How To Choose Your Next Goal #538

Let's get into it . When I first started Personal Development , I decided that I wanted to do it because I wanted to be a better version of myself . I wanted to earn more money and just ultimately have a better life . A lot of the people that I was learning from they had this same common theme of saying set goals and you'll make progress .

And when I thought about it , it makes sense , right ? You're ultimately deciding what you want and then you build a bit of a plan to get there and you take action on that plan . That makes sense . When I started looking to do that , I realized there was a lot of things that I wanted .

The goal is ultimately achieving something that you want , something that's going to improve your life , deliver an outcome . So there could be things that make you feel good on the inside , goals that make you feel satisfied , give you purpose .

It could be creating a meaningful relationship that makes you feel good , or it could be something that motivates you on the outside . It could be getting a nice watch , only X amount of money . Both of them are great motivating factors and both of them are worthy of wanting . I think you should consider both of those when looking at goals .

So I decided that was simple enough , but then , when I pushed came to shove , I realized there was a lot of things that I wanted . So the first roadblock that I had was working out what was the most important things and how do I choose what to focus on . Because from about 2014 to about 2018 , I had what people call shiny disco ball syndrome .

The next shiny thing that pops up , you decide that's going to be the thing that helps you achieve it . X outcome and when you're constantly changing , you're holding momentum . You're not able to develop skills , experience , that compound effect 1 plus 1 equals 2 , 2 plus 2 , 4 , etc .

So I was always holding momentum and starting from scratch , and the question that just kept burning at me was how do I know what to focus on ? What do I need to do to choose the right goal ? What I experienced from this was that setting any goal is better than having no goal at all .

What I learned from setting goals whether I achieved them or I didn't was it gave me feedback Feedback around whether I was doing the right things , whether I was interested in it . What actions did I need to do to make the outcome a reality ? Who did I need ?

To surround myself with Lots of things that are really beneficial , but as you get older , you start to recognize that time is one of those things that you don't get back Very cliche . So how do we stop wasting time on things that don't matter ? And I'm going to teach you more about that throughout this episode .

I'm going to give you a framework that you can follow , but you've got to wait until the end to do that , because what I'm going to talk about in the lead up to that is going to help it make a lot more sense . And , for those of you who are part of the academy , you've already got access to this framework and some coaching videos on it .

For those who aren't part of it and you want a bit more support with that , check out our Strongman Evaluate Academy there as well . But I don't believe this is taught at school , because when you learn to set goals . You're setting goals based off the things that you want , and when you know what you want , you become a lot more challenging to control .

People like yourself and I'm just going to assume that you're a good individual , you're not some psychopath so when you're an individual who knows what they want and you might be starting your own business , or you understand that you don't want to listen to the generalized way of living , which is go to school , get a good job , get a university , live in debt and

rinse and repeat that cycle , you can then actually start to become happy . You can live a more fulfilled life , and my belief is that if that's what I guess the structure really wanted us to do , many more of us would be experiencing that . But we've got suicide rates that are through the roof .

We've got more people than ever on antidepressants , so it leaves me with more questions as to why is something that is supposed to be benefiting us failing us ?

Over the years , as I've worked on setting my own goals and it's helped me build my own self-esteem , confidence , giving me more direction , helped me improve other people's lives , I'm like this stuff should be taught at school , and I'm sure you'll agree . Once we go to it . You'll go through this framework . It's very simple . Why wasn't I taught this earlier ?

It's something that I always hear people say , but it's because , ultimately , they don't want you to be elite , they don't want you to have more ownership over your life .

But when you recognize that taking responsibility for your life comes back to using past experiences , utilizing those experiences to reflect on what did I like , what didn't I like , where did I sort of fall short and what can I do to be better , that time and this is one of those processes that doesn't stop you don't ever get there .

You're always continuing to grow because as you grow , your priorities shift . Things around you shift , which means you have to continue to adapt . With that , let's talk about just quickly what happens if you don't have a goal . If you don't have a goal , it means you don't have a desired outcome .

Really , you may think you do , but if you don't have a plan for it , it's merely just floating around in the air and someone else will take control of that and tell you what you get . It's why so many people are unhappy . It's why so many people are broke .

It's why so many people's relationships are falling apart because they haven't taken responsibility to designing what that looks like .

So common things that we see when you don't have a goal is your life feels meaningless , you lose self-confidence and you don't understand yourself All right , and when you're in an uncertain position , you feel anxious , you feel sad , you feel depressed .

When I look at that and I reflect on my own life , when I was the most anxious , when I was the most unhappy , was when I didn't have direction and I didn't have goals . I didn't have clarity around what it was that I wanted . I was just hoping that the next thing that I did would solve my problems , and that's pretty much like gambling .

So if you don't wanna gamble with your life , this is where the goals come in to be really powerful , which would then lead us to how do you decide which goals to prioritize , which is probably the biggest question a lot of people have . But here's how I do it . I choose the goals that have the biggest impact on getting me where I wanna go .

So depending on , I guess , the enormity of the goal people think about BHA goals big , hairy , audacious goals . It might be five years down the track . So if I decide that's what I wanna get to , I would probably break that up into milestones .

That way I stay motivated , that way I have checkpoints , that way I recognize what skills or systems or people that I need to surround myself with to help support that , because who you are right now is not who you're gonna be when you achieve that outcome .

Ultimately , what it first looks like is a vision , and you've probably heard people talking about a vision , and to me it's just , I guess , creating a compelling future . What would that compelling future look like in five or 10 years' time ?

Because when you start getting clear on that and if you aren't , that's okay , if you've never done this stuff before you're exactly like where I was and you can get or build clarity around that . So where it all starts is just think about a few things that you want in a couple of years' time .

When I first started in self-development , I knew that whatever I did needed to be able to afford me flexibility .

In my last year meeting , financially , I needed to be able to have the resources to do what I wanted to do , but also , time-wise , I wanted to , if I ever have children , be able to be a stay-at-home dad or be able to afford myself to be present there .

So that guided a lot of my decisions and as I started to pursue that , externally I achieved more success , but internally it changed who I was as an individual .

I recognized a lot of things that I thought I wanted I didn't actually want , and it really helped me understand more about who I was as an individual , and I think that's the most important part and that's why I believe any goal is better than no goal .

The more goals you start setting , the more information and data you will have to really get clear on what it is that you specifically want .

So the current goal that I have which I'm sure a lot of you guys are gonna be following along on YouTube and on the podcast as well for 2024 , the big one is the million dollar year and some milestones for that this year just being able to fly my family overseas , take Amy and I on a nice holiday , and I've got a few KPIs for other business things that

are happening . Other milestones are obviously based around the members that we have , the testimonials that we achieve . So I know that if I'm ticking those off , we're well on track to achieve the financial outcomes that we're looking for , and that goal stands out to me because the more and I think , just even financially , the most goals that people have .

If you look at it financially , it frees up time potentially , if you do it correctly .

I don't wanna be a wealthy person who has a lot of money but also carries a lot of stress because I haven't put the right systems in place and I haven't built it from the ground up correctly , but I believe the way that I've built it is going to afford me more time and resources to focus on health , to focus on other areas that are important to me , but

it's continuing to build my character , so that's why that is an important goal to me this year , much like in 2014 .

When I started this whole bloody journey , the one thing I wanted was to earn a million dollars and obviously here I am talking about it . I haven't achieved that yet . It's 10 years I'm in business this year .

Now that may make you wanna turn this episode off and be like fuck this guy , he doesn't know what he's talking about , but I've got 10 years worth of highs and lows in business . You know I've earned multiple six figures and I've done it in a way where we've got huge community flexibility to work .

I'm currently living in the US and earn revenue , so I've done that correctly . Now I've just got to fine tune it and , knowing what I know now , there would be so many things that I could have done differently to fast track that . And that's why community is so important , that's why we have our Academy .

But I know that if I achieve that , it's gonna help me tick off other goals . So if you've got your list and I'll quickly go through this and I'll just give you this bonus thing to get you guys started but when you get the vision , you're starting to think about , okay , well , what do I want ? What are the things that I wanna experience ?

What are the things that I wanna have ? Who do I wanna share them with ? Now ? What foods do I want to eat ? What clothes do I want to wear ? Just write a list down of stuff , right , it's not about going always at two greedy , or is that two not just right ? Like , don't over over complicate it . Just get the list started Now .

Once you've got the list started , then we can put it down into order of importance . But the next cool step which was a game changer for me was which of these goals , of the important lot , that if I achieve it , will help me achieve many of the other goals this year .

So , for example , I had to choose , or decided I had to choose between whether I was going to do a million dollar year in business or if I was going to run 30 marathons in 30 days from a physical challenge . And I decided to get with a million dollars because I believe that once I have that I've ticked off .

You know plenty more other goals that I had this year and I'm not going to bore you with all of them . But if I decided to do the 30 marathons , it would take away a month , probably a little bit more of time from that year , to continue achieving that goal .

So it probably would have been more detrimental to many of my goals than it was going to add value to it . And I think that's a really key thing for you to consider . How do you decide what you want to work on , which one's going to , I guess , improve most of those goals for you ? That is very important to think about .

So here's the framework that I worked out . That helped me get clear on what this looks like and the reason I'm carrying a book in front of me for those of watching on YouTube .

I have a book and I fill out hmm , I'd say about three of these a year , because what it helps me do is , in my mind I have lots of thoughts and ideas and I'm sure you do as well and so I write them every morning .

I write things that are on my mind thoughts , ideas and I start dissecting them and trying to understand them , because when you understand things better , it helps you make sense to them . When you understand things more , or you've made sense to them , you can decide whether it's something you want to pursue or not , right .

But if you continue to just leave it be up in your head , well , it's quite overwhelming and you still really don't have any more clarity on it . So you really got to spend that time to do that . But first things first , vision . You need to get a clear and a powerful and compelling vision , something that we help you in the academy with .

Secondly , you need to turn that vision into a timeline . People have 10 year visions , five year visions , and then you break that down into the next 12 months , quarters , monthlies , all that sort of stuff . I then focus on a 12 month goal . One big goal that I really want to achieve , as I mentioned , it's that $1 million and I break that down I've got .

We have our 12 week game plan that we use within the academy . That helps you break that down and then you just utilize that daily to make sure that you're doing what you said you would do to achieve that outcome . The cool thing about having that is , if you achieve it , you know which actions drove the biggest results .

If you fall short , you understand what things you need to tweak or improve to have a better quarter next time . You then want daily tasks and not too many . You know we talk about this to-do list . You and I both know that you could have a to-do list as long as the Eiffel Tower .

Really there's a lot of things you could do , but it's understanding what are the most important things . That will if similar to before .

I like the one thing , the book , the one thing where they talk about what's the one thing that if I were to achieve only that today , it would make all of or if not most of them , things that I have on that list redundant . So it helps you prioritize what's really important getting that done .

The final thing there with the goals is reviewing every 12 weeks .

We do 12-week game plans , businesses , running quarters , because if you get a 12-week sprint , okay , it allows you to make enough progress that you can see if what you're doing is working or not , but it's also not too far down the track that you could get 12 months down the track of doing the wrong actions .

You've gone completely in a different direction , so it's great to do that . So just to recap that for you guys you've got vision , you've got a timeline , you've got the 12-month goals , then you've got daily tasks and then you wanna review and go again . Essentially , you don't stop .

You should always have that next goal in mind , or the things that are really important to you and ideally , simply put , if you have a compelling future , something that you're trying to create , you will know what things you should be doing . You will know what skills you should be developing .

You will know what kind of people you should be surrounding yourself with . You know this . The hard part is in doing that , and the more you can , I guess , shorten the time between what you know you should be doing and actually doing it , the more powerful you'll be becoming . And that's decisions , right .

So don't be afraid of making decisions , except you will make some poor decisions . Learn from it and continue moving , but the faster you can make decisions , the faster you're gonna get feedback , the faster you're gonna get closer to where you wanna get to . So my name's Lock and Stuart . Thank you guys for tuning in .

Remember we have new episodes every Monday with a guest and every Thursday , and these are designed to help give you tools and be a part of conversations to build a better life . As always , do something today to be better for tomorrow .