In 2016, I had my best year ever:

I got in the fittest shape I had ever been in.

My body fat levels were low enough that I was year-round in ideal shape.

My book came out and it was an instant #1 Amazon bestseller - in all three health categories I put it in.

I made enough extra money to travel to two new countries with my girlfriend, like Colombia:

I finally found - and went after - my passion, Chinese medicine - and moved all the way to the west coast to start my four-year doctorate program.

... And I did all of these in the same year.

Here’s what’s weird.

I’m not special, I just did something different.

I had set goals for many years before this - in fact, since 2012 I’ve been setting goals on paper each year, and yet, somehow never managed to reach them.

Most of the time, I would get inspired or motivated, write out all the great things I was going to achieve, but by the second week, I would quit.

I would just feel… lazy.

The mountain looked huge before me.

And even if I did know exactly what goals I wanted, I didn’t know what was realistic, and I could never keep up the momentum beyond a few weeks to reach them.

However, when I decided to do something differently, I began by talking to other people who actually achieved their goals - and found something intriguing.

They did it very differently.

Think about all the advice that’s “conventional wisdom” when it comes time to set goals.

Just set SMART goals.

Specific, measurable, actionable… blah blah blah.

More often than not, despite following that advice, we still feel like we have the following barriers:

We tend to say things like:

I don't know how to stay motivated. I'm naturally motivated to achieve some goals (like going to the gym 4 times per week) but for some it seem that I'm not able to have enough energy or time, only a lot of excuses. So I drop my plan, thinking that probably I picked the idea of doing that from someone else, or because it's fashionable or it will make me look good, or any other reason except that it as something that I really wanted.

Sometimes it sounds like:

Loss of motivation definitely. I have tried starting a few hobbies and tried different jobs and it's all cool at first then I get bored or find something new then the cycle just goes on and I'm only 21 I want to find something fulfilling that I can and will enjoy for the rest of my life.

We tend to say things like:

"At first, I work hard to achieve my goals, but as time goes on I just get side tracked… later I just forget what my goal was in the first place. I get distracted when life and short term pressure/stress gets in the way.”

Sometimes it sounds like:

"I keep getting distracted when life and short term pressure/stress shows up in my life."

We tend to say things like:

"I just force myself to finish hoping I'd still feel satisfied when I reached the goal, but I just get tired of forcing myself. I also tried teaming up with my wife so that we could work on the same goal, but I realized one of us likes the goal more than the other... so one drops out."

Or this hauntingly accurate statement:

"I tried "hardwork beats talent." But it didn't work for me."

Of course we all feel resistance and barriers, including myself, so what did I do differently?

I modeled the all-stars and what worked for them.

When I dug deeper, I learned a series of strategies I’ve hardly seen anywhere else, and are surprisingly simple, yet effective.

FIRST - THINK IN TERMS OF HABITS - NOT GOALS.

What are we told from childhood is the secret to success?

Set habits - and work your tail off.

And yet, there are billions of people all over the world doing backbreaking labor, and yet aren’t achieving any success.

Getting Fit

We say “I want to lose 30 pounds” and yet, despite being ambitious about that goal, nothing in that goal shows us exactly what to do every day.

Do I just eat less?

Get more veggies?

Workout two hours a day?

I realized that if I instead turned that into a daily ritual, my results would skyrocket:

This simple shift - from having the “goal to lose 30 pounds” to turning in into a few, specific daily habits, resulted in this:

Writing a Book

Years ago I wanted to write a book, and so on a piece of paper I set a “SMART” goal - I want to write a book in the next year.

And yet, each day I would sit down and encounter the wall of writer’s block.

When I then turned that into a habit vs. a goal, everything changed.

Write 1,000 words a day vs. write a book.

When I sat down each day, it was a “holy crap” moment. Suddenly, I had clarity, focus, and had a plan based on ACTION - not some huge goal I didn’t know how to tackle.  

The result?

I wrote two books in under three years - and the second book even came out while I was in medical school.

I was surprised to find how few people relied on vision boards or even goal boards and other popular spiritual-manifestation strategies now.

Instead, they had those visions, but on a daily basis they just reviewed their daily rituals.

This was incredibly enlightening.

For example, take a look at the rituals I ended up putting on a piece of paper, and then keeping in my phone.

It said:

Write a book, vs. write 1000 words.

Get crazy fit, vs. cook dinner 3x a week and workout 3 x 30 min each week.

Think about how freeing that is - generally, looking at a goal doesn’t show what to do each day. It’s not actionable.

When I instead had the exact habits listed, I was crystal clear on what I had to do right now to eventually achieve all my goals.

Your Best Year Goal Setting is a five-week online video course that covers the ENTIRE process of setting and achieving goals to have your best year ever.

You’ll learn the exact mindset, strategies, habits, and tactics to figure out which goals to set, smash through motivational slumps, set the right goals for you, and ultimately, achieve goals in a fraction of the time.

P.S. If you continue going down the path you’re going now, will your life be any different a year from now?

You may look yourself in the mirror every night and say “tomorrow will be different!” but is it really ever different?

Imagine how much different your life could be a year from now if you took action today.

Imagine if every single day you wake up, and know exactly what to eat to make you feel fantastic - loaded with energy and confidence.

And imagine if there were no surprises - you already knew exactly what to do to lose weight, and it was clear as day, you just needed to apply it.

No more guess work, no more trying to find the "best diet" to lose weight. No more wondering about whether or not the ab roller works to get a flat stomach.

If you continue on the path you’re on now, will your life be any different a year from now? Will those 10, 20 or 50 pounds that you’re trying to lose still be there?

Will you still struggle every day knowing that you need to change... but doing nothing about it? The only way we improve our lives is through action – “tomorrow” really means “someday” which really means never.

Tomorrow never comes. Think about the dreams you've had since you were a child. Are you living them now, or planning to do them "some day over the rainbow?"

How many years have passed with you thinking like that?

So let me ask you this: if you’re telling yourself “Ehh, not right now” – stop putting off life until tomorrow. You deserve to feel great today.