Imagine you had a ladder and the only step on the ladder was the step at the top, which you got you right to the top of where you wanted to go, but there were no other steps. Well, you might jump up and down a bit, you might try and reach that top step. Once you reach it, then you're going to pull yourself up. And when you pull yourself up, you're gonna use all your upper body standers
try and then you probably fall. How many of you've experienced that and you're yeah, when you're trying to gain your news resolutions or your big goals because you only ever built the top step. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world, helping you become happier, healthier, and more healed. I am so excited for twenty twenty three. I hope you are as well. Thank you for choosing on Purpose once again. I am just so humbled by your commitment, your growth,
your love. The reviews have just been so beautiful. I hope you had the most incredible break. I hope you are able to take out time to reflect, to renew and this episode is my favorite framework for growth and goal setting. This is the framework that I stand by, I swear by, I use it every single year and I can't wait to see it take effect and make an impact in your year this year, and so make sure you get your notepads out, your pens out, your
notes on your iPhone out, whatever you use. This is going to be one that's going to transform your year. And I'm so pumped you're listening to this. Thanks for being here. I want you to have an incredible year. I want you to have an incredible day, week, month. I want you to just have the year you've been wishing, wanting and waiting to have for such a long time.
And the best thing is this year, we get to start it together right, no matter how busy things get, no matter how hectic things get, no matter how crazy things get, I want you to connect with me here every single week because here's the thing. It's the consistency that keeps you going. It's the consistency that builds a momentum. It's the consistency that breaks down those barriers, that lets
you help those breakthroughs. It's the consistency that makes everything else possible, even the days when you're like, oh I can't today, I can't make time when you make time on that day, that's when the magic happens. That's when incredible things start to happen in your life. It's when you don't want to when you do, that's when you see shifts and change in your life. But we're literally walking into a new decade, right We're walking into a new decade, a new moment in our lives. The last
decade is there, it's gone. You've reflected, you've learned, you've left behind, and now it's time to start anew. Now, when we're writing the story of our lives, imagine we've just finished chapter nineteen and you've now started chapter twenty. It's very what's the right word, it's very interesting and intriguing and curious to want to go back to chapter nineteen or eighteen and seventy and keep rereading it. Nostalgia memories, lessons, mistakes, failures.
It's easy to go live in the past because it's already written. But chapter twenty you're writing it right now, so you haven't started living it yet. So it's somewhat harder to live because you have to write, you have to create again. Now. If you keep rereading the old chapters, you can't consciously write the new ones. You may write it unconsciously or unintentionally, And if you unintentionally or unconsciously write it, you end up living a life that you
don't really want to live. So I want you to bring your presence and your awareness and your attention right now. This is your year, this is our year. This is the year that you make the shifts, the changes, the progress that you've been wanting to make. And to help you do that, I'm going to give you a new type of goal setting, a completely unique and different type of goal setting that you've never done before. Because a new decade needs new tools, right a new decade needs
a new approach, a new progress. I don't want us to keep applying the same things that fail every single year. How many times have you make goals and resolutions and they have just failed every single year. I want to give you a plan that, if you genuinely commit to it, if you genuinely listen and connect with what I'm about to share with you, when you make goals in this way, you're going to find them not just it's not about being easy to reach. It's going to be easy to process,
easy to focus on and understand. What to commit to. Now, this goal setting framework has four key elements to it, and before I dive in, I just want to let you know about some of the stats around New Year's resolutions, right because I think it's important to realize how unlikely people are to keep up with their news resolutions. Now, this was something that I read in a ink article and it was talking about how the top ten New Year's resolutions according to a survey of two thousand people,
seventy one wanted to die or eat healthier. Sixty five percent wanted to exercise more, fifty four percent wanted to lose weight, thirty two percent wanted to save more and spend less. Twenty six percent wanted to learn a new skill or hobby. Remember that twenty one percent wanted to quit smoking, seventeen percent wanted to read more, sixteen percent wanted to find another job, fifteen percent wanted to drink less alcohol, and thirteen percent wanted to spend more time
with family and friends. Right down, right now, Which ones were ones that you've made before and broken? Number one room was diet or health Too was exercise more, three was lose weight, four wards save more, spend less. Five was learning new skill or hobby. Six was quit smoking, seven was read more, eight was find another job, nine was drink less alcohol, and ten was spend more time with family and friends. We've all made those, we've all broken those. Now why is that the case? Why do
we break New Year's resolutions? And here's my hypothesis, right, my opinion hypothesis is because we don't follow this four step framework. This four step framework will give you the ability to realize why we make mistakes and why we don't live up to our resolutions and our plans that are so important to us, right, and why we set to say that about sixty percent of us make news resolutions, but only eight percent are successful in actually following them through.
We want to change that. We want to change that. We don't want to bet on being part of that eight percent. Right, So here are the four steps. The first step to think about when looking at your goal. So you set a goal, right, whatever your goal is, one of those goals, here's the framework to achieving it. The first thing you ask yourself is growth. What do you need to grow to get that? Right? What do you need to learn growing? What growth do you need to focus on in your life? In order to get
that goal, what is the growth behind the goal? So let's say it's social media. Right, Let's say it's social media, and you say my goal is to have more followers, right, which I don't think it's a great goal. But let's say you have a more meaningful goal. That's your goal is to create content that impacts the world. Right now, you don't need to grow followers, right. That would be the common thing to say, Oh, I'm trying to grow
my followers. That's the growth I need you. No, no, no, you need to grow content, which means you need to grow storytelling skills. Notice the difference, Right, So someone writes down their goals, I want to grow my followers. Someone writes down their goal is I want to grow the amount of subscribers to my podcast. Well, that's a goal, but that's not really the growth you need to make, because then all you're trying to do is do things
that directly impact that. But that's not the case. What you need to do is grow your content, which means you need to grow your storytelling. What it means you need to grow your content creation approach. You need to grow in learning how to create more content. Right, that's the focus that it has to be, so we don't focus on growth. We focus too much on goals when our focus should be growth. What do we need to grow in to achieve that goal? Now, I'll give you
an example. So this year, my first ever book is coming out in April. It's my first of a book. It's called Think Like a Monk. It's available for pre order right now. And so for me, of course, I want so many of you to be able to change your life and transform your life through my book. But the growth I need to be able to do that is to be able to help you understand why this
book is relevant in your life. Right, I need to be helple to make sure that you all know that it's available because guess what, the algorithm doesn't make everyone know and let everyone know that my book is available. So I need to make sure that you all know that it exists and that it's available. So I'm focused on the growth, not just on the goal. Because if I'm just focused on the goal, I'm just obsessed with this elusive, arbitrary result. So many of our goals are
really not goal their visions. Right, you may have a vision to be one of the best you know businesses of all time. You may have a vision to have one of the most romances of all time, but that's not really a goal, right. A goal is something that you can grow towards, and I want you to focus on what growth you need to make this year. Growth includes things like what skills do you need to learn? What abilities do you need to gather and grow? What qualities do you need to grow and develop in. Maybe
that's what it's going to take. So last year, when I was launching my podcast, my goal was to have a number one podcast, which thanks to all of you, happened. But the goal is not enough to get there. What I needed was a growth. So the growth was I needed to grow to become an interviewer, and needed to grow to have a network where I could invite incredible guests onto the podcast, and needed to grow my understanding of how to develop and produce a podcast. Right, those
are the growth elements that were powering the goal. The goal in and of itself meant nothing. So if your goal this year is to which is usually one of the number one goals is a diet or eat healthier, it's like, well, what's skill do you need to grow or Maybe you need to grow habit formation skills, right, Maybe you need to grow resilience. Maybe you need to grow mental strength, and maybe that's what you need to grow. That's what's stopping you because hey, guess what, just telling
yourself I'm not going to eat carbs or fats. Right, if that was your diet plan, that's not good enough because it's the growth that gets you to the goal, not the goal in and of itself. Does that make sense? Right? Does that really resonate you? Connect with that? If your goal this year is to exercise more, you have to ask yourself, well, what do I need to grow in to be able to exercise more? Okay? So I need to grow in my discipline. Okay, I need to be
more disciplined. Okay, I need to grow in my accountability to someone. Right, it's not just about exercising more. It's not just forcing yourself pushing yourself to the gym, you know, just you know, pushing yourself there with all the energy you have, dragging yourself there. Right, that's not good enough. We have to think about what's all we want to learn? And that's why I said only twenty six percent of people have the resolution of learning a new skill only
twenty six people. So if only twenty six percent of people have the resolution to learn a new skill or a hobby, that's all missing out. That's the growth, right, That's where we're missing the trick, because it's actually the learning of a new skill, the growing and a new ability or quality that gets you to the goal, not just thinking about and having a goal in and of itself.
And so often that's all we have, the reason why we don't get to our goals is all we have is goals, not a growth plan, right, And I really want you to think about growth this year. Do you need to learn a new language. Do you need to learn how to code? Do you need to learn how to edit? Do you need to learn how to master habits? Do you need to learn how to focus on purpose and passion and peace and meaning? So much of it is in that, so much of changing our life is
in learning how to change our habits observing ourselves. Because once you know how to change your habits, you can then apply that to any habit. But if you've never been taught or trained how to change your habits, then you can't change any habit. And that's the challenge we end up in The second focus in goal setting is
I want you to observe your opportunities, right. I want you to know the opportunities that you're going to say yes to this year, and the opportunities you're going to say no to this year, and the opportunities that you're going to see maybe too this year. So I want you to be clear on the criteria of opportunities you say yes to, opportunities you say no to, and opportunities you say maybe too. I'll tell you why. One of the biggest reasons why we don't achieve our goals is
because of this. We say yes to too many things that are not what our priority is. We say no to too many things that are our priority. And maybe it's just for those of you who are saying I'm still undecided on a few things, but really you want to know and clarify for yourself the criteria of why you say yes to an opportunity and why you say no to an opportunity. Let's say your priority this year
is to exercise more. Right, If your priority is to exercise more, and that's a priority in your life, then you may say that opportunities that come up during my exercise time are always a no. So if I'm exercising at eight am every day, if it is this type of opportunity, I will not do it. So I'll give you a personal example of mind, just to make it really, really simple. I exercise every morning from eight fifteen am to nine am, about four to five days a week.
That's my workout time, and I have a very clear criteria that the only reason I will miss that time is if I have a press interview. So this year, when I've been on the Today Show where I was an Access Hollywood, or any of those examples that I've had to go on a press piece, which isn't all the time. It's an exception. It's not like I'm on press every single week. When I've had to do that, that is the only criteria by which I say no to my workout and yes to the opportunity. Apart from that,
and of course family emergencies or personal issues. Apart from that, I do not compromise. I do not negotiate with that time. So you need to realize what are your non negotiables, what are the things that you will not negotiate on, What are the opportunities that you will say yes to a note to I'll give you another example. Let's say that your priority this year is waking up early. You might have to say no to late night parties and
late night networking events. Now, if that is your priority, you have to be clear what is the criteria with which I would say yes to a late night event. It maybe that I'm going to get to meet the biggest idol of my teens. Right. It may be because I'm getting to interview someone I've been wanting to interview for a long time. Right. It may be because you're getting to spent on with someone you love and family that's in town. But that has to be an exception.
So when it comes to opportunities, because guess what, we all have endless opportunities in our life in different areas of our life, we have to make a clearer criteria of what do I say yes too? And what do I say no to? When do I say yes and when do I say no? Why do I say yes
and why do I say no? Because we don't create these agreements and these contracts and these to be honest, because we just don't clarify this criteria with ourselves, We're confused When you don't clearly clarify your criteria, it leads to confusion about your choices. And when you get confused by your choices, you end up lost, and then you generally don't achieve anything. And so I don't want you to be in that position. I don't want to be confused. I don't want you to be lost. I don't want
you to lack clarity. I want you to have clear criteria for your opportunities that you're going to say yes to and no to based on your goal. So let's take another goal, just to give you a fresh example. Let's see your goal is to save more and spend less. When are you going to say yes to that? And when are you going to say no to that? No your criteria, you may say that I'm going to say no to that for one vacation this year where we're going to treat ourselves more. Right, We're going to treat
ourselves more. We've got big anniversuary coming out. But apart from that, I'm going to honor that rule. Right, we have to set rules with ourselves. We don't set these rules consciously, so when it comes to them, what happens your default mind wins that's what's happening every time. When you don't set these rules, when you don't set this criteria, when it comes to crunch time, your default mind, your monkey mind, wins because that's the mind and the habit
and the pattern that's already been built. That's what you've already given into. So when you're saying I'm not going to eat sugar anymore, but you've built up no rules of yes and nose, right, then when it gets to eating sugar, you give in because that's what you love, that's what you've built the habit and pattern of. So one of the biggest reasons why we don't achieve our goals and our resolutions is because we don't create clarity
around our opportunities. So I want you to say, yes, this is what I'm going to say yes too, based on these criteria, this is what I'm going to say no to, right, And I want you to find so much understanding around the point number three of this four step framework, the action plan. We have these goals, we write them down, you may even make them the screen saver of your laptop at work and your phone, but there is zero action plan. There is zero activities planned
as to how you're going to achieve this goal. When I say an action plan, I mean a minute by minute right quality. By quality, I mean a minute by minute, hour by hour plan of when this is being worked on. Too many of us set these lofty goals and never break them down into the building blocks to actually get us there. For me, I see this like a ladder. If you have a ladder and your goal is at the top of a ladder, your action plan is creating every step of the ladder so you can go up there.
Imagine you had a ladder and the only step on the ladder was the step at the top, which got you right to the top of where you wanted to go, but there were no other steps. Are you going to achieve that goal? Well, you might jump up and down a bit. You might try and reach that top step. Once you reach it, then you're going to pull yourself up. And when you pull yourself up, you're gonna use all your upper body standers try and then you probably fall.
How many of you have experienced and you're yeah, when you're trying to gain your news resolutions or your big goals, because you only ever built the top step. You didn't build the one too, three, four, five, six, seven steps before the top step. I'm actually staring at the ladder right now in my office, which is a false ladder. It's a bit small, but for my bookshelf that it's like there are sevens. If there were seven steps missing,
how would you get to that top step? So the action plan should be let's say my goal is to find another job. That's the top steps. Then I want you to ask the question, how am I going to find another job? Okay? I'm going to research about other jobs? Okay? How am I going to research about other jobs? Okay? Notice how this is building the steps downwards? Okay, then okay, research other jobs? How am I going to research other jobs? I'm going to speak to people that I know in careers? Okay?
How am I going to speak to them? I'm going to ask my friend for their number or their email? Okay? How am I going to do that? For my friend or my email? I'm going to text them right now? Notice how I have built the step ladder to right now. If your action plan doesn't build a step ladder to a step you can do right now in this very moment,
that is not an action plan. So now my action is I'm going to text my friend to say can you please introduce me via email or message to your friend that is a graphic designer, that is a digital marketer, that is a accountant, that is a lawyer, whatever it is, because I need to talk to them. If you have not built your action plan to an activity you can take right now. If your action plan is I need to research new jobs, no that's not right now. You can say I need to research new jobs on LinkedIn,
and I'm going to go to LinkedIn right now. That is an action plan with a step that you can take today. If your action plan doesn't have a step you can do right now, it is not a complete action plan. An action plan isn't just I will go to the gym three times a week. No, an action plan is what can I do right now? I will go to the gym to do these exact workouts these exact times and not compromise on them. Part of the reason we struggle with our goals is we don't ever
create the plan. We end up at the gym to do the workout, but then we're like, okay, well what workout should I do? Right? Like? What workout should I do today. The action plan includes the plan of what workouts you're going to do. The action plan includes the meal plans of what you're going to eat. The action plan includes all of that detail. If you don't have an action plan, you won't achieve your goals this year.
And the action plan has the details of what we're going to do, when we're going to do it, how we're going to do it, who's going to do it, and why I'm going to do it. This is a full action plan. So this part of the framework, this pillar can be broken down into this, when am I going to do it? What am I going to do, how am I going to do it, who am I going to do it with? And why am I doing it? So when you write down what you're going to do,
that makes it very simple. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to do a circuit with these three exercises. For example, for the one going to the gym. When am I going to I'm doing a fifteen am every morning. How am I going to do it? I am going to do it by using the gym in my building, right, or I'm going to do it by signing up for a membership here or I'm going to do it by going with my friend whatever it maybe. How who am I going to do with them? I'm going to do on my own, with a trainer or
with a friend. And why am I going to do it? The action plan as a why. I'm going to do it because I want to be healthier for my kids. I'm going to do it. Why because I want to be more able to work harder and push myself more. I want to do it because I want to take care of my health. That is a complete action plan. Do this with me right now. Don't just let this
be something that you're hearing theoretically with me. I want you to build your goals in this way because this is the thing, right like otherwise you're going to be in the same place next year. We're going to be talking at the same time next year and gonna be like, Yeah, I didn't achieve my goals. But this framework works. This framework is it works. It's what's between you and achieving your goals. So just take this moment to be focused and be effective about it, right, Take this moment to
give yourself that opportunity. So the third thing is having an action plan, and that's how you build a fall action plan, and the fourth is this. Now, this one's slightly more advanced and slightly more progressive for those of you that really want to push forward this year and make an impact this year. A lot of people ask me, Ja, it seems like, you know, something's always interesting has happened in your life, something always is you know, exciting that's
happening in your life. And for me, it all comes down to the fact that I make years about something. So it's like the year of you know, in the Chinese calendar, which you may have known about when you grew up, they have the year of the whatever, and there's different animals, et cetera. So it's like year of the Ox, year of the hair, year of the Rabbi, year of the dragon, right, year of the pig. So you have all these years. So when I come up with a year plan for me, my action plan revolves
around year of what. So twenty eighteen for me was year of social media video, year of uplifting content, year of conscious content. And twenty nineteen for me was the year of the podcast, year of on Purpose two and twenty for me is year of Think like a Monk, Year of the book right, this is my focus, this is my priority. And so when you make it that simple for yourself that ultimately everything I'm doing is around this, and for you it may not be some of your creating.
Could be a year of my family. It could be a year of my passion and purpose. It could be year of creating my entrepreneurial business. It could be year whatever. It could be, right, it doesn't. It just has to be simple as an overarching plan. And then there are the three elves. Elves not elves we're past Christmas, not three elves, but the three elves of what you want to be doing every year. You want to be learning one thing, you want to be launching one thing, and
you want to be loving one thing. And I explain what I mean by these in depth. Every year you want to be launching something. When I say launching, I mean focusing on something. So for me, I'm launching my book, but it could be that you're you're launching your career, you're launching a relationship. Right When I say launch, I mean like, that's what it's all about. That's what you're excited about, that's what you're passionate about, that that's what
you're launching. It's what you're giving your main focus to that year. Well, you also want to do every year, is you want to be learning something. This could be something that you launch next year. This could be something you're focused on next year. So for example, let's say you're expecting, you and your partner are expecting, and you know you're going to have a child next year. And let's I'm not putting it in business terminology at all, but just for the point of this, you'll be launching
a child next year. This year you may focus on learning how to parent. You may focus on learning about conscious parenting, so the next year, when you have your child, you can focus on that. Right, So you're learning about the thing that's happening next year. When you live in with this interntionality, with this consciousness, you're so much more prepared, you're so much more happier, you're so much more excited
because there's something to look forward to. So you always want something that you're learning every year, right, You always want something that you're learning every year, So always be launching, be learning. And then the third thing, which is very important is always be loving something. So this year I'm gonna be loving the podcast. I'm going to be loving my genius community. I'm going to be loving my videos
that I've been creating. These are things that I'm loving that I've been doing for a few years now, and I'm loving them. I love them. I have a rhythm, I have a pattern, I have a workflow. I know how it works, so I love the process. But at the same time as loving something, I'm learning something else and I'm launching something else. The launch is where I'm having my mistakes, where I'm growing new skills, where it's exciting.
The love provides the consistency and the stability that I need in life, and the learning provides the exploration, the curiosity, the intrigue. Notice how they're all fulfilling different parts of me. If I was only learning stuff, then I may not feel focused, i may not feel excited. But if I'm only launching something, then I may feel like I need more stability in my life. And if I'm only loving something, then I may feel bored because I may feel like, well,
I want to do more with it. So notice how learning, launching, and loving gives you a different energy. Now why is this the four step framework as a whole? It spells out the word goal, growth, opportunities, act in, learning, launching, loving, right growth. The first thing that I told you was don't focus on the goal, focus on the growth. The second thing was clarified the criteria of opportunities you say
yes to and know too to know your priorities. The third is build that ideal action plan, and the fourth is learn, launch, and love. If you follow this framework, and I recommend coming back to this episode and building your goals around this framework, it will set you up for success. Sending you all my positive vibes and my meditations, and I want you to take this very strategic and thoughtful plan, whether it's your business goals, your personal goals,
or your relationship goals. And I can't wait to be on this journey together this year. And you're listening to every episode until then, and we're together, You're going to say, jay I made progress. You're going to say, jay, I grew, I chose the right opportunities, I built my action plan, and I learned, I launched and I loved. That's enough. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of On Purpose. If you're new, hello, if you've been here for a while, thank you and welcome to all
of you. So grateful. Make sure you subscribe, make sure you review, and make sure you come back next week. Thank you so much,