Goals work for me and my brain. I get a ton of dopamine from pursuing a goal. I’ve had big and small goals in my life, both personal and professional. When I was in graduate school, I set out to pursue three personal goals for myself: 1) Get a dog, 2) Obtain enough camping gear that I could go out camping by myself (I had always relied on friends to borrow needed gear and wanted more independence), and 3) Buy a car. I am happy to say that I stand before you today proudly having achieved all of those goals. I love my dog more than life itself, backpacking is one of my favorite hobbies and REI is one of my favorite stores (much to the detriment of my checking account balance), and I don’t remember the last time I rode by road bike (I’m sorry, Mother Earth, I’m really sorry!).

In graduate school, I also had three professional goals: 1) Get a PhD, 2) Become conversationally proficient in two foreign languages, and 3) Publish a book. I’ve achieved the first two and I’m still working on the third. Goals work for me and I wanted to write a post about my goal setting system.

The Bullet Journal

In early 2021, I read a book that changed the way I organize my time and tasks. It’s called The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future. I’m not talking about the colorful designs and frills in journals that you see on Pinterest. I’m talking about an efficient system of designing your life the way you want to live. At the risk of sounding like an evangelist for bullet journals, I must say: This was not just an organization or calendar system to increase productivity and efficiency. This was a philosophy. Blending in a mix of Buddhism and humanistic philosophy, the author emphasizes over and over again that the point is NOT–I repeat NOT–to be more productive. The point is to whittle down your extraneous tasks only to the ones that are absolutely necessary to achieving your goals and only your goals. 

Those goals are centered around what you really want to be doing with your time and who you really want to become. 

The book is full of practical exercises that encourage you to really examine what you’re doing with your time and your life. For example, writing your own obituary. Then, think about whether your main tasks in life–where you are spending most of your time–align with the obituary you want after your death. Are you on the path to what you want your obituary to say? Are you who you want to be when you die? If not, what can you do to change your daily life tasks to align with that vision?  

5 years, 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, and 1 hour

One of the exercises he walks through is called the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 goal plan. The idea is that you first map out ONE personal goal and ONE professional goal to be achieved in 5 years (and only ONE… full disclosure, this is hard for me but it’s very important that you pick only one to focus on). I know I’m being a hypocrite right now because at the beginning of this post I told you three of my personal goals and three of my professional goals. But do as I say, not as I do. 

After you pick one personal goal and one professional goal to achieve in 5 years (for the purposes of this exercise, I’m going to pick black belt in jiujitsu and publish a book), you map out one task and ONE task only that will help you achieve that goal, to be completed in 4 months. I’ll say for jiujitsu, my goal would be to squat 200 lbs (improving my strength is one thing that can help me achieve my black belt). For my book, my goal would be to revise four chapters.

Next, you outline one task that you’ll complete in 3 weeks’ time. For jiujitsu, it would be to attend jiujitsu classes at least nine times (3x a week on average). For my book, it would be to revise one chapter. 

Then, you pick one task that you’ll finish in 2 days. For the black belt, that would be to attend one jiujitsu class. For my book, that would be to contact the publisher about the timeline.

Finally, you pick one task that you’ll finish in 1 hour. That could be to do 15-minutes of stretching for jiujitsu and practice five minutes of creative writing for the book.

I have found this to be extremely helpful in focusing my efforts and chunking my big goals into smaller, manageable pieces. And it keeps my eye on the prize: I always have in my mind’s eye that accomplishment that I’m dreaming about achieving in 5 years. While it’s far away, the smaller goals keep me focused on the baby steps that keep me inching forward, one step at a time, building a house brick by brick. 

For more information about setting and achieving goals, check out Dr. Huberman’s Goals Toolkit: How to Set & Achieve Your Goals.