looking at your role models and seeing what they have in common

Thinking about the things that excite you, your hobbies, the things you’re a fan of, etc.

Thinking about the last time you felt truly happy, or truly alive

From there, it’s also a good idea to think about the actual reality and to visualize what it would be like to get there and to live that life. Do you still want it?

For example, it’s very easy to want to be a rock star in theory but you might not like the actual lifestyle: it would mean spending a lot of your life touring, being in the public eye and probably struggling to raise a family.

This is why we’re thinking in abstractions at this point. Because you may find that the reality of being a rock star is not something you really want – in which case you’re going to start again and tap into what it was about that lifestyle that appealed to you. Are there other ways you can satisfy the same emotional goals? If you want to be recognized for your music, then you could try playing an instrument on YouTube or Band Camp! If you just want to be a professional musician, then you could compose music for computer games or videos.

But it doesn’t all have to be about your career either: you could just as easily find that you’re happy just busking, or making music in your spare time.

Getting to the core of what you want like this can also help you to overcome impossible odds. If you want to be an astronaut for example, then you might have to come to terms with the fact that you are too old and it’s now unlikely to ever happen. But ask yourself why that appeals to you on an emotional level. Maybe it comes down to your love of space, in which case you might be equally satisfied by being an astronomer? Maybe it comes down to your love of exploration and discovery, in which case you could be an explorer, or maybe just a researcher.

Step 2: Assess Your Situation Honestly and Thoroughly

The next crucial step is to assess your current position versus the ideal one that you have visualized. This is where you’re going to analyze the gulf between real life and your dream future and then try and find what the best way to bridge that gulf is.

Making an honest appraisal of your current situation is a very important way to assess your current position and thereby to get an idea of your strengths and weaknesses.

And in particular, you need to think about what advantages you have, what networks, what contacts and what opportunities. You may feel that you have none but that probably means you just haven’t been through enough. As the saying goes: there’s no such thing as a lack of resources, only a lack of resourcefulness.

This is also where you’re going to analyze just how likely your goals are and then perhaps re- phrase them on that basis. If you’ve seen that you aren’t likely to become an astronaut, then it’s time to create a more achievable goal such as becoming an astronomer.

If your goal is to date incredibly hot women, then perhaps it’s time to reassess and at least start out by aiming for women that are on a similar level to yourself.

Your mantra for this step is to assess your situation honestly and then take the ‘path of least resistance’. You’re looking at the maximum benefit from the minimum time and work.

Step 3: Formulate a Plan

This brings us to the next step, which is to formulate a plan on the basis of your current situation, where you want to be and what options you have available to you.

For losing weight or getting into shape, this means looking – for example – at the different training programs. However, by making an honest assessment of yourself and your situation in the last step, you should be in a better position to choose a system that appeals to your particular strengths and weaknesses and that you are actually likely to see through.

So many people will pay for expensive training programs that involve eating a very strict diet and working out 10 times a week for an hour each session. But is that really realistic? If you’ve tried to stick at previous workouts and have failed, then the answer is probably not.

When you assess your current situation, that also means assessing where things went wrong in the past and what your lifestyle and personality will allow for.

And by knowing this, you can then look for a training program or devise one that will work to your advantage. Maybe that means finding a way to fit your CV in around your regular routine, or maybe it means sticking to a diet that you will find enjoyable and convenient.

The same goes for plans for travel and for your career. It’s time to get real and to get your head out of the clouds. Stop dreaming about traveling the world and instead, think about how you’re going to travel more despite your personal responsibilities, budgetary limitations etc. Stop wishing you were rich and start thinking about how you’re going to climb the ladder in your career to actually get there.

When making your plan, it’s also important to think outside the box and to reject the generally accepted beliefs regarding what you need to do to accomplish each goal.

Reject the Norm

Because we are only really taught one way to get what we want and that is to progress through our careers. And this is why so many of us get stuck. We decide we want to be rich and so we work harder, instead of realizing that we could be wealthier on our current salaries by spending less and perhaps finding a secondary income. We think the only way to become successful in music is to keep working our day job to pay for it. We think that the only way to travel more is to work harder and then retire early.

But the costs of living will inevitably go up to meet your salary, you will have less and less time as you work harder and harder and take on more responsibility and you’ll find there’s never ‘a good time’ to accomplish your goals.

And so instead you need to take the path less traveled. There are other ways to get to where you want to be and if you’re just banging your head against the wall, then it’s time to rethink that strategy.

There’s nothing stopping you from starting a business in your spare time right now. There’s no reason you can’t quit your job and start traveling tomorrow. You have the abilities you need to begin applying for higher-paid jobs. What’s holding you back?

Step 4: Phrase Your Goals in Small Steps

Now you know what it is you want to achieve and how it is you want to get there, you’re going to hone in. You now know the ‘bigger picture’ and it’s time to think about the small details instead.

You know you want to get fit, you know that going to the gym is not viable for you and you know that working out from home makes a lot more sense.

So all that’s left to do is to phrase this as a goal that you can focus on every day or week. Hence: “I will work out for at least 15 minutes every day”

Maybe you’ve decided you’re not so interested in toning muscle but want to start by focusing on losing weight so you’ll look better in a suit and feel more energetic. In that case, your goal might be:

“I will walk to and from work every day that it isn’t raining”

There’s nothing wrong with having more than one goal, or making more detailed goals either. You might couple this with a secondary goal, which could be:

“I will not eat anything on my ‘foods to avoid list’”

Focus on these small steps and get yourself closer to your goal one bit at a time. Likewise, if you want to advance your career, then your goal might be to:

“Take every opportunity that arises to enhance my CV”

Or

“Apply for one job in the evening, three times a week”

Some of your broader goals are going to take multiple steps. For instance, if your goal is to become a famous musician, then perhaps you should take the following steps:

Learn to play the guitar by spending half an hour each evening, four days a week

Save $15 a day to invest in studio equipment

Output 1 video a week to build an audience

Output 2 videos a week to build an audience

Continue to output 2 videos a week and spend 1 hour per week in self-promotion activities

Spend 2 hours a week working on an album to sell from the channel

It’s a long process but it’s also a real strategy. It’s a strategy that you need to succeed. It represents a cognitive shift where you’re no longer daydreaming about being a famous rock star and you’re instead looking at concrete, realistic, achievable steps.

And that’s when you start making real, actual progress!