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Define You Elephants And Then Eat Them
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Morning/Afternoon/Evening Lads/Ladies/Sirs and Madams depending on where and when you are reading this post. I am writing this from Chicago airport having just spend two glorious weeks in Kansas City under snow in -25 degree weather and so my fingers are still relearning how to type.
As I am sure many of your are aware, we have just left 2009 and are tentatively starting to take baby steps into 2010. If you are unaware of this then frankly I am surprised you can operate a computer. Go look in the mirror and ask yourself some serious questions.
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A New Year and no doubt new GOALS, new RESOLUTIONS, new HABITS and new inventive ways to eat an incredible amount of CHOCOLATE CAKE.
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This is how it should be, this is what January’s are for. Unfortunately, it is the law of the land and of human nature that February and March are designated months for slipping back into old habits and forgetting goals.
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Well on this blog, we don’t stand for that kind of nonsense
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Todays article is about creating a structure for making the most out of this coming year and in the process developing good habits that will ensure each day, week, month, year and decade of your life are equally as productive and fulfilled.
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How do I know this system works? Well frankly because I developed it, I have lived by it for many years now and believe it or not I am actually highly productive. Useless with the ladies but highly productive.
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If you want to transform your life then this system is the simplest and very best possibly way I know how you can do it. It is definitely worth 15 minutes of your time.
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The 7 Life System
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If you want to live this system, and I definitely recommend it, then your life will now consist of sevens. The Seven Life System is a highly structure and focused yet very flexible way to ensure that your are heading towards your goals and the life you wish to lead.
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What Will This System Do For You?
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This is the only structure I follow and because it focuses me on the core 20% of tasks that will return me 80% of the results I have a lot of time to “swan around abroad” like my good mates tend to say while still achieve a fair amount more then them.
This system ensures I waste very little time on things that are not important and CORE to my dreams and my goals in life. This system allows me to be calm when things go wrong in the short term because it keeps me focussed on the end game, the bigger picture.This system has allowed me to quite my job and live life on my own terms and eventually this system will help me make an impact on the world.
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This system helps me lead a stress free and hyper productive lifestyle full of adventure and it will do the same for you, you need only apply it.
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How Does It Do It? Like Eating An Elephant
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How do you eat an elephant? In small pieces. How do you solve a problem or finish a task or achieve your life goals? Break it down.
If you are set with the task of eating an elephant then trying to do it on one sitting is just going to make you sick. However if you break it down and maybe eat a few steaks a day then you could conceivably polish it off in a few months. The same thing applies for problems, tasks and life goals.
A huge problem never looks quite so large if you break it down into its core components and focus on each one in term. A large task can also be handled easily if broken down and undertaken in small mouthfuls.
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Life goals look as big as elephants and so they should but if you break them down into easily manageable chucks and eat your elephant then you WILL achieve them.
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The 7 Life system helps you define your elephants and then gives you a structure to polish them off.
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Lets Begin
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The Power Of Goals
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First, let me just give a quick visual representation of the power of having goals.
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Positive progression is one of the greatest creators of happiness in life and having targets and goals is the map by which you navigate.
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As shown in the Pictomin, goals keep you moving in a generally forward direction to your dreams. Although it will never be a straight line, nor would it be any fun if it was, having targets will help you keep moving in the right direction. If you do not know where you would like to be in 1 year, 3 years, 5 years or 10 years, how will you know how to get there. It is like trying to get to somewhere you have never been without a map.
Have a target to aim for, otherwise you will not know what to shoot at. Set your targets and watch as your life aligns to meet those targets.
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Integrating Your Goals Into A Structure
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Most people, unlike poor football teams, have plenty of goals but no system to achieve them.
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The Seven Life System will help you achieve whatever goals you set.
Predictably the 7 Life System has 7 sets of goals as outlined below.
- 7 Life Principles
- 7 Life Goals
- 7 Before 20/30/40/50/60 Goals
- 7 Year Goals
- 7 Month Goals
- 7 Week Goals
- 7 Daily Goals
7 Life is a top down system meaning you start at the top and work your way down. In this system your 7 Life Principles are the most important, then your 7 life goals, then your 7 before 30 goals and so on.
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Your 7 Life Principles
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If you have never had any life principles then you need to get some.
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These are Seven key points that define who you are, how you behave and how you operate. The cliche “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything” is brutally true.
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Make sure you define who you are because if you don’t then the world is more than happy to do it for you.
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As an example I have included the 7 life principles that I live by, in the early days these changed a lot but as the years have gone on I have refined them. These current ones have not changed in almost 3 years.
- Love People. Love Life. Love Circumstance
- Live Life Like An Adventure
- Never Waste A Breath
- Learn Ferociously
- Don’t Hurt People
- Take Risks
- Dream Big
Take some time to write down the 7 Principles you want to live by, the 7 things that define you. They will change and be tweaked but start by getting something down on paper. It is a powerful process to write down your goals, it helps you clarify them and concrete them on your subconscious.
Once you have your 7 Life Principles you can move on an define your 7 Life Goals
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Your 7 Life Goals
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These will not be defined overnight but if you don’t have any life goals then now is a good time to get some.
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What 7 BIG things would you like to achieve in your life? Dream big, think about your perfect life and what it would involve. What life goals would get you there?
Again, for reference here are mine.
- Save a Life
- Live On Every Continent and see 50% of the World
- Become a Millionaire
- Design and Build A House
- Complete My Life List
- Make An Impact On The World
- Live To Be 90
If I come to the end of my life at age 91 and I have achieve these 7 things, I will be happy.
Your 7 Life Principles and 7 Life goals are critical to defining your life direction. Once these are complete, and they can change, don’t worry about getting them right the first time, you can move onto you 7 Before 30 goals (or before 20,40,50 depending on your age, the next closest decade)
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Your 7 Before 30 Goals
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So you have you life principles and you have you life goals? What next?
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These will now no doubt influence your 7 Before 30 goals as ultimately everything you do should be aiming towards your life goals.
Again for reference here are mine
- Get Married
- Make £16,000 Passive Income A Month
- See 25% of The World
- Own Three Cash Generating Properties, Three Cash Generating Businesses and Three Cash Generating Patents
- Have 5 Marathons, Three Iron Mans and 1 100k race under my belt
- Have 50 Life List Goals complete
- As you can see a lot of these goals are working towards achieving my life goals. The system continues and you next define your 7 Year Goals.
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Your 7 Year Goals
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What are your 7 goals for this year? If you don’t have any you don’t have a target and how can you take aim with no target?
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If you do, what are these goals based on? What will achieving them move you towards?
Your 7 goals this year should mainly focus on moving you towards achieving your 7 Before 30 goals which in turn are focused on achieving you life goals.
For reference here are my goals for 2010:
- Make £1000 Passive Monthly Income
- Spend Over 6 Months Abroad
- Start Another Company
- Complete Three Running Races
- Reach 2000 Blog Subscribers
- Become an Expert on Real Estate and Improve Credit Rating To Above 800
- Read 52 Books (12 on Property Investment)
As you can see they help me towards my 7 Goals before 30 and thus my life goals. If I achieve nothing this year but these 7 goals I can be incredibly happy that I have been productive and am working towards my dreams. Of course I have other goals and I am sure I will achieve more but these are the CORE things I will achieve above all else.
So how are you going to achieve these goals? Lets break it down into months
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Your 7 January Goals
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Lets review my goals this month which will help me ensure I achieve my years goals.
- Read India Book
- Launch EFS new website and North and South Stores
- Confirm Ovo Deal
- Publish SUCCESS Ebook
- Complete World Travel Map
- Learn 5 Guitar Songs By Heart
- Get Set For India Adventure
If I achieve all these goals this month I can leave for India happy in the knowledge that I am making big progress towards where I want to be at the end of the year and this by the time I am 30 and also my life goals. Hopefully the 7 Life System for achieving your goals is becoming clear now. To finish the example I will end with this weeks goals and todays 7 goals.
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Your 7 Week Goals
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- Get EFS Site To Testing Stage
- Get EFS Marketing Material Complete for Stores
- Collaborate all received entries for SUCCESS book and Chase Final Few To Reach 40 Bloggers
- Complete Overview World Map – No cities
- Record 6 potential Acoustic Songs onto Garage Band
- Enjoy Your Badboy self in Kansas
As you can see I have two more goals to finish by Sunday so that I can look back an know I have had an incredibly productive week which was focused on achieving the defined goals I set.
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Your Friday Goals
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- Read Source Control
- Read Seth Godwin Book
- Finish Weeks Podcasts
- Write New Blog Post – A Productive Day
- Read 70 Pages of Book
- Explore Chicago and eat at Lou Micelios world famous pizza joint
- Follow Up On Pictomins Deal
Friday I was just traveling so I focused on reading.
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The Flexibility Of The 7 Life System
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This brings up the flexible aspect of the 7 Life System, I don’t always achieve all my daily goals or even my weekly goals, sometimes life gets involved. This is ok, you can be flexible. I try to always achieve my monthly goals and definitely never miss my yearly ones but daily and weekly are flexible, if something comes up they can always be shuffled around and almost always are when I am traveling.
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The KEY To The 7 Life System
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Right people, now the key to this system and the power of it is REPETITION. I have all of these goals in a descending list on a word page and I read them EVERY MORNING when I get up and EVERY EVENING when I sleep. On Sundays I plan my weekly goals so I hit the ground running on Monday and in the evenings I plan the goals for the next day. This is where the power of the system lies, this is where your 7 Life Principles, 7 Life Goals, 7 Before 30 Goals, 7 Year Goals, 7 Month Goals get ingrained into your subconscious and become a part of you.
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I have no doubt this system changed my life
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I have no doubt the reason I have been able to risk the good and go for the great and live the life I do is because for the last 3 years I have been repeating to myself day and night that I am the guy that takes risks, the guy that loves life and everything in it. I read, listen to podcasts and learn daily because I have repeated “I learn ferociously” to myself every day for 3 years. My life principles have become who I am, my life goals are ingrained into my subconscious, everything I do, consciously or subconsciously are aimed towards these goals. This focus and directions is powerful and will CHANGE YOUR LIFE.
This is not a difficult system to follow but it does have the power to seriously CHANGE YOUR LIFE. I highly recommend you at least give it a chance, you will be stunned at the results.
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To Conclude
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Create Your 7 Life System. Read It Every Morning and Every Evening. Watch Your Life Transform.
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Best of luck all.
Twitter Updates
You know, I hate systems but this looks good, so I’ll be sure to read it again tomorrow when I am more fresh and apply it to my goals. Thanks again.
Hey Oscar,
I used to be with you in that but actually systems will change your life considerably and so now I create them whenever possible. This is the very best system I have and it really will change you life. Let me know how you get on with it.
Ok man you have convinced me!
Hey Jonny,
This makes a lot of sense. I think braking goals down and going from long term goals to daily actions is a very good way to get yourself to do things and to stay motivated. Which is the foundation of productivity. Plus, 7 is such a sexy number
Eduard
Hi Eduard,
Exactly, I would definitely challenge you to put it to the test and see how much of a difference it makes. Let me know how you get on.
And as far as numbers go, seven is about as sexy as they come.
I was just thinking where’s that Success E-book!
And how funny you’re holed up in my birthtown, KCK. Anyway, I LOVED this post, i find it very applicable, and it was great providing personal examples as a learning tool.
Jonny, you’re doing great work. When will your travels put you in LA?
Hi Papa,
Cheers man and I definitely hope this system helps you bring some structure to your goals. If you try it out, let me know how it goes.
LA? Might have to make some serious passive money to live there, lol.
Is this why there are 7 Vices… so we can work our way methodically through them? Baby steps, right? Lust… sloth… gluttony… (I just might achieve them all in this lifetime, thanks to you!)
Lol, My systems can be used for good as well as evil.
Oh, yeah… I meant 7 VIRTUES, sorry about that. I always get those two mixed up!
Johnny,
I really liked reading this post from you. I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect you to pump out something systematic. It’s a solid system although I’d argue the reality of the far end goals are a bit too much for most, even the most systematic to wrap their heads around. It’s awesome to have goals, but having 7 granular goals for 7 years out is a tough challenge! No doubt they will change. I really appreciated the 7 principles though, as these should be the guiding light, the life priorities peopl develop and for the most part solidify in their 20’s. Get big and work backwards…make it happen. Good stuff. Hope those ironmen come to fruition! I’d like to get a couple myself. Olympic for me this year!
Hi Rob,
Thats the way to play it, keep everyone guessing. Show them reckless risk taker in one hand while hiding the less sexy but foundational systems and processes for success in the other.
Having life goals and 10 year goals is a big one and more than likely they may change like you say, however having them is what keeps you focussed. Let me know how the system works out for you if you use it.
Seems like an attractive system. I have a question though: What happens if you fail to meet one of your daily or weekly goals? Do you pile it on to the next day or next week, or do you reassess what you can realistically do in that time frame? Or do you just cross it off and forget it?
Reassessment seems like the best choice, because if you get things done faster than you thought you would you could always add more goals. If you don’t get enough done you can shave a few off.
Hi Kenji,
Reassess generally, If i have the key 7 things I need to get done that month in my mind then I can usually find the time to make sure they get complete, even if I take a few days or sometimes a week off.
I like your blog name and the design is pretty pimp too.
Makes sense. I can see how reassessing at the monthly or even yearly level. I think the smaller the time period is the more we tend to overestimate what we can do. The larger the time period is the more we underestimate.
Thanks for the insight.
Good insight Kenji
Hmmm..gonna try it out probably. Sounds real interesting and I need a system for myself with big challenges ahead!
Hi Adrian,
I hope that you do man, and definitely let me know how it goes. All the best.
Awesome advice and plan layout. I actually just bookmarked this, I am going to have to come back and go through this with a notebook and see how this system will work for myself. The thing that usually has tripped me up in the past is breaking down my long term goals into daily actionable steps.
Hi Mike,
Breaking the elephant down is the bitch but if you take it in step, life, decade, year, month, week, day goals then success becomes more achievable and definitely more actionable. GIve it a go, let me know how it works out. I know from personal experience that it works exceptional well so hopefully you will see the same results.
Hi!
The most amazing thing I found in the post was that you listed YOUR goals. I always think – “not another system” when I read stuff like this – but without even intending it, I read through the whole post and loved taking a peek at your own goals.
Today, incidentally is the day when I was thinking of setting my goals for the year. So everything fits in perfectly. All the very best to you for your 7 year goals, and to me for the goals I will set today.
Hi Meghashyan,
What an incredible name and welcome to the site. I am with you on the “not another system” so on this site I always try and back my tools up with real life examples to make it more approachable.
Good luck in setting your systems and if you use the 7 Life one please let me know how it goes.
And there was i just trying to write down a few goals for 2010. I am now truly challenged argh
Hi Auntie,
Great to hear from you and it is awesome you are visiting the site. Forget a few goals, go the distance and adopt the 7 Life System, I am trying to get the whole family onto it.
Absolutely fantastic. I’m going to write about my 7’s and see where it takes me. It seems to have worked for you just fine, so it should work for me!
Hi Nate,
Great to hear that man, definitely let me know how you get on. If you follow the simple system fully and read them day and night I know it will have a massive influence on your life and achievement of your goals. Best of luck.
Some lofty goals, but I like how you broke it down into different time increments. Keep up the good work, and I like the new header!
Hi Alan,
Lofty? Perhaps. Motivational? Definitely. Breaking it down into time increments helps you benchmark how realistic the goal truly is. Sometimes they can be overoptimistic but just as often you can be selling yourself short.
I hope you give the 7 Life System a try and let me know how it works out for you and cheers for noticing the header – was looking for a simpler layout.
Haha, solid system. I do something very similar–just different numbers and time intervals. One thing that really helps me is to have the certain most important goal intervals (before 30, lifetime, etc) written down and posted on a wall or somewhere I look often. I also use strategically placed sticky notes to remind myself of things. One that I get the most sh*t for from my friends are my “is this actually productive” ones. Good times, and keep writing. I’m looking forward to seeing the ebook you’re putting together.
HI Nathan,
“Is this actually productive?” lol, mate awesome, I hope that you are pretty sharp with the comebacks, its the only defence you got. Keep up the good work and your blog is looking awesome although only slightly odd in that its called brainchocolate and yet it is green.
Hahaha yeah, I’m working on the design. As for the comebacks, I just go with it–spread the love you know
Great post! I think I’m gonna get started right now! Too much procrastination. There is so much I need to do since I left my job to get started on my own projects and I think it’s good to have a proper plan with goals to achieve!
By the way, I’d subscribe to your blog but I don’t use RSS. If you had a mailing list, I’d definitely join it.
Hello Alexandre,
Thanks for visiting and well done on having the gonads to quite and start your own projects. If you use this system let me know how it works out for you, I would love to hear of your adventures.
Regarding the mailing list I have had a huge amount of people ask for the same thing so I think I will have to cave to peer pressure and set something up, you should be able to subscribe soon mate.
Thanks that’d be great! By the way, if you want to see a sample of what I have done so far: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjXHIyskquU
Mate, I am impressed. An incredible video and you definitely look the part. I tried hooking up in Facebook but not sure which one is you are so if you fancy having a proper chat then just search for jonny gibaud – i’m the only one there.
Sounds good, just sent you the request.
By the way, through this Wordpress theme and with FeedBurner you can add a simple option for the mailing list, quite easy to manage as well!
I love this Jonny. Even though things such as this take time, you save so much time in the long run, and acheive so much more.
That you do Schmidty. Let me know how it works out for you mate.
fantastic post. been rewiring my brain / lifestyle of late and found this post inspirational and practical… rather rare.
I have already started lists…
thx for taking the time to craft this…
You are very welcome Andrey and thanks for taking the time to read, I am glad it helped.
Truly inspirational yet so simple thanks
Thanks Neale, I am truely pleased that it helped and I hope that it brings you success in the future.
Cheers for the link Mike and its good to see you have some other awesome blogs up there in your round up.