2022 Resolutions
Setting Systems and Goals. Reviewing 2021
The truth about setting goals is that Big Goals Require small steps.
Many of us set goals without having a plan in place. Perhaps your goals are too vague or you have no idea where to start tackling your big goal.
I used to think that having goals it creates a form of desire and that we should or would be unhappy until we achieve them.
If we are just going to disappoint ourselves and future selves by not achieving our goals. Then why should we even have them?
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
Your goal is your desired outcome. Your system is the collection of daily habits that will get you there.” — James Clear
The problem with the goal first mentality is that you are continually putting happiness off until the next milestone.
For years, happiness was always something for my future self to enjoy. It creates a mentality of either-or conflict where either you achieve your goal and are successful or you fail and you are a disappointment.
Because of that, I have not set goals for myself for many years. Until I eventually learned that having a system first mentality is a much better way to approach your goals.
When you fall in love with the process and enjoy the journey of getting to your goal, you can be satisfied anytime your system is running.
Having the little rewards and cues that makes a successful system would help you slowly chip away at the goal.
How I set Goals
I start with defining my life pillars. In general, most people should have the same pillars.
Define why each pillar are important and have an order of priority. I find that this helps to have clarity on what is important by looking at the big picture.
My pillars are:
- Relationships
- Health & fitness
- Learning and growth
- Career & finance
Each pillar is further broken down to focus areas. For each focus areas, you will set your goals.
Having a goal is like a compass it sets the direction that we want to go towards.
Lastly, the most important part would be the action plan or system.
How do you want to execute your goals, what is the actual strategy and plan?
Action plans are in the form of habits and projects.
Goals are good for planning your progress and systems are good for actually making progress.
Why?
It’s because your system is what you can control.
That should be your focus.
A writer can’t control how her audience will respond to her work, how many read her blog post, or how many people buy her books.
But she can control how many words she writes and how many hours of deep work she does each day.
If you schedule a habit or system — and continually show up for it, you should be able to make progress towards your goal.
Building systems
The most important pillar for me is Health & Fitness.
For us to enjoy life in the best possible way is when we are at our best physically and mentally. As we age, we will eventually be faced with health and or mobility challenges.
Exercise is the fountain of youth and it makes you happy.
Goals: I have a target weight which is a number to achieve (like many girls) but more importantly I have a goal of being a ‘ninja’ — 3 pull-ups and an unassisted handstand. I also want to be a better inline skater.
Action Plan: For health & fitness are habits focus. That is to head to the gym minimally 4 times a week and skate bi-weekly. To build up strength and endurance.
Relationships Pillar
I have Jingles, family, friends, community and God.
Having a good support system is important for everyone. Having good relationships helps one to age well because loneliness kills.
Goals: To grow closer, I want to get a house this year that could be a place for gathering.
Action plan: Habits such as having a date every fortnight, traveling overseas, weekly lunch with my grandparents
Projects that I would like to accomplish this year would be to get a house for Jingles and me. In the ‘getting a house’ project there would be a step-by-step process from visiting potential houses, figuring out what we want, having the budget and sorting out bank loans and etc.
Learning & Growth Pillar
I believe life is all about learning and creating. This is how we can grow as a person. If you are not growing, you are dying.
Goals in this area includes the number of books i want to read, courses that I’d like to complete, and also creating.
I created a Youtube channel in 2021 to fulfill my desire to create.
I used to only focus on learning such as going for courses and reading.
But I learned that consuming makes you feel smart, creating is important to show that you can apply what you learned. Having a project where you can be creative, hone your craft or hobbies helps you grow as a person.
My action plan have both projects and habits
- Projects is Youtube
- Habits would be writing more regularly on medium on top of reading and learning
Lastly, Financial and Career Pillar
You need money to survive.
But in terms of priority, it is the last of my pillars because only by having good relationships and health then you can enjoy the money.
A career is important but if a career does not help to learn and grow, I don’t think I would be fulfilled.
It’s not as simple as going for something that pays you the most or the fastest way to become a millionaire — at the expense of relationship and health. So having a right balance is key.
When it comes to the pursuit of money — We always think about how much we can gain, or how much could we lose. And it is not merely a financial question.
Instead, we should think of when we make this choice:
- How much time could I lose?
- How much sanity could I lose?
- How much reputation could I lose?
- How much happiness could I lose?
Opportunity cost is about a lot more than money.
For financial goals, it’s simpler because it is number-focused. These are achieving $500k in net worth, income from options trading, paying off debt and etc.
My Action plan would be having systems when it comes to investing in the markets such as regularly investing in Robo-advisors such as Endowus and savings.
Reviewing 2021 Goals
Before I set goals for the new year, I would also like to reflect on the previous year, to see which areas I have accomplished and areas where I did not meet my goals.
Health
I didn’t meet my goal of 3 pull-ups and unassisted handstand. So thats why the goal still remains. I remember when i set my first goal of 1 pull up, I was practicing it as part of my gym routine, and eventually 2 years later, I did my first pull up. The reason why I set these goals are so that I can be consistent in heading to the gym and me achieving the goal would be something I’m proud of. But more importantly, it is the habit that I’d like to maintain. So this year, my system would also remain the same which is a consistent workout.
Relationships
For the pillar of the relationship, I think that there are areas to be improved like spending time with my grandparents and parents. I think with the busyness of our day-to-day, we tend to neglect to spend time with our family. Since my mom and sis don’t live in Singapore, it is even harder for me to connect with them. If possible I’d like to visit them since it has been around 2 years since covid.
Learning & Growth
I could do much better when it comes to reading and learning more skills. This year I would continue to check off my bucket list by setting aside time.
Finance & Career
Mid of last year, I decided to set a goal to achieve $500k in net worth. It was quite an audacious goal because even if I could save all of my salaries, it is not a number that I could met. I wanted to see how I could challenge myself to build other forms of income.
Since then, I’ve learned how to trade options , I wanted to see if I could rely on that as another stream of income. However, I was not diligent in keeping up to date with market news. With the market crash since late November till now I have not been able to meet my goal. So far I have lost about $50k or so since the dip.
Therefore this year I want to be more focused on trading options and learning more about valuation. Going back to the basics.
That's why when people have asked me ‘why don’t you manage your own portfolio’. I am always hesitant to do so because sometimes we make mistakes. I am still not confident enough and have the experience to make good judgment at this stage. Therefore to ensure that I spread my risk, I prefer to invest some money with robo advisors and also build up my CPF. Of course, in addition, making sure that I have a job so that I could dollar cost average and continue investing in the markets. Because time in the market is better than timing the market.
How I achieve my goals
It is not enough to write our goals down. We need a way to drive us towards to goal.
Transform your goals into action.
To set myself up for success I will follow these steps.
- Schedule: Your habits and projects in your calendar so that you make sure you set aside time to do it
- Show up and build momentum: First, you are in a relationship with yourself. When you forgo your goals and don’t show up, you’re kind of cheating on yourself. And you deserve better than that.
- Secondly, you can’t rely on motivation. Motivation is fleeting. Build on momentum instead
- Review and adjust accordingly: Over the years I’ve set many goals for myself and quit some of them. I realized those that I’ve quit are those goals that are either vague or there is a problem with my action plan [habits or projects]. I’ll typically review the action plan and adjust them.
- Having a tracking system or journal helps. It’s only when looking back at weeks of documenting that we’ll understand the patterns, challenges, pitfalls and also celebrate the wins because you’ll realize that goals are not achieved overnight but incrementally over a long period.
- It’s only by showing up to execute these habits and projects that we can slowly work towards our goals.
Accountability
The best kind of system is where you can stick to it easily, you don’t need much thinking.
But sometimes, it can be hard to be motivated so if you want it badly, make it hurt when you don’t show up.
For me, sometimes I get lazy going to the gym, but because I know that I have already paid for the membership, if I don’t show up, the money goes to waste. I hate wasting money.
Similarly you can look into having an accountability partner such as your friend or your other half to keep you on check.
Lastly, Don’t beat yourself up too much. If you miss a day or two it’s fine just get back on track
It’s only the 2nd week of 2022.
If you’ve already lost the motivation to achieve your resolutions, don’t be afraid to start again.
This year, spend less time focusing on outcomes and more time focusing on the habits that precede the results.
Don’t be afraid to keep revisiting and refining your systems and habits.
Don’t give up.
