15 Ways to Get Your Act Together For a New Chapter

7 years from now, it's going to be 2031, almost 2032. And if you're coming from the future, hello! Nice to have you here. But for now though, when this video is being made, it's 2024, and you're either in the middle of your long-term goals, at the end of your journey, or you're just starting it. How exciting!

But whatever stage you're at today, keep watching, okay? Because we're going to show you just how to set your goals for the next seven years so that when you stumble upon this again, you'll be amazed by how much you've ticked off.

But by now, you're probably wondering why seven years. Well, let's get into it because the first part of preparing for the next chapter is:

Number one: Choose a time with significance. You can choose your own timeline—five, eight, ten years, whatever—but it has to be something of significance. It's got to be a number that sticks in your head for some reason. We like seven; it's a number that comes up in history, culture, religion, and art time and time again. It also gives you enough time to grow and develop while you're still working towards your goals, but not so much that you feel like a completely different person by the time you've reached them.

And of course, you'll have short, medium, and long-term goals, but these seven years are going to bring the big changes.

Number two: Choose the compass that will guide you. Every journey needs a map, and since you're the only one who knows where you're going, you have to create this map yourself or find one that you can personalize. We've scoured the academic research to find the best map tools that you can personalize, and it's kind of crazy because we only found two tools that matched what we were looking for.

So the criteria were: one, the map should include all of the different areas of your life—your relationships, mental and physical health, career, and finance—and two, it should be adjustable so you can fill in where you are now with all of these things and where you'd like to be in seven years.

The first tool is a really popular coaching strategy for determining what you want to focus on. It's called The Wheel of Life. It's pretty basic, but that's what makes it so effective.

Now, the second one—okay guys, I know we're biased, but hear us out—the Alux app is truly the best personalized tool for your goals out there. You start off with a survey that asks you questions about the different areas of your life, and your answers to the survey are put into an algorithm that calculates which areas you're really good at, which ones you need to work on, and which ones you really need to focus on.

Then it creates a personalized three-month learning path for you filled with different lessons, courses, and action steps you can take. You can also fill in your goals, and it will follow your progress, and there's so much more. Is it really that biased when the product is so genuinely epic? We've got a little gift for you at the end of this video if you want to try it out yourself, so stay tuned for that.

All right, moving on to number three: throw yourself into a motivating philosophy. Have you ever had that moment of realization when you hear a quote or read a message that makes all the cogs in your brain just click together? Like, holy, I'm not alone, and this makes total sense. These moments are huge motivators, and you'll click and spark every time you see or hear your motivating philosophy.

So you have to make it your mission to find one or many of them that get you the most. Stick that philosophy on your bathroom mirror, your kitchen fridge, or your computer—wherever you're going to see it daily and be reminded of what you're doing all of this for. Some of our favorites are Tony Robbins said, “Where focus goes, energy flows.” American author John Shedd said, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not why ships are built.” Or Will Durant, who translated Aristotle's words, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.”

One impactful quote can remind you to focus, take chances, have purpose, and keep doing what you need to do. Find the quote or passage that resonates with you, and it'll be like a teleportation device that takes you to your world of goals in an instant.

Number four: decide where you'll write everything. Maybe everywhere is best; who knows where you're going to be seven years from now? New home, new city, new country? Things might get lost along the way, so you need to be writing your goal manifesto and summaries in multiple places. Write it in Google Docs and print it. Write the summaries on Post-it notes or big cardboard paper and stick it up where you can see it every day.

Use the sticky notes on your computer or use a calendar reminder or any one of these productivity tools that you love, or our app, of course. Let's not forget that there is a journaling feature built right in. This one might seem like a pointless step to consider, but trust us, okay? It's a big one.

Number five: now you create your goal manifesto. So these are big goals—seven-year time frames that tackle the five main pillars of your life. Just writing down one big goal for each pillar isn't good enough; not by a long shot. If you really want to get that end goal, you're going to have to spend a few hours creating your goal manifesto.

It's actually more like a manual, but “manifesto” sounds more powerful and interesting, so we're going to go with that. Write it all down in your own words—words that are influenced by your emotions, opinions, excitement, and even fear. They have an incredibly strong pull on your motivation.

So your first step in those goal books is to write down a little bit about yourself—why you're doing this—and then talk about where you are right now with each of these five pillars in your life. Add some humor, some kindness, and empathy to yourself, and a whole lot of encouragement.

Number six: add your timeline of events to your manifesto. Did you know that studies have shown that people who add action steps and a timeline to their goals are significantly more likely to reach them compared to those who just write them down? So look, okay, you have to get that timeline on lock in your document!

Each of your five life pillars—Finance; this is also where you're going to put your career goals, intellect, emotional health, physical health, and your relationships—they'll all have their own big seven-year goal, and then you'll break down that one goal into yearly goals, then quarterly goals. Each time you break it down, you have to include what you're going to do to reach those goals.

So, let's say your seven-year finance goal is to accumulate $100,000 in investments. Break it down year by year; you make your year one goal to save $5,000 and to learn about stock market investing. Then you break that down by quarter.

So Q1, you set up an emergency fund and learn about budgeting tools. So month one, you take our app course, Money 101, and start saving about $400 a month. In year two, you increase your savings to $110,000 and begin investing in low-risk stocks or index funds. By year six, your investments have grown to $75,000.

Now, in some ways, this is an easy, idealized version, but if you tried to plan for every single obstacle or thing that could go wrong, you'd spend the entire year just trying to create this coal manifesto. So keep it simple.

Number seven: figure out how you'll space out your milestone celebrations because you have to add some fun into your goal planning—something to look forward to. And what better way to do that than planning how you'll celebrate once you've reached that goal? You can decide if it's something you'll celebrate every quarter. Please don't do every month for the next seven years, okay? It's just too much.

Or you could do every year. Give yourself a decent treat for those yearly goals. It's not easy, but you did it! Think of celebrations that are out of the box, think that don't cost a ton of money that you don’t do often, and feel like fun celebratory times. Take a solo trip somewhere, go to a concert of someone you love, or create a milestone day ritual. Even if these things are like a normal weekend for you—first of all, lucky you!—but setting aside that experience as a celebration feels a lot more meaningful and fulfilling.

Number eight: pull yourself out of that research hole. When you're knee-deep in unpacking your goals, creating your timeline, and figuring out what tools, resources, and courses are the best options for you, it can become really easy to get bogged down by the semantics. Suddenly, you've got a Google sheet of different courses you can do, their costs, time frames, and reviews—and that's just for Q1 of year one of the next seven years!

And look, okay, if you're a type A personality who can spend hours on that without losing steam, go ahead. All right, fill your boots! But for a lot of people, that detailed planning can seem exciting at first, but there's a lot to do here, and if you spend all that time on every goal, you're going to tire yourself out, okay?

Once you've gotten to your main points—your goals, your timeline, and your celebration details—pack it up, okay? Don't go stuffing your manifesto with the smallest details; they don't matter. Just find the damn course or pickleball team or brokerage account, sign up, pay, and get started.

Number nine: start your trial month. When you've got a clear outline of so many different goals, it feels natural to start all of them at the same time—full steam ahead, a whole life of change starting on Monday. You'll quickly notice, though, that even when you've made your first steps small and achievable, getting everything off the ground all at once is going to lead to a crash somewhere, and that's okay. That happens with goals.

That's why you give yourself a trial month. It's the month where you try to do all of it, and since it's a trial, you don't start at the beginning again—if you don't meet a deadline, you just pick up where you are. You need your trial month to see your mental and physical bandwidth. Don't make any changes this month; just keep going according to your plan, even if you've realized that your plan was kind of flawed or maybe even a little bit crazy. This trial time allows you to see how far you can push yourself because you can probably do a lot more than you realize.

Number ten: it's time to make your adjustments. Only after your trial month—once you've tried, fallen, gotten back up, and fallen again—that's when you're going to make the adjustments. This gives you enough time to see which goals you were maybe too ambitious with when it comes to putting them into action.

When wanting to get fit and healthy, for example, most beginners—people who have never been to the gym before—start off with aiming to hit the gym an average of six days a week. That is insane for a beginner, okay? And it can be dangerous too. If you miss one day, well then you feel like you've missed your entire goal.

So you do as much as you can, okay? You don't throw in the towel completely, but you just keep your initial goal for a month, see how close you're able to get to it, and then make those adjustments as necessary.

Number eleven: set up the logistics and tie yourself down to phase one. Okay, so now that you've made your adjustments, it's time to sign the contracts—the gym contract, the tennis membership, getting the coursework textbooks, signing up for that personal branding workshop.

It's probably going to be a bit of a poor month for you, but you'll be so busy with all of the different goals you have, you're not going to miss spending a hundred bucks drinking on a Friday night in exchange for a beautiful Saturday morning hangover.

Number twelve: slot your steps into your routine. So about those Friday night drinks—you can't cut yourself off completely from the people in your life because you have a seven-year vision here. You'll start feeling lonely pretty quick, so fit your action steps into whatever routine you already have.

Build on the life you have now instead of building your life around your goals because this is just a way more sustainable way to do things. It's like what James Clear talks about in Atomic Habits: the best way to build a new habit is to stack it on top of an existing one. These steps are new habits, so don't change everything for them; make them fit into what you already have going on.

Number thirteen: expand your goal horizons. Because it's not just about the mission; when you've been so diligent with your goal plans and following the steps, it's easy to forget about how helpful and fun other resources can be. Don't be afraid of listening to podcasts and reading books that kind of relate to your goals in a roundabout way but don't directly focus on what you're doing. It's a good way to get out of your head while still keeping your plan at the back of your mind.

Have fun learning about the way different things relate to your goals. Like that $100,000 investment goal—you don't just have to listen to finance podcasts or read investment books for that; you can come at it from different perspectives. Like reading a book like "The Psychology of Money," where the author shares short stories from different people on how they see money. Broaden your education around it; make the learning part fun.

Number fourteen: change things up when you start getting bored. Because look, okay? You'll inevitably start getting bored with your actions, and there might even come a time when you throw all of your hard work in planning out the window and decide to change everything. That's the nature of your game.

As long as you don't lose track of where you are or the motivation to keep going, make those changes in your plans to keep things interesting. The destination is the same; you're just taking a more scenic route to get there.

Number fifteen: it's been seven years—how did you do? Because in seven years, once you've built the habits, celebrated the years, and made this huge goal a part of your daily life, you've done it. It was a big undertaking, but not as big as you thought, right? And best of all, you started seven years ago, and look how far you've come!

Now it's time for a break—maybe a month, maybe a week; hey, maybe a year if you can swing it. And then you start all over again to the next seven years. Where will you go next?

And you know, since you stuck with us until the very end of this video, we've got a bonus for you, and that bonus is to write a letter to your future self. Now, there are websites out there that will allow you to write a letter to yourself and fill in the date and time in the future, and they'll email it to you when you start this journey—the day you create your goal manifesto.

Talk to yourself; talk about where you are right now in your life, why you're doing this, and what you're hoping for. You'll be amazed by how much has changed, how much you've changed in that time. It'll feel like you're reading a letter from a younger sibling, not from yourself—but it's all you, and you get to see how far you've come.

All right, that's all we've got time for today. Thanks for spending some time with us. Now, we promised you a gift, so here it is. So first of all, download the Alux app from the App Store. You come back here to this video right here and scan this QR code on screen. You'll be taken to our app, where you'll get a 25% discount on your yearly membership and a seven-day free trial.

I'll be in the app too, chatting to you every day about the most interesting topics in the world and breaking them down so you can use them to improve your life. We'll see you on the inside!