How To Set Goals and WIN at Life 🏆

June 4, 2021

How to have S.M.A.R.T.E.R goals to achieve more.

I’m going to talk about why there’s no such thing as ‘life balance’ and exactly how to create the life that you deserve.

How do you set goals and win in life? This is going to be a three-part series. I want to start off with a quote… “A dream without a goal is just a wish”. A lot of people dream but they don’t set goals for it. I’m just going to be talking about how to set goals specifically. A lot of you know that my philosophy is ‘We don’t need to be taught new things. We just need to be reminded.

What we’re going to go over is not just SMART goals, but SMARTER goals. I’m also going to go through this exercise called ‘The Wheel of Life’. This is a tool that the team and I have been using for years to help us set goals, not only personally but also professionally, for the business.

S.M.A.R.T.E.R goals. You’ve probably heard of the acronym ‘S.M.A.R.T’ goals. S – specific, M – measurable, A – action-oriented, R – realistic, and T – time based. I like to add the E (evaluate) and R (reward) because I like to ‘evaluate’ my goals and also set a reward.

I think it’s a very important thing that when we set goals, not only do we want to set rewards for them but also evaluate how we did them.

Let me touch on these (S.M.A.R.T.E.R) a bit more just because there’s a lot of little nuances with these. Let’s start with ‘Specific’. Obviously, we want ‘specific goals’. If you just want to lose weight versus I want to lose X amount of weight or I want to lose weight because X, Y, and Z the latter two would be more specific goals. The more specific, the better.

Measurable. We want number based measurements. A lot of people that don’t like measuring numbers (for example: stepping on a scale) have a more subjective goal. Maybe it’s more like ‘fitting back into these jeans’. It’s still measurable because there’s a measurement in those jeans (jean-size). So, it could still be measurable without exactly having a number attached to it.

I like numbers just because it makes things realistic. I heard a quote last week, “Believe the numbers, not the narrative”. I thought that was such a powerful quote. There are stories that go on in our heads like: ‘I didn’t lose weight’ or ‘I look like garbage’ or ‘I don’t look good’. These are the thoughts that are going on in our heads but when we see the number, it actually does better

The opposite is true too. For example, if the narratives in our heads are like: “I’m totally fine, I’m totally fine”. Then suddenly we gain a ton of weight– that’s when people are afraid to step on the scale because there’s no number attached to it. So, measurable, the M is very important.

The next one is very specific… Action-oriented goals. You want to make sure there’s an action attached to your goals. So if we set a goal of weight loss, what are the actions that we need to do in order to lose weight? Do we need to work out three days per week? Do we need to keep our calories under a certain amount? Those are action-oriented goals. For example, the action of preparing my meals every single day so I stay under my calorie-count.

R for realistic. We obviously want to set realistic goals. You can’t lose 50 pounds in a week. We want to give it a realistic goal. Us, as coaches, we give people that realism to help them see what’s realistic. This is based on how many clients we’ve worked with over the years.

Time-based goals. This is very important in setting a goal. A goal without a deadline is just a dream. You want to make sure that you set timelines for how long it’s going to take you to actually achieve a specific goal based on time.

E – evaluate your goals and look back into them. And R – always believe in the rewards. There’s got to be some type of reward behind a goal in order for it to have a powerful-lasting effort. If you go on a 6-week challenge or if you go on a 21-day challenge or doing any of our challenges, give yourself a reward at the end of this for achieving your goal. You deserve it.

So, that’s S.M.A.R.T.E.R goals.

Now, the question is… how do you know which goal to focus on? This is where this story comes in. If you’ve ever heard an orchestra then you know that an orchestra doesn’t play all the instruments all at the same time. That would sound horrible!

Can you imagine all the instruments going at it at the same time? Violins, saxophones, whatever it is that’s playing… it wouldn’t sound good. That’s why there’s a conductor who is orchestrating to create harmony.

I don’t believe in actual balance. There’s not actually a balance. You can’t balance work, life, and everything… it’s harmony! There are times wherein you’re going to have to go hard at work. There are times when you’re going to have to go hard at your personal life.

In order to figure this out, we use a tool called The Wheel of Life. It’s a powerful tool. I highly suggest doing this at least once a year. I’ve been doing this for 4 or 5 years, not only with myself but also with the team as well.

The Wheel of Life is where you look at different categories of your life. You rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 in fulfillment. How fulfilled are you in each of these categories?

First category is Money, because everybody wants more money. You just want more because you think about the things that you could buy and you think about all the amazing things that ‘not having money’ is creating in your life right now. But what fulfilment really is, is asking yourself what do you need to live on?

Are you fulfilled in terms of how much money you’re making? Does it satisfy your savings and expenses? If you think: “The amount of money I’m making based on my work is not enough” (in which case everybody doesn’t believe they’re paid enough), then what you should really look at is what are you fulfilling? Is it fulfilling your life? Is it fulfilling your family and personal obligations? That’s what you want to rate yourself on, on a scale of 1 to 10.

Romance and significant-other. What does a fulfilled relationship look like? Is it even a priority to you? If you’re already fulfilled (a 10 out of 10) then it doesn’t matter. But if you’re not fulfilled, what is it specifically? Do you need more time to spend together? Does it mean being more intimate? Are you growing together? Again, you want to give yourself a score in this area from 1 to 10.

Family and friends. This is a big one. I like to talk about family rhythms and traditions. This is super important and valuable to me. Some of the things you might want to consider: Are you having dinner together? Are you having get-togethers (e.g. Christmas dinners or holiday dinners)?

If not family, then friends. What rhythms and traditions do you have with friends? Do you go on annual trips? Are there events that you and your friends go to regularly? Relationships are about rhythms. Just like how we have relationships with you, as our clients.

I like to have calls with clients on a regular rhythmic basis. That’s how we develop and grow. We provide values for each other’s relationships. That’s how we provide value to you guys. I constantly invest time and effort into relationships with my clients for growth. Family, friends and relationships are all about investing and rhythms.

Health. Basically, freedom from disease is health. But, do you just want freedom from disease? Or do you want to optimize your health? Then, you have to give yourself a score on what ideal health and fitness is for you.

How would you measure it? Is it to have an X percent body fat? Is it to weigh a certain amount? Or lose X amount of pounds? Is it objective or subjective? An objective measurement would be a number. But subjective measurement, would be for example: One of my personal things for health and fitness (and to be optimal) is to feel confident every time I’d take off my shirt.

It doesn’t have anything to do with a scale. I just want to be able to take off my shirt and feel confident. It’s very subjective to me, but it’s something I want out of my health and fitness.

Career! Are you doing work that’s important to you or the community? Are you growing personally or professionally? Are you proud of the company you work for? These are some things to think about in terms of career fulfillment on a scale from 1 to 10.

Personal Development. What does personal development mean to you? Does it mean reading a book? Does it mean learning new things regularly? Are you developing new skills? Do you want to learn a new skill every year or every quarter? Do you feel like you’re growing as a person? Again, how fulfilled are you in terms of personal development?

Fun and recreation! Do you have hobbies or interests you do regularly? I’ll tell you a story about this one. I’ve been struggling with this for a really long time. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t have hobbies nor interests other than work and business. I love it so much. If you see what I look at on my YouTube at night, it’s all health and fitness related-stuff.

I’m fortunate that what I do for a living is what I love to learn about as well. So it’s kind of like one in the same. I can always ingest or consume more and more information on fitness and health just because I love it so much.

I used to play sports but now I just work out to optimize my health so I feel good. I guess that’s a hobby. But my interests are learning more about fitness, health and personal development.

Lastly, Physical Environment! Something the pandemic has brought people to realize is their living situation. Do you like where you live (The design? Is it clean?). If you’ve watched Marie Kondo’s show on Netflix, she goes on about making sure that your environment is right. I think there’s some power in that. You’re going to want to make the place you live in nice because you’re going to be looking at it all the time.

Once you’ve figured it all out, you’ll rate each category on a scale from 1 to 10. Look at your wheel. The goal is not to have a huge wheel with a 10 out of 10 for all the categories. What you want is a balanced wheel.

The worst thing to have is to have one category to be super low because that creates a bumpy ride. We want a smooth ride. So, pick one to three areas to focus on. Typically, those are the lowest because those are going to cause the most bumps in your life.

Let’s say it’s ‘money’ which you’re not fulfilled in. Spend some time on that and start setting goals in terms of budgeting and fulfillment. Maybe it’s your ‘house’ (physical environment). Maybe you don’t like the way something looks. Take some time to fix that. Or maybe it’s ‘fitness and health’. Then take time this quarter to focus on that.

Again, pick one to three things, create S.M.A.R.T.E.R. goalsl for them and give yourself a timeline of 90 days. That’s the cycle that I like because a lot can change. There’s a lot of power in doing things in 90 days.

There’s a great book I recommend to a lot of people. It’s called the 12-Week Year. You start thinking of your life, not in months, but in weeks. A lot can change and a lot of things move a lot faster. Imagine when you tighten a deadline!

This is kind of like a ‘New Year’s Resolution Revamp’. A lot of people wait until the end of the year to make New Year’s resolutions by setting a huge long goal for the year. Six months go by and nothing changes halfway through the year. You need to tighten the timeline.

I’m going to share with you the Dragon Journal. This is a tool that I use with the team. It’s a journal that we use with all these exercises (The Wheel of Life etc.). It’s daily and nightly journaling and quarterly planning. Let me know if you want the Dragon Journal.

In this episode I’ll be sharing how to set goals. Listen if:

👊 Have SMARTER goals to acheive more

⚖ Why there is NO such thing as life balance

✅ How to create the LIFE you deserve

If you’d like to purchase the dragon journal, email markham@fightfitbootcamps.com