#021 Goal Setting and Overcoming Procrastination

This article is a deep dive coaching on goal setting. Insha’Allah this will be really useful if you feel like you’re a procrastinator. 

It doesn’t mean you procrastinate in every area of your life.

You can be super successful in lots of areas of your life but then there’s some area where you feel really challenged.

You keep putting things off, you keep leaving it for another day. And after a while, it becomes overwhelming.

You may even feel like you lack self-discipline in particular areas. 

Goal setting is one of the ways to create life. And for some people that’s really scary.

Some people don’t enjoy goal setting, but they don’t realise that they’ve been doing it all their lives. It’s actually one of the most effective ways to map out your future successes and drive yourself to a higher purpose. 

In fact, most people find success by setting these goals in life, even when they haven’t done it consciously.

Do you feel like you’re always goal-setting, every single year, and you’re never getting the results that you want?

It’s like you’re not following through or something is blocking you or stopping you from making it happen. 

Well, there’s a way to make things happen. It’s a bulletproof way to achieve your goals, despite being challenged with whatever issue you feel you have. 

Even if you fail to achieve your goals 100 times, there’s always a way. 

In my line of work, I work with all sorts of people, business professionals, business owners, people who are highly successful in their careers, you name it.

Regardless of that success, they feel like procrastinators. They feel that they’re always putting things off like there’s something blocking them. 

They feel like they have a lack of self-discipline in one or more areas of their life.

You might be looking at other people thinking that they are super successful. But if you knew them intimately, you’d realise that they struggle with the same things that you and I struggle with. 

But this is about goal setting so let’s get back to it. 

We’re not going to do any goal setting which may seem like a huge contradiction. 

Easy Peasy All the Way! 

We’re taking the easy way. Yes, that’s a bit cliché, and everyone wants to do it the easy way, but nonetheless, we’re doing it this way Insha’Allah. 

Do you procrastinate? 

Do you always delay things? Because these are criteria and indicators for whether or not this information is going to be useful to you. 

You may not procrastinate, and you may not fit all of these criteria, but some of them may resonate with you. 

Do you always delay everything till the last minute and then you get overwhelmed with how much you have to do?

Are you Superman or Superwoman at goal setting? You do it so meticulously that you know what you’ll be doing every single minute of your day.

But then after setting your goals and planning your week, month or year, you look at your to-do list. And you feel totally anxious and overwhelmed about how much you have to do. 

Is that you? 

Are you the sort of person that sets huge, audacious goals and you feel it’s impossible to do it in the time that you’ve set yourself?

You’re so ambitious and you have this high level of energy, that you sit down and just set your goals telling yourself, ‘Yes, I can do this.’

But when your energy level drops, you look at those major goals and you feel it’s impossible. And you give yourself a mental beating. 

Does that sound like something you do? 

Number four: Are you a productive person, always getting things done? 

You know that you can get things done if you put your mind to it. Because of those days when you’re so disciplined.

You don’t think about it, and you just force yourself to do as much as possible. On those days when you feel super disciplined, you get so much done that it’s unbelievable. 

You’re so proud of yourself when you look at what you’ve done, and you feel overwhelmed by how much you’ve done. A good overwhelmed ( if that even exists)

So, you give yourself a pat on the back. You’re so far ahead. And because of that great achievement, you give yourself a couple of days off. 

You think wow, I’ve done so much. I need to take a break. 

Now, if that sounds like you, then ask yourself this question.

Once you’ve given yourself a couple of days off, you come back and look at what you have left on your to-do list. 

Do you start dreading another three gruelling days of that killer self-discipline, that punishing self-discipline that you gave yourself the first time around?

You remember all of the difficult things you had to do. So you say to yourself, I had three great days, let me give myself another couple of days off. 

So your days off become another two or three days. And that may even extend. 

Does that sound like you? 

I speak to a lot of people, who go through this hustle game. You’ve got to feel the pain now and you get the gain later. That kind of thinking.

You do the work, you kill yourself to do it for three, four days, or maybe even a week.

Then you feel so burnt out that you take off for the next two, or three weeks. You don’t do it consciously of course, but you tell yourself you’re busy and productive. 

You tend to have a secondary to-do list, which is all the things that mean nothing in your life really. And you get busy doing those things.

You feel like you’re still productive because you’re busy.

And the main things in your life, you put them aside because you find them so challenging.

This is another example. 

You may have had the same goals every single year for the last five years. And at the end of every year, you sit down and do another goal-setting exercise.

And you think there’s something wrong with your process.

So it’s nearing December time. You see the advertisements of the “Dream Life” goal-setting course. 

So you go ahead and sign up for one of those. Or maybe even two of those thinking that youll learn something different this year and it will help you to follow through and achieve your dream. 

Still sounding like you? 

Because if it does, Congratulations!

You’re absolutely human, and normal. 

But my guess is, you’ve been beating the heavens out of yourself, for so long, that you might think: I’m going to hell because I just can’t follow through. I’ve got no consistency. 

I’m always messing it up. 

The Big Reveal !!! 

First, my disclaimer. It absolutely might not work for you. If you do not work. Let me repeat that. 

It might not work for you if you don’t work. If you don’t do this.

You can have goal setting, discipline, strategies, and everything.

But if you do nothing, you get nothing. 

What am I talking about?

6 Simple Steps to Create What You Want 

Here are six steps for creating what you want. This is so simple. 

And trust me that’s exactly what you want. 

Just follow the steps and actually do it. Because if you do it, you’ll get results you didn’t get before.

First things first, goals are important. 

Goals are important. So we won’t be getting rid of goals.

Think about goals is as just things you want. I don’t want you to call them goals. Let’s just call it things you want in your life. 

What would you like to have? How would you like your life to be?

What would be amazing about having these things in your life? Where would you like to go? How would you like to feel?

That’s probably the most important. How would you like to feel?

Number two. Decide right now. That’s it. Right now means immediately, as you’re reading this, pause for a second and decide right now.

What do you want in your life?

In the next three months, in the next 12 weeks, what would you like in your life? 

In the first step, we just looked at what you would like, how would you like to feel, and what would you want.

What would you like to see in your life? In the second step, you’re deciding right now. 

What do you want in the next 12 weeks?

You don’t have to decide on a million things. If you do that, you’re going to fail. I’ll be very blunt with you.

Decide on one, two, or three things that you want in your life in the next 12 weeks. And have fun with this question. 

Don’t give yourself boring goals or things you don’t really, truly want. Don’t choose it because everyone else wants it. 

What do you really want? What would you like to have in your life in the next 12 weeks? 

Take one of your dream goals, just one. Break it down. Now, it may seem like it will take years to get this thing. 

So let’s take it down to something that we can have within the next 12 months. 

Pick one of your dream goals that you see as a possibility to have in your life within the next 12 months. And break it down into pieces, steps that you can take every day towards achieving those things.

Then break it down into 12 weeks. 

Decision Time is Now 

You have to decide what you want right now.

Make a decision. One of the biggest problems that most people have is that they don’t decide. If you sit on the fence now, you’re going to sit on the fence for the next 12 weeks. 

Then 12 weeks later, you’re going to say nothing has come around in your life. And then you go for another 12 weeks. 

And six months into the year, you’re going to think; this whole goal-setting thing didn’t work. 

For most people, it doesn’t work because they never make a decision. That’s why you have to decide right now.

I want you to understand there’s no right and wrong if it has nothing to do with Halaal and Haraam. 

That means it’s just a preference thing.

If you want it in your life, if you want to feel a certain way, if you want to have certain things in your life, it’s okay. And if it doesn’t come into your life, that’s also okay. 

You don’t have to have this huge pressure about making the right decision. 

There’s no right decision. It’s just what you want, it’s your preference.

What’s really important is that you just make a decision.

It doesn’t really matter if it comes into your life. Have fun. 

Have fun with this question. What would you like to have in your life? How much fun would you have if that was in your life? 

If it’s super boring, then maybe you don’t want it. So make a decision.

Number three. Break it down so small that you cannot fail. 

Don’t make silly goals, like something that will take you 25 years to achieve, and then thinkingyou’re going to achieve it in 12 weeks. 

Let’s be realistic. Don’t pick the smallest thing you can think of but pick something that would be fun to have, and break it down into small steps that you can take. 

They’re so small that you cannot fail to take the steps and it’s almost like it becomes effortless for you to do it.

For example, if you want to write a book. It’s going to take you one whole year to write that book. 

But you decide that over the next 12 weeks, you’re going to write maybe 2000 words every day.

It doesn’t take long to write 2000 words.

For the next 12 weeks, you do that, 2000 words every single day for the next 12 weeks. 

If you do that effectively, you would have written enough in the next 12 weeks that you have a book.

Let’s just say you did 1000 words every day. People want to write and they talk about writer’s block.

Just write 1000 words, it takes about an hour. 

If you’ve got writer’s block, throw your thinking out the window, and you won’t have a block. 

Because it’s your thinking that blocks you.

So when you get writing, you just start letting your creative flow come out. And you do about 1000 words a day, for an hour a day. 

You do that for seven days and that’s one week, 7000 words in a week. 

Over the course of 12 weeks, you’ve got yourself like 84,000 words, which is a book in 12 weeks. 

The big important goal that was going to take you one year, you did it in 12 weeks.

That’s the next step. You made it effortless. You did it in one hour.

Step 4. Twelve weeks may not be enough. 

If it’s a huge goal that will actually take you two, or three years.

Whatever your goal is, break it down into four different steps, and four mini-goals. 

Then break those mini-goals down into 12 steps. 

So you’ve taken a huge goal, and broken it down into four mini-goals. Then each mini goal, break it down into 12 weeks.

Now, you’ve taken something that was impossible to achieve even in one year. And you’re doing a quarter of it in 12 weeks. 

It probably seems ridiculous, and you’re wondering how it’s even possible. 

This is very, very possible. In fact, this is a strategy that is employed within the corporate world.

But I apply this in my own personal life. And this works. I do it with my clients, and it works for them on a personal level and on a professional level. 

So you take your big, audacious goals, break them down into four mini-goals, take each mini-goal, and break it down at 12 weeks.

And you’re going to be achieving something in the next three months that you didn’t think was even possible in a whole year.

Number five. Decide when you’ll do it. This is super important.

Decide when you’re going to do it and make it so easy that you cannot fail to do it. That means you’ve got to schedule it in your calendar. It’s as simple as that. 

Number six. This is the final step. 

Take your first step. Do it now. Do the first step now. 

The important word here is do. If you’re looking at whatever you’ve decided on now and you’re hesitating, then maybe it’s too big and you’ve not made it small enough. 

So go back to step number three, and make each individual step the things you’re going to do every single day, make those things so small that it’s impossible for you to fail. 

That’s all you have to do. 

If you stop everything you do, and just go through the six steps for anything you want in any area of your life, you’re going to find that you’re achieving a lot. 

To recap, all you’re doing here is you’re going to decide what you want. 

Then you’re going to make a decision, to actually commit to doing that thing in 12 weeks. Then you’re going to break it down into daily steps. 

Small things that you can do every day to make that thing happen. 

And then you’re just going to do it. You’re going to schedule it and start doing it.

Take the first step, take any step, that’s all you have to do. 

Take a small, effortless step. An example of this is memorising Quran.

When I speak to people about memorising the Quran, I say just do one line a day. That seems like nothing. 

And that’s what they say. Oh, that’s nothing, it’ll take me the rest of my life to do that. 

Even if it takes you the rest of your life. It’s about the journey. It’s not about the goal. 

It’s about what you do day to day. If you cannot enjoy your life, day to day, it doesn’t matter how many goals you achieve, you’ll never be happy. 

It’s about the journey, and not the goal. The goals are just directions in which we’re heading. And if you focus on the actual journey itself, you’re going to get a lot done.

If you do this over and over, for the next 12 weeks, you’ll move mountains in your life over the next 12 months.

Just imagine you wrote one book, every quarter. You’d have four books at the end of the year.

I’m sure you don’t want to write books, but it’s just an example, 

because people find it impossible. 

If you take these huge, hairy, audacious goals, and try and do them year after year, you’ll have the same problem. You won’t do a thing.

It will fizzle out, and you’ll find yourself buying yet another goal-setting course and going through the process. 

By the way, I absolutely sucked at goal setting for many years, and I’ve been meticulous.

This 12-week thing works 100% so I’m very serious. 

If you follow the 12-week protocol, it shapes your life in ways you could never imagine, Insha’Allah.