How to Make 2024 The Best Year of Your Life - Ali Abdaal - video Dailymotion

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How to Make 2024 The Best Year of Your Life - Ali Abdaal   dailymotion.com/arshian   How to guarantee you regret your life:https : //dai.ly/x93180y   My honest advice to a perfectionist:https : //dai.ly/x9319i4  My honest advice to someone who’s doing too much : https://dai.ly/x9319ty  My honest advice to someone who feels behind in life : https://dai.ly/x931a78  My honest advice to someone who wants financial freedom : https://dai.ly/x931ex2  If I Wanted to Be a Millionaire Before 30, I'd Do This : https://dai.ly/x931gzm  The Best Book I've Ever Read about Making Money : https://dai.ly/x931j9y  How to Go From $0 to $10,000 a Month in 4 Steps : https://dai.ly/x931kb6  How to Make $10,000 Month Writing Online : https://dai.ly/x931l42  How to 10x Your Income The 4 Ladders of Wealth : https://dai.ly/x931ldm  Why You Feel Lost in Life by Ali Abdaal : https://dai.ly/x933252  How to Figure Out What You Really Want in Life : https://dai.ly/x933hm8  How to Change your Life in a Year - 3 Simple Ideas : https://dai.ly/x933u78

Transcript

00:00Hey friends, welcome back to the channel.

00:01So what does it mean to make a given year

00:03the best year of your life?

00:04And I think it's kind of three things.

00:06Firstly, it's that we are making progress

00:08towards the things that truly matter to us.

00:10Secondly, that our life is broadly in balance,

00:13so we're not screwing up one area of our life

00:15for the sake of another.

00:16And thirdly, that we are,

00:17while working towards the things that matter to us,

00:19we are managing to enjoy ourselves

00:21and kind of enjoying every day on its own merit,

00:24rather than purely seeing it as a means to an end.

00:27And so in this video,

00:28I wanna go over three of my favorite methods.

00:30These are really simple methods.

00:31You can apply them whenever,

00:33whether it's at the start of the year

00:34or the middle of the year,

00:34or the end of the year, like literally whenever,

00:36and it will help you move more towards

00:38making sure this coming year

00:39is the actual best year of your life

00:41in terms of meaningfulness and balance

00:43and enjoyability as well.

00:44All right, so method number one

00:45is a really simple reflection exercise

00:47called the Wheel of Life.

00:48And the idea here is that we wanna split up life

00:50into a bunch of different components,

00:52and then we rate our satisfaction

00:54with those different areas of life.

00:55And so if you wanna do this exercise,

00:57you can do it on a piece of paper

00:58or you can do it on your phone.

00:59I think a piece of paper is nice.

01:00Start by drawing a little circle, that is your wheel.

01:02And then you wanna split it up into three segments.

01:04And those three segments are for your work,

01:05for your health, and for your relationships.

01:07So now you have a wheel with three thirds.

01:09Now you wanna split up each of the thirds

01:10into three segments each.

01:12So at this point, you've got a wheel with nine segments.

01:14If you don't wanna do it on paper,

01:15you don't have to do it on paper,

01:16you can just literally write down

01:16these different categories that I'm about to give you.

01:18And so those categories are within health,

01:20we have three things,

01:21and that is body, mind, and soul,

01:23or you can call it physical health,

01:25mental health, spiritual health,

01:26but I kind of like body, mind, and soul

01:28because it sounds more cute.

01:29Under relationships, we've got romance,

01:30family, and friends.

01:32And then under work, we have mission, money, and growth.

01:35And you can call mission your career or job

01:37or whatever you wanna call it,

01:38but that's kind of the main thing

01:39that you were doing for work.

01:40Okay, so at this point,

01:41we've split up life into these nine different components.

01:44And the job now is that we wanna rate

01:46on a scale from zero to 10,

01:48how aligned we feel

01:50in each of these different areas of our life.

01:52And by aligned, I mean,

01:53my actions in the here and now

01:55are consistent with where I think I would like to be.

01:58And you can sort of think of this

01:59as how satisfied am I with this area of life.

02:01I prefer to think of it as alignment

02:02rather than satisfaction,

02:03because like, I don't know,

02:05you might be a three out of 10

02:06in terms of satisfaction with money

02:07because you're not yet a, I don't know,

02:09millionaire in passive income

02:10or whatever the thing might be,

02:11but you might be a 10 out of 10 in alignment

02:13because you are taking the actions necessary

02:15to get to where you want to be.

02:17And so with this little diagram on screen,

02:18I would encourage you to pause the video now.

02:21Genuinely, please pause the video

02:22and just think about what would your rating out of 10 be

02:25for each of these different areas of life?

02:28And I guarantee that if you just pause this video

02:28and think about it,

02:29you will come up with some interesting insights

02:31into your life.

02:32And this is genuinely a good use of your time

02:33while you're watching YouTube right now.

02:35Just pause the video and really think about this.

02:36Now, these are the ratings that I gave myself

02:38when I did this exercise a few days ago.

02:40And the cool thing is,

02:41is that if you are doing this on pen and paper,

02:42then you can shade in the little wheel of life

02:44based on what your numbers are.

02:45So if you got a 10 out of 10,

02:46you would fully shade in that particular segment

02:48of the wheel.

02:49If you've got a five, you would half shade it in,

02:50you get the idea.

02:51And you end up with this sort of FIFA-esque radar chart

02:55of like these different aspects of your life,

02:57which I think is pretty cool.

02:58Now, once you've done that,

02:59we are gonna add one final category,

03:01which I don't put as part of the wheel.

03:02I sort of put it off to the side or underneath the wheel

03:05if I'm doing it on pen and paper.

03:06And that is the category for joy.

03:08How aligned do you feel with your actions in the here

03:10and now compared to where you wanna be

03:11in terms of the amount of joy

03:13you're experiencing in your life?

03:15And for me right now, that is probably a six out of 10.

03:18Now, this is great because the whole point

03:19is to help make this next year the best year of our life.

03:22And so in theory,

03:23if we were able to get to a point

03:26where we were let's say 10 out of 10

03:27across all these different areas,

03:28that would mean that we are doing the things

03:30that are most meaningful to us

03:31and actually making progress towards them.

03:33And we're also in balance

03:34with all the different areas of our life

03:35because broadly these 10 roughly cover

03:38pretty much every area of life.

03:39And hopefully we are also enjoying the journey along the way

03:41especially if we have a 10 out of 10 on the joy front too.

03:43So this is pretty cool, right?

03:44It means we have now created a clear sense

03:46of where we are right now.

03:48And then we can get a sense of where we would like to be

03:50in terms of where we would like these numbers to go.

03:52And whenever you have a sense of where you are now

03:53and where you want to be,

03:55that is what creates what we call goals.

03:56And part of making this year the best year of your life

03:58is to be able to then make progress towards those goals.

04:01And this is already a really good start

04:02because a lot of people want to be more productive

04:04but they don't even take an inventory of their life

04:07because they just think of productivity

04:08as being just about work

04:09or just about hustle or grind or whatever.

04:11But actually, at least the way I think about it,

04:13productivity is using our time

04:14in a way that's intentional and effective and enjoyable.

04:17And that is kind of the message

04:17of my book, Field of Productivity.

04:19At this point, it is worth highlighting or underlining

04:21or circling or whatever.

04:22In each of these different areas,

04:23in work and health and relationships,

04:25what is the one that really stands out to you

04:27as needing some amount of work?

04:29So for example, for me in the relationships column,

04:31I've given my friends category a four out of 10

04:33because I just don't see my friends very often.

04:35And so that's one that clearly for me needs some work

04:37and so I'd be circling that.

04:38Within health, I've given my soul category a four out of 10

04:40but I mean, I'm not overly concerned about that.

04:42I am concerned about the body slash physical health

04:44being just a five out of 10.

04:45So I'm gonna circle that

04:46because that's something I wanna actively work on.

04:48And then on the work front,

04:49I'm pretty blessed to be a nine out of 10

04:50on mission and money,

04:51but I'm only a seven out of 10 for growth

04:53and so I wanna circle that one

04:54because I feel like I could do

04:55with some more growth in my life.

04:56But once you know how to do the wheel of life,

04:58you can actually just do this

04:59whenever you feel like your life is somewhat misaligned

05:01or you're not really sure where you're going

05:03or you feel a bit burnt out, you feel a bit stressed.

05:05It literally takes 30 seconds

05:06to just bring up these different nine to 10 categories

05:09and to just rate yourself out of 10 on each one.

05:10And that's not to beat yourself up.

05:12You're not like, oh my God, I'm flagellating myself

05:14because I only gave myself a three out of 10.

05:16This is a pure solid inventory

05:17of where you are in these different areas of life.

05:19And then the great news is you can then start taking actions

05:21towards remedying certain of these areas.

05:24Now, if you've been wondering why my money component

05:25on this wheel of life is a nine out of 10,

05:27that is because A, I've been running my business

05:28for over seven years now

05:29and B, I have been investing my money throughout that time.

05:32And if you're interested in investing your money,

05:34then you might like to check out Trading212

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05:37Trading212 is a fantastic app

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05:45which is why I personally use Trading212

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05:49So firstly, they've got a really nice pies feature.

05:51Pies are really cool because what you can do

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07:07So that now brings us on to method number two,

07:08and that is what I call the 12 month celebration.

07:12And this is basically my preferred method for goal setting.

07:14So setting goals is an important part of life.

07:16There's a bunch of studies that show

07:17that people who set goals perform better

07:19and are more productive and feel happier with life

07:22than people who don't.

07:23There are also a bunch of studies

07:24that show that people who write their goals down

07:26are more likely to achieve them

07:27than people who either have the goals

07:28and don't write them down or don't have the goals at all.

07:30And so the 12 month celebration

07:31is just a very simple way of approaching goal setting.

07:34And the exercise is simple.

07:35In each of the salient areas of your life,

07:37ask yourself, what would I like to be celebrating

07:4112 months from now?

07:42And really imagine this,

07:43like imagine you're sitting down having dinner

07:45with a friend of yours.

07:46You guys are mutually kind of holding each other accountable

07:48and helping each other out.

07:49And you're celebrating together.

07:50You're really celebrating how much progress you've made

07:52in each of these different areas of your life.

07:54Now you can start with the three areas

07:56that you circled as being the most salient,

07:58or you can do it as I would recommend

08:00for all 10 different areas of your life.

08:02Especially if you're doing this

08:02like at the start of the year

08:03as part of an annual planning thing,

08:05you're asking yourself 12 months from now

08:06in each of these different areas,

08:07what would I like to be celebrating?

08:10So for example, for me in the physical health category,

08:12because I've realized I've only rated it a five out of 10,

08:14I'm imagining I'm having dinner

08:15with let's say my friend Godwin, who's pretty pretty jacked

08:18and we're celebrating how much progress I've made

08:19in the last 12 months in my physical health.

08:21What is like genuinely,

08:22what is the thing that I would love

08:23to be celebrating 12 months from now?

08:25And then I'll come up

08:25with a few different candidate celebration options.

08:27Like, you know, a few different options for goals.

08:29So I'd love to be celebrating

08:30having packed on loads of muscle.

08:32I'd love to be celebrating getting more lean.

08:33I'd love to be celebrating having consistently worked out

08:36let's say three times a week for the last 12 months.

08:38I'd love to be celebrating

08:39becoming more flexible and mobile.

08:40I'd love to be celebrating having played sports

08:42once or twice a week, every week for the last 12 months.

08:45So these are all different options

08:46but celebrating all of these is probably a bit much.

08:49And so for each of these different categories,

08:51once you've thought about like

08:52what would I love to be celebrating?

08:53What I'd encourage you to do is to really boil it down

08:55to, okay, cool.

08:57I would like to be celebrating

08:58all these five, 10 different things.

09:00But if I had to boil it down to just one thing

09:02and I could only celebrate one thing,

09:04what would that one thing be?

09:06Because generally having a single goal to work towards

09:09helps the brain focus.

09:10It helps the entire kind of physiology

09:12in our habits and everything.

09:13Just move in that one direction.

09:15Whereas if I was trying to build more muscle

09:17and also get lean and also play sports

09:19and also be more flexible,

09:20it's like there's a lot of,

09:21it becomes very overwhelming

09:22and very complicated very quickly.

09:24And I'm all about simplicity here.

09:25So starting with what is the one goal?

09:27What is the one thing you would like to be celebrating?

09:29And so for me in the physical health front,

09:31I realized that the one thing I would love to be celebrating

09:33is to reduce the amount of my visceral abdominal fat

09:37that I have.

09:38Done a couple of DEXA scans recently.

09:39I found that I've got quite a lot of fat around the belly

09:41thanks to my poor genetics and poor diet.

09:43And visceral adipose tissue is the thing

09:45that correlates with all these negative health outcomes

09:46like cardiovascular disease and stroke

09:48and all the bad stuff.

09:49And so if I can get that number down,

09:50if I can reduce the amount of fat in my belly

09:52thanks to my poor diet and my poor genetics,

09:54then that would be a great thing worth celebrating.

09:56And then all the other stuff like getting more muscle

09:58and becoming more mobile and like playing sports,

10:00all of that kind of stuff is the cherry on top.

10:02It's the bonus.

10:03And so you can do this 12 month celebration thing

10:05with the different areas of your life

10:06and that then creates a goals.

10:08Now, a couple of extra points

10:10when it comes to the 12 month celebration.

10:12One line that I really like adding

10:14to the end of any goal that I set,

10:16it's actually a trick I got from my friend, Dickey Bush,

10:17who is a fellow internet entrepreneur.

10:19And that is whenever you set a goal,

10:21just add a few words to the end of that goal,

10:24which is while enjoying every step along the way.

10:27So if we use this health example again,

10:29my 12 month celebration is to reduce

10:30my visceral adipose tissues to, i.e. become more lean,

10:33but I would add the phrase

10:33while enjoying every step along the way.

10:35And that means that instead of just thinking of it

10:37as this goal that I'm fixated on

10:38that I'm gonna kind of grind to get towards,

10:40it just helps my mind think

10:42in a little bit more of a light,

10:44feel good productivity kind of way,

10:45a little bit more of an adventurous way

10:47of like, how do I get lean,

10:48but while also enjoying every step along the way.

10:51And then tip number two for the 12 month celebration

10:52is please write this down somewhere.

10:55So I have a Google Doc that I use with my CEO coach,

10:57his name's Eric,

10:58and we look at the Google Doc every quarter

10:59and we've written down what are my goals

11:01for each of the different areas of my life.

11:03And then every quarter, every three months,

11:04we'll figure out, okay, cool,

11:05for each of these different areas,

11:07what can we make tangible progress on in the next 90 days?

11:09And this is super helpful

11:11because if you think about these goals

11:12and you make them in your mind,

11:13but you don't write them down

11:15and then you don't look at that document ever again,

11:17then it just means you're gonna forget

11:19what goals you set at the start of the year.

11:20And this is a big part of why people struggle

11:22with new year's resolutions.

11:23But they set all these goals,

11:24they have all these like great intentions,

11:26but then they don't have any sort of system

11:28for reviewing the goals, reflecting on it,

11:30measuring their action

11:31and measuring their traction towards that particular goal.

11:34And so if you're doing this exercise,

11:35and I really recommend you do,

11:36if you do care about making this year

11:37the best year of your life,

11:39write the goal down somewhere,

11:40put it in a Google Doc, bookmark it,

11:41put it on your Chrome bookmark bar,

11:43whatever the thing might be,

11:44just make it super easy to remind yourself

11:46about what your goals are.

11:48And this is why things like weekly reviews

11:49and monthly reviews and quarterly reviews

11:51and all this sort of stuff,

11:52like reviewing our life

11:53is such a big part of anyone's productivity system,

11:55at least if they know anything about productivity.

11:57And then the final tip I would recommend

11:58for the 12 month celebration is a bit of an optional extra,

12:01but this is quite helpful.

12:02When you've decided

12:03what you'd like to be celebrating 12 months from now

12:05with each of these different areas,

12:06ask yourself why,

12:08why is that particular thing important to you?

12:10And it's useful to have the why

12:11also in that document

12:13where you have written down your goals,

12:14because again, you can just remind yourself

12:16about why this thing was important to you.

12:17And so for me,

12:18the why behind this visceral adipose thing is,

12:20and this is what I've written down in my document,

12:22because visceral adipose tissue

12:23is the major thing that's going to lead to me

12:24dying early of cardiovascular

12:26and cerebrovascular disease.

12:27It's a significant priority to get that number down

12:29and to keep it down.

12:30Building more muscle is mostly a vanity thing,

12:31but reducing my abdominal fat

12:33is genuinely a health thing.

12:34So I've written down for myself

12:35exactly why that particular goal is important to me.

12:37And that's not to say

12:38you can't change these goals later in the year,

12:40but at least if you have it written down

12:41and you have a clear why behind it,

12:43it means that you're more likely to stay on that path

12:45that you decided for yourself was gonna be important to you.

12:48Then we come to method number three,

12:49and this is where the rubber meets the road.

12:52Like, you know,

12:53with the reflection and goal setting and stuff,

12:54we have kind of charted a course for where we want to go,

12:56and now we need a system to ensure

12:58that we actually make the time and the space to get there.

13:02And now there's loads

13:02of different productivity systems for this.

13:04I have a whole course that's coming out soon

13:05that's gonna be about my field of productivity system.

13:07You can read about strategies in the book as well.

13:09But one really needle moving strategy

13:11I wanna share in this video

13:13is something that's called the ideal week method.

13:15And this has been one of the most game-changing

13:16time management techniques I've ever used.

13:18And basically the idea

13:19is that you open up a blank Google calendar

13:21and you call it your ideal week calendar.

13:23And you start off by blocking off

13:24the absolute essentials in your life

13:26in terms of like, when do you wanna wake up?

13:27So for example, let's say every day

13:29I wanna wake up at 7 a.m.

13:30I would put that into a block in the calendar.

13:32Let's say I wanna sleep at 10 p.m.

13:34I'd put that into a block in the calendar.

13:35I'd be putting all these different blocks into my calendar.

13:38And then that shows me how much time

13:39do I have left to play with.

13:40So now you know those goals that we've just set

13:42in terms of the 12 month celebration

13:43in terms of these different areas of our life.

13:45Our job when doing the ideal week

13:46is we wanna try and find time, or not try,

13:49we wanna find time in our calendar every week

13:51to actually make time

13:53and to take action on these specific things.

13:55So let's say in the friends category

13:57I wanted to see my friends more often.

13:58My 12 month celebration might be

13:59that I'm celebrating the fact

14:01that I saw my friends for a group dinner

14:03at least once a week.

14:04In my ideal week calendar,

14:06I therefore need to have a block

14:07at least once a week for a group dinner with friends.

14:09And that's the point of the ideal week.

14:10It's like your ideal ordinary week.

14:12It's, you know, if things are going according to plan,

14:15roughly, where are you spending your time

14:17and what are you blocking out time to do?

14:18Similarly, on the health front,

14:19my 12 month celebration is losing, is becoming more lean.

14:22And that means I need to have half an hour a day

14:23blocked into my ideal week

14:24for exercise every morning or every evening

14:26or whatever the thing might be.

14:27And if you realise that you don't actually have time

14:30for a particular thing

14:31because you're busy with other areas of your life,

14:33that's totally okay.

14:34But that means you can change your goal.

14:35You can change the 12 month celebration

14:37to reflect the time that you actually have.

14:39One of the other big things that derails people

14:41is trying to be too perfectionistic

14:43and trying to do too much.

14:44Trying to say, hey, you know,

14:45I wanna set this goal and this goal

14:46and this goal and this goal.

14:47And then you look at your calendar

14:48and you realise that you actually

14:49just physically don't have the time

14:50because you have a job or two

14:51or you have kids to look after

14:52or you have to commute to school

14:53or whatever the thing might be.

14:55The thing I love about the ideal week method

14:57is that it forces us to get clarity

14:58on what is actually important to us.

15:00What is the time that we have

15:01for the things that we have to do?

15:03And then what's the time that we can use

15:04on the things that we actually want to do?

15:06And mostly you'll probably realise

15:07that this is less time than you thought you had,

15:09which is great because it means

15:10you can start doing fewer things

15:11and you can cross some things off

15:13your 12 month celebration list.

15:14Maybe it's not a goal you wanna work on for this year.

15:16That's totally okay.

15:17Maybe you can work on it next year instead

15:19or when you have a little bit more time

15:20freed up in your life.

15:21Now, if you enjoyed this video

15:22and you wanna take a deeper dive into this stuff,

15:24then you're gonna absolutely love

15:25my live free online workshop,

15:27which is being hosted on January the 6th, 2024.

15:30And that's gonna be a few hours

15:31where I take you through these exercise

15:32live over a Zoom calls.

15:34We'll actually do the exercises

15:35and I'll elaborate on them a little bit more

15:37so that we can set you up for 2024

15:39to be the best year of your life.

15:40And that is exclusively available

15:41for the very nice people who have pre-ordered my book.

15:43So you can pre-order my book with the link down below

15:44and then you can send us your receipt

15:46and we'll make sure you get a ticket to the event.

15:47And if you enjoyed this video

15:48and you wanna know more about my specific methods

15:50for time management, you're gonna love this video,

15:52which is the Trident method for time management.

15:54It includes a few more details about the ideal week,

15:56along with my time management process for the whole year

15:58and also day to day.

16:00So you're gonna find that super helpful.

16:01Thank you so much for watching

16:02and I'll see you in the next video.

16:03Bye bye.

How to Make 2024 The Best Year of Your Life - Ali Abdaal

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