I’m not talking about the achievements you typically see on social media when people are posting about this (private jets, rolls royces, luxury houses and expensive watches) although you might end up there if you do this long enough ;-). What I focus on are the systems that can lead to more happiness. The system I’ll talk about today is helping me so much in pursuing my dreams and goals that I wanted to share it with you.

So here it goes. (P.s., it’s not going to be the typical goal setting blog, I promise. If you are already an expert goal-setter, you can skip to the second part 😊.)

In a nutshell

Simplicity: keep it simple
Track your time & your progress
Realistic: be very conscious on the time you have per day and week, and set goals based on the available time
Improve: review daily, weekly and monthly
Commit: work in a small Time-frame (a month is ideal for me) so that it becomes much easier to commit

I really like the well-known S.M.A.R.T. acronym for goal-setting (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-based), but it is missing a SYSTEM to achieve these goals. Enter S.T.R.I.CT.

Let’s break it down.

Result Goals

As quite a lot of people, I take the Christmas period to think about my goals for the next year. What are the most important things for me in the coming year?

What I find useful is to think about the different domains in my life. I typically use these:

Work (job / career)
Relations (family, friends, partner, colleagues, …)
Health & fitness
Money
Personal Development
Fun, leisure, adventure
Contribution (where can I be a helping hand, can I do voluntary work, how can I contribute to a better world)
Meaning & spirituality

I then determine what I consciously want to work on. I usually end up with a list of +- 10 items, which are typically high-level Result Goals (example below). They will guide me through the year, they are the pillars I can fall back on when prioritization needs to be done.

(I know this step might be difficult because you need to stop and think about what are important goals FOR YOU. I’ll cover in another blog post what could help you in finding this. Or just sent me a message and I’ll get you going.)

This is the start. But this will not get me where I want to be.

Next step…

Break it down

Result Goals don’t tell me how I can get there. This I specify later in my Process Goals (what do I need to do to get there), for which I afterwards try to create Habits.

After doing that, I look at what I want to focus on in the first quarter and specify the actions I want to take and, very important, the skills I need to master to execute my future actions. For example:

Actions

Instagram Challenge on how to guide thoughts and resulting emotions and actions (see here) : post a couple of times per week my own journal.
Create a promo-video for Live. Grow. Matter.
Organize 1 event
Deepen the content of my Happiness & Growth Program
Go to bed at 10pm and get up at 6am

Skills

Master speaking in front of a camera.
Build up my scientific knowledge about happiness: follow The Science of Happiness Course of Berkeley

And then I do the same exercise for the first month of the quarter and determine high-level which weeks I will focus on what. For example

Promo-video: concept in W1 & W2 ; tryout in W4 ; publish beginning of Feb
8km run: W4 (build up 5 -> 6 -> 7 -> 8km)
Work on concept of well-being in organizations: W3
Do 15 pull-ups: W4

This approach might be quite familiar to you, but where I (and I believe others as well) often miss the boat is on the systems for achieving these goals. Breaking it down in actionable steps and habits is a great first step. But how can we find a way to actually do what we need to do in order to achieve what we want to achieve?

We often know what we need to do, but we don’t do what we know.

Here are the other 3 steps that will change forever how you perform.

Systems for achieving what you want

Track your habits + Improve

I started tracking the habits that are important for me to progress on my goals. It looks like this, very Simple:

The simple effect of just tracking this is incredible. I feel more motivated and more obliged to follow through. Plus, it really makes it impossible to forget about it. Many times I forgot to do my 30 pull-ups during the day, but when the evening came and I reviewed how I was doing, I knew I had to still put in some work.

As you can see, last week I missed my goals for 2 habits. If I keep on missing them, I analyze what I need to DROP in order to reach these goals (could mean less leisure time or less sleep for example). If it’s too hard for me or not worth it, I lower the goal (be Realistic).

In any case it forces me to reflect on HOW IMPORTANT it is for me. For example with meditation: it’s very important for me but I have been slipping mostly in the evenings because I was either working on building my Instagram profile, or because I was writing, or because I was getting distracted when I took some time to scroll through Facebook and Instagram when preparing for bed. For the first 2, it’s a conscious decision, but with the latter it’s mostly an unconscious waste of time. I get caught up in it without much control. So I realized I don’t want to be getting caught up too much on these addictive social media platforms anymore. It doesn’t feel good to me when I loose track of time while scrolling, and I prefer not having this feeling. Therefore I’m considering not allowing my phone on the toilet anymore (that’s the place where it mostly happens). Small thing but it might give me back a bit of control. I’ve just decided to add this to my February habits!

Track your time + Improve

Do you know by heart how many hours you have per week?

168.

I started tracking what I’m spending my time on and set weekly and daily time goals. If you split the available time in the domains you want to work on, you get a much more realistic view on the time you can spend per week on each domain. Depending on how often you work on these domains (e.g. daily, or twice a week, etc), you know how much time you need to spend on each domain on your active day.

An example:

For the colors used, see a bit lower the reason (it’s a visual aid for my review later on).

Since I’m keeping track of this, I was the most surprised on how much time goes to everyday activities (travel time, eating, cooking, showering, errands, ….). I thought I would be fine with 5 hours per day, but turns out for last 2 weeks it’s rather 6 hours. Crazy!

To keep track of how much of my time goes to what, I use the “Life Cycle – Track Your Time” app (from the same creators of Sleep Cycle). You can create your own categories and the app is smart enough to know what you typically do in which location (so if I go to yoga and I indicate once I was doing yoga at that place, it remembers it for the next time).

I use the free version.

So daily I keep track of what I’ve spend time on, and at the end of the week I get a summary overview. Now I have data at my fingertips that can help me review how I have been doing and Improve.

In the blink of an eye I can see that for that week I haven’t been spending as much time as I would like to on my yellow domain (friends, family): 2 hours instead of 6. The week before it was 13 so it compensates, but you can see how it can help you become aware of where your time is going and if it’s in line with the goals you are pursuing.

It’s NOT to meticulously follow up on every minute or hour to see if you are following your plan, it’s to build your awareness, to be able to assess and improve. It’s not a punishment tool, it’s a guide.

I understand if you think this is too much work, or too crazy. But it doesn’t take that much time, and it’s still Simple. It was an eye-opener for me to really understand where all my time is going. It was confronting because it felt like some hours just went to nothing. That is OK if you consciously want that time to go to “nothing”, but I was not aware where I was losing my time. I believe creating this awareness and using it as input to Improve is a crucial step in pursuing efficiently and effectively your goals and dreams.

It also helps me to focus and to structure my day: when you start keeping track of every activity, you will realize it’s impossible to do that if you switch every 5 minutes from one task to another. It pushes me to work at a minimum with 1-hour intervals. I am consciously deciding and setting an intention to focus on a task for 1 hour. Then I take a small break and think what’s the next important action? So it brings more structure, more control, more conscious moments to reflect and set an intention, or to prime your mind for focus.

It helps me to value time more.

Commit to a small Time-frame

Setting the engagement time frame on 1 month works great for me, with splits per week. You only have to commit week by week for 1 month. After that one month, you can do whatever you want. It makes it easier to bite through when you don’t feel like, because it’s only for a month! And every day, every week, and every month you can celebrate your successes because you have made them very visible and explicit now. And where you “failed”, you can learn from it, adjust, and realize it’s also part of the game.

I can tell you, after doing this for the first time in January, making all this small but very tangible progress, I feel motivated to continue in February. And that’s what this does: easy, simple steps that lead to success and consequently to renewed motivation.

On top of that, by celebrating those small successes, you are doing your self-esteem a huge favor. You’ll feel good. You’ll feel proud. You are growing. Wonderful!! You are creating small habits that have the power to turn your life around. Yes!!!

With this system, you ensure that you are taking small steps on the path that you want to be walking.

Dream big but start small. Set goals but break them down in small actionable steps.

Create the daily habits that will get you to where you want to be.

And be S.T.R.I.CT. with yourself. Discipline is a major part of any change, and with this system it will become a bit easier.

Keep it Simple,
Track your time, your habits, and your progress,
be Realistic,
Improve by reviewing,
Commit yourself to a small Time-frame.

Let me know if you would you be interested in receiving the template I use daily to track and evaluate goals, habits, successes, and to keep focus on the things that really matter. I’m also interested to know what systems you use to work towards your goals: comment below!

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To your dreams and goals! To a life fully lived.