This one piece of paper made me my first million dollars.
I wrote this down sitting in a college classroom at 20 years old.
Five years later, I was a millionaire.
Here’s why this works and how to implement this simple strategy to make your first million dollars, your NEXT million dollars, or hit any other goal you have for your life.
Goals work
Some have said life is better without goals.
I disagree.
It’s easier, not better.
If your goal is to make the most of your life, achieve the most, and do the most good, then goals work.
They give you direction. They give you accountability. They make you come face-to-face with the trade-offs you have to make (you can’t do everything if you want to do something really well).
I reviewed 60 years of research on goals.
Goals let us get more out of our limited time on this planet.
Here’s how to get the most out of them.
Strategy 1: Write it down
Studies have shown that writing down your goals increases your likelihood of achieving them by 20 to 50%.
That’s a huge payoff from something that takes one minute to do.
Write down your goals, especially your main goal, on paper.
Strategy 2: Make it ambitious and doable
Confidence comes from achievement.
The more you achieve, the more you believe you can achieve.
So set doable goals.
Yet, weak goals don’t motivate us.
Strike a balance between a goal big enough that you know it’s not 100% guaranteed to happen and a goal that you still believe is possible.
When you hit it, your confidence will build. Then go bigger.
Strategy 3: Make it clear
Clarity creates accountability.
Loose, undefined, weak goals don’t create the possibility of either failure or success.
Make your goal so clear that its outcome is binary: You either did it or did not.
Strategy 4: Carry it with you
First, carrying your goal with you forces you to write it down (strategy 1).
Second, it’s easy to review a goal you’re carrying with you most of the time multiple times throughout the day.
Review your goal at least twice per day.
Every time you use the toilet, read your goal.
The reality
Here’s the unfortunate reality: most people won’t do this…even those who watch all the way through the video.
They’ll think, “That’s nice. I got it. Set a goal. Write it down. I don’t need to do it.”
That’s why most people don’t live great lives.
They think they’re too good to do fundamentals.
Yet the best people are fanatic about the fundamentals. They know that practicing the fundamentals—like setting and reviewing goals—again and again, is what creates greatness.
What kind of life will you live?
—Matt