3 Years Ago I Wrote 100 Goals on a $2 notebook and here’s what happened…

In 2014 I started writing my 100-lifetime goals in a 2$ notebook. Guess what? I started turning them into reality right away …

Some of the goals sounded like this:

• Open a business that will reach 2000$ a month (I obviously nailed that, and went over that number)
• Play in a movie (I was a background actor in a movie called Closer to the moon)
• Fly in a helicopter over New York (Yes! I’m a lucky fella.)
• Attend concerts of my favorite artists (I shook my body to Bruno Mars and a few other artists)

One of them was to shake hands with Bob Proctor. Soon after I wrote that, I made it happen. I had the chance to interview Bob Proctor and shake hands with him.

Here’s the proof:

You know the saying ‘you have to choose your battles wisely’? It’s the same with goals. To succeed in life, you have to know what you’re going after and what you truly want. In order to know what you really want, you first have to understand what’s your purpose because you aren’t going to get another life, or a do-over, or have another go at it.

Your life purpose is not a number, it’s not a profession, it’s not something over the top specific, , it’s not something you can put your finger on. Your life purpose is a general direction, a tendency. You’re looking for a general direction that would allow you to excel in certain activities and be better at them than others. It’s something that gives you meaning and the power to push through life struggles.

BIG DREAMS. BIG GOALS. BIG ACHIEVEMENTS.

Why do you need big goals? In a nutshell, because the human potential is infinite and if you don’t think that…well, you’re wrong. Setting big goals is more important than actually hitting them. If you’re going for 200 million dollars and you end up with 100 million, it’s still better than going for 1 million dollars and ending up with 100 000. You need to go for big goals.

In order to set goals, the first thing you need to do is sit down and figure out what you really want. To figure out what you really want, you have to be really aware of yourself, of your strengths and weaknesses, of the things that you’ve been or not been exposed to.

There are basically three main steps: know what you want, write it down and read it every day.

1. KNOW WHAT YOU WANT

I’ll let you know what worked for me. I’ve practiced an exercise for a few months straight before finding out what I want to do with my life.

First, you need to draw three circles which represent:

• What you like;
• What people tell you you’re good at or compliment you on;
• What you’ve been exposed to (history, environment).

The areas connect to give you a hint about what your life purpose should be. And when it comes to the second circle remember that it’s crucial that you ask the right people that will tell you the truth. Usually, it’s not your mother…

Be really honest with yourself. Because a lot of people say “I want a lot of money but that’s not a good thing to say”. If money is important to you, then go for it, but if you want something more meaningful and you’re looking for money, that’s not going to do any good for you. For example, I really love being in the center of attention, I like the spotlight on me, I love being center stage and everybody applauding me. Now, of course, that might sound a little bit arrogant, but I genuinely like that. I’m blunt.

The end result looked like this:

What do I like?

I like people, I love speaking, I love teaching.

What people compliment me on?

People told me I’m good at expressing myself, and that I’m really good at communication. I’ve always tried to understand people dynamics and I always had this curiosity to find out what’s behind people’s decisions.

What I’m exposed to?

I’ve been exposed to dancing, technology, and the world of advertising through a lot of books. So all these things have intersected, giving me a multitude of options of what I could do.

What does compile all those things so it creates a unique pairing of strengths in one place that will give you a massive advantage?

For me, I thought, well if I like people, how could I apply this to other things? Where can you profit from that in a good way?

I could have been a speaker, but I didn’t particularly want to do that. I could have been a teacher, but it’s hard to make money out of that and have a real impact in the country I’m in. What else could I do?

Well, I’m interested in advertising and I’m really fascinated of how people make decisions. Why don’t I do advertising? Now, what type of advertising? I like technology & communication so I should try to do things related to social media. And that’s how my company, Increase Media, was born.

And from that, the areas of interest which intersected kept on multiplying.

I’ve been exposed to dancing, and I’ve also been exposed to advertising through Increase Media. That’s how I’ve started the other business I have, which is Dancesport Life. I had an advertising background and a background in professional dancesport and what could have cropped up in between? A website around dancesport. There are a lot of people that are greater dancers than me, there are a lot of people that are more experienced at advertising but there are none that are both great at advertising and dancers.

You want to look for unique pairings. The more things you have that intersect, the better, unique and a more competitive advantage you have over others.

This is not a 5-minute exercise, you will have to spend at least 20–30 hours doing this trying to mix and match. It’s an ongoing process. It took me one or two months to figure this out. That is not a lot of time in the context that some people get into their 40s and still have no clue of what they want. Knowing what you want is the hardest part.

It’s important that even if you feel that you don’t have the big, important answer, you get your five imperfect, unpolished answers and experiment with them, especially if you’re young. You can really do this. One month go for an internship at an accounting firm, one month work for a website related to one of your passions, one month do whatever floats your boat.

2. WRITE DOWN YOUR GOALS ON CARDS

I’ve originally heard about this from Bob Proctor. Since then, I write my goals down on some small-sized cards.

When I write them, I apply a set of two rules:

a) The goals are specific

Here’s how a goal that’s not really specific looks like ‘I want to make a lot of money’. That’s vague. Here’s a goal that’s a lot more specific ‘I want to be able to make 100 000 dollars a year in order for me to be able to travel the world, provide for my family and be able to live a healthy and good lifestyle’. Get what I mean?

And, by the way, just let your thoughts flow freely.

For example, I have a long-term goal. I want to get a penthouse someday. Pretty glamorous, huh? But it’s my goal. And I am really specific about it. I want a penthouse with a large library in it that’s ideally a secret room. Yes, I know-I’ve watched too many movies. But I also know that I should have a pickup, and a piano in the house and a few of my favorite guitars, a great city view, and a minimalistic design. I get pumped up only thinking about it. I see the whole thing. I don’t want it now because it’s a huge investment but its time will come.

b)The goals are written in the present tense

It seems that our brain responds better to messages in the present tense:

‘I am so grateful that I have a company..’

This is a command given to your subconscious and it will only be received in the present tense. If it’s in the future tense, it will stay in the future.

3.READ YOUR GOALS AS AFFIRMATIONS

As part of my morning routine, I read my goals out loud and I visualize them. I get that feeling and that gives me a nice boost for the day. That’s also the last thing I do at night. I read my goals and I go to sleep with the same feeling. So it’s not by chance that I’m a lot of days really motivated. It’s hard not to be when you’re always in that state of mind.

This takes 5 minutes. If you’re not willing to dedicate 5 minutes of your time…

As I read my goals I visualize them as well. Visualization for me means to paint a picture of how my goal would look like. You have to visualize your goal as if you have already achieved it and you’ll fill yourself with the right emotions and the feelings that will make you actually accomplish it.

In order to get something, you need to act as if you’re already that person.Take for example Youtube vloggers. I looked up some of them that have a large following and I looked at their first videos. And most of them had the same energy like in their last video. Why is that? Because when they started the video they were doing it like they were already at 2 million subscribers.

I’m not doing a vlog thinking 20 people are watching. I’m doing my vlog like 100 000 people are watching. And you need to act like you have 100 000 people in order to refuel. You know when you say ‘They should have more subscribers’ that’s because it feels like 100 000 and it’s a tension between that and the actual reality and you know that channel is going to get to 100 000 soon.

THE NEXT STEP AND THE BIG GOAL ARE MORE VALUABLE THAN THE WHOLE PLAN

Your brain will start thinking of ways to make your goal happen and that’s when the plan comes in. And now you have the confidence because you went into that feeling, you know how it’s going to be. Now you have the confidence to write the plan and actually execute it.

The way I plan is that I take my big goal and I only look at the next step. So basically attaining what I want is a continuous process of looking at the final result and at the same time only looking at the next step. So if you’re going towards a mountain, I will always keep an eye on the mountain and an eye on the next step. You need to go to extremes. The same way I’m doing with my agency. I am always building the agency now and I’m building the agency for the future. I’m always planning for the future and I’m working on ‘two’ agencies at all times. The agency that we’re going to have and the agency that we have. Short-term focus. Long-term focus.

STAYING ON COURSE = NO QUITTING + NO FEAR OF FAILURE + NO ATTACHMENT TO THE OUTCOME

I have this amazing goal. I want to build an agency and work with the biggest clients in the world and have offices around the world. We’re doing client service, digital products, we’re doing consulting/offerings, we have 200 employees. That’s the big goal. Now if I want that to happen by the end of the year and it does not happen, it won’t break my resolve because my mind is set to stay the course. Most people don’t get where they planned to and then they break down because they’re disappointed in themselves.

That’s a loser mentality. In order to get over feeling like a fraud or distressed I embraced a mentality that helps me stay on track.

• NO QUITTING

I don’t believe in quitting. I think that the moment people quit is the closest they’ve ever been to their goal. I have a lot of trust and belief in me that I’ve built. You might not have that but at least believe in that. Believe that you’re not going to give up. If you have the choice of giving up, you’re going to take it because things are hard. You’re consuming your time thinking negatively instead of just doing it.

• NO FEAR OF FAILURE OR OTHER PEOPLE’S OPINION

Many people consider failure as something bad rather than seeing it as feedback. You simply need to be unemotional about it and adjust. The other thing is we fear of is what other people think of us. This is because all of us have a certain image that we are portraying to other people, so when we do things that are in contrast to that image we shake a bit their beliefs. If it makes you that uncomfortable, don’t tell them about what you’re doing until it gets results.

• NO ATTACHMENT TO THE OUTCOME

When you play a game and your friend loses and he gets mad and swears-that’s being attached to the outcome. These type of people are not process oriented, they’re outcome oriented. How does process-oriented look like? I went up a mountain for the first time in my life and I failed and I’m like ‘Ok, let’s do this again another time’. I’m not going to be like ‘What does that say about me?’. I’m not doing that. I’m always thinking of how to get better but I don’t shoot myself in the foot. I have a detachment to the outcome and at the same time I care about it. Sound pretty confusing but what I mean by that is that I care about getting the company to a certain level this year but if that doesn’t happen I’m not going to over analyze my failure. Until I’m proven wrong I care 100% and when I’m proven wrong it’s not that I don’t care anymore, it’s just that I don’t attach myself to that. It’s basically having the right balance between caring too much and not caring at all.

THE OTHER SIDE OF GOALS

And what about personal goals? The truth is that I don’t have goals in every area of my life. And that’s not good. I have more goals in my professional life than in my personal life. I believe you can find a certain balance between them but it depends on what’s important to you at the given time. I don’t think you can do 100 things at once. At least I can’t. I’m good at doing a lot of things but only one at a time. At this moment in my life, the most important thing is to reach the highest peaks in my career, to empower other people, and to be able to find out some answers to the problems I am facing in the career game. So that’s why I’m not putting a lot of emphasis on my personal goals. I’m still young of age and I have plenty of time. For other people, their priorities might be different. For some the most important thing is family, educating and raising their kids etc.

The point I’ve tried to make is that goals are about you, and they can change and multiply or be no longer relevant as you change as a person. What is important for you today, might not be that important in a few years. But your purpose usually, stays the same. In the end, it is how they say ‘the journey matters more than the destination’.