Deciding on Goals, Committing to a Purpose

12 goals in 12 months, I had decided and there was no turning back. Now just pick 12 goals and start dominating, right? Only one problem, I had no idea what my 12 goals should be.

After all this wasn’t a small decision, this is what I would be doing with the entire next year of my life.

I needed inspiration and I needed it fast. It struck me that I could’t be the only crazy person to have attempted a venture like this. Turns out, I wasn’t. Type “30 day challenge ideas” into Google and you get a lot of results. Everything from high level motivational speakers pumping their version of the 30 day challenge, to infomercial product pushers claiming they could “change my life in 30 day,” to just regular Joe’s (and Jo-ette’s) that were aspiring to make real change in their lives too.

I stumbled upon this amazing TED Talk about a Google software engineer named Matt Cutts who took on a number of 30 day challenges of things that he had always wanted to try. He walked 10,000 steps per day, biked to work, gave up sugar, caffeine and even Facebook for 30 days and the experience changed his entire life.

If you haven’t seen it it’s totally worth the watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNP03fDSj1U

I couldn’t believe there was a whole world of people struggling with their positions in life and attempting do make incremental changes just like me. This got me pumped! If there was this many people globally that were attempting to change, how many were right in my backyard? This could be a whole movement!!

Okay maybe I was getting ahead of myself, but I had definitely found my inspiration.

My goals needed to be original, lofty, and challenging but still fun, creative and exciting; mostly they had to be something I was passionate about.

I took a step back. I had to think about this from a broader perspective. The question wasn’t which goals did I want to accomplish; the question was Why did I want to accomplish these goals. If I couldn’t answer that, then should I really be taking on this challenge at all?

I took a few days to consider this problem. While poking around the interwebs I came across a TED Talk. “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek. This concept perfectly encompassed my struggle with why. I didn’t want to just do something just for the sake of doing it. My goals needed to have purpose, they needed to have meaning. I didn’t want to be Tivo, I wanted to be Apple!

Watch and you’ll understand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sioZd3AxmnE

I thought about my “Why.” I took out a pen and paper and I wrote.

I believe: I can become a better person, happier and more fulfilled by committing to accomplishing my goals.

How

By setting goals that focused on improving the core components of who I am.

I quickly wrote out a list of life components I wanted to improve:

Financial

Health/Fitness

Knowledge/Skills

Environmental

Social

Business/Career

Family/Relationship/Friends

Travel/Adventure

Creative/Writing

These were the pillars that held up my life. My goals had to fit into these categories.

What

I started listing every goal I could think of and categorizing them into these core components.

Financial:

Budgeting Goal: Live on $x for a month (after basic bills and fixed costs)

Health/Fitness:

Learn to meditate and practice it for a month

Learn Yoga and practice it for a month

Do a month long cleanse

Become a vegetarian for a month

Wake up at 5am everyday for a month

Get a six pack in a month

Triathlon Goals: Swim 2000m
Run 42kms
Bike 180kms

Environmental:

Live with 0 trash for a month (no garbage, everything recycled, or decomposable)

Knowledge/Skills:

Read 10 books in a month

Learn a new language

Learn how to code

Become a better cook: Cook something new everyday for a month

Social:

Charity challenge

Make new friends: Speak to a stranger for 10 minutes everyday for a month (not counting work)

One month with just an old school flip phone

Business/Career:

Start a business in a month

One month using a virtual assistant to automate my life

Family/Relationship/Friends:

Connect with all my relatives in a meaningful way

Travel & Adventure:

Experience something new everyday for a month

Explore a new city everyday for a month

Creative/Writing:

Learn WordPress and build a blog to document my journey

This was it, all my passions and dreams listed, categorized and waiting for me to get started. Sure there was probably more but I had enough to get started. Now…how the hell was I going to narrow this down and pick 12?

I could just cycle down the list top to bottom, or start with the lighter and work my way to the most challenging. Maybe I should just put them up against a dart board and see what fate decide. My indecision began to overwhelm me.

I opted to decide scientifically. I scored my goals from 1-5 on how effectively each would help improve my life. 1 being “I’m a new man” and 5 being “I got a new hair-cut.” I also labeled each with a perspective W, S, F (Winter, Spring/Summer, Fall) depending on when they would best be executed.

This is my final list and my road map for an epic 2016: