How to Design Your Life ( Process For Achieving Goals)

I had a coaching client last year say something that was incredibly wise when he hired me. In other words, I took him on as a coaching client. He said, “You know, Alex, the reason that I wanted to be your client is because I want to be where you are in a few years, and I know you did not get there by accident. You design your life.” I thought that was extremely wise and spot-on because the thing is, so many of us wake up when we’re 20, 30, 40, or 50 and realize we don’t even know why we got here or how we’re here. We know for sure that this is not where we wanted to be, where we wanted to be years and years ago.

Now, in this video, I want to share my personal process I use for not only scripting the direction of your life but how I reinvented my own life and consciously created it from 26 until 30. What’s up, guys? Alex Hein here, author of the book Master of the Day.

Now, in my own life here, I really think that designing your life and making it go forward in the direction you wanted to go forward has three parts. The very first part is the design. The second part is the habits you use on a daily basis. The third is the follow-through. In other words, how do you actually stay on track when you get off track? Because half of the game of goal achievement is purely when you get punched in the face. What are you gonna do differently to get back up and get back in the fight?

Now, for me, the first thing is vision. It’s basically the design. You know, if you just sit down for a day, pour a coffee, get a piece of paper, and write down, “What would be the coolest thing that could happen over the next five years in my life?” If you just do that, you are already ahead of 99% of humanity who show up with no game plan, no vision for the future, no clue what they would like to create besides, “You know, I would like more money,” or “I’d like that girl or that guy,” or “I’d like a nicer car.” There’s almost no consciousness or conscious energy given to thinking about, “What do I want to build in the future?” Like, what consciously and concretely do I want to improve?

So, for me, the way that I do that is, first of all, I have a journal where I’m regularly writing down updates for the kind of life that I want to build. You know, it starts with the vision, which makes me think of the fact that the skyscrapers of New York started with a picture in somebody’s head, and so did spaceships, and so did curing a difficult disease. So, when I think of it like that, I always make sure I’m consciously creating, even if it is just in my thoughts, even if it’s just up there, both in print journals and in a document that I call “Five Years from Today.”

The three things that I use for my yearly envisioning are, one, the yearly envisioning process I’ve talked about here, which is basically at the start of each year. I write down, “What is the coolest thing that could happen this year?” Like perfect year, no limitations, just be realistic. But like, what would be the coolest thing that could happen? I put it on one piece of paper that’s always on my desk, and I review it twice per day.

Now, from there, that yearly document also has my daily habits, the unique projects I’m working on in each quarter of the year, as well as the things I know that I need to work on to get better, basically to improve myself. The second thing is the pocket journal I carry around. This, for me, is always to record things that may change about my thinking, ideas I get when I read or listen to podcasts, as well as little intuitive hunches that come up. So, if I’m talking to a friend or I’m reading a book, and I’m like, “Wow, that would be an awesome idea,” for example, that’s where all my books came from. “Wouldn’t it be cool to dot-dot-dot?” I put it down in this little book. It’s just a little three-by-five Moleskine that I always carry around with me, and then day by day I can flip through that and be like, “You know what? These were those cool things I wanted to manifest and create in my own life.” Let me just keep a note of them.

The second way I do that is by doing a weekly journal page. Now, the weekly journal page is just a strategy page, which I talked about in my recent video on journaling for success. In that strategy page, it’s basically, “Where are you, Alex? Where do you want to be? And are those habits you’re doing every day sufficient enough to actually get you there?” So, the whole point of this journal page is reflection. You’re doing this—are you still on track? If not, what has to change?

And then finally, I have this little journal notebook, a digital notebook in Evernote, and it just says “Five Years from Today.” Now, I don’t really stick with that idea of five years from today, but the point for me is, where do I want to go? In what direction? It could be as simple as moving—like I know I’m moving to California after I’m done with my doctorate in Portland. It could be as simple as the relationship you want to be in. For example, I’m 30, and I know that I want to be married by 35, so I can have that there. I know that I want to have a private practice and a traditionally published book and three vacations per year. I put all of that down, where I don’t know how I’m gonna make it happen yet, but it will happen for sure. I haven’t quite fleshed out the process. The point is that you’re putting trajectories in your brain and in your subconscious, and when you check that every once in a while, they’re kind of like, “Oh yeah, I knew I wanted to do that.” But, alright, let’s start thinking about how I can actually do it. Almost all of those things come true for me, especially if you regularly review that.

Now, the second piece here is your habits—so the daily action steps that you’re gonna actually do to make that a reality. Now, I’ve shared this philosophy many times. It makes up the bulk of my book Master of the Day, but the point is that you think about the goals you want to reach, and then you have to break them down. Forget the goal, but break it down into a daily habit. So, with fitness, you forget losing 30 pounds. The habit is, cook every day, go to the gym 20 minutes a day. You want to write a book, you forget having written a book. You put down the habit: write 500 words a day. You want to be in an amazing relationship in two years, you forget that goal. You put the habit: I’m gonna go out to four events where I might meet like-minded people, and that’s your daily habit. So, you bring it back to, what do I have to do today?

Now, the way I track that is a combination of ways. So, not only in that yearly visioning document do I put that, I also record it in Evernote. And the reason I do that is because every Thursday I have a 30 to 45-minute mastermind call. Now, I’ve had a personal mastermind for over four years now, every single week. And it basically started when I started my business because that was so difficult for me, but it progressed to, like, “Are you happy? Are you building the life you want? Is your ladder up against the right wall?” As the saying goes, because you might climb the ladder of success and realize you climbed the wrong ladder and you’re not where you want to be.

So, it’s also about conscious goal setting and being crystal clear on the path forward, making sure you’re going down the right path you want to be down. So, I actually have a maximum of three goals per year, and then three habits per goal. For example, the goals are often much more complex than you think. Like, let’s say you’ve only been sleeping five hours a night. Well, your daily ritual may have to be, “I’m gonna disconnect from the computer at 11:00. I’m not gonna have coffee after 5:00, and I’m not gonna stress myself out with homework or with work after a certain time.” It may take a few habits, just like doing well in school or high-performing at your work may also be more than one habit. It may mean, “I’m gonna study this study strategy every day and apply that,” or “I’m gonna do an extra one hour of work per day or self-study or something else.”

The way that I personally do it is just three habits per actual goal, and those I track in a weekly scorecard document, which is, “These are the three things. Did I do them Monday through Sunday?” And then when I get to my Thursday night mastermind, we all get on the phone, and I basically give a report: “I did this 50% of the time, 90% of the time. This is what didn’t work; this is what I have to improve.”

And then the third part for me about consciously designing your life and going forward is really just two things: it’s the follow-through to make sure you actually do these things, and then number two, it’s following little intuitions about when you have to pivot.