Setting Goals (Warren Buffet, Jordan Pederson)

"No matter what you're facing in life, you have two choices: you can put in the work or get put in your place." - p.37 of Michael Matthews' The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation

Obviously, an important part of getting anywhere is the first step: setting clear goals. Mike Matthews really influenced me to take a deeper dive into figuring out what my goals are - not only for health/fitness but in all areas of life.

In one of his podcast episodes on Muscle For Life with Mike Matthews (to be honest I have difficulty finding which one it was), he mentioned a goal setting strategy that I needed to try. This is taken from Warren Buffet's "5/25 Rule."

There are three steps to this process:

1. Write down 25 goals you have. I separated these into 5 categories: Health & Fitness, Career, Lifestyle, Relationship, and Education. You do not have to evenly spread your goals; you may find 1 or 2 of these categories dominate.
2. Circle the top 5 goals that you want to make your highest priority.
3. Focus on those top 5 goals and ignore the rest. Everything you do, think about how it gets you closer to 1 or more of those goals.

Some other tips that I obtained from Mike mentioned and/or I thought were good practice while doing this were:

• Don't start with "I want to" or "I should" or anything like that. Start with "I will."
• Keep your goals realistic and obtainable but think deeply about what and where you want to be in life in 5, 10, 20, or even more years.
• Think seriously about the implications of those goals. How much time and dedication will they cost you? Are they worth the time you may have to spend pursuing them or can you spend this time on something better?
• Think about your "why." What will reaching these goals do for you?

​I will share with you one of my main health and fitness goals that are in my Top 5: By July of 2021, I will weigh a lean 175lb. 

I currently weigh around 155 with likely close to 15% body fat so I am looking to gain about 20-25lb of muscle. This goal is important to me for several reasons but I really want to pursue this goal so that I can be more confident and well-respected. My job as a Construction Manager requires me to earn respect from all parties involved in construction (the owner, my coworkers, and the contractors, especially). When they see a young person like me; it is tough to get that respect. Obviously, I work to earn it in other ways but image definitely does matter. Another reason why is because if I keep up with my health and fitness, it will affect the lives of my future children in a positive way.

In this same episode of Muscle For Life, Mike Matthews mentioned the Self Authoring program (selfauthoring.com), which is a program where you write about your past, present, and future to find your good qualities and set your goals that was created by 3 researchers and psychologists, including Jordan Pederson. Pederson is a very popular name nowadays when people talk about self-improvement and has been featured on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast multiple times. This program is proven to improve performance, improve relationships, and help you identify your life goals. I highly advise at least doing Warren Buffet's method, and if you do both, do Buffet's first - it makes the Self Authoring program go smoothly when you have your goals in mind. I am currently only about 60-70% done with this program so maybe I will do another post on this in the future if/when I have further insights on this.

To end this, I will repeat the most important part. EVERYTHING YOU DO, think about how it gets you closer to 1 of your top 5 goals. There is nothing to blame but yourself for not reaching your goals - not genetics, not being "too old" or "too busy"... anything is attainable if you put the work in so figure out where you want to be, what it will take to get there, and do it.