How to Build Your 365-Day Unstoppable Plan
You’ll first answer a set of questions that helps you to reflect and learn from the prior year:
What are the things I am grateful for?
What are the things I am stressed about?
What are my key accomplishments over the past year?
Looking back, what did I say I would accomplish in the past year? How did this go?
Looking back, what is the ONE weakness of mine that held me back the most during the past year?
Again, just as with the Unstoppable Sundays exercise, don’t overthink it. All that is important is that you put your thoughts on paper (or screen), so that they’re not just percolating in your head.
Once You’ve Gone Through the First Set of Questions, Here’s How You Will Be Feeling:
You’ll have a renewed sense of the events and circumstances that happened during the past year and that you are thankful for. Our memories are incredibly flawed, and we often have recency bias. Thinking back through the past year and identifying ALL the lucky breaks that went my way and for which I am grateful really helps me hone in on the happenstances that are going well
You’ll take account of the things that are stressors in your life right now, both in the conscious and the subconscious mind. Dig deep here. Think about the things that are stressing you out and be specific about it all, out on paper. I find this to be incredibly cathartic, and it also helps me start to frame some of the smaller goals I want for the year to address the things in my life that are stressing me out and stopping me from accomplishing bigger things. Even during my BEST years, when I have absolutely crushed it, there were still circumstances, needs, disappointments, personalities, and so on that stressed me out. It’s okay. It’s life. Describe it all on paper (or screen).
You’ll come away with a succinct list of what you have accomplished during the past year, regardless of what your original goals were. Life throws all kinds of twists and turns, fraught with problems and opportunities. That’s normal. And answering the question about your key accomplishments (regardless of what your goals were) again helps you hone in on what went well.
You’ll also go back to the set of goals that you set for yourself a year ago, and you’ll check in on how they went. If this is your first time at this and you hadn’t set goals a year ago, that's okay -- but just imagine how awesome it's going to be once you write down your goals now, check in on them throughout the year, and then check them all off as “accomplished” at the end of the year!
And, finally, as you reflect on your wins, your losses, and your stressors, you’ll dig deep inside and identify the ONE BIG WEAKNESS that has held you back over the past year. Everyone has one: What’s yours? Find it.
After this first set of questions, your mind will probably be racing. You will probably feel invigorated, and you’ll feel excited by the prospects that lie ahead in the next 365 days. You might also feel a bit of angst about how you’ll ever achieve the objectives you want to in the coming year, given your natural stressors or the circumstances in your life!
Good or bad, excited or scared, the important thing is that you’re taking time now to create a plan, instead of relying on hope as your life strategy. Even for the problems that exist in your life, no matter how bad they are, solutions do exist. And know that problems can be opportunities for growth in your life.
*Now, as the Next-to-Last Step, You’ll Start to Write Down Your FIVE Key Goals for the Next 365 Days. * You’ve got 365 days ahead of you. How do you want to go and pull off those 365 days like a bank heist, and what treasures would you like in the end? How do you want to overcome your stressors and the problems in your life?
You’ll want to answer and capture these questions by writing a set of FIVE clear and easy-to-measure goals. Why five? Because for some reason, anything more just becomes unmanageable. Why measurable? Because a year from now, when you’re looking back at these goals, you must be able to answer, without a doubt, whether or not you succeeded in hitting your goals.
You may also want to capture five goals across specific aspects of your life. I usually break these down into core categories. Here are some specific and measurable goals you can set, spanning across the key categories of your life:
Health: Weight ___ lbs..
Wealth: Earn $____ after taxes.
Relationships: Make five new friends that I’m on a texting basis with, who are growth-oriented.
Giving Back: Spend 14 days of the year volunteering my time to give back to my community or extended family.
Self-Improvement: Read one book every month.
Given where you are in your life and what your priorities are, these key aspects of your life may vary. Honestly speaking, there were years when I was working on coming out of debt and I just didn’t have the ability to prioritize giving back. That’s okay. We’re all on our own journeys. What is important is that you clearly define what works best for you as you plan where you want to go in life.
Finally, even the world’s best strategies are useless unless you follow up with purposeful and focused action. As the final step, I want you to make a bulleted list of the action plan that will help you mobilize these goals.
Use our template to work through this easily: To make it even easier to begin the practice of your 365-day strategy and plan, we’ve created a simple template that you can use to get started quickly.
Even if you’re spending just one hour to proactively reflect on your past year and to write down specific goals for your coming year, you’ll be significantly ahead of the average person out there. By reviewing these goals on a monthly basis, you’ll have significantly increased your chances of success.
This process can be daunting. I’m ten years into following this (as the system has evolved over time), and even I can feel overwhelmed at times. Take your time and remember: There is no perfect answer, and you can always tweak the plan as you learn more throughout the year. What matters the most is that you’re taking the steps now to craft a strategy, tether yourself to it, and become proactive about your life.