A lot of studies show that people who set goals perform better, are more productive, and feel happier with life.Also, studies show that people who write their goals down are more likely to achieve them than people who don’t.In each area of your life, ask yourself: What would I like to be celebrating 12 months from now? You can start with the tree/two areas that you circled, or you can do it for all the different areas on your wheel.

12-month celebration

After you are done with your wheel, add one final category: JOY.How aligned do you feel with your actions in the here and now based on where you want to be and the amount of joy you are experiencing in your life?

After answering this question and jotting down all the things that you would like to be celebrating 12 months from now, try to boil it down to just one thing. (If I could only celebrate one thing, what would that one thing be?)Having a single goal to work towards helps the brain focus and move in that specific direction.So, you can do this 12-month celebration thing with the different areas of your life and then create goals.

One thing

<ol><li>One line that is great to add to the end of any goal that you set is: “While enjoying every step along the way.” It helps your mind think in a bit more of a light, feel-good productivity way.</li><li>Write this down somewhere. It will remind you of what your goals are. Hence, weekly and monthly reviews will be a lot easier and will allow you to visually monitor your progress towards the goals.</li><li>When you decide what you’d like to be celebrating 12 months from now in each of these different areas, ask yourself WHY. Why is that particular thing important to you? Then, write your WHY next to your goals.</li></ol>

Some tips for the 12-month celebration:

Open up a blank Google Calendar and call it your ideal week calendar.Start by blocking the absolute essentials in your life: When do you want to wake up? When do you want to go to bed? When are your working hours? etc.So, put all these different blocks on your calendar. And then you'll see how much time you have left on your hands.

Ideal week method

Now, you need to rate, on a scale from 0 to 10, how aligned/satisfied you feel in each of these different areas of your life.Alignment: when my actions in the here and now are consistent with where I want to be.If you are doing it with pen and paper, then you can color in the wheel of life based on what your numbers are. So if you got 10 out of 10, you would fully color that particular segment of the wheel. If you got a five, you would half-color it in, etc.

Rate each area

The whole point of this exercise is to help make this year the best year. If we were able to get to a point where we were 10 out of 10 across all these different areas, that would mean:<ol><li>We are doing the things that are most meaningful to us and making progress towards them.</li><li>We are in balance with all the different areas of our life.</li><li>And we are also enjoying the journey along the way. Especially if we have 10 out of 10 in the JOY category as well.</li></ol>

The whole point of this exercise

So, after doing that, you need to find time in your calendar where you can add things related to your yearly goals.For example, if in your friends category you want to see your friends more often, in your ideal calendar you can block time for a go-out dinner with your friends at least once a week.

Block time for your goals

The ideal calendar method helps us get clarity on what is actually important to us: what is the time that we have for the things that we have to do, and what’s the time that we can use for the things that we want to do?After doing this exercise, you will probably realize that you have less time than you thought you had, which is great, as it means that you can start doing fewer things and cross some things off your 12-month celebration list.

Getting a clear picture

The idea is to split up life into a bunch of different components. And then we’ll rate our satisfaction with those different areas of life.Start by drawing a circle, and then split it up into three segments.These three segments are for your work, health, and relationships.

The Wheel of Life

Now you need to split up each of the thirds into three segments each.Within health, you have three things: body, mind, and soul.Relationships: family, romance, friendsWork: mission, money, growth

10 areas of life

We have now created a clear sense of where we are right now.Then we can get a sense of where we would like to be. And when you have a sense of where you are now and where you want to be, that is what creates GOALS.Now, it is worth highlighting or circling the areas (two or three areas). ⇒ what is the one that really stands out to you as needing some amount of work?After taking this inventory, you can start taking action towards remedying certain of these areas.

Goals

In this video, Ali shares three great methods (Wheel of Life, 12-Month Celebration, and Ideal Week) that will help you move more towards making sure that this coming year is the best year of your life in terms of meaningfulness, balance, and enjoyability. I wish you a wonderful and fulfilling New Year! :)

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Over the past few years I've thought a lot about how to do annual planning, and I think this is one of the best systems out there. A simple 3 step process. I hope it helps you do more of what matters to you in 2024. Enjoy! 

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⌚️Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
0:43 - The Wheel of Life
7:06 - 12 Month Celebration
14:00 - Ideal Week Method

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📚 Check out my first book Feel-Good Productivity here: https://www.feelgoodproductivity.com/

Hey, I'm Ali, a doctor turned entrepreneur, and the world’s most followed productivity expert 😜 

On this channel, we explore evidence-based strategies and tools that can help us be more productive, and build a life that we love. 

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Ideal week method

Similar ideas to Ideal week method

Organize the week

1. Stick to a sleep schedule

3. Front-load your week