The Importance of Setting Goals with Proper Execution
When it comes to life from what I've found happiness and direction come from purpose, as it's hard to explore the seas without wind in the sail. But one cannot know which direction to sail in this vast ocean without the map to their destination, as one cannot reach their dreams without setting goals that help them get there. As someone with ADHD, things like setting goals were always a daunting and scary task.
For me, I would always dream, (from what I was told) "Too big" and because of that my goals became more of a burden. It was a scary task that became something I would only dream of but when it came to the opportunities that would help me with these goals my brain would make excuses for why I could never do it. For a while, I was ok with this, but I started to get too bored. See I would let video games be my escape after I finally saved up enough to get a PS4 when I was 14, but when I was about halfway through my 16th year it was as if a switch flipped in my brain. Video games became too boring. I began to want more. I started putting more of my time into looking up things to study on YouTube instead of finding easter eggs or different strategies in whichever video game was my focus at the time. I became infatuated and addicted to self-studies, but I started to run into a problem.
See I was good at finding topics but not good at creating a path of how to properly grasp the topics which led me to wonder if it would help me in the future or if it would be pointless. Now being so young I decided it didn't matter much as getting as many skills will allow me to have a vast pool of options to help me decide which path I truly wished to take in the future.
From 16-18, this was great. I divulged into a plethora of different topics trying to find out which ones tickled my brain the best when I was doing it. I found that the business topic was the one that no matter which portion I was always excited for. Now at 18 and set on a path I wished to take I again hit a wall. I knew where my destination on the map was, but I didn't have the proper direction to get there. Once I came to this realization I took a look at myself and knew I didn't have the discipline to do what I needed to do to finish what needed to be done. I chose the gym as a way to teach me discipline. For 3 months straight I forced myself to go to the gym. I loved it at some points and hated it for most but what came from it was the discipline to continue to go to the gym for 2 years straight. When the 3 months were up and I had tasted true discipline in the smallest amount I decided that if I could do that then I would obtain the discipline to do what I need as I go.
So this is when I decided to think about my goals. I remembered briefly someone talking to me about goals growing up but it was more like a yearly one. I wanted to think bigger than that though (cause I was a fresh 18-year-old high school graduate who thought "I'm an adult no one can tell me I think too big now, they just think small"). I thought well why not set goals for 2 years from now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now? What about in the year itself? 3/4 year goals, 1/2 year goals, 1/4 year goals, monthly goals, weekly goals, daily goals.
I started asking people what their goals were also around this time and found most people did have them or they were just non-specific or realistic things like "get $100,000" or "be ripped for summer" (said by a man who was 150 lbs overweight eating a rack of ribs big enough to be a small child. also its 2 months from summer). Because of this, I decided to split my life into different sections so that way I didn't just have one thing I was focused on but multiple things that would create a lifestyle that would send me in the direction of my "final destination on the map".
After doing an absurd amount of personal research/testing on how to set goals properly and stick to them, I would like to share with you what I have found to be the best way to not only personalize your goals but also healthy habits to make sure you are checking in on your goals and staying on track.
To start this exercise you don't need to know what you want in life but you do need to understand that there are multiple aspects of life which can be split into subsections infinitely. I preface with this because I will be telling you what I have found to be a broad categorization, if you find that changing or adding some of these fits you better then be my guest. This is a template, you need to accustom it to yourself for it to work.
The categories I have found that work best are:
1) Mental
2) Physical
3) Spiritual
4) Financial
Subsections for these are:
| ***Mental*** | ***Physical*** | *Spiritual* | *Financial* |
| ------------ | -------------- | ----------- | ----------- |
| Intellectual | Nutrition | Faith | Saving |
| Health | Life-style | Questions | Jobs |
| Self-Love | Health | Prayer | Investing |
| Philosophy | Fitness | Studies | Studies |
Write these out on a piece of paper, and on your phone set a timer for 5-20 minutes (the longer the better but no longer than 20 minutes) and put down the pencil. Look at the page with these columns and think about what is in front of you. Think about everything you could do for these goals in your mind. think about you being the best you possibly could be with them and where you would be in 1 year, then 2, then 5, then 10. imagine that life, imagine that feeling of happiness after completion. feel yourself there. feel yourself with the success. imagine so thoroughly you convince yourself you are there in that moment, and for only that moment hold that success.
you have now just envisioned your perfect future. you held your success and failure, your hard ships, your challenges, your small wins, and devastating losses. you felt not what succeeding felt like but what pushing through everything and winning feels like, as that is what it takes to achieve your goals. you were there, but now you're back. before you do anything feel that feeling of hunger for what you felt, for what you saw, for what you want. that was your life, you saw it, it was so real, but it hasn't happened yet. you still have steps to take, challenges to endure, sucker punches to take. you saw it but you didn't earn it. now pick up the pencil.
set your timer again for 10 minutes. choose one column and write as many things you wish to achieve in that list. repeat for each column until all are filled. While filling each column think about that perfect life. for the rest of this exercise, you will be putting yourself in the eyes of them. what did they do to get to where they were? what do you need to do to become that version of you? You might have to be hard on yourself and that's ok because this is an exercise to help yourself fix those things you don't like.
The things you write should be somewhat realistic but also should be unrealistic as well. right now there is no such thing as wrong, just don't stop writing until the timer is done. take time to think but don't procrastinate. if you have to take a minute before you start the timer to think or get in the flow of ideas before you start then do that, whatever works for you. just make sure you do it.
when you have finished writing everything on paper take a step back and look at it all. you may have multiple pages so make sure to look at it all. seems very daunting looking at it. some seem easy, and some you don't even know how you can do it. What we are going to do is what I want you to do anytime something seems scary, we're going to break it down and categorize it.
On a new sheet of paper write the letters A-E vertically on the left side of the page (large enough to make 5 columns along the edge of the page) with the label of the category horizontally across the top of the page. From here you will list your goals from most important (A) to least important (E). If you made goals for years from now create separate pages for those time frames.
**"Category"**
- A : Most Important, Wish to Complete the Soonest, Most Realistic
- B : Kinda Realistic, Wish to Complete Soon, Kinda Important
- C : 50/50 Realistic to Unrealistic, Wish to Complete, Important
- D : Want to Complete, 25/75 Realistic to Unrealistic, Not Important
- E : Unrealistic, Want to Complete, Not Important
For each page of the time frames fill those out with each column having 5-10 per. You want to choose the best fit out of them all for each of these. Take as long as you need with this section to think about it, if you have to let it sit then come back to it later with fresh eyes then do so.
Once this has been filled out eliminate the E column and the D column. When it comes to goals it is good to have a lot but you want the ones that you are focused on to be important, the pleasure is for later and anything non-important is for some form of pleasure. With the remaining A-C columns take the goals written in each and write them from most important to least important. make the first one the most realistic thing you could achieve in whatever period you have set. From there get rid of the bottom 3 of the A column, and get rid of the bottom 5 of columns B and C if they have over 5 goals still. Congratulations you have hopefully if done correctly found the most important goals you have in your subconscious.
If done properly you should have 5-20 goals on each of the 4 or more categories labeled by the level of importance and realistic completion for each time frame. Again you are going to categorize them using the A-E Method but by mixing each category crossing the boundaries of goals.
This is the most important part of the process because you are now going from splitting the aspects of your life apart and picking at them, to molding them back together to give you a slight line on the map for you to move towards your goals.
After you have finished categorizing them again you will eliminate D and E. List the remaining columns from most important/realistic to least important/unrealistic. Eliminate the bottom 3 of each column and put the remaining in a list again rearranging the level of importance.
This is the final list you will write for this section so think hard about which things should be at the top and which should be at the bottom. When you have finished writing them out if the list is over 10 eliminate 6 goals from the bottom.
Congratulations you have picked through everything and now you have a list of things you know for a fact you want to get done within said time period. Now what do you do?
On 3 new sheets of paper write out the top three goals, one on each paper. Set your timer again for 5 minutes. Write out everything you could do to achieve that said goal small and big, and repeat with the other two pages. Once completed put those pages up somewhere you will see every day. This is going to be your reminder of what you could be doing when you have "nothing to do".
While you're at it on a flash card write out 5 sentences. Each one from your perspective saying you have completed said task. Tape this to your wall next to where you put your head to sleep. Every morning read the full card to yourself 3 times and before you sleep 9 times. During the day try to think about what it said a minimum of 6 times. As time goes on you will memorize them and they will become engrained in your mind to the point where you unintentionally go after opportunities that will bring you to achieving those goals. It is important to continue to do this even after memorization because just as easy as you memorize it is just as easy as you can forget it.
On top of that get a journal to write in as well, this is where you will track the progress of your goals while also unintentionally checking off a box for the Mental Category which is Health as journaling is a healthy habit for everyone. There are many ways to journal and there is no one size fits all but for me, I like the Da Vinci technique. I find that it is a great way to track daily progress, store personal studies, help with setting and sticking with goals, as well as give options to make failure not as burdenful.
To set up the Da Vinci Method open a notebook to a new page. on the left side create something like this picture for the month you are in. Enter whatever habits you think will help bring you closer to your goal that you would like to start tracking consistency of. I also added in % of Good in the Day and a # tracker. This will allow you to see the fluctuation in good and bad days so when you have a bad day you can see a good one is on its way. For the number tracker, i track my weight but you can track anything numerical with it or you could change it to something that fits you better. Each day open this notebook and fill in the respected box if you did something for that habit that day.
You also will write one sentence describing the best thing that happened in that day. It doesn't always have to be amazing. This is another way for you to be able to look back and know that even on bad days there is still something good that could happen. Developing this mindset is very important because there will be many times while you are chasing the goals that will bring you to your dreams that you will become discouraged from continuing. This gives you that excuse to continue.
On the right side of the notebook you will make a outline somewhat similar to the one above.
This is a place for you to break that big goal down into a smaller goal that you could do in 30 days. This is to make sure you continue to take small steps towards your goals as smaller steps in this scenario are better than huge leaps. The goal tracker is also like a small game for your brain, you become excited to fill the bar more making you want to do more for your goals. The pages after these two are all open for notes so if you have anything you want to write for yourself in the month just write the month and year on the top with notes next to it and go crazy with it.
I struggle with time management and with sticking with things so I understand how hard it can be to focus on a large task such as a goal, but I truly believe that this is the best way to not only find the goals you need to focus on but also to complete what it is you wish to complete. I urge the importance of updating your goals as time goes on so you dont fall behind because you have done all you can from what you know. when one goal is done move the list up one and bring the other lists up one as well. Do this until your lists are all complete.
I do hope this helped, if it does come back leave a comment about what changed for you after you started using this method! Hope you have a great rest of your day and remember you're not nothing, you're something.
Not Finite, The Omega