HOW TO SET SYSTEMS INSTEAD OF GOALS | a system that will change your life

so most people dream a lot of people set goals everyone has habits but almost no one has the system and it's one thing to set goals but it's another thing to keep the focus throughout the whole year so this is what we're going to do in this video we're going to start from the top down we're going to Chunk from your dream to your smart goals to the system the habits strung together that are going to get you there so grab a coffee get out your notebook take some notes because there is a lot under

this flip chart so before we get started on setting the system I want to talk about goals now like if you're a millennial everybody's heard of smart goals this is like the common acronym everybody's heard about smart goals but there's a few issues with smart goals and I really love goals I'm a very goal oriented person but the issue with goals is that they're very incomplete so one thing that can happen a lot of times people will set a goal it will be all of these things and still they won't reach it and then it

causes this shame and it starts the shame cycle one of the biggest issues with smart goals is this actionable and time time bound don't get tied together they're seen as two distinct things is this an actionable thing yes when do I want to get it done by this time and then we call that good but these two things need to be married to each other because it's not enough just to be time down and actionable separately and a lot of times this is going to require you to be a good judge of time when we

set goals that are a year out or 5 years out we become worse and worse judges of time as time goes out and the biggest issue with smal is there's no system running this thing together which is what I want help you create in this video you don't rise to the level of your goals but you fall to the level of your systems is what James Clear says I feel that last year's ceiling where we topped out you know where we just plateaued we couldn't get higher than that point last year's ceiling is this year's

floor and this year's Launchpad so this is going to be the system that we're going to rise to and launch forward this year so get out a piece of paper grab your coffee get a pen be expectant I'm going to make a system with you this year so that you can follow through not continue that shame cycle so this here this mountain we're going to call this the mountain of your goal so at the top of this mountain we have your smart goal that's where we want to be that's the outcome that we want to

achieve but I believe that even above the smart goal level even above the top of this mountain there's something that's also very important that a lot of people don't think about and if you don't think about this step when you get to the top of that mountain you might not be happy or you know you might have that goal depression you know some people don't reach goals but there are some people that do reach a lot of goals and when they get there they have this goal depression because it wasn't what they wanted in the

first place they built a system that created a result that they didn't want and now that system is going to keep running so above this smart goal level we have up here in the clouds metaphorically we have your dream your dream life your dream year your dream weeks this is Airy fairy up in the clouds these are the desires of your heart that people don't want to admit to themselves but these are the things that cause midlife crises if they're not done these are the things that you look back on your life with regrets because

you didn't do it it's the lifechanging work it's the work that matters in your life so it's important not to neglect this dream when when we're getting to the smart goals now at the very bottom of this mountain there'll be some things stringing these together but at the very bottom of this mountain these are your habits this is probably you know the most boring level of the system you know this is the the SLO the step by step by step that's going to get you up the mountain now when you have a group of habits

all shung together done repeatedly in a way that works for you that is your system which will Propel you up this mountain you know so it's all of these things taken together that matter and most people don't have the system you know you put if you have the habits and you feel like you're putting in the work but it's just not getting anywhere you have these goals you have these dreams but you don't have the system it's not going to string throughout the year there's not going to be a thread attaching the beginning of the

year to your June your October to the end of the year so most people dream a lot of people set goals everyone has habits but almost no one has the system and it's one thing to set goals but it's another thing to keep the focus throughout the whole year so this is what we're going to do in this video we're going to start the top down we're going to Chunk from your dream to your smart goals to the system the habits strung together that are going to get you there so if you haven't already take

out a piece of paper we're going to get to work now so a lot of people when they set goals they think of the outcome that they want and they don't chunk backwards to get it it's very important you don't chunk forwards you have to chunk backwards to figure out where do you want to be and slowly chunk backwards to get there so we're going to start up with the life dream level right now so this is the part where you connect with the desires of your heart you dream big you don't anything you don't

edit anything out if you if there's a desire of your heart your gut brings it up your emotions bring it up there's a nudge there's a whisper something you've been trying to kind of push away for a while dump it on there so I have this I talked about this in my last set systems not goals video but this is the start today Journal that I don't believe they have in stock anymore but there's a really great exercise at the very beginning that I want to read to you so you can put on some nice

music put on a candle visualize yourself 10 years from now imagine that a decade of time has gone by and you are living your best possible ideal for yourself and your life dream big don't put any restriction on it don't overthink it just allow yourself to Envision the most magnificent possible future version of yourself a decade in the future what is the very best version of yourself doing what do you look like how do you go about your day how do you speak to the people you love how are you loved in return what kind

of clothes do you wear what kind of car do you drive are you a great cook do you love to read do you love to run get as specific as you possibly can where you go on vacation what's your favorite restaurant to eat at now that your life is different what kind of food do you consume what does it feel like to go throughout your day are you optimistic are you encouraging to others after a decade of working on yourself and growing as a person how much joy is there in your life who's in your

life what's your weak like how do you treat people how do they treat you let your dreams run absolutely wild are you happy are you energetic are you driven do you feel ambitious what's your relationship like with your family members do you own a home what does it look like do you have kids do you have a family are you married what's the best of the best now go even bigger what's a bigger version of the best version of you living every day in the best state that you know how to be what do you

do for work what is the highest value that your future self holds is it family is it loyalty is it growth be as specific as you can see it like a movie in your mind without a second of judgment or overthinking it I want you to write down everything that you just thought of as fast as you can I don't want you to forget any of it I want the future version of yourself to be seared into your brain so I also have this emotions list that I will link in the description box all these

desired feelings list and I chose the specific list because it has very interesting feelings like there are you know the typical feelings like I want to feel joyful or expansive or alive but then there's also you know things that aren't typically considered feeling words like I would have like a mermaid like life or a lionist life or a hot life you know it's all these different kind of unique words so click on that and figure out what feelings do I want what things would be true and write those things down so when you look at

that dream life and everything that's happened I want you to write down the top 10 most important that you want to have happen in the next decade and I've heard the quote that we overestimate what we can do in a year but we underestimate what we can do in 10 and so I want you to dream big what things would be true about your life what are the top 10 biggest priorities that you have so you know maybe you're thinking if that were be true maybe I would be a bestselling author so I want you

to list the top 10 most important to you not what you feel like should be on the list because it's very important to personalize it and when you write it I want you to write it in the past tense I am a bestselling author if you write like I will be a bestselling author your brain sees it as a to-do item and then it feels kind of like I got this to-do item thing I got to do but when you write it in the past tense like I am a best-selling author that feels a little

lighter that's like wow I'm a bestselling author it creates expectancy and like I said so much of goal setting is related to the emotions you don't want to leave emotions behind you want to bring them into the goal setting process so after you've written these things like in the past tense present tense I am a bestselling author you're going to go ahead and circle which is the one that you want to focus on this year which one do you want to go after first you don't want to scatter you know your efforts in many different

directions you want to this is a prioritization exercise and figuring out what do I really want to do and it takes all the stress out of all those other things but use hone in what is the one thing that I want to make happen so we're going to look at that one goal that you want to pursue that one dream that big dream that's so important in your life and we're only going to look a quarter out you know you can generally think about okay so where do I want to be at the end of

this year okay so think about where do you want to be at the end of this year here and we're not going to make super specifics for quarter 3 quarter 2 but for quarter 1 where do you want to be realistically like if you want to have a book written by the end of this year maybe by the end of quarter 1 you want to have a rough draft done so I used to use Rachel holl to start today planners but they're out of stock so I made my own actually so this is what I

use so this is all the whole purpose of this entire book is to chunk backwards set these quarterly goals these quarterly Sprints you know monthly projects things like that so what we're going to do is we're going to chunk backwards so if at the end of quarter 1 you want to have a rough draft done we're going to chunk backwards to where do you want to be at the end of month one where do you want to be at the end of month two and where do you want to be at the end of month

three which is the end of quarter 1 so if you want to have let's say the rough draft done by the end of quarter 1 maybe at the end of month two you want to have half the rough draft done so these are the outcomes that you want to see so maybe by the end of month one you say I want to have three chapters written maybe if you keep chunking back maybe you want the book to be 12 chapters total so six would be half three would be a quarter of that now these are

the benchmarks that you want to hit and these are called outcome goals these are the outcomes you want to see these are not verbs these are like nouns of things that you want to have sometimes these things be a little bit beyond your control like if you want to weigh a certain amount or if you want to have a certain amount of subscribers you can certainly put in actions and do verbs to do that thing but there's not a one to one I do this therefore this so there is you have some control over it

but not as much control over it so as we're still at this level you have less control over things but we're going to continue chunking the system we're not to the system yet just so you know we're still on goal level but once we get to the system it's going to get more and more verb and action oriented so you say at the end of month one January at the end of January I want to have three chapters written now we're going to chunk that backwards even further a little lower to the weekly level so

by the end of week four it's the end of the month I want to have three chapters written by the end of week three by the end of week two by the end of week one maybe at the end of week three you want to have two chapters written maybe by the end of week two you want to have one chapter written and maybe by the end of week one you want to just have an outline done so all sudden it gets smaller and smaller and you can see okay this is getting smaller you know

it's getting a little bit more actionable about the things we're going to do with the weekly level but once we get down to the Daily level I'm telling you it's going to clear this up so well okay so now we're getting into the daily habit this is finally where we're getting into the system I call this the dream management system everybody needs a dream management system and it's these string of habits strung together that will get you throughout the entire year you have to attach things to time time is what reality is we live in

reality so if we just say I want to weigh this much by the end of the year but you don't ever attach it to on Monday I'm going to do this on Tuesday I'll do this on Wednesday I'll do this you know it just stays detached from time and therefore it stays detached from reality and that's what causes the dreams to not become reality that's what causes these dreams to die so once you get down to the weekly level you know maybe by the end of week one we said we wanted to write an outline

May maybe I'll maybe I'll adjust that just for the sake of this example let's say by the end of week one you wanted to write one chapter let's say so Rachel Hollis calls this the five to strive and so it comes from kind of like the 2080 principle that 20% of your time gives 80% of the results so you don't need to spend all of your time on this goal you don't need to like completely you know derail your life for this thing just 1 hour a day 5 hours a week 5 hours a week

to strive up that mountain to go up that mountain where can you find 5 hours you know when I was still a teacher I would wake up at 5: I would go to a coffee shop shop at 6:00 in the morning from 6:00 to 7:00 I'd be at the coffee shop then I would go teach and when I got off work from teaching then my day was just done and I could relax now you don't have to do something like that but that's something that was really helpful for me the first time I did this

video I made this flip chart at the coffee shop the first time I did the first iteration of this video so when you chunk back now we have the daily outcomes Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday so if I want to have one chapter written by the end of the week you know maybe on Monday I outline that one chapter maybe on Tuesday I draft half maybe on Wednesday I draft another half maybe Thursday I edit and Friday I edit and in this planner you show up to weekly planning it has a weekly planning ritual for

chunking these things out and so it makes it so easy to be intentional when all you have to do is find the one habit that will get this thing done so every morning the one habit that I'm implementing is I'm showing up to the planner it has me pick you know for the we for the weekly planning has you pick what three things would make this week intentional it has this chunking process where on the weekly spread we already figured out what are our outcomes for the end of each week and kind of listing those

action steps in the brain dump Bubbles and then when you get to the weekly spread there's just check boxes you know add these things to the calendar in addition to that on the daily level I love Rachel hollis's start today Journal it has you list in the morning five things you're grateful for these 10 dreams that we outlined in the past tense it says in the past tense 10 dreams I made happen and then the one goal I'm going to focus on first so it's the con connection point you know at the bottom of the

mountain those habits and the dream life at the top and every day you're focusing on that goal you know it's easy once you get to June to start you forgetting what am I doing this for but the system of having these two things really just focuses me and this system every time I do it I get results every time I Stray away from it I lack results and so I'm just committing to this one habit I don't have to over complicate I just commit to this one Habit to showing up to the dream management system

all these habits strung together and you have these outcomes and you attach them to time that's when your goals become reality time is reality so when you chunk them down to verbs and actions you're going to do attached to time on the calendar you commit to showing up to the calendar then everything just falls into place you do the initial yearly dreaming work the planner does the rest all you do is show up so I think it's so powerful I think this is some of the most meaningful work that we can do some of the

most important work that we can do um I love the quote from beray Brown find what lights you up and do more of that thing because the world needs more people who are lit up so it's not selfish work that you're doing to have a life that you love and do what you love this is lifechanging work and I don't say that lightly I don't say to just like fluff people up but I really think that when you do what lights you up it really creates positive change to the world so doing the work showing

up to doing the work is so important I'm I'm so excited about this intentional planner if you want to buy this intentional planner I will have the link in the description I think that this is no longer in stock but you can just do this in a journal these questions every day if that's something that you want to implement in your morning routine but yeah thank you so much for watching guys I appreciate all the support you showed on the last one I'll see you guys in the next one bye [Music]