How to Set Goals to Win the Year

Happy New Year friend. You’re joining ~21,000+ readers who (somehow) trust me with their inbox.

Hi there,

The year is 2023, and it’s Day 17.

The motivation to crush your new year’s resolutions is dwindling. Your discipline to get up for the gym is taking a nosedive. And 75 hard has pivoted to “when I feel like it.”

This, my friend, this little part of life is called ‘the hard part’, the moment you’re squished between who you are and who you want to be.

But the road doesn’t have to be bumpy.

Personal Brand Brief will be your Uber ride. Sit back. Relax. And read. We have the perfect music to soothe your goals.

Here are 3 goal-setting tactics to make the most of 2023.

Let’s ride.

Yearly Vision; Quarterly Goals

With yearly goals, you win or lose once a year. That makes you complacent.

How about we flip the script? Pivot years as a big picture to small quarters. This will make you more actionable with your days.

Parkinson’s law, one of the most mind-blowing productivity tools, states that ‘work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.’

Ask yourself: What would I need to do to achieve [a goal] in 6 months? Or what if I only had 3 days to accomplish [a goal]?

1. How would you move faster?
2. What would you eliminate?
3. Who would be your first call in the morning?

Whether you’re planning to

• get 10k LinkedIn followers,
• publish a weekly newsletter,
• launch a side hustle or earn $5k/month,
• get more speaking gigs,
• finish reading a few books
• or anything else,

think about how to accomplish that in less time.

We don’t always need more time. Sometimes we just need a closer deadline.

I’m bullish on quarterly goals because they break the year into 4 separate parts, and I can think of creative ways to accomplish more.

The first quarter might be dedicated to career goals, but the second quarter would be all about traveling and creating unique experiences.

3 Questions to Focus on What Matters

#1 What do you need to eliminate from your life?

My answers are clear:

→ Fewer surface-level chats, more intimate convos.

→ Eliminate rush and the need to be in a hurry.

→ Stop overwhelming my creative brain with a full calendar.

→ Reduce my meme consumption (But whose keeping count?)

#2 How will you be pushing yourself out of your comfort zone?

I’ve recently signed up for a marathon with a few friends. It’s exciting and 200% nerve-wracking at the same time.

But I’m curious to learn how much I can increase my capacity to run, through daily reps. It’s powerful seeing what else I could do 4x better simply by showing up every day.

#3 How will you be optimizing for joy this year?

I’ve been intentionally planning adventurous weekend retreats and weekday hangouts with close friends and family.

I’m trying to optimize every day for joy, instead of waiting for a vacation high.

2023 is all about more monthly lunches with my siblings, catching up with friends visiting Vancouver, getaways that are on my list, exploring the city, and trying out a bunch of new stuff that I’ve been delaying.

See my brother passed away at 29 in perfect health has disrupted the way I see a Bucket List.

We are all living on borrowed time whether we admit it or not.

The 80/20 Rule for Habit Forming

The Pareto principle asserts that 20 percent of our activities account for 80 percent of the results.

When we look at habits through the lens of the Pareto principle, we can pinpoint what habits will impact our lives in the biggest way possible.

Here's how to apply it:

• List down all the habits and goals you want to focus on this year.
• Mark the actions that carry the highest leverage and maximise your time and effort spent.

Some examples:

1. Going to the gym 3x a week means you’ll also get to see your friends 3 times a week.
2. Cooking at home will give you a chance to invite colleagues, stakeholders, and investors for dinner and build better rapport.
3. Volunteering for public speaking opportunities would also expose your business to key decision-makers in the ecosystem.

• Prioritize the habits that will create 80% of favorable outcomes for you in 2023 and spend your time acing them, instead of trying to stuff your year with as many habits possible.

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If you’ve got any big audacious goals for this year, reply to this newsletter and let me know. I’ll keep you accountable. Or just send you memes to distract you. Who knows.

?? Riff of the Day

It’s always the small things.

Thanks for reading. Got feedback? ?Let me know.

Stay outta’ trouble and catch you next week.

??? Joel

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