We all know that goal setting is very important but I always cringe when I hear the words goal setting. It sounds outdated and it reminds me of motivational speakers – and I hate motivational speakers.

So let’s try to set aside the outdated motivational guru BS and talk about some more advanced thinking and more advanced technology that can help us set better goals and actually achieve them.

This channel happens to be focused on SE’s but goal setting obviously applies to anyone that wants to succeed on any level. But there is one important difference.

If your goal is to get a nice car or a house then nobody else gives a crap if you achieve that goal because these goals only impact you. On the other hand, if you’re going to be a SE your ability to actually achieve your goals might have an enormous impact on other people. This gives you some insight into why some people achieve goals and some don’t.

How much more likely are you to achieve a goal if it will save a million people or a million animals or one person that’s very close to you?  I would say that you are much more likely to succeed. Regardless of whether you’re a regular person or a SE with plans to save the world, the single most important thing you need to know about setting goals is that the goal needs to be incredibly important to you.

How much does this goal matter to you? How incredible will your life be if you succeed and how painful will your life be if you fail? The bigger the distance between those two answers the bigger the motivation to succeed. Or as I like to say, the bigger the ‘intrinsic motivation’ to succeed.

What do I mean by ‘Intrinsic motivation’? It means that the goal is not just a destination. It means that the goal is also the motivation. I hope you’re getting what I’m saying – if you get this right, the goal and motivation are the same things. This is the critical starting point because this is the big domino that you need to create that will knock over every challenge that stands between you and the achievement of the goal.

If you get this right and you start listening to some motivational guru idiot, you’ll instantly think – oh I get it, this guy’s a wanker and I don’t have time for this crap. I need to get back to working on my goal.

Most people that achieved something big didn’t sit around figuring out how to motivate themselves. They were constantly, permanently motivated. For those of you that don’t know me, I have more than $100 million for businesses that I started, I created an event called WRD that was held in a football stadium and I donated a million to NM’s charity. My TEDx Talk about passion has more than a million views and I’ve done a long list of other things – and, I’ve never, ever spent one minute trying to motivate myself to achieve any of them.

If you need help figuring what your goals should be you should watch my Tedx talk about how to find your passion. If you’re a social entrepreneur and need ideas about what kind of business you should start, watch my video about the theory of Pii. I’ve included links to both videos in the description.

Okay, now let’s talk about managing goals. We need to do better than just writing lists.

Goals are such a fundamental part of the being an entrepreneur that I have created two free tools on the ‘I Imagine’ platform that you can use to see the big picture, use it create goals then manage your day to day life in a way that focuses on the goals and aligns you with the things that matter most.

The starting point should always be your Lifewall. This is the first of the free tools.

The Lifewall breaks life down into 21 elements and allows you to rate each element on a scale of 1 to 10 – all according to you! It allows you to see a ‘big picture’ graphic representation of your life on one screen. It is a reflection of what you think of your own life.

Seeing the big picture makes it easier for you to identify the parts of your life that you would like to improve then use this information to create goals. There are only twenty fours in a day. Seeing all of the things in your life that need to be addressed one screen allows you to make better decisions about what you need to do achieve the optimal balance between all of them. And that’s the critical point here. You’re not going to be able to do everything so this about finding the optimal combination that will allow you to live the specific life that you want to live.

This is how to use it. Create a free account on ‘I imagine’, go to My Home, click on Lifewall. These are the 21 elements of your life. Go ahead and give yourself a rating out 10 for how you are doing. This is all according to you so there are no right or wrong answers. For example, let’s say that you’re overweight and unfit but you’re not sick. If your definition of success in the health category is having no illnesses then you would give yourself a rating of 10. On the other hand, if your definition of success was running a marathon in under three hours and having a six-pack then you would give yourself a much lower rating. So this is all relative. The purpose of this tool is to allow you to see how well, or not well, you’re going – all according to your own expectations of yourself.

If you decide that you want to improve your health you can create a goal. But, instead of just writing a simple statement that describes the goal, you will also write a statement about how you will measure success, confirm that you believe that the goal is achievable, outline why it matters, decide which part of your Lifewall the goal relates to and set up a deadline.

If you’re struggling to find answers to these questions then it means that you’re not serious about this goal and it will never be achieved. That sounds bad but it isn’t. There are millions of people pursuing the wrong goals every day. The sooner you find out that a goal is not worth pursuing the better. If you end up in this situation, go back to the Lifewall and look at the big picture. Work through each of these 21 categories of your life and ask yourself what you want to improve and what needs to be improved.

For most people, this is all you need to do. Some of you will want to go deeper into the science and philosophical concepts behind all of this. I have provided all of that information in my book. There’s a link in the description.

Now this goal will appear in your canvas. This is the second of the free tools. The canvas is like a vision board that you can adjust each day to help you to stay focused on the things that matter most.

The impact section allows you to decide what your impact will be today – on yourself, people close to you, or the planet.

The one thing allows you to remind yourself of the One Thing that you absolutely must do today.

The quote section allows you to select an inspirational quote that relates to how you feel or whatever you need to deal with on any given day.

The passion section is an image of something you’re passionate about to remind you of what you ‘really’ want to be doing.

The people section is an image of people that are important to you to remind you of who is relying on you.

The goals section allows you to cycle through your goals and decide which one you want to focus on today.

The gratitude section allows you to remind yourself of the things that you’re grateful for.

The Lifewall is obviously the big picture. You should never lose sight of the big picture.

As you can see, the Canvas is a more advanced and organized way of doing what a lot of you are already doing with photographs and post-it notes.

The canvas has been designed based on scientific evidence indicating that all of these elements can have a powerful positive impact on your mood, your ability to focus, and your overall mental health. It makes your day more enjoyable and it increases your likelihood of success.

The Lifewall and Canvas are both free. There’s also a lot of other free apps and tools on ‘I Imagine’ so go ahead and create an account and use them. Again, links are in the description.

I mentioned at the start of this video that I would talk about some free apps and tools that you could use, so let’s talk about them now.

How to use ‘I Imagine’ for human optimization and starting and growing a social enterprise

These apps and tools are free so you might as well use them.

Social entrepreneurship is a movement and every movement needs a community. ‘I Imagine’ is that community but, as you can see, it’s a lot more advanced than just being a place for people to chat. So create a free account and join the movement.