Sahil Bloom is one of the more recent OGs in the mystical, magical world of email newsletters.

The guy has 640,000 subscribers on his email list. 

One of those subscribers is me.

In his newsletter last week, Sahil revealed his approach to goal-setting for 2024.

What he calls his “2024 Planning Guide”.

“Guide” is putting it lightly though.  “Treatise” is a more accurate word.

Here’s what Sahil recommends:

*** Choose your goal categories (e.g. professional, personal, health, relationships...) 

*** For each goal category, set your Big Goals

*** For each Big Goal, decide on your Checkpoint Goals

*** For each Checkpoint Goal, establish daily systems

*** Set up Anti-Goals for each of your Big Goals

*** In case you get stuck on any of these steps, Sahil gives various techniques to help you get unstuck (The Two Day Rule, the 30-for-30 Approach, Habit Stacking and Minimum Viable Progress)

*** He also gives a strategy for tracking & adjusting your goals (he calls this the 1-in-60 Rule)

That’s pretty much it.  Apart from Sahil’s suggestion that once you’re done, you could get together with a small group of friends and do the exercise all over again.

You might think this process sounds contrived, over the top and I've exaggerated to make a point.

But I haven’t.  I’ve actually left some bits out.

And there would’ve been a time, not so long ago, when I would’ve read an email like this, nodded sagely to myself AND COMPLETED THE EXERCISE!

Then I would’ve looked back at the hours spent and wondered why I hadn’t achieved anything apart from having pages & pages of beautifully crafted notes, goals, checkpoints and anti-goals, all ready to plot my Minimum Viable Progress chart in Excel and churn through the 30-for-30 Approach like mincemeat through a sausage machine.

Anyway, if you want to take a few days (or weeks) to trawl through Sahil’s exercise then be my guest.

But I can’t think of a better way to dim your spontaneity, creativity & curiosity than by turning goals (i.e. your life) into a static and robotic system like this.

If you agree with me, you’ll be pleased to hear there’s another way. 

A more realistic, pleasant and effective way to go after your goals, if that’s what you want to do.

Here it is:

*** Get clear on what you want (to hit a target you must see it first)

*** Try stuff (how can you know what will work until you try it?)

*** Adapt as you go (some stuff will work, some won’t – and your goals might change)

And save yourself oodles of time, energy, headspace, stress and disappointment by not constantly measuring how you’re stacking up against your goals, sub-goals, inter-goals and contra-reverse-counter-goals (or whatever the hell you want to call them).

If you have some cool ideas, plans or goals for 2024 and you’d like some support bringing these to life, look no further than here:

https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com

Back tomorrow with more.

 - Tom