How to Set Goals For Lazy People (#18)
Find Success By Knowing What to Avoid - Watch Me Use The Anti-Goal Framework
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One of the most common goal settings mistakes I’ve made is setting too many goals too soon.
Instead, I've realized that my initial goal is *not to list all of the goals I want to achieve*.
My goal is to make a list of the things I don't want to build in order to achieve the goal.
Here’s what I got for ya today:
I wrote a book on goal setting, but after learning the anti-goal framework from Sahil Bloom and Shaan Puri, I've completely abandoned the goal setting advice I used to give to people. FYI - Watch me use this 4 step framework when setting my own goals.
The 4-step Anti-Goal Framework and avoiding the Pyrrhic victory (a victory that comes at a great cost, perhaps making the ordeal to win not worth it.)
🧠 What I’m learning:
There's this mental model based on inversion that says it's easier to solve a complex problem by working backwards rather than forwards.
Instead of making a list of all the things you want to achieve as your "goals," you can instead make a list of all the things you don't want to happen either at the end or along the way as your "anti-goals."
Sahil Bloom, a well-known commentator on the technology industry, has compared the pursuit of anti-goals to trying to avoid the benefits of a Pyrrhic victory.
The term "Pyrrhic victory" refers to the terrible losses that King Pyrrhus of Epirus incurred at the hands of the Roman army, despite ultimately achieving victory.
This quote from Sahil’s newsletter captures this perfectly
🛠️ How do I establish anti-goals?
Here’s what I learned from Sahil’s process. Feel free to steal it for your own goals
(1) Choose My Area of Focus
My goals fall into one of three categories: Health, Wealth, and Relationships.
Ex: Let’s choose wealth.
(2) Establish Goals
This is the standard stuff. Statements / Goals I want to accomplish.
Goals = Grow the newsletter to 10K+ subscribers by the end of 2023.
(3) Invert the Problem
Sahil recommends asking a few questions:
What’s the worst possible outcome?
What systems would lead to that?
What daily actions would I regret?
Ex:
What’s the worst possible outcome?
I let this goal consume my entire life. My health, wealth, career and relationships suffer because of it. And I dream of doing a million things, but my anxiety, business, and life prevent me from accomplishing this goal.
What systems would lead to that?
On a daily basis, I’m forced to concentrate on a marketing activity. I have to think about writing and marketing all of the time. This chaos would result from a lack of systems.
What daily actions would I regret?
Having to ask users to subscribe on a daily basis. Every day, I have to focus on marketing this newsletter. And marketing the newsletter for more than an hour per day.
(4) Establish Anti-Goals from your inversions
“I let this goal consume my entire life. My health, wealth, career and relationships suffer because of it. And I dream of doing a million things, but my anxiety, business, and life prevent me from accomplishing this goal.”
“On a daily basis, I’m forced to concentrate on a marketing activity. I have to think about writing and marketing all of the time. This chaos would result from a lack of systems.”
“Having to ask users to subscribe on a daily basis. Every day, I have to focus on marketing this newsletter. And marketing the newsletter for more than an hour per day.”
Anti-Goal = Hire a marketer who will solely focus on marketing the newsletter. I don't work on it every day, but it gets done. I can concentrate on writing, and this person can concentrate on increasing our subscriber base.
My newsletter goal has a complete picture
Goal: Grow the newsletter to 10K+ subscribers by the end of 2023.
I could have used a million different strategies to get there if I had just focused on this, but I would have lost the war. It would have required my energy, which would have gone against the anti-goals I set.
Anti-Goal: Hire a marketer who will solely focus on marketing the newsletter. I don't work on it every day, but it gets done. I can concentrate on writing, and this person can concentrate on increasing our subscriber base.
Summarize:
To summarize the Anti-Goal Framework and the things I learned from Sahil:
Ya boi / friend @ NLCS. That’s it for this week :)
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Sending you great vibes -
Really loved this one Rishav! Trying that with one of my goals now... also wealth related. Coupling the anti-goals with some of the new financial tactics I'm learning from Ramit Sethi's "I Will Teach You to Be Rich"