Tony Robbins' Goal Setting Exercise
“The tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.”
Introduction
Call me a modern-day Nostradamus, but I have a sense that you might be thinking about goals you may want to set for next year.
A year is an arbitrary benchmark, but I’ve had a productive one, from starting my blog, to getting a puppy, to getting in great shape at 40, to publishing my first book, with first-time adventures to Cape Town, Portugal, Holbox, Santa Teresa, and Mexico City sprinkled in between.
I have more plans underway and have recently been using a goal-setting framework I came across in Tony Robbins’ book, Awakening the Giant Within, that I find helpful and wanted to share. I enjoy its simplicity and how it leads you to choose goals across a range of important areas for a fulfilling life.
This is my modified interpretation of his exercise, and the book has much more information about how goal setting falls into a broader approach to life that he teaches.
Goal Setting Process
Tony’s approach helps you develop goals in four areas:
Personal Development Goals
Career/Business/Economic Goals
Toys/Adventure Goals
Contribution Goals
To get started, first, take 5-10 minutes for each of these categories. What do you want to achieve in these buckets?
For personal development, do you want to lose weight? Gain weight? Run a marathon? Learn another language or an instrument? Become a meditator?
Write these all down.
For bucket two, what do you want to accomplish? Find a new job? Save a certain amount of money? Start a business?
Write these all down.
The same thing for bucket 3. What do you want to own/buy? Where do you want to go? What have you always wanted to accomplish on your bucket list.
Write these all down.
For contribution goals, how do you want to help other people? How do you want to leave your legacy? Do you want to volunteer? Donate money? Adopt a dog? A child? Save the planet?
Write these all down.
“Remember that goals are dreams with a deadline.”
Next, go back through each of these and write down a realistic timeline to achieve that goal.
Once you’ve done that, the last part is to choose one goal for each bucket to work on over the next year.
Now, some of your goals – especially financial ones – may take longer than a year. So we might need to reframe that goal. For instance, instead of “achieve financial independence”, you could set a realistic savings goal over the next year that puts you on the path to independence.
There you have it – your four goals for the next year.
Importantly, and one of the things I like about this exercise, is that you also have other goals in the pipeline to move to when you accomplish one.
Many of my goals might take much less than a year if I focus on them enough. Having another one ready to go helps you maintain momentum. For instance, my personal development goals over the last few months were to complete my three-month fitness challenge, then take a month off alcohol, and now I am working on a strength goal. I have a couple more goals in the queue for when I’m done with this one.
To make sure you keep up with this, you need an accountability system. List your goals somewhere where you will see them every day. Maybe the refrigerator or where you take notes every day. I keep mine on Google Keep.
Make it a weekly habit to check in on your goals and see where you are. I have a calendar reminder on Sundays to check mine – I quickly take a look and mark down any progress I made as well as write down what I want to accomplish the next week to move me closer to finishing them.
Conclusion and Caveats
Achieving all your goals isn’t realistic. Moreover, goals you make now may seem silly six months from now as your life and perspectives shift. The key lies not only in achieving specific milestones but in the continuous pursuit of personal growth and fulfillment.
As Tony says, “Instead of measuring your success and failure in life by your ability to achieve an individualized and specific goal, remember that the direction we’re heading is more important than individual results. If we continue to head in the right direction, we may not only achieve the goals we’re pursuing but a lot more!”