- We've all got goals, things that we wanna get done.
Maybe it's getting into that university,
starting our own business, or even finding a life partner.
But for many of us,
we don't really have a process or a system
for achieving those goals.
And so we never really get there.
At least that's what's a famous billionaire
and hedge fund manager, Ray Dalio
says in his book Principles,
which is what we're talking about
in this episode of Book Club,
the series where we distil and discuss highlights
from some of the world's most insightful non-fiction books.
So, if that sort of thing sounds up your street
and you're new to the channel, and do consider subscribing.
Anyway, in this video,
we're talking about Ray Dalio's five-step framework
for getting anything that you want out of life.
Let's go for it.
So firstly, to know where we're heading,
we need to set clear and audacious goals.
Ray says that when setting goals,
we're often limited by our mindset.
We tend to avoid going after certain goals
because we feel that they're in some way unattainable.
And instead, we stay well within our comfort zone
to pursue goals we know we can achieve.
I know I'll do this quite a lot,
like if I'm deciding what goals to go forward
and subconsciously, I will ask myself, is this realistic?
And that will limit the kind of audacity
with which I'll set my own goals.
This is probably quite bad.
And I'm trying to take our boys right advice about this,
which is to completely separate the,
is this realistic element
from the setting goals in the first place.
And in fact, this is exactly the same thought process
that Tony Robbins famously used to set goals
early in his career.
He writes that, "I set aside all my limiting beliefs
"and sat down on the beach with my journal.
"I wrote continuously for three hours,
"brainstorming every possibility
"of what I could ever imagine doing, being, having,
"creating, experiencing, or contributing."
The timeline I gave myself for achieving these goals
was any time from tomorrow to the next 20 years.
I never stopped to think
whether I could actually achieve these goals or not.
So, he writes about this in his book,
Awaken The Giant Within.
I'm actually going on holiday tomorrow.
And so, I'm literally going to spend three hours
on the holiday with a notebook
to do this Tony Robbins goal-setting exercise.
I'm gonna share the list with my email list.
So, you can subscribe to my email newsletter
if you're not already linked below.
And then you'll know when I release that list,
if it's something you're interested in.
Okay. So at this point,
we've got our list of audacious goals
and now we need to figure out
what problems we might get into along the way.
As Ray Dalio says,
"Most problems are potential improvements screaming at you.
"But unfortunately,
"many of us are afraid to highlight our weaknesses
"because of ego barriers.
"We find having weaknesses painful
"because society has taught us
"that having weaknesses is bad."
So the key here is that we want to be totally open
with ourselves when setting goals
and admitting exactly what our weaknesses are,
rather than letting our ego hide them from us.
For example, if my goal is to write a best-selling book,
I need to ask myself what problems might I face
along the way.
And I need to own up to my weakness,
the fact that I'm actually not that good at writing.
And so, that is a skill that I need to admit to myself
and then actively work on improving.
Moving on to step three,
now that we've got the goals
and we've identified some of the problems,
we need to diagnose their root cause.
In the book, Ray Dalio highlights this point by saying that
you will be much more effective
if you focus on diagnosis and design,
rather than jumping onto solutions.
Like often, our problems aren't actually as obvious
as they might first seem.
And so, we need to really dig down to what is the root cause
of the problem.
And if we wanna stop the symptoms,
we have to ultimately cure the disease
rather than just band-aiding over the symptoms.
Similarly, in the goal-setting thing,
if we wanna really solve the problems,
we really need to dig down and diagnose the root cause.
And one of the best ways of doing this
is the five whys technique.
And the ideas that we need to ask ourselves why
at least five times so that we can reach a deeper level
of understanding.
So if hypothetically,
our goal was to become a Gymshark athlete
and we can use the five whys technique
to figure out why we're not yet a Gymshark athlete.
Firstly, I'll ask myself, why am I not a Gymshark athlete?
And the answer would be, well, I'm just not hinged enough.
So, why am I not hinged enough?
Well, because I don't work out consistently.
Why don't I work out consistently?
Because I don't schedule it into my calendar.
And when I do,
I sometimes don't feel like doing it.
So I don't do it.
Why is that the case?
Because I've made it optional for myself.
Why?
Because I feel there's always something more urgent to do
than go to the gym.
And clearly, I don't value the goal
of becoming a Gymshark athlete enough.
And it's extrinsic motivation
rather than intrinsic motivation,
which is when I feel an internal drive to do it.
So, using this process of five whys,
we figured out that the problem
for me not becoming a Gymshark athlete
is that I'm just not consistent enough.
And the reason I'm not consistent enough
is because I don't have the intrinsic motivation
to actually become hinged
and to become a Gymshark athlete at the end of the day.
Now, obviously we can apply this to any situation at all.
And once we figured out exactly what the problems are,
then we can then go to step four,
which is to design solutions.
Let's hear directly from a tweet by Ray Dalio here.
He writes,
"Replay the story of where you've been or what you've done
"that led you to where you are now
"and then visualise where you and others must do
"in the future so that you will reach your goals
"hashtag principle of the day."
This is such a great principle.
I love it because it acknowledges where we've come from
and what systems and designs
in our life led us to this current place
where we haven't achieved that goal
or done that thing that we wanna do.
And then moving forward,
we can visualise a future in which we have changed
those things so that we can then achieve the goal.
If that makes sense.
So, if my goal were to look like Zac Efron,
then I can look at the past and figure out
why it is that I've been struggling with consistency
and eating right.
And I know it's because I haven't got the gym scheduled
into my calendar,
and I know it's because like you take away
like two to three times a day,
but now that I've identified that,
I can design a new schedule,
I can design a new system
that makes the achieving of that goal almost inevitable.
And so, I can literally schedule in
three to four gym workout sessions into my calendar.
I can get myself a personal trainer for some accountability.
I can prepay for all these personal trainers sessions
in advance
so that if on the day I'm tempted to miss a workout,
then A, I'm gonna be letting someone down
because they'll be waiting for me,
and B, I'll have already paid for it.
So, I'll feel the pinch of wasting money.
And all of these are things that stack the deck in my favour
of hopefully actually making working out a consistent habit
on my journey to starting to look like Zac Efron.
And this is great because it is a systems-based solution
to the people problem that I personally have
of my own personal laziness and lack of motivation.
In fact, as Ray Dalio says,
"Designing precedes doing,
"the design will give you your to-do list."
And finally step five
once we figured out what we need to do,
then we just actually have to execute and do the thing.
Again to quote Ray Dalio, he says that,
"People who are good at this stage
"can reliably execute a plan.
"They tend to be self-disciplined and proactive
"rather than reactive to the blizzard of daily tasks
"that can divert them from execution.
"They are results oriented.
"They love to push themselves over the finish line
"to achieve the goal."
To be honest for me, because I'm kind of lazy,
I don't really like the idea of having to push myself
in white, knuckle and discipline and grit my teeth
and all that kind of stuff.
I don't like the idea of suffering to get to my goals.
And so the thing that I always try and do
is I recognise that ultimately I'm really lazy
and I'm a massive waste man.
And therefore, I will figure out ways
to make whatever I have to do more fun
so that I'm more likely to do it.
Or I add in like these accountability things
like getting a personal trainer
and prepaying for things in advance.
This is actually something I talk about in depth
with my friend and fellow YouTuber, Elizabeth Phillips
in a bonus companion video.
It's a 21-minute long video
where we break down the idea of toxic productivity,
hustle, guru, culture type stuff.
And we discuss a healthier approach to productivity
that makes achieving our goals more about having fun
than it is about like discipline and grit
and all that fun stuff.
My friends are surprised
that I'm considered a productivity guru as opposed to like,
oh, of course, all these consented to productivity.
- Oh, interesting. Really.
I would say you're a bit of a workaholic.
You have no work ethic with (indistinct) difference.
- What's the difference?
- I think you do work all day.
You're just by (indistinct).
(Elizabeth and Dave laughs)
- Yeah, everybody (indistinct).
- Yes.
- This video is available exclusively on Nebula,
which is the independent streaming platform
that's built by me and a bunch of other creative friends.
And the idea of Nebula
is that it's not really a competitor to YouTube,
it's just an extra place where we can put content
like this 21-minute long discussion with Elizabeth
without having to worry about the YouTube algorithm,
which is something we have to really worry about
when we're making videos on YouTube.
On Nebula,
we've also got early ad free access to all of our videos.
And I've got a bunch of other exclusive content,
like my workflow playlist,
where I take you behind the scenes
of my favourite productivity apps and exactly how I use them.
And we've also got my deep dive snippet series,
which has like bite-sized snippets of wisdom
from people, like really cool people,
that I've been interviewing over the last two years.
Now, the best way to get access to Nebula
is to sign up to Curiosity Stream
who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
Curiosity Stream is the world's leading
documentary streaming subscription platform.
And they've got thousands of really high quality,
high-budget documentaries that you can choose from.
There's a series on there that I really like
called "Prescription Nutrition,"
which is all about the evidence-based,
kind of the science of nutrition
and all the fuel that our body needs
on this quest to hopefully become a Gymshark athlete
or to look like Zach Efron.
And the best thing about Curiosity Stream
is that they love supporting independent creators.
And so, there's a really cool bundle with Nebula
whereby if you sign up to Curiosity Stream,
which is less than $15 a year,
you get free access to Nebula bundled with that.
And so for less than $50 a year,
you get access to all of these incredible documentaries
and you also get access to all of my exclusive stuff,
Elizabeth, Thomas Frank, Tom Scott,
all of our other creative friends,
all of that exclusive stuff, which is on Nebula as well.
If that's on up your street and wanna check it out,
then head over to curiositystream.com/ali,
or hit the link in the video description.
And when you sign up,
you'll get your Nebula details emailed to you,
and you can browse the content to your heart's desire,
something like that.
If you're interested in the idea of goal setting
and you wanna find out more
about exactly what system I use to set my goals
with like a notion template
where I ask specific questions to myself,
to make it more likely that I'll achieve my goals,
check out this video of here,
which lots of people seem to have gotten some use out of.
Thank you so much for watching.
Have a great day and I'll see you in the next video.
Bye-bye.
(soft music)