1,000 other cliche newsletters about goal setting are going out today. It’s what us achievers do this time of year.
We all feel like 2024 is dead, but we have an insane amount of optimism for 2025.
Personally, I have two massive goals for 2025:
There are more, but these will be the most difficult. Yeah, they’re cliche, but I genuinely believe I can achieve them.
However, after running goal-setting cohorts for the last 3 years, there’s one hidden stumbling block I’ve noticed that few consider:
Your life may not be able to handle goals like these.
Which means you could be setting yourself up for failure before you even start.
For example, what if my marriage was falling apart? Going all in on getting to $2M may destroy my life - not worth it.
Discovering this early however, wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It would allow me to address those issues - and going hard after those would probably provide ever greater joy than achieving the big goals.
To determine this, we do an exercise as part of the 90 Days of Action onboarding called, “assessing baseline”.
Our goal setting cohorts last 90 days - everyone goes BIG on achieving something massive for all 90 days. It’s nuts - we’ve seen participants lose massive amounts of weight, raise millions of $$, and start successful businesses.
But we’ve also seen people repair their relationships, get mentally healthy and address their addictions.
That’s because before we allow anyone to set their goals, we make them go through this exercise called “assessing baseline”. Here’s the gist:
We want you to assess every area of your life (your health, wealth and relationships) and ask this key question:
“If the next 6 months of my life in this area looked like the last 3 months, would I be okay?”
In other words, are the current core habits of your life good enough that you can focus on something else without these other areas of your life blowing up?
First, think through the big three categories in your life - health, wealth and relationships. And ask yourself the simple question, “how have things been these last 3 months in this area?”
Here are my real-time answers:
Nutrition
I eat mostly clean during the week, but overeat on the weekends and have 3 to 4 drinks between Friday and Sunday.
Exercise
I do a short weight workout ~3 times a week followed by a 20 mins weight-vest walk.
Spiritual
I wake up each morning (M-F) to read and journal.
Sleep
I sleep well most nights.
Stress
I get fairly stressed 1 day a week, but its not affecting sleep or relationships.
Debt
We have no debt other than the house
Cashflow
What I pay myself at FreedUp isn’t enough to cover my expenses, but between Sarah’s job, FreedUp and investment dividends our expenses are more than covered.
Savings
We have a health savings.
Investments
I am not actively investing more money, but my current investments are growing (primarily index funds and COIN stock and a little crypto).
Marriage
We do a date 1 to 2 times a month and are connecting well.
Family
We eat dinner together most evenings and have enjoy weekends together.
Parenting
I'm at every sporting event, taking the kids to school several times a week.
In my own self-assessment, none of the above are “ideal” - they’re not where I want them to be.
I want to be healthier, make more money and be more present with my wife and kids.
But if I didn’t make positive changes in these areas over the next 6 months, my finances, my health, my marriage and my family would be just fine.
So I’m free to go hard after my goals!
If one the 3 areas above needs work, then address that area first before setting other goals!
If you’re overweight, can’t sleep at night, working 70 hour weeks, overspending, etc - no shame! But you know what you need to address.
This has happened during “90 Days of Action” - a founder jumps in with hopes of accomplishing something massive only to realize that there’s an area of their life that needs addressing first.
And often times, it’s not your fault. Stuff happens. Investments go south, relationships crumble.
But directing your energy and ambition toward repairing one of these areas should be celebrated just as much as achieving some audacious goal.
2025 can be a year of restoration.
For the first time, we’re opening up 90 Days of Action to applications. We’re capping at 20 participants - applications must be in by Friday, December 6. Apply here: https://90daysofaction.com/