Step-by-step plan of how I completed all the goals that I had been putting off since 2018 in a year without external kicks and signs from the universe
I achieve 80-90% of my goals annually.
Thanks to the combination of SMART+OCD+Habits.
How did I come to this?
In 2016, while studying at the university, I attended a training day, where the speaker told me for the first time about SMART and an effective goal-setting system in general.
I have been putting them up every year since 2017.
And this continues to this day. The only thing that has changed is that until 2023 the percentage of goals achieved did not exceed 50% of those set. Whereas in 2023 and 2024 it will be 80% or more.
SMART is not enough to successfully achieve goals
S – specific
M – measurable
A – achievable
R – significant
T – with deadline
I want to be successful – not SMART
I want to have 100 thousand subscribers on YouTube and Income of $ 10,000 per month. By the end of 2030 – SMART
This is exactly how I set goals in 2018. I even added a visual part to them – I put them on a poster
Let's try to imagine. By 2030 I reached 94,000 subscribers and $9,000 in income. According to SMART, I lost. Our mentality will even make us beat ourselves up for this. It's a defeat.
That's exactly what I did in 2018, when I tried to run 10 kilometers from 1 kilometer per run. By the deadline, I could only run 8 kilometers. 1.5 weeks after the deadline, I ran 15 kilometers. I thought I had failed.
But is it really so? I run 8 kilometers. Half a year ago it was 1 km. I earn $9,000, I have 94,000 subscribers. Yes, if this were an exam, I would not pass it. But that's life.
Do you know what the difference is in life between a person with an income of $10,000 and $9,000 – the first one saves a thousand dollars more. They live in more or less the same apartments, in the same cars and with the same phones. They can both easily afford them.
And the smart is ideal only in a utopian world. It lacks an adjustment for reality, the human psyche and the influence of the world.
This is what ultra-modern goal setting looks like. OCD
It is used by Amazon, Twitter, Netflix, Google, Facebook, Microsoft. What does it consist of?
There should be only a few OCDs. We choose not to give birth to 12 children and how it turns out, but only two, but we will raise and educate them to be wonderful members of society.
OKR should be ambitious. If you have achieved a goal by 100% – it means that you have not set it ambitiously enough. 70% of the goal fulfillment is ideal for OKR. We often fulfill our goals by 70-80% and OKR will say thank you, while SMART will label you a loser.
OCDs can be adjusted within the cycle if they are no longer relevant and inspiring.
Each OKR should have clear points on how we will evaluate the result. OKR – A good standard of living is a car for $50,000, a house for $200,000 and $100,000 in savings.
OKRs are set for a quarter. And this is important. SMART often thinks in years, but over such a long period as a year we lose focus. We keep postponing the goal for the next season and so on until the end of the year.
Transition: Smart is good for clarity, OCD adjustment for the real world, which one to choose?
SMART + OKR. We take the best and build a step-by-step plan
As usual, the combination of two opposite methodologies produces something universal.
I take the 70% principle from OKR and at the same time very clearly describe the goal as in SMART.
I set goals for the year, but I immediately indicate in which quarter which goals will go.
I don't set more than 2-3 OKRs and make them ambitious while keeping them achievable.
This is what some of my goals for 2024 look like.
If I reach an income of $7,000, that will already be a victory. Objectively, today I have reached $4,000, which was when I set the goal at the end of last year, to $6,500 today. When the figure is $8,000, the goal is 70% achieved. If I reach $10,000 by the end of the year, it means I was afraid to set a truly ambitious goal.
The effect of unifying systems makes life much easier. Many of the demands and self-flagellation that I had been engaged in for years of unfulfilled goals fell off me.
It has become easier to set goals and monitor their achievement.
A well-set goal gave me half the success.
And without discipline the chance of achieving goals is 50%
It is important to understand that we set any goals with our heads – namely, the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Its peculiarity is that it makes long-term decisions, but short-term ones are made by another part of the brain. For simplicity, I will divide it into the head and the body.
We think with our heads – I'll get fat because of the cake
We decide with our bodies – but it won't be today
And the body also allocates resources for performing any task. How many times have you and I been lying on the couch, realizing that we need to get up and do a simple thing – take a shower or write a couple of lines of code. But the body continued to lie there for hours.
How many times did my head tell me it was time to sleep, and my body scrolled through 54 TikTok?
Habits solve this problem. In essence framework – plan Habit training is a way to train your body to do what your head has in mind.
And exclude from this process what is called forcing, pushing, motivation, and so on. We all spend years looking for motivation, reading books. We try to “immerse” ourselves forcibly in an English-speaking environment or team.
Almost never it works out. And we start waiting for HIM
You know the phrase: “I need a magic kick to get started?”
To work on goals with discipline you don't need a kick. Provided you have SMART, OCD and habits
This is what my entire goal-setting system looks like from start to finish.
I define the end point of the year where I would like to be. Be it a country, income, condition, appearance. Let's say I decided to weigh 85 kg. Now it's 105 kg.
Is it possible to lose 20 kilograms without losing muscle mass, without any water diets or intermittent fasting? Yes, it is possible. I have already done it.
What habits do I need for this? The most important one is nutrition and calorie counting. I am instilling in myself the habit of counting everything I eat.
It would be nice to add sports, because otherwise the muscles will burn first, not the fat. After 3 weeks I instill the second – a couple of workouts a week.
Then I set several “milestones” per year. For example, every 2 months I check to see if I’m stuck on a plateau and I get off the diet for a couple of weeks so that the body doesn’t get used to the diet and doesn’t lose the burning effect.
All this is not associated with violence against oneself, coercion and internal struggle – habits remove negativity. But it does not cause joy either. It is simply neutral. Like brushing teeth.
There are some goals that don't require daily or weekly actions. For example, the goal of living in Slovenia. For such goals, OKR, SMART and setting milestones on the way to the goal are enough. Habits are not needed (well, except that I want to learn the language before arriving in the country)
Summary
Combination of OCD+SMART+HABITS they closed all my goals, dreams and plans that had been following me since the 8th grade.
And now I can say to myself. I am Igor Poyurov:
I read ALL the books I have ever come across and thought “I need to read them” – that’s several hundred books.
Eliminated back pain with 15 workouts a day
Removed the voice jumps, now it is always low and stable
I started blogging and have been doing it for 2 years.
Mastered English before Fluent
Now I am finishing off the last such thought – I am correcting my vision with the help of exercises. Will I succeed? Obviously. What is the point of me doubting if everything that was before worked out?
