A practical framework for planning personal and business goals each year

Executive overview

Most people either wing their annual planning or skip it entirely. This episode lays out a concrete system for both personal and business goal-setting — one that forces specificity, eliminates drift, and builds in accountability.

On the personal side: write a fantasy story of your ideal year, distil it into four categories, and put the list somewhere you'll see it daily. On the business side: run a five-step process from year-in-review through quarterly GMO cycles.

The core insight: a clear destination with a mapped route beats vague intention every time — and saying no to everything off the list is what makes the plan work.

Five lessons worth carrying into any year

• You already know what you want — the work is not avoiding it.
• Facing a genuine challenge builds self-confidence more than reflection alone.
• Pursue what you're excited about; drop what you're doing out of obligation.
• Change your environment when you feel stale — new context generates new energy.
• Consistency compounds; irregular output loses audience and momentum faster than most expect.

Personal goal-setting system

• Write a fantasy story of your ideal year — graduate something, travel somewhere, learn a skill, build something.
• Choose a word of the year as a daily mantra.
• Organise goals into four categories: work, workout, personal, places to visit.
• Cap each category at 3–5 specific, measurable goals — not "work more", but "publish one episode per week".
• Print the list and put it everywhere: fridge, mirror, phone, computer.
• Email it to an accountability buddy who will check in monthly.
• The list's primary function is to tell you what to say no to.

Personal goal hygiene

• At the six-month mark, review whether the goals are still the right goals — not just whether you're on track.
• Use a morning habit app (e.g. Strides) to review goals daily.
• Keep a "next year" folder: every opportunity or idea that falls outside this year's plan goes there for future consideration.

Business planning: the five-step process

1. Write a company year in review — what worked, what didn't. Share it with the team to surface honest assessments.
2. Run an 80/20 analysis using three questions:
   • Where does 80% of revenue come from, and how could you do more of it?
   • How could a competitor displace you — and what does that tell you about what to protect?
   • What is your moat and repeatable business model?
3. Pick one numeric goal for the year — singular, binary, tied to a specific timeframe, exciting, and reflective of customer success.
4. Model it in a simple spreadsheet — break the annual target into monthly figures, track whether it's realistic and whether you're on track.
5. Run GMO cycles (Goal, Metrics, Outcome) on a quarterly or 12-week basis:
   • Goal: the Q1 milestone that advances the annual target.
   • Metrics: leading indicators you can control (signups per day, ad spend, emails sent) — not passive ones like page views.
   • Outcomes: 3–4 near-term deliverables plus one longer-term experiment; hit all of them on time.

On the GMO rhythm

• Review targets weekly — course-correct early, not at year end.
• Missing an outcome means it was scoped incorrectly, not that effort was lacking.
• Start with fewer outcomes and build in more once you trust your own follow-through.
• Hitting your annual goal in July means you underplanned; aim for November–December.