[00:01] talking about the GPS method that will drastically improve your chances of achieving literally any goal that you set your mind to. So, it contains a bunch of evidence-based insights that have been combined into this fairly easy
[00:14] and takes like somewhere between 5 and 10 [music] minutes to actually do. So, you want to get fit or you want to find the love of your life or you have goals in literally any other area of life, if you follow the GPS method, [music] you
[00:26] goal. And by the way, if you're new here, hello. My name is Ali. I'm a doctor turned entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestseller Feelgood main gig is that I'm the co-founder of Sparkle Studios, which is a sort of app
[00:38] productivity apps that we wish [music] existed in the world. And on the side, I've been making YouTube videos since 2017, documenting my journey from entrepreneur and author and sharing the books and [music] ideas and strategies
[00:50] and tools that can help us build a life that we love. So, if that sounds good, you might like to consider subscribing if [music] you like.
[01:04] there is one key piece [music] of theory that this entire system is based around. surprisingly powerful, which is that every goal you want to accomplish is
[01:17] merely a series of tasks or actions that you do. So if you are not accomplishing things that it would take you to accomplish your goals. Like if you didn't need to do stuff, then your goal would just happen automatically. And the
[01:32] you're not doing the right things. And that is either that you don't know what that is either that you don't know what the right things are to do do are, but you're not actually doing them. And [music] pretty much all of
[01:45] around it can basically be summed down to [music] those things. What is the actually going to get you there? And then how do you get yourself to actually concept, these three concepts that the GPS system is based around. Like for
[01:58] and that was my goal for whatever reason. In order to get fit, I have to healthily and hitting the gym and doing some cardio, all of that kind of stuff. would be a series of actions like figuring out my idea and like coming up
[02:13] it. And so the whole idea behind the GPS system is that we are breaking down these three components into an actionable system with a nice acronym actually achieve the goals that we set and secondly as a diagnostic tool where
[02:28] can just run it through the GPS system and then we'll see exactly why we are that let's actually talk about the GPS system. system. Now the GPS system stands for goal, plan
[02:43] and system. And within each of the components of goal, plan and system, there are three factors or three things that we want to be considering. This takes less than 10 minutes per goal that you set, maybe even 5 minutes to like
[02:57] figure out like the three components of the GPS system. And if you just follow likely to actually achieve the goals that you set. [music]
[03:10] number one, which is the goal. Now, when it comes to setting the goal in the first place, there are two broad mistakes people make. Mistake number one is not being clear or specific or concrete enough about what the goal
[03:22] actually is. What [music] is the thing you actually want to do? Things I hear a will set the goal that they want to stop procrastinating. It's like, okay, but mean? You've probably tried to set the goal of stop procrastinating for a
[03:35] there's like something going wrong here. Similarly, I speak to people who say channel. But like right now, you could go on youtube.com, you could click new started a YouTube channel. Have you accomplished the goal? Well, probably
[03:48] channel, you actually probably mean some haven't yet taken the time to get specific and concrete about what you So, the way we avoid this mistake is by getting really specific on what are we
[04:03] actually trying to do. And the trick here is in the specificity. It is so much easier to work towards a specific and concrete goal compared to a vague or say, you know, I want to start a business or I want to start a lifestyle
[04:15] freedom. I'm like, okay, that's great, but that's a very vague abstract goal. mean? Like, how much money are we talking? And starting a business that makes you 100 grand a year or 500 grand or a million a year is very different
[04:28] sell for $300 million. Like, those approaches require drastically different business that gets you to financial freedom. So what actually is the thing mistake people make when it comes to goals is choosing goals that are not
[04:42] emotionally compelling enough. You really need to understand why do you care about the goal. A lot of us choose goals from a sense of should or a sense of obligation. Oh, I really should take care of my health. I really should do
[04:55] that thing because like ah you know society or parents or what people will kind of stuff. But in general, it is so much easier to achieve a goal if you have some compelling reasons as to why you care about actually achieving that
[05:08] goal. Ideally, those reasons would be intrinsically motivated, not just evidence on this is clear. People who follow goals from for extrinsic purposes like fame or money or status or you know that kind of stuff. A you're a lot less
[05:22] b [music] you are also less likely to enjoy the process of hitting those goals. So, we want to get clear on why. Why do we care about the specific thing? And then the third component of the G component of GPS is what are your anti-
[05:34] goals? What are the things you want to avoid [music] on route to achieving your goal? Like let's say your goal was, I don't know, to build a $100,000 a year months. That would be a reasonable goal. It's quite specific. Maybe your reason
[05:47] freedom. You want the autonomy to be able to control your time, to be able to reasonable why behind it. And you might set the anti- goal like along [music] don't want to have to work on the weekends. I don't want to have to work
[06:02] are all good constraints uh that you can set on yourself because it's not just achieving our goals without like torpedoing the other aspects of our life. What specifically is the goal? Why do you actually care about achieving it?
[06:15] anti- goals or constraints? What are the things you want to avoid on route to examples of this in action. So, for example, for me, one of my health goals is I want to reduce my visceral fat levels by 50%. [music] That is the what.
[06:28] It's specific. It's tied to a number. In general, whenever you can put a number on your goal, it makes it it that's a hack for like getting more specific and what you're actually trying to do. Why do I want to decrease my visceral fat
[06:40] and I would like to not die of a heart attack particularly soon. And visceral directly [music] contribute to your risk of a heart attack or a stroke or of heart disease. And thanks to my poor South Asian genetics, even though I
[06:54] have quite a lot of visceral fat in my abdomen according to Dexa scans that I've done. And so really, I would like to be around for my wife and child and dropping dead of a myioardial inffection overly soon. And then in terms of anti-
[07:06] want to reduce my visceral fat levels, but I don't want the process to [music] wife and my daughter. So I don't really want to be going on runs in the like family time. And on screen, we will put some other examples of goals. This,
[07:20] girlfriend and the what, why, and anti- goals that you might choose in that the goal to start your lifestyle business. So, the what, the why, and the course, you are very welcome to pause the video if you'd like to look at these
[07:34] the way, if you're watching this video, then maybe one of your goals is to grow your social media presence. And that is where the sponsor of this video comes a platform that basically helps you
[07:46] for example, you might have seen on my Instagram or on other people's Instagram the whole thing around comment the word [music] book and I'll send you a link to I'll send you a link to my guide. Usually, the book or the guide or
[07:59] magnets that are capturing emails so that we as the business owners can then that's not social media because then we get their email address. Now, obviously lot of time, especially if you have a big audience. But what ManyHat does is
[08:13] that it is a metaapproved automation platform that makes it super easy to triggers a particular keyword, you can then define a series of actions that are really cool stuff with it. So for example, on my Instagram, if you comment
[08:26] the word Angus on any of my posts, then you might get a little Easter [music] automation. So if someone DMs you a particular word, you can almost like an automated chat qualification process for them if you want. And of course, you
[08:40] someone comments a particular word on a video, you could send them to some kind call or for whatever the thing that your business does. So, if you would like to grow your audience and find a meaningful and automatic way to connect with them,
[08:52] be a link in the video description. So, thank you so much Manyhat for sponsoring this video and let's get back to it. Okay, so having established our goal, [music] the next thing we want to do is we want to figure out what is the plan.
[09:06] Now there is a fascinating debate that goes on in the world of personal development in the realm of goal setting and that is about the importance of goals versus systems. So you've got the systems camp which was popularized by
[09:18] James Clear in his wonderful book atomic habits. And the general vibe that people need to worry too much about the goals. What matters is the system. Like the The example he used in the book I think was that everyone who runs the 100 meter
[09:32] have the goal of winning a gold medal. But obviously not all of them can win who wins, it's because they had the best system or the best habits in order to [music] practice and train to get to that particular goal. This is all well
[09:45] win the gold medal in the 100 meters Olympics, that is a very different system you would follow compared to if your goal is to win gold medal in swimming at the Olympics [music] or even if your goal is to get a girlfriend or
[09:57] business. That's not to say the system is not important, but like the goal does doing and what's the system that you follow. Then on the other side of the really care about systems. They don't really care about plans. They just care
[10:09] about the goals. This is sort of like the manifestation law of attraction have crystal clarity, you just really got to get clear on exactly what you want, then the universe will conspire to give it to you and all of those sorts of
[10:21] things. And the classic criticism of that is like, okay, but you can have a goal to become a millionaire, but unless you follow a plan and like do stuff like follow some kind of system to get there, it's not actually going to happen. And
[10:33] of merit. And so basically the plan is the bridge between the goal and the destination you are trying to get to. The system is like you know putting one to the destination. But the plan is sort of like your road map. It's it's like
[10:48] the goal. So there are three components of the plan. The question you want to ask yourself is what are the three to five major moves that will get me to my goal. So for example, if my goal was to reduce my visceral fat by 50%. The three
[11:01] to five major moves I might define as uh 10,000 steps per day, hitting 150 gram of protein per day, [music] staying underneath 2,200 calories a day, making cardio three times a week, and making sure I do three sessions of weight
[11:15] training with progressive overload to avoid losing muscle. Those are like five major moves that if I followed those things and actually did them would be reducing [music] my visceral fat levels. This is like the plan, the plan that you
[11:28] of the plan is we ask ourselves is the plan actually realistic. So is it realistic in theory? I.e. in theory will the plan get us to our goals? Like assuming we followed the plan to 100% accuracy, would we actually get to the
[11:41] goal as a result of following the plan? Does the plan work in theory? And we put a percentage amount on that. And then we also ask ourselves in [music] practice, will I actually follow the plan? What are the chances of me actually following
[11:53] through on this plan? And this I find is a really, really, really important part good at setting goals. Like they're like they know what they want, but then the plan that they choose to follow in order to get there just doesn't make sense. I
[12:06] start their first businesses because they want to get to, I don't know, like, okay, cool. We're we're clear and specific about the goal, but then the very unlikely to actually get them there. Even in theory, even if they
[12:20] just haven't picked the right plan. And these days with like Chad GPT and Claude up with a plan that actually gets you to your goal. But you have to kind of be sense. Oh, and by the way, if you're interested in a totally free and easy
[12:35] way to incorporate the GPS system into your own goals, then my team and I have actually trained a totally free AI model that is literally trained on the GPS it's sort of like Chad GPT, but just way more specific because it's specifically
[12:48] basically ask you a series of questions so that it can kind of coach you through for your own goals. So, there'll be a link down below in the video description people who have the goal of getting to $10,000 a month in passive income. And
[13:02] there is number one, posting on Instagram once a week. Number two, for posting on Instagram once a week. And number three, doing this for about 6 you followed that plan, you posted on Instagram once a week, you tried to
[13:16] reach out to brands and you did it for 6 months, would that get you to $10,000 a month in passive income? Absolutely not. Like, there's all sorts of issues with that posting on Instagram once a week is really just not enough to get anywhere.
[13:29] Maybe if you're posting once a day and you're doing it for like 3 years, then terms of like the passive income goal. Also, brand deals isn't really passive to be be creating your own digital product or something like that. Also,
[13:41] Instagram might not even be the best platform for it. You might actually instead. Like, there's all sorts of things that are wrong with that plan. And often what I find is that people just don't take the 3 or 4 minutes to
[13:53] actually think, what is the plan I actually want to follow? And does the sometimes if the plan does make sense in theory, you still need to ask yourself, example, if my goal was to produce visceral fat and part of my plan was
[14:07] running for 5 hours a day. Okay, in theory that will massively increase my in a calorie deficit, which will probably reduce my visceral fat. But going to run for 5 hours a day? Those are pretty low. Therefore, [music] if
[14:21] any of these numbers is under 80%, this is sort of like my threshold for this. That is a sign that I need to rethink my plan. And then the final component is method. This is based on research from the psychologist Gabriel Urtting Ingan
[14:34] where basically the whole vibe is you kind of want to imagine a crystal ball and you want to figure out like let's say you project in the future and you did not achieve your goal or you did not [music] follow the plan. What are the
[14:47] follow the plan? Like what are the top three reasons why it didn't work? In the example, reason number one why it doesn't work is maybe I if I think back to past attempts at doing this, number one, I just blow over my calorie my
[15:02] way more calories than that, which means I'm never going to reduce fat. Number two is maybe I lose a lot of muscle because I haven't hit my 150 g of stimulus to retain muscle. And maybe number three is I don't do my 10,000
[15:15] caloric surplus rather than a caloric deficit. And then that makes the whole [music] context, even just taking one minute to just visualize what is your what are the top three reasons why it might [music] not work. This is mental
[15:28] forecasting. You're sort of predicting what obstacles you're going to run into goal. And then you come up with a plan to address those obstacles. So again, sure I stay under 2200 calories? Well, I should probably track on My Fitness Pal.
[15:42] protein? Well, I should probably track it on My Fitness Pal. How do I make sure busy? Well, I have a walking treadmill literally off camera and so I can make Apple Watch and I'm just sort of making sure that if I'm in Zoom calls or
[15:57] treadmill to passively get those steps in without actually having to go out and three random examples of obstacles that could get in my way of not achieving my overcome those obstacles. Again, on screen, this is what the plan might look
[16:12] is what the plan might look like for the start a lifestyle business example. And again, you are very welcome to pause the video to have a look if you would like. Okay, so now we get to the boring bit, which is the system. So there are three
[16:26] where do I want to be going? Like what's my destination? The plan is what do I need to do to get there? The system is answering the question of how will I make sure I stick to the plan? What daily and weekly actions do I need to do
[16:39] to make sure I actually stick to the plan? Because again, lots of us are very sticking to those goals. There is an execution gap. We have the intention to bloody thing. And the reason why is because we have not stuck to the plan
[16:53] place. So there are three aspects of the system. The first one is tracking. For example, this meta analysis basically collected 138 different
[17:05] participants. And they basically found that the people that monitor their progress towards a goal, i.e. they track their progress towards achieving that to actually achieve the goal compared to people that did not track. Again, you've
[17:19] which is if you just step on a set of scales once a day, you are likely to lose weight because just simply being aware of the number makes you start lose weight. Similarly, you know, ever since I got a Whoop band, I've been
[17:33] aware of my sleep score. And so my sleep has improved really without me having to things like, man, my sleep score was only 64%. It will just nudge me to do sensible things like get an earlier night and make sure the room is set to
[17:46] of stuff. It is enormously helpful to track your progress towards your goal. yourself is for whatever goal I'm following, for whatever plan I'm following, how can I track my progress towards it? When I was writing my book,
[17:59] made the most progress when I had a Google sheet and I was tracking how many I was studying for my exams at Cambridge University Medical School, the highest were the ones where, again, I had a Google sheet where I was tracking the
[18:13] it red, yellow, green depending on how confident I felt about that particular up getting jacked tend to track their workouts. They don't just go to the gym write down on some kind of notebook or some kind of app exactly what they're
[18:27] are far more likely to actually be able to run a marathon if they are tracking looking at their heart rate zones and sort of adjusting their plan as they go along. Component number two of system is to ask yourself how will you remind
[18:41] yourself of your goal and of your plan. For example, there was this study I basically what this study found is that if you just write down your goals, you there was another study I came across. I can't remember the exact reference, but
[18:55] at your goals every day, you're just again way more likely to achieve them. If you remind yourself of what you are trying to do, then you know the brain all set New Year's resolutions, New Year's goals, and then like a week goes
[19:08] completely forgotten what the goal actually was. And so there is a lot of value in just reminding yourself to look at the goal. How do you remind yourself things like a daily journaling practice. I've made videos about that. You can do
[19:21] videos about that. My favorite thing is to just stick blocks of time in the that one of my goals is the visceral fat thing and my goal is to run three times a week, it's just super nice to put those three blocks of running in the
[19:33] for the next 3 months or 6 months because at least every time I look at like, oh yeah, this was a thing that was important to me. You could use an app called Momentum, which is sort of like a habit tracker with accountability squads
[19:47] notifications every day. like I get a notification to remind me to do my 10 The other example is I have a vision board that I've created that I have as of what some of my goals are every single time I go on my computer. So the
[20:00] is what are the reminders I can implement into my life that will actually help me stick to the plan. And then the final component of system is accountability. Most of us really struggle to hold ourselves accountable
[20:13] to ourselves for the goals and the plans that we would like to achieve. And so an accountability squad or an accountability buddy to help hold you team and I have this online mentorship program called the Lifestyle Business
[20:27] one-on-one to help them build their lifestyle businesses. And a key are checking in on you every single week to make sure you're doing the things you Google Sheet scorecard to fill in every single week that asks you how many hours
[20:41] you worked, how much content you posted, how many discovery calls you took. We out your niche and figuring out your offer. And if we see that you're falling do, we ping you a message in the one-on-one support channel being like,
[20:54] a little behind on blah blah blah. What's going on? Anything we can help more than anything else. So, if you just spend 5 minutes defining your tracking come up with some sort of accountability system, whether it's a friend or a
[21:08] or using our app Momentum that has accountability squads built in. [music] component are again going to make you way more likely to actually follow your Now, at the point where you've taken five or 10 [music] minutes to define
[21:20] you're working towards, you're going to want to check out this video over here, which is a video containing, I think, five really quick, really easy follow to again drastically increase the chances that you're actually going to
[21:33] method for any goal that you have and then check out that video over there to you so much for watching and I will see you over