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Tell me if you heard this one before: “I don’t really have goals, that seems too try-hard. I just like to go with the flow.” You then look at their life, and it’s a constant cycle of doom scrolling and short term pleasure, with no clear direction. And then In 10 years time they wake up one day and realize that nothing has changed and they’re stuck. All because they went with the flow.

One thing you have to realize is that you are pursuing goals all the time. You may not be aware of it, but behind every action there is a goal. Just like when a deer is thirsty, it automatically starts looking for water. Or when you decide to watch TV in the evening after work. Even though it’s a small goal, it’s still a goal and you take action to achieve it. This is what in the book Psycho-cybernetics Maxwell Maltz calls “the success mechanism.” This is the mechanism that animals use to survive and procreate in nature. It’s hard-wired into them from birth. We also are hard-wired to pursue the goal of survival, but on top of that, we also have the ability to imagine the future and set goals that best serve our wants and needs.

The goals we pursue are either conscious or unconscious, meaning we either decide on them by deliberate thinking, or we accept the goals that society pushes on us without second thought. So if you are not consciously setting goals for yourself, someone else will set them for you. Your parents, teachers, friends and the media you consume all influence the goals you pursue. This is why some people accept the career path their parents chose for them, because they failed to realize they have free will, and can build the life they want by setting their own goals.

Now that you understand why goal setting matters, I’m going to break down for you how to find the right goals, and how to set goals in a way you can actually achieve them. Let’s dive in.

Find your WHY: Create your vision and anti-vision

If you have never consciously set goals before, it’s useless to start with goals like “run a marathon”. We’re going to dig deeper and start with your underlying dreams and desires, because to find out what goals to pursue, you need to know what you actually want and don’t want out of life.

I suggest you grab a pen and a piece of paper and take notes.

We are going to create what is called your vision, and anti-vision. (Idea taken from Dan Koe)

Let’s start with your anti-vision, because it’s easier to imagine what you don’t want, than to imagine the future you do want out of thin air.

Ask yourself these two questions:

What do I not want in life? And where will I end up if I keep taking the same actions?

Take your time and write down everything you don’t want. Focus on all aspects of your life – start with the four pillars of health, finances, relationships and happiness.

To get inspired on what you don’t want, start observing the people around you – your parents, strangers you see when you’re out on a walk, your coworkers, your classmates, the people you follow on social media. And take note of every time you say to yourself, “I don’t want that”.

Ask yourself questions like:

• What does an unfulfilling day look like?
• How do I not want to feel day-to-day?
• How do I not want to act and what habits do I not want?
• How do I not want to look?
• How much money is too little to sustain my lifestyle?
• Where would I hate to live?
• What traits I’d hate in my romantic partner?

Be specific and go into detail. The more vivid and real it seems, the more effective this exercise is.

Your anti-vision should feel uncomfortable. And it should scare the shit out of you.

Once you write your anti-vision, you have something to run from. This is your version of hell on Earth. This is your life in an alternate Universe, where everything went sideways for you. And now you are going to use that negative energy and transform it to create your vision.

Flip the questions you asked yourself before, and imagine your ideal lifestyle. Ask questions like:

• How do I want to act, look and feel?
• What activities do I find the most fulfilling?
• What does my ideal day look like?
• How much money would allow me to live my ideal lifestyle?
• What would that money allow me to do?
• What traits does my ideal partner have?
• Where would I love to live?

Really focus on your values and observe what you find meaningful in your life. Again, get specific and paint a vivid picture with your words.

Once you’re finished with writing down your vision and anti-vision, this is where goal setting comes in. You are going to reverse engineer goals according to your vision.

What we’re trying to do here, is take the big picture goals, which seem out of reach, and break them down into much smaller realistic goals, which you can start taking action on today.

You can’t become a new person overnight, so starting off, I suggest having 1 goal that builds your mind, 1 goal that builds your body and 1 goal that builds your relationships.

Set your big picture goals for the time-frame of 10 years, 5 years, 3 years, 1 year. (and of course, you probably don’t know where you’ll be in 3 months let alone 10 years, but think of it as a kind of north star, something to aspire to). Then you’re going to break these goals down further, into 3 month goals, 1 month goals, weekly goals and your day to day goals.

It can feel overwhelming to basically plan out your life for the next 10 years, but take it with a grain of salt. Of course, your values and priorities will change over time. But what you now have, is a jumping off point which you can iterate on as you go. You can do this exercise every month if you need to.

And take your time with this exercise. This is your future we’re talking about.

Actionable Goal Setting

Now that you have your goals broken down into smaller chunks, it’s helpful to put them through a framework, so you actually stick to them and achieve them. Again, take out a piece of paper and write your goals down. Studies show that people are 42% more likely to achieve their goals, if they write them down. It makes your goals feel more concrete and tangible.

So there are a lot of frameworks and techniques for goal setting, but I’m going to introduce you to the most fundamental one and that is the SMART framework.

SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Let’s break this down on an actual goal – let’s say you want to get in shape:

Making your goal specific means you get crystal clear on what your goal is. So instead of saying I want to get in shape, you say – I’m going to lose weight, gain muscle mass and get a six pack. If your goal is too ambiguous – I want to get in shape – you don’t have a clear next step to take, so you progress slowly and get discouraged. So you also need to specify how you are going to achieve the goal. In this case by following a strength training plan and following a healthy diet. That leads us to…

Making your goal measurable – You need to set a goal with a measurable outcome with which you can track your progress. So on top of saying “I’m going to lose weight, gain muscle mass and get a six pack” you specify it by saying “I’m going to lose 5 kilograms, grow my biceps circumference by 2 centimeters and get a six pack visible under my kitchen light.” For example.

Now you need to make your goal achievable. If your goal is too big, you’ll get overwhelmed, because your mind can’t grasp how it can be done and labels it fantasy. You need to find the sweet spot between challenging and doable. But if the challenge is too low, you won’t feel motivated to act because it feels boring. Aim for setting a goal, that when you look at it, you feel a healthy surge of motivation, that makes you act. You have to believe you can achieve the goal. If you don’t believe you can achieve it, then you won’t. If the goal feels too big for you, you can break it down into smaller goals. So in our case – lose 5 kilos, get a 2cm bigger bicep and get a six pack, could easily be treated as 3 separate goals, so let’s just focus on breaking down the goal of losing 5 kilos. That is not to say you can’t do all 3 at the same time, but treating them as separate goals will help you set the right conditions for achieving them.

I am going to skip a letter and come back to it at the end, so bear with me. T for time-bound ties in perfectly with how achievable your goal is. Technically every goal is achievable on a long enough time frame. But what you want to do is set a deadline that creates urgency. If the goal is too big, let’s say it would take you 6 months to achieve, your mind can’t grasp that big of a time horizon, so you need to break it down into shorter deadlines. Like weekly and monthly. Applying it to our goal of getting fit, if you never exercised, you can use tools like ChatGPT or a fitness planner to find out a realistic timeline. So after applying deadlines the goal looks like this: “I will lose 5 kilograms by Sunday of Week 10 (let’s say that’s January 26th) through a consistent calorie deficit of 500–750 calories per day, 4–5 weekly workout sessions, and weekly weigh-ins on Sundays to track progress. I will achieve specific weight milestones: 1 kg by Week 2, 2 kg by Week 4, and the full 5 kg by Week 10.” Now it’s specific, measurable, achievable and time-bound.

The last point is to make it relevant. Behind every goal have a strong reason why you want to achieve it. This is why you create your vision and anti-vision. For our goal of getting fit, it can be as shallow as “I want to look better”, or as deep as “My grandfather died from obesity and I don’t want it to happen to me.” This why is the driver behind your goal. So make it important.

So now, let’s put it together – we went from saying “I want to get in shape”, to saying “I will lose 5 kilograms by Sunday of Week 10 (that’s January 26th) through a consistent calorie deficit of 500 calories per day, 4–5 weekly workout sessions, and weekly weigh-ins on Sundays to track progress. I will achieve specific weight milestones: 1 kg by Week 2, 2 kg by Week 4, and the full 5 kg by Week 10. I’m doing this to look and feel better, and to avoid dying from obesity like my grandfather did.”

So this is the process of setting goals you will actually achieve.

A couple more tips before we wrap it.

The first tip is on sticking to your deadlines. If you have difficulty staying accountable consider getting an accountability partner. Someone who will check on you, if you’re keeping up with your goals. And if you want to raise the stakes, set a bet with them. Like if you miss a deadline you owe them dinner or a sum of money. If both of you have a goal, you can also make it into a competition and keep each other accountable.

The second tip is visualization. On your journey to achieving your goal, you will inevitably hit obstacles – you miss a couple of days, or you fail to meet one of your deadlines, you get too busy and so on. And it’s very easy to beat yourself up and get discouraged. The last thing you want to do is give in and quit. One way to offset this, is by visualizing the obstacles that might arise, and then imagining, how you will overcome these obstacles. You can write these down as well. This will make it easier for you to overcome the obstacles when they actually show up, because you’ll already know what to do.

The third and final tip is to keep your goals top of mind. It is very easy to slip back to your old habits and forget the goals. That’s why, after writing your goals down, instead of stashing them away in your drawer, never to be seen again. Find a place, where you will see them every day. Make them into a poster, put them on your fridge, or set them as your phone background. This will train your subconscious mind to internalize the goals.

And that is it for this episode, I hope the information helped and thank you for listening. take care.