How to Set and Achieve Your Life Goals (No Bullshit)

Being able to effectively and efficiently accomplish your life goals is the number one determinant of your success.

It doesn’t matter how rich you are, it doesn’t matter how determined you are, and it doesn’t matter how talented you are—if you can’t set and achieve life goals, you will not be successful.

What life goals do you have? I want you to get them in your head right now. This article is going to be interactive; it’s not meant for you to sit back and passively read, and then forget about 10 minutes later.

This article is a stepping stone; do what I say and you will achieve any goal you wish.

Step 1. Be Aware of Your Life Goals

The very first step to accomplishing your life goals is to become very keenly aware of what they are. If you are not aware of your life goals, you will not achieve them.

And, no—just because you vaguely know what you want does NOT mean that you’re aware of your life goals. I’m talking about a very deep and clear awareness, that pervades every single moment of your life.

When you’re driving home from work, you should be thinking about what you want to accomplish. When you’re on the toilet, you should be thinking about what you want to accomplish. When you’re about to fall asleep, the last thing that crosses your mind should be what you want to accomplish.

You must be aware of your life goals with every single breath that you take.

Always be asking yourself: “Is what I’m doing right now helping me to further my life goals?” If the answer is no, then don’t fucking do it.

Sometimes what furthers your life goals will actually seem like it doesn’t. For example, sometimes resting more often will actually help you accomplish your goals, because it prevents you from burning out.

Other times, you need to fucking hustle and grind in order to achieve your life goals. But the point is, that you must be AWARE of your life goals before you even get on the road to accomplishing them.

I want to do an experiment with you, right now. I want you to do the following:

1. Go get a pen and paper. Seriously. Actually do this. Stop reading, and go get a pen and paper.
2. Write down 3 goals that you want to achieve in the next month. They could be anything.
   1. They don’t necessarily have to be life goals. They can be short term goals or intermediate term goals, too.

Seriously. Go do that right now. Don’t keep reading until you’ve done it. In fact, I’m going to do it with you. I’ll be right back.

There, see? Those are my top three immediate goals. I want to get back into the gym, because I’ve been taking some time off to focus on flexibility and mobility. Sometimes I have trouble staying present, and my mind flutters about worrying about the future and dwelling on the past. And I want to double my traffic, and get closer to being able to retire and be a full time blogger.

Did you actually do the exercise? If not, go back and fucking do it.

I’m dead serious. If you actually do the exercise with me you will notice profound changes to your life within the next month. If not, your loss.

Step 2. Choose Your Most Important Goal

It’s a myth that success comes from juggling a ton of things at once. In the words of Gary Keller, author of The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results:

“Success demands singleness of purpose.”

A lot of people think that success comes from doing 100 things in a day. That’s why they make their checklists filled with dozens of things to do, it’s why they scurry about all day long completing menial tasks, and it’s why they’re not successful.

Success is a matter of maximizing productivity by accomplishing a small number of IMPORTANT things. This is why, for this exercise, I want you to choose the most important goal out of the three that you wrote down.

Yup. Pick the most important goal. I don’t care what metric you use; nobody is going to judge you if your most important goal is to fuck 10 girls in the next month. Just choose whatever goal is most important to you and circle it. Again, I’m doing the exercise with you. Take a look:

Okay. So my number one goal to accomplish in the next 30 days is to double the traffic that I get to Masculine Development.

Why? Well, because to be honest I want to be able to spend the rest of my life blogging and putting out high quality content. I don’t want to be forced to work a job in order to pay the bills. I want to be a full time blogger more than anything.

So, doubling my traffic is a great way to get there. What’s your most important goal? To squat 300 pounds? To find love? To finally write that eBook you’ve been dreaming of?

I don’t care what it is, just circle it! Burn a mental note in your head that you’re going to accomplish this goal whether it kills you or not.

Step 3. Take IMMEDIATE Action

One of my favorite self-improvement gurus is Tony Robbins; the guy has sold more self-development products than damn near everyone else combined, and his content is among the best that I’ve ever read.

One of Tony’s biggest tips, that has helped me TREMENDOUSLY in my life, is from a book called Awaken The Giant Within (which I highly recommend reading if you haven’t already).

Basically, what he says is this: “…never leave the site of setting a goal without first taking some form of positive action toward its attainment.”

Go back and re-read that line five times. Etch it into your fucking brain.

Do you know why he says this? Can you take a guess? It’s because most people say that they’re going to do this or they’re going to do that, but NEVER get around to doing it.

How many times have you heard people say they’re going to do something, and then a year later they haven’t done shit?

• “Oh, I’m going to quit smoking.”
• “Oh, I’m going to start working out.”
• “Oh, I’m going to start learning game.”
• “Oh, I’m going to get a better job.”
• “Oh, I’m going to find a better spouse.”

99% of the time, what do these people do? Nothing! They literally do nothing, because even though they may be convicted when they SAY these things, they don’t back up their thoughts with ACTION.

This is one of the biggest keys to self-development: always back up your thoughts with action.

Action is the cement that solidifies your thoughts into reality, so what we’re going to do right now is take action.

Let’s start with my goal—I want to double the traffic that I get to Masculine Development in a month. Okay, so do you know what I’m going to do?

Boom. I just sent an email to my friend Kyle Trouble who has a podcast. He’s going to interview me some time in the next two weeks, which will give us both a huge spike in traffic (You can now listen to the podcast here).

Do you see the point? I just decided that I was going to double my traffic in the next month, and I IMMEDIATELY took action to further this goal.

What does this do? It cements the goal into my mind. It’s no longer just a thought. It’s starting to become reality.

Now, it’s your turn to do the same—what was your goal? Do you want to quit smoking? Okay, then throw out your fucking cigarettes right now. RIGHT NOW.

Is your goal to get jacked? Okay, then order some fundamental supplements that will help you build muscle.

Or maybe your goal is to sleep with three new girls? Then go text your buddies and tell them that you’re going out clubbing this weekend, and that they should come.

Take ACTION RIGHT NOW to transform the thought into your head into REALITY.

Don’t you DARE click off of this page or go read something else until you’ve done this. Then, and ONLY then can you move onto the next step.

Step 4. Remind Yourself Constantly

It is not enough to simply have a goal, and take action once. You must be constantly reminding yourself of your goal.

One of the best ways to do this is to create a vision board. I’ll eventually write an entire blog post on this topic, because it’s a very worthwhile tool that will help you succeed, but for now just realize that a vision board is basically a collection of stuff that motivates you.

Yup. That’s it. For example, mine has changed over the years, but it’s typically a bunch of pictures of things that I want to buy, inspirational quotes, pictures that represent something to me (like attaining spiritual enlightenment, getting the body that I want, etc.) and other things that get me charged up.

So, in order to remind myself CONSTANTLY of my goal, I’m going to write that shit down on my vision board:

That’s my vision board. It’s in the corner of my room, right next to my bed so that I see it every morning when I first wake up and every night right before I fall asleep.

Those pictures are motivational pictures, and those sheets of paper are my favorite emails and comments I’ve gotten thanking me for my blog. It keeps me motivated to keep putting out content and improving my life so that I can set a better example.

The most important part of this vision board, is the goal written in red.

For the next month, this will be my sole focus. I will wake up, and I will see this. I will stretch while sitting at my desk, and I will see this. I will be in bed about to fall asleep, and I will see this.

You must do the same. You must CONSTANTLY remind yourself of your goal, otherwise you’ll just forget about it and won’t ever get it done.

Get some sticky notes and put them in your planner. Write your goal down on your arm in permanent marker. Tattoo it onto your fucking forehead. Do WHATEVER it takes for you to accomplish this goal.

Step 5. Rinse, Wash, and Repeat

A month later, will my traffic have double? Maybe. Maybe not. But the point is that I will try my best to accomplish this goal.

I expect you to do the same. You want to sleep with five new girls over the next month? I don’t care if you do or if you don’t. What I care about is whether or not you take massive action to achieve that goal.

Are you out cold approaching women? Are you learning how to talk to hot girls? Are you out until 2 in the morning hitting up all the bottle rats at your local club? If so, I don’t really care if you accomplished your goal or not.

What matters is that you try. All you can do is try your best. I promise that if you follow this program every month, you will accomplish more than you ever thought possible…but remember. The key is to take massive action.

If you didn’t do the exercise, go back and do it. There’s no point in just skimming through this article. That won’t do anything. It’s up to you to change your life; no one else can do it for you.

“But Jon, my goal is so vague!”

That’s even better…and in fact, that’s the whole point. The best life goals are vague and not action-specific.

For example, having a goal of “I’m going to go clubbing every Friday,” would be good…but do you know what would be better? “I’m going to fuck one new girl a week.”

Why? Well, because the first one is simply based off of taking one little action. You could go out to the club on Friday, not say a single word to anyone, and consider that accomplishing your goal. But fucking one new girl a week? You have to actually try to accomplish that.

And when your life goals are vague without any specific roadmap, that’s even better, because it will force you to find a way. Is there a specific roadmap to doubling your traffic? No. There isn’t.

But that’s fine. I’m going to try my fucking best and do everything I can. I’m going to keep putting out content. I’m going to utilize social media more. I’m going to send out emails updating my subscribers. I’m going to do that podcast with Kyle. I’m going to submit guest posts and work on my SEO rankings.

I’m going to fucking work and continue to try new things until I accomplish my goal.

And that my friends, is the ultimate secret to success. Don’t get locked into one pattern. Keep experimenting until you find what works. I’ll see y’all next time around.