How to Design Your Life (My Process For Achieving Goals!)
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Some people, maybe you included, are completely disillusioned by now with the whole idea of "goal setting" because every year you seem to set goals, and never achieve them.
So is goal setting pointless?
Is it just some activity you waste time on every January?
Or is goal setting really key to building the life you want to live?
I have completely changed my life over the last few years and I have some opinions on what works and what doesn't when it comes to designing your life, and setting & achieving goals.
So let's get into it!
But before I give you my system, we need to get clear on one thing.
Is goal setting a waste of time?
No, it's not a waste of time.
Successful people set goals and I believe you'd be very well served to do the same. Having a goal isn't the problem, failing to reach it is and that's what I want to help you fix in this post.
Goals are so vital to success because they give you direction. They help you clarify what's important to you.
If you have no goal, life is going to decide where you go.
It's like your calendar. Unless you make a conscious choice of what should be added to that calendar, life is going to quickly decide that for you.
You'll say yes to invites you should say have said no to, you'll find your week packed with meetings, wrecking your ability to get any real work done, and you'll end up in places and with people you don't really want to spend time in or with.
So you need to decide "what do I want my life to look like" and start making decisions on a daily basis that align with that life.
If you look at your life now and wonder…
how the heck you got yourself into your current predicament,
or why it is you don't like where you live, or who you spend time with,
or how much you're making or what you're doing every day …
... that's a sign you've probably let the intentional decision making go out the window and life has directed your path, instead of you directing it.
So especially YOU need to do some goal setting!
Goals are vital to ending up where you want to be, living the life you want to live, having the relationships and experiences and things that you want to have.
So goal setting is key to going in the right direction, but how do you actually achieve those goals? What is it that seems to stop you from achieving all those goals you set for yourself?
You wanted to be a social butterfly with fantastic friendships, making incredible money, doing work which lights your heart on fire, with the most fantastic health & fitness routine to boot. But somehow none of that is the case...
Why?! And how do you fix it?
Your goals could literally be shooting each other in the foot.
Say your goals for this year are to…
Get healthy
Make friendships in new city
Grow your business
So you decided that come January first, and every week thereafter, you were going to book in for a weekly pilates class come hell or high water to achieve the be healthier goal.
You organized childcare for that hour, and found a pilates accountability buddy to go with and even picked the pilates studio which is close to home to make it easier to go to!
You've maybe even read Atomic Habits* and KNOW you shouldn't make your action steps too big and complicated, so instead of trying something unachievable like committing to a daily fitness routine or pilates class, you're JUST going to try to do one class a week to start and form the habit.
But then, an email lands in your inbox.
The podcast you've listened to for YEARS and LOVE just had a cancellation and needs to fill a recording space and asked you to come on and be a guest and speak on your business topic, which would DEFINITELY help with the 'grow business' goal.
The only available time to record however is during that 1 hour pilates class...
Your goals are both equally to be healthier and grow your business.
So how are you supposed to pick?
THIS is why I prioritize my goals, I rank order them from highest to lowest priority. Which makes making decisions like these super easy.
And honestly, I know full-well, I'm going to work my tail off on that top priority goal until it's accomplished, and the next goal in the priority list, I might be able to make some progress on it... but probably not a lot. And that's okay.
So take some time to look at that goals list, and rank order it.
And then decide accordingly.
And be okay with honestly only achieving one goal at a time. I know this might feel slower to begin with, but I promise you, I didn't build a successful business, travel the world, set myself up for financial freedom and get my health in order all at once.
They happened one at a time.
And in fact, I've noticed if you prioritize goals in an intelligent order, achieving one can help you achieve the next much easier & faster.
You can hate on the fact that "getting healthy is only a luxury available to the wealthy." Or you can accept that when you have the money for a personal trainer and someone to cook you healthy meals, it's going to be a lot easier, and instead of wasting time & energy getting angry at that fact, you can work with it.
So honestly, I didn't focus on my health for a good few years of building my business. My business was the sole focus for a long time, it was the goal, and when it came to the podcast invite or the fitness class, I picked the podcast invite because I knew it would grow my business.
And now that my business is running well and is profitable and is where I want it to be, I can take those profits and free mental space & time and put that into my health. I can pay for the blood tests and the private classes and the organic food, because I prioritized the goals in an order which would make achieving the goals as easy as possible.
So here's your to-do list to start achieving your goals.
Take a day or two or a weekend, maybe get outside your usual space, go for a walk, go away for the weekend, and sit and think about
"What do I want to be different in my life?
What do I look at in other people's lives and am jealous of? Because that's a major indicator you want what they have, so fabulous, that can be a goal!"
Make your goals list.
Put them in priority order. Pick the ONE top priority. Be strategic about it, remember that solving a higher up priority goal could make solving later on goals easier.
Circle that top priority #1 goal, and then put the rest of your goals as items lower down the list in priority. Mentally accept that the things towards the bottom of the list probably just aren’t going to happen now. You’ll focus on that number one priority now, and maybe get to a little bit of number two on your priority list, but the rest are just kinda in the wings waiting to be done when items higher up get checked off.
Then start aligning your time & efforts & projects with that top priority goal. Pick what steps and tasks and projects and habits will help you achieve goal #1. And get to work. And don't you dare change directions or start prioritising something else until you've gotten to where you want to be.
Now what we've spoken about is great and all, but I promise you, if you don't do this next thing, everything we've discussed will be useless.
For success on your goals you need to be productive & get into a good routine.
The next video helps you to do exactly that!
So be sure to watch it next, and you're going to be making progress on goals faster than you ever thought possible before!