“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” - Pablo Picasso "A goal without a plan is just a wish" "A man without a plan is not a man" - Friedrich Nietzsche   So I'm going to make some posts on habits, goals, journaling etc... , from what I've been listening to and reading. I've been meaning to write on this topic for my notebook, so I'll put my thoughts on this forum to get some responses & and maybe its of help to some people. Links to the other post will be linked. So with the corona virus I've been isolating myself for past two weeks, spent most of this time playing videogames, watching Netflix ... Basically doing stupid shit. My schedule is warped, because I'm not in the usually rhythm of my day. Its starting to feel like its fucking groundhogs day. For that reason I'm trying to break out of that rut, so the past few days I've been spending my time more productively, reading more, exercising, meditating etc... I've been meaning to make a methodology on how to get shit done, and with the corona virus I think that its the best time to. So I'm going to spend a chunk of today writing down some basic ideas and making posts to this forum, hopefully they're of some help, the main reason though is to just crystallise my thoughts and get some feedback. Congrats on those who read the posts, I'll try to keep them brief So two important questions to ask before you make your goals   1. Who do you want to be? 2. What do you want?   Pretty simple questions - the questions rely on your intuition You have to answer those questions yourself Here's a actualised.org video [Considering its the actualised.org forum I'm gonna try to link a bunch of Leos vids that relate to what I'm writing about] For the most part though we can pretty definitively say x person is a loser and y person is a winner.  E.g. Bob who comes home from his shitty job and says "today sucked, time to order some pizza, drink a six pack and watch some tv for the next few hours". Compared to Jack Jack who comes home and says "I'm going to go straight to the gym, come back and make a healthy meal then catch up on reading and meditate for the next few hours" I think most people would say Bob has a loser mentality and Jack has a winners mentality. Now it is relative, Bob could be a perfectly content person, and Jack could be miserable. But we can make generalisations on positive habits that make you feel better. For example its better to be physically fit and have a good BMI, rather than be obese. Why? because your more likely to feel better in your body if you're fit than fat (as well as numerous other benefits). So although you don't have to perfectly define, who you want to be and what you want to do, although you should, its somewhat intuitive to know what is good behaviour and bad behaviour. You know this after a shitty day of eating junk food and binging Netflix all day that there was a better use of your time. With that said, and your knowledge of good and bad behaviour , you have to now set goals. Now people willing don't set goals, as they serve as a poor reflection onto themselves. When they fall short. For example if I make a clear goal such as   Lose X amount of weight by following y diet plan in z amount of days   When I fall short of that goal it negatively effects their self image. So people avoid making goals   Here's is a link to a transcript by Leo on How to set goals The video is linked below https://www.actualized.org/articles/goal-setting Here is a quote from the video "The first thing I’ve got to tell you, and this is a very important realization for you to have, is that right now, you probably don’t have any goals at all. This is the number one reason why people are not getting much more success in life, simply because they do not have goals." Leo goes onto explain how people deceive themselves into believing they have goals, but them fall into the same ego defence mechanism trap mentioned before of obfuscation, so that they don't hurt their feelings, when they fall short of their "goal". "A goal without a plan is just a wish" The video states five points on how to make a goal - your goal has to be   Specific and clear Big and compelling Written down Reviewed daily Aligned with your values   Now back to the example I gave before   "Lose X amount of weight by following y diet plan in z amount of days"   This can meet all five of the criteria above Here are some other examples of goals   Meditate for x number of minutes each day Find work and make X amount of money per month by working X number of hours per week Lean x song in y amount of days Write 1000 words on your book per day Find a girlfriend by approaching x number of women per week Etc...   Now if a goal is linked with your values, it ties into who you want to be and what you want. If a goal is big and compelling it will invoke these feelings in you Excitement about achieving something you truly care about Hope for a reduction of some form of chronic pain or suffering Just a little bit of fear & worry over about whether you can pull it off Now in a separate video [linked beneath] Leo talks about SMART objectives   Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time Based   SMART goals are used by companies to evaluate whether a goal is viable to be a goal. Its a simple acronym that can also be applied to self development goals e.g.    "Lose X amount of weight by following y diet plan in z amount of days"   Specific - Check Measurable - Check Achievable - Depends upon the amounts Relevant - Depends upon your values Time Based - Depends upon the days   If you adjust your goal based upon those 5 factors then your goal is smart. Whether a goal is achievable - you should have taken into stock of yourself and defined clearly your own Strengths and Weaknesses Now after you've defined your goals Based upon your values - Who you want to be and who you are Made sure they are specific and clear Big and compelling enough to be worth pursing and to invoke emotions Written down and reviewed daily to check progress and to keep it in the minds eye And have made sure its aligned with your values Meets the SMART goal 5 factors Its now time to make a plan to achieve these goals Which ties into the theme of these posts To achieve your vision/dream - you must define your goals - to achieve your goals you must change your habits - to change your habits you must know yourself  - These require solitude This post is how to define your goals - So basically this is step 1 Here are the video links If you have any different way to make your goals leave it beneath If you want to share an example of any goal you're hoping to achieve leave it beneath Thanks for reading