The Dr. Josh Axe Show - How to Set Goals Like a Billionaire

Episode Date: December 27, 2023

Are your goals still just dreams? Learn how to finally make them a reality. In this life-changing episode, Dr. Josh Axe shares his best strategies for creating achievable and realistic goals that will inevitably lead to massive success.  You'll discover: One simple trick to make you 33% more likely to achieve your goals The specific formula for creating goals that are achievable and realistic Why it’s important to prioritize your goals How to create a step-by-step plan and system of habits to reach your goals The power of accountability when it comes to your success If you're ready to stop just dreaming about your goals and start achieving them, don’t miss this important episode! You'll learn practical tips from Dr. Axe to hold yourself accountable, create a systemized plan, and finally accomplish what you set out to do this year. Want more of The Growth Lab with Dr. Josh Axe? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook Tik-Tok Follow Leaders Instagram Twitter Facebook Email Newsletter ------  Links:  https://scholar.dominican.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1265&context=news-releases https://jamesclear.com/buffett-focus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Not having a goal is like not having a finish line. Only 1% actually write down their goals. Do you know how unbelievable that is? Good goals tend to be related to your developing strong character. That's one thing. And so set goals around. I want to become more compassionate. Hey, welcome the show.

I am Dr. Josh Axe. I'm a graduate of Johns Hopkins University. I'm the founder of Dr.ax.com, ancient nutrition, and leaders.com. And each and every week on the podcast, I uncover the science behind how to grow yourself, your health, your wealth, and take your career, your spiritual life and your relationships to the next level. And on today's episode, this is one of the most important topics I could discuss, and it is goal setting. And goal setting is critical to you living your best life possible. In fact, if you want to make more money, have better relationships. If you want to have better health,

goal setting will help you do that. And if you don't goal set, you'll likely fall short in almost every single instance. And I'm not just saying that. The science shows that. Also, hey, before I dive into all the content, make sure you subscribe to the channel. And also make sure to hit that notification bell so it rings anytime I'm putting out new content. I'm putting out three new episodes a week. And I don't want you to miss out. So thanks so much for sharing, subscribing, and being part of the community. So here's the reality when you look at the medical literature. Goal setting has been linked to improving your self-confidence, boosting your motivation, and increasing your performance. And so if you actually want to hit your goal, live the best life

possible, it helps you do that. If you don't have goals, it's so easy to get sidetracked and lose motivation. You know, I think back to when I was on a triathlon team. So when I was in college, I competed high level in triathlon. And I remember any time when I was in a triathlon, you know, I was in race and I saw a finish line. I would run harder. I would run faster. I would give it my all. It was so motivating. Well, not having a goal is like not having a finish line. You can just wonder and run aimlessly and who knows where you'll end up. If you're one of those people and you have goals in every area of your life like I recommend, you've got your relationship goals with your spouse with your kids, in your business, with your finances, with your health. And you know specifically, I want to be in this

type of shape. I want to make this amount of money. Statistically, and according to the research, it shows you are much, much more likely to hit those if you goal set right versus if you don't do it the right way. In this episode, I'll probably surprise you as well as we get into some of the research on what goal setting should and shouldn't be and the parameters around goal setting. I'm going to make it really easy for you to where you could just simply probably do the practices I'm going to recommend in either a few minutes. Now, you could make it an hour. I make it a few our exercise around January 1st every year. But I think you're going to see there's some surprising things here as well. And by the way, I want to say this, I think that people, including you

watching this right now, are listening to this, you're so much more capable than you think. I think for a lot of us, you haven't visualized properly, you haven't goal set properly, you haven't planned properly. And if you do, you could accomplish so much more than you think. I remember listening to a Tony Robbins seminar years ago and he said, you know what? Most people can't, they sort of over-exaggerate what they can achieve in a short period of time, but they under-exaggerate. They fall short on how big their goals should be in the long term. And I found that to be true.

You know, I've had health goals where it's like, okay, in 90 days, I want to completely transform my health. And it got a little bit better. But then after two to three years, I was like, whoa, I'm literally a different person. I did more than I thought I could possibly achieve. And it was in business. It was in relationships. could be in health. And Tony Robbins also says this. He says, setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible. So your dreams, your desires, those things that you want most in life.

Goal setting is the first step in turning those dreams into a reality. So goal setting is necessary. And the other thing I want to say is, we'll get into B hags here in a minute, these big, hairy, audacious goals, but you want to think big. I think sometimes people, I think there's a few reason people don't set goals. One reason being they don't think it's that important. Okay, that's one reason. There's another reason why I think people are afraid to write them down because then they feel like, well, now I've committed to, if I don't hit them, I'm going to feel guilt or shame or disappointment myself or feeling worthy. That's not a good reason because you won't get far enough in life. That's where if you're a, if you're worrying what everyone thinks about you, that's why some people don't

set goals is that even if they don't show others, but they have a fear. It's, related, it's a, it's a limiting belief around fear. Okay. And then the other is, I think that people don't set goals, just out of sheer, just feel like you're too busy or there's maybe a laziness or slothness there. But I don't think that's the main reason. I think the biggest reason why people don't set goals is they don't understand how critical it is to their success. And they don't believe in themselves. And they also have a fear around, well, if I write it down, then I'm just going to end up being disappointed when the reality is if you want to lift your best life possible you need to write down your goals and here's why listen to this only 3% of the population sets goals now here's the

crazier statistic only 1% actually write down their goals do you know how unbelievable that is only 1% by the way do you ever hear people talk about all the 1% the top 1% oftentimes we've talking about the top 1% in financially or in their influence or in their fame, you know, the top 1%? Guess what? The top 1%? Part of the reason they're the 1% is because they set goals. When I think about the top 1% in almost indie industry, I'm thinking about I've worked with professional athletes. Those, that top 1% of professional athletes in the Olympians and professional football players and stuff I've worked with, they all wrote down their goals. They all practice visualization. They did those things.

When I think about the most successful people in business, the Elon Musk's, the Sarah Blakely's, the Oprah Renfries, the Jeff Bezos, these people, they all write down their goals. They're in the top 1%, partly because they followed the best practices of writing down their goals. So just know, if you want to be in the top 1 or even top 10%, you have to write down your goals. If you don't, it's almost guaranteeing that you won't end up in the top. So you need to write down your goals. Think about that again. I know, sorry, to beat a dead horse here, only 1% of people actually write down their goals.

So if you want to be different and significant and stand out from the crowd and do something only the top 1% do, then write down your goals. Even if it's just writing down what your top five goals are, that alone will make a massive difference. Okay, here's another one. 35% of individuals who start New Year's resolutions abandon them within one week. I think the average is actually four days. And so oftentimes we don't keep up with things. And I think it's either, and we're going to get into how to set these smart, intelligent, wise goals here in a minute. And there are many reasons why so many people start and fail so quickly. But I think a big part of it is that the goals were unrealistic, but they didn't tie a plan to their goals.

And also, here's the other thing. I think the bigger reason is well, too. People have New Year's resolutions that they say, but they don't write them down specifically and have a 90-day goal. They don't have an actual, they didn't goal set the right way, which I'm going to teach you how to do today. day. All right. So I want to give a few personal stories and examples that I think will help you as well when it comes to the importance of goal setting. You know, in all of my businesses, I've practiced goal setting. You know, one of them was when I started my functional medicine clinic in Nashville. When I had that clinic, which I know a longer operate, but when I did, I wanted to hit a thousand

visits a week and hit making a million dollars a year my second year in practice. I was able to do it. And the only reason I was able to do that. And that was not only becoming the one percent, that was like one in 10,000 of physicians in my space was because I had very specific goal setting and then I did subgoals like I'm going to teach you to do today. A very similar thing with Dr.ax.com. That was a website I started. I said, I want to become the number one natural health website. And I said I want to do it in five years. Well, the crazy thing was because I was so goal driven, we did that in two and a half years. And I did a similar thing with my company, ancient nutrition. I was able to partner with Jordan Rubin. We're able to go over $100 million in sales.

And that happened. So I just wanted to share, I'm sharing this not to boast, but to say, if you goal set, this is one of the most important things you could ever do for business success. You have to have specific goals. And I'm going to teach you also how to set those goals and go after those goals. But listen, it's also, it's not just business. It's health. You know, when I've gone through trials in life or had, you know, sometimes my goals have been, like I used to be on a triathlon team and said, okay, I want to, I want to run a faster triathlon, or I want to run my first half marathon and get a good time. I know I got a better time because I had very specific goals. I was able to do an hour and a half, one hour and 30 minutes because I had a very, very specific goal laid out.

And then another example would be finding my spouse. You know, when I think about Chelsea, I wrote down my goal to get married in, you know, within two years. And I wrote down all the qualities of the spouse that I was hoping for and dreaming for and praying for. And part of my goal was, I started looking for that person. I started praying for that person. I started trying to become that sort of person myself that would attract that sort of person. And I was able to find the woman of my dreams. All that being said, it's important. Goal setting is critical for business success, for health, and for relationships, and so much for financial success. And so I want to dive into exactly how to do that and achieve success in all of those areas. And I also want to talk about

where to start. And this is critically important. Make sure your goals are meaningful and that they're not selfish and that they are, that they're not just meaningful for you, but they're meaningful for others. There is a study that I think it was a really fantastic study. And this was a study done on college graduates. And they wanted to track their happiness after graduation. And so by the way, Some people make a big mistake, and they set goals that they think will make them happy versus setting goals that they think will make other people happy. And by the way, there is a balance to this. Your goals should not just be selfish goals.

Your goals should be good for you and other people too. That's the thing. Your goals should be very family, community driven as well, not just about you, according to the study. So here's what they did in this study. Again, they tracked college students in their happiness after graduation. And basically here's what happened. The participants who set goals who valued most material possession. So they valued a high salary, for instance.

And so they said, hey, what are your biggest goals to this group of people? Well, some said, well, I want to become a CEO. Another group said, in part of the same group, they said, well, I want to have a salary of making $100,000 a year, okay? or I want to have 100,000 followers on Instagram. Okay, those were the goals. Okay, I want those things. There was another group, though, that had more what are called community involvement

goals. And they said things like, well, I want to help 100,000 people get healthy on social media, like on Instagram or YouTube. Or I want to help, you know, 100 people. lose 100 pounds. And that's maybe a personal trainer had that goal. Or I want to help my team members all hit their bonus. Okay, at work. Whatever. They found those people that had more community involvement goals rather than the more self-centered, I want to be a CEO, I want a high salary. I want 100,000 followers goals. Those people that had more of the community altruistic goals had greater life

satisfaction, much greater mental well-being. And they were happier. So it's just important to know when your goal setting, if you're that person saying, by the way, I'm not saying you can't have these things, right? If you're saying to yourself, I want to drive a Porsche or a Lamborghini, I want to have a, you know, a $5 million home, whatever it is, those goals are okay. But if those are the only goals you have, it will not lead you to be, it won't lead to life fulfillment, happiness and maximum impact. I want to give you another example of this. If you are a person on social media and you want to be an influencer, by the way, do you know, Gen Z? That's the number one. thing they want to be. When I was a kid, it was like, I want to be a fireman. I want to be an

astronaut. I want to be a doctor. Today, it's, I want to be an influencer. If your child has those goals, or you're watching that and you have those goals and you're saying, I want to be an influencer, be very careful how you set your goals. Because if your goals are simply, the only thing is like, I want to have 100,000 followers, okay? If that's your goal, then you will do anything. You'll subconsciously, even. But you'll cut corners. You'll say negative things about people. You'll tear down the world and tear down others in order to achieve that goal. Versus, let's say somebody said, you know what, I don't want to have 100,000 followers. I want to help 100,000 people. My metric is 100,000 followers, but I want to help 100,000 people boost their self-esteem and confidence. I want them to

feel worthy. You know, I think about someone like Jamie Kernlema, like she's a good example of this, where that's a big part of her focus on her social media channel. And so she's posting very specific things to help people do that. And so she's hearing people in the community say, I feel beautiful for the first time. I feel worthy. My confidence is higher than it's ever been. It changes life. So when you're setting goals, make sure your goals do good in the world, not evil.

Because doing good will leave to life satisfaction, happiness, and you'll be happy you hit the goal versus you actually send yourself in the world backwards, even if you have a lot of followers. So here's where to start or a few things to consider again. A meaningful life, meaningful goals are anchored in. Good goals tend to be related to your developing strong character. That's one thing. And so set goals around, I want to become more compassionate. I want to become more generous. And so in order to become more generous, I'm going to pay for the meals of others. I'm going to give 10% to church and missions and ministry organizations or clean water in Africa, whatever it is. So have those things, that are tied to a character quality, that then you can tie to something, a specific number, okay? And so, okay, I wanna become more loving. Okay, I'm gonna send one email

or one text message a week to a friend telling them how much they mean to me in my life. Okay, so that's how you wanna set these goals. They need to be tied to character. They need to be tied to deeping the connections with others. So something that adds value and contributing to another, building a relationship. And the other one is,

positive contribution to society. Okay. So if you create a product or a program, it's helping somebody heal. It's helping someone further their career. It's helping somebody get out of debt, right? So those are the three things. And by the way, a lot of these are tied to studies that I've mentioned that actually lead to you being fulfilled and satisfied personally after hitting your goal. Okay. So these are some important things to consider when goal setting. Now, I also want to talk a little bit about the part of goal setting that I also think that that's important, and that is prioritization and visualization. When you are goal setting, number one, you want to make sure they're actually going to fulfill your priorities in life. Let's say all of your goals are tied to financial gain.

I want to, again, make $100,000. I want to have a certain title at work. I want to have this. And that's your only goal, okay? Or all your goals are tied to career. You might hit those, but you also might leave out the most important things in life, like your first. family and relationships and your faith and your health. I believe all of those goals are actually more important than your business and financial goals. So I think it's important that you set goals in all of these areas and make sure they're in their proper order. So the first thing you should do before goal setting is write down and think about, okay, what do I truly want my life to look like in 10 years and what will truly make me satisfied? Like the most virtuous people I know, the people

have done not the most in the world. This is so important. You don't want to follow the people that have done the most in the world. You want to follow the people that have done the most good in the world. We could talk about people like Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, and those are great people. But I think about friends of mine like Jordan Rubin. Jordan Rubin started a supplement company, and he actually puts great ingredients in his supplements versus other people that have started supplement companies that put absolute trash in their supplements. You know, you could start a food company, but if it's all genetically modified organisms and in food colorings and artificial dyes, you're doing evil in the world versus if you start a food company or a farm and you're creating

organic produce and free range animals and those things, now you're doing good in the world. So remember this, it's not about doing the most in the world. It's about doing the most good in the world. And that's what you should set your sights on when it comes to goal setting. Now, when you're goal setting, you also want to visualize. this is really important part of goal setting. By the way, I've done this so many times in my life. When I talked about a spouse earlier, one of my goals was to marry a high character woman.

And I wrote down my goals with this. I said, God, so what I wrote down is I said, God, I would love a wife and I would love to pursue a wife that is mentally stimulating. Now, I wrote that one down because that was important to me. like I wanted to be able to have deep and meaningful conversations with a spouse. And I was into medicine and philosophy and psychology and these things. And I needed a deep woman who was educated. And so that was one thing I wrote down. I said, God, would you send me a woman that is mentally stimulating, physically, breathtaking,

spiritually on fire. And that helps me grow up like it's iron sharpens iron. Those are the things I wrote down. And then I wrote down other things, right? That she wants to, you know, she's into health and she's, she wants to grow her faith and a number of things. so I had those things down. And God sent me that woman, you know, and I'm so blessed for it. But the other thing I did with that is I visualized.

And I pictured, what does that woman look like? What are we doing together? Oh, we're at the gym together. Okay, we're doing a workout. And then afterwards, we're going and getting a green drink. Okay, my family grew up going to a lake house. And so I saw us going on a boating trip, and we were wake surfing and wakeboarding. And I visualized all these things of sort of what I want this woman in this life to look like.

And God sent me that woman. And I'm so blessed because of it. But I think a lot of times in goal setting, we leave some of these parts out of you want to prioritize. And if your biggest goal is to have a Lamborghini, by the way, I know some of these men, by the way. I know a lot of men. And their goal was to drive a Lamborghini, have a $10 million house, do this. And the ones that I'm thinking of, all of them are miserable. They're absolutely miserable.

I shouldn't say all of them. I would say 90% of them are miserable. But they're divorced. They don't have a good relationship with their kids. kids anymore. They didn't prioritize before they set the goals. So it's so important that you prioritize, that you aim at the good, and then you go through the process of visualization. The other thing you want to do with goal setting is you want to have both short-term goals and long-term goals. I tend to have quarterly goals. There's a reason why companies do this now today. You have your yearly,

your annual goals, and you have your quarterly goals. So every three months, I sort of evaluate, and then I have metrics for those goals. So you want to have short-term, you want to have long-term. I tend to have a one-year goal, a five-year and a 25-year goals. And then you want to have some goals, maybe one in a certain area of life, and this might be in business. And it's a big, hairy, audacious goal. Okay, something to where, you know, you couldn't do it on your own. You need a team to do it. You need a God-size miracle to do it, but you want to do something big that shifts the world and society in some way. And so those are some types of goals that you want to have. And so what I do when I goal set is I tend to write down those one-year goals, and then I break them down into,

what we call rocks at my company, but those sort of quarterly goals to see how I'm doing re-evaluate for the year, and then I have some of those longer-term goals that I write down separately. And one of the things that we'll do here as well is I may show you an example of the way that I actually do goal setting on a document

or it's something that you could go and download that we might be able to get for you there as well. I want to go through a study here on goal setting really quickly. This was done by Gail Matthew. She's got another great study she did on visualization. But she did a study on goal setting, and here's what she found. She said, when people wrote down their goals, they were 33% more successful in achieving them than those who formulated outcomes in their heads. Her research also highlights the effectiveness of having, this is important, a supportive friend or accountability for completing the action steps through weekly progress updates.

So listen to that. If you just simply write it down, that's it. Just write down the goal. You're going to be 33% more. successful in achieving the goal. Listen, this isn't saying you don't have goals. This was a group of people that had them in their head. So they had goals saying, I know what my goals are versus writing them down. There's a big difference between just thinking them and actually writing it down. You got to write it down. Okay.

Here's the other big piece he said is accountability. This is important. By the way, I'm going to get into this in a minute. Some people think you should announce your goals to everybody. You shouldn't. But you should have accountability. That's key. We'll get into that more here in a minute.

Here's another key to goal setting. You are two to three times more likely to stick to your goals and hit them if you make a specific plan for when, where, and how you'll perform the behavior. So here's a sentence you can fill out. During the next week, I will partake in at least 20 minutes of vigorous exercise on. Name the day, name the time of day, and name the place. Get specific. This is key to goal setting. You know, James Clear, he's the author of Atomic Habitat.

gives his recommendations for habit stacking. And here's how he does this as well. So this is another great way to do this and achieve your goals is to where have habits that help you achieve your goals. And so part of goal setting is not only the goal, it's the system to achieve the goal or the habit to achieve the goal.

So remember that goal setting is you want to spend time prioritizing, you then want to spend some time visualizing that outcome, then you want to specifically write down what the goal is, like we just went through where you're going through, you know, the day, the time of the day, the place where you'll typically do this, you then want to write down, what's the system? What are the habits you need to achieve those goals? And oftentimes stacking them together. So for instance, if you're saying to yourself, okay, I want to get healthier next year. And my specific goal is to lose 20 pounds in 90 days. And I want to run my first 5K.

Okay, something like that. Well, well, well, then what you want to do is you can have a diet habit, on top of an exercise habit, stacked on top of a mindset habit, right? Or here's some other examples that James Clear shares. Meditation. After I brew my morning coffee, I will meditate for one minute. Okay. Push-ups. Before I take my morning shower, I will do 10 push-ups.

Gratitude, before I eat dinner, I will pray or say everything I'm grateful for. Networking. After I return from my lunch break, I will send one email to someone to meet. So you can see an example here of just as easy things. how long does it take to do 10 pushups? 20 seconds. I mean, so adding in some of these good habits, if you do that for a year, you can be a totally different person. You can be transformed. Now, I want to go through how to set smart goals. Okay. By the way, I have a new book that's coming out. It's called Think This, Not That. And I go through this form and much deeper of goal setting in my book.

So if you want to know more about how do you goal set, how do you find your purpose, how do you achieve a higher identity? check out that book. You can simply go to Amazon.com and just search Josh Axe. Think this, not that. All right, smart goals. So number one is to set smart goals, you need to be specific. Very specific. So I'm going to run 22 minute 5K. So you have that. And you have the exact date for the event. So let's say it's March 31st. Okay. So March 31st at this exact run, I'm going to run a 22 minute, 5K. or a sub-22-minute 5K. Okay, so you have real specific. And then from there, remember, you're going to break it down more. You're going to say, well, in order to do that, I'm going to run four times a week for however long, for, you know, 30 minutes, four times a week, or your exact mileage, right? You're typically going to get more specific than that, but that's what you're going to do. So you're going to get very specific to set a great goal.

The next one is your goal should be measurable. And so with it being measurable, again, that 22 minutes. Now, it could be something also, as an example like in business, you're able to look at the finances. You're able to look at new people coming in or your conversions or engagement, right? Even on social media, if you're an influencer, we talked about on Instagram or YouTube, you can have your specific metrics that you're looking at. But the more measurable it is, the more ideal it is. Now, you know, one of the things that I think sometimes it might feel hard to measure some of the most

important goals which can be tied to your faith and tied to your family and relationships. So how do you measure those goals? Well, I want to give you an example of some of the goals that I've had. So one of my goals was to have a deeper understanding of the Bible. I wanted to have a deeper, I wanted to have better biblical literacy. So my goal was to read the Bible in one year and go through two Bible studies. But those are measurable so you can do that. Now, some more, I guess, goals that could be subjective are, for instance, I want to practice more of the presence of God, or I want to be able to feel more deeply connected to God in prayer. And we could say the same thing for your spouse.

I want to feel like my wife and I were on the same page, we're deeply connected. Well, one way to do this is just to write down, okay, on a scale of 1 to 10, how do I feel my relationship is with God right now? Okay, and maybe you're like, well, I haven't gone to church, my prayer life, I just don't feel like I'm, you know, hearing sort of that conscious, like a voice of conscious voice of God, or I feel like I've just been unethical in certain areas and have these. And so you might say, you know, I feel like it's a three out of ten. Okay. Well, then write down one of those specific practices and then grade yourself quarterly. And then at the end of the year, remember, I was at a three out of ten. Maybe now you're at a six

or seven out of ten. Maybe it's higher than that. But again, you want to measure. And if you don't know how to measure it, well, then measure it with a one out of ten score. My relationship with my spouse right now is a five out of ten. I want to get to a seven at least. and then create a plan in order to do that. So you want to have your goal, and you want to be able to measure it at the beginning and quarterly and at the end of a year. The other thing here is achievability.

Make sure your goal is achievable. Let's say, for instance, you're just starting out and you're saying to yourself, okay, I, again, going back to the influencer thing, I want to have, or I want to start a podcast, and I want to have a million downloads my first year. You know, almost nobody has done that. I mean, not even the top 1% do that.

It's like the top one and maybe 100,000 would do that. So make sure it's achievable. So maybe your goal is instead to say, okay, I want to have 10,000 downloads my first year. Okay. And so set something that's more achievable and realistic that you can hopefully hit. And here's the thing. After three months, if you realize, okay, gosh, I had a million and my goal was a million. and I'm only at 1,000 downloads after three months.

Well, then maybe you adjust it and then you make it eight or 10,000, right? So make sure your goals are achievable. But here's the other thing, too. You want them achievable, but you also want them to stretch you. So what we do in business, and I do this in my life, is I have what are called my standard goals and I have my stretch goals. So those goals that I know that I should be able to hit, especially if I push it, but then sometimes I'll write a goal

that's about 25% bigger, that really, I believe that if we really stretched for, maybe we could do it. If some things that really, really fell our way. Okay. So I tend to have standard, those achievable, and then those stretch goals. You want to make them realistic. You also want to make them time-bound. Again, that timing is really, really important. And that's how you set these smart goals. Now, I want to jump back to something I talked about earlier, and that's accountability. According to certain studies, Andrew Huberman had a great segment on this. he said, you don't want to set goals and tell every single person about the goal. Here's a crazy reason why sometimes consciously, when you tell everyone, I have a goal to help

100 million people. There's a level of a dopamine hit by you announcing this and that's something so lofty and some people looking at you like, wow, that person set a really big goal. It's sort of like boost your ego. But according to the study, it actually may demotivate you because something neurologically, if you believe it so much, it's almost like you've already achieved it. And so according to his science and research and his breakdown of it, it's not ideal to announce to the entire world what your goal is in certain instances.

However, what you should do is you should set goals and share them with people that can hold you accountable and to make sure that you can achieve that that are going to help you along the way achieve the goal. Those people you should let know. So, for instance, my goal is to stop is to not drink alcohol for three months. Let your spouse know. Let your best friend know and those people that you're closest to. Maybe your goal is to, you know, start, again, going back to the start your first podcast, right?

And you have to have 10,000 people download it. We'll tell your team that, tell the person your friend with it also has a podcast who's been doing in a couple years and then meet with them regularly. So when it comes to goal setting, you don't want to tell. everybody. You also don't want to tell nobody. You want to tell a selective few people who are going to be the key people in helping you achieve the goal. In addition to goal study, you also want to have subgoals. Let me give you example. I had a goal to write a bestselling book that sold at least 100,000 copies and to hit the New York Times bestseller list. It's crazy. My books sold plenty to hit the New York Times bestseller list, but for some reason they didn't put me on the list.

With that being said, it was okay. Like, I still achieve more because I had goals. So sometimes you set goals and you don't quite hit it, but you achieve more just because you set the goal in the first place. One of the thing I want to mention is you do want to have sub goals. So if your goal is to write a best selling book and sell 100,000 copies, well, now you need subgoals to finish the book. And so you might decide, well, I'm going to have 12 chapters of my book.

Okay. And there's 12 months. And so I need to write one chapter a month of the book. and in order to achieve one chapter, one chapter is going to be about, let's call it 5,000 words. Maybe it's less. Let's say it's 4,000 words. Okay, so 4,000 words. So in five days a week, you want to try and get about 1,000 words a day written. Okay. So maybe that's a word. Two days a week you're going to have, and you're going to write 2,000 words twice a week. Okay. And so you're going to block out maybe two hours, four days a week for writing.

Okay, and then you're going to be able to write that. You're going to be able to get that work done. And so that's what that would look like. So have sub-goals. And so your big goal is to write a best-selling book and hand your manuscript in in 12 months, but your sub-goal is to write one chapter a month. And the sub-goal of that is to write 4,000 words a week. Okay, I'm sorry, 4,000 words.

No, that's 4,000. No, that's only, that'd only be 4,000 words a month, which is easily doable. So that's 1,000 words a week. Easy to do. So maybe you should write your first book. And the next thing there is a strategy, right, to achieve your goals. And that's where you're taking those sub goals that you have and you're really plugging those into a system. And the systems are so important.

In fact, I've heard a lot of, a lot of people believe that the systems in a way are even more important to the goals. Now, I don't think one is more important than the other. I think that in order to achieve the most in your life, you need to have both. You need to have habits and you need to have goals. Again, as this example, if you're a writer and your goal is to write a book, your system is the writing schedule that you follow each week. If you're a runner, your goal is to run a marathon, but your system is your training schedule for each month.

If you're an entrepreneur and your goal is to build a million dollar business, your system is your sales and marketing process. So goals are useful for setting direction, but systems are great for actually making progress on those goals. Now, I want to go through a kind of, here are the key takeaways right now. Here's the thing. Start number one, prioritize. Write down and make sure that you are prioritizing the things that are most important in life and that your goals are tied to not only doing the most, but the most good. They're tied to character growth. They're tied to growing in the gifts and skills God has given you. They're tied to relationships and contributing to the good of the world. So one, write down your priorities. Next, spend some time

in visualization, visualizing what that goal would look like. The next step would be following that smart goal setting process, where you're writing down goals that are very specific and they're measurable and they're realistic, right? So follow that smart goal setting process and then create the system. What are those sub-goals and systems that are going to allow you to achieve that big goal? And one of the last steps is writing down a specific plan, plugging these into your daily schedule, plug in time to write the book, plug in time to record the podcast, plug in the spiritual growth time, plug in the time to grow closer to your family, plug into your schedule right now and almost plan out the year of what you're going to do.

And last but not least, remember, don't tell everybody, but tell an accountability partner or certain people in business or whoever can help you achieve that goal and help you most accountable. If you do that, it's going to help you tremendously. Remember, only 1% of people set goals. And goal setting, if you write goals, you're going to be 33% more successful than those that don't write down goals, even those that have them. You'll be more successful than those. Literally, if you want to be in the top 1% in every era of your life, then set goals in all of those areas. The way I like to break down goals is into five areas. I like to break my goals down into my faith, my family and relationships, my health and fitness,

my finances and work life, and my free time. That's sort of recreational. Maybe it's trips or you want to get into pickleball, whatever. You have some goals there. So those five areas are the five areas you should goal set in. And then once you have those five areas of goal setting, what I want to encourage you to do is write down between one to three goals in every one of those areas. Okay. And so, you know, if in your professional life, you may say, well, I want to, I want to get a raise and make $100,000 this year. And then the other thing I want to do is I want to grow in my skill as a writer and become a much better writer. And then another goal is it's more altruistic. It's, I want to be able to, in my finances, give 10% of our income,

away to those in need, right? So, so you want to write down goals in all those areas. And then what you want to do, if you write down those one to three goals, you want to circle the big one, the one that matters most in each of those areas and create very specific plans to achieve those goals. And again, if you do, you're going to have your best year ever. Goal setting is necessary to become successful and to live your best life possible. I want to say, thanks so much for tuning in to today's episode. If you enjoyed this episode on goal setting, hey, make sure to subscribe, like and share, and also click the notification button so you get rung anytime a new episode is released. I'm releasing three new episodes a week. And we've got a lot of great podcasts come out.

And so you may want to go back and scroll through on YouTube or iTunes or Spotify and look at some of our past episodes I've covered because I think there are so many that would add great value to your life.