Goal Setting, Part 2: The System

Having goals is important. It gives us something to aim for. But goals alone are not enough.

Highly successful people turn their goals into actionable systems. They have ambitious goals, but they also have their day to day process. They have milestones and tasks - the steps towards that distant goal, laid out with great clarity.

This is what we’re creating for you, in today’s exercise.

Clarity Drives Action

A key idea behind what we’re doing here is this: clarity drives action.

What exactly does that mean?

Whenever you feel stuck, when you’re procrastinating or you just feel overwhelmed, there’s almost always a lack of clarity. If you have a big, ambitious, distant goal, but no clarity about what to do next or how to get there, the goal becomes intimidating. It becomes scary. And we find ways to avoid scary things.

On the flipside, if you have total clarity about what you need to do, the tasks ahead of you become approachable. This is a huge factor in procrastinating behavior, so what you do in today’s exercise can be a game changer if that’s something you struggle with.

Step 1: Reality Check

Before we dive into the exercise, take a quick look at The One Thing that you defined yesterday.

Remember that this is for a 1 year timeline. Ask yourself: is this a realistic goal?

It’s fine to have ambitious, challenging goals. But if the goal is too ambitious, too far out of reach, it will become scary and you’ll find ways to avoid it.

So, look at your goal with that in mind and make adjustments if necessary.

Step 2: The Goal Setting System

Next, you can follow our system to break your 1-year goal down into actionable tasks and milestones. For this, we have once again prepared a Notion template.

The goal of this exercise is to put you in a position where you can make real strides towards your most important goal and you’re never wondering what you should do next.

This doesn’t mean that you need the perfect plan for achieving your goal, all laid out a whole year in advance. No plan will go flawlessly from start to finish, anyway.

You simply make your best guess as to what next steps are likely to lead to your monthly and quarterly milestones and you course correct along the way. Remember that not acting until you have the “perfect” plan with all the answers is just another form of procrastination.