Mystery Gift Box #019 | The #1 Reason Why You Fail to Achieve Your Goals

Hey friends,

It’s 2023!

Like any other years, many people will set new years resolution in January. Some will succeed but unfortunately, most would failed within the first three months. After reading more than 70+ books about personal development, productivity, psychology, etc, I come to believe that the #1 reason why people fail to achieve their goals is because…

They are setting action goals (the doing) without thinking about identity goals (the being).

🎯 Action vs Identity Goals

At school / work, you are always told to set SMART (actionable) goals.

And they are important. You want to make sure you set clear, measurable, and timely goals so that you know what you are aiming for and are moving in the right direction. However, only focusing on action goals can lead to losing a sense of the why; or specifically, the identity goal.

Two people can have the same action goal but two completely different identity goals.

It’s important that the action goals you set yourself be connected to WHO YOU WANT TO BE in the future.

Most people don’t think about who they want to be. And so they don’t have a clear identity goal. Without a clear identity goal, most of your action goals are somewhat “directionless” and probably consists of things that you think you SHOULD be doing…

It’s hard to stick and commit to reading 50 books in 2023 when you don’t know why you want to read 50 books (besides what society says about how reading is good for you and that you should do it.)

The correct way to set goals is to start with identity goals.

Ask yourself: who do you want to be? List out the people you admire in real life / fictions and ask yourself what makes you admire them? This list of people can help you form your identity goals of who you aspire to be.

Once you have clear identity goals, the action goals naturally fall into places. Here’s how I came up with the 4-4-4 exploration project (or 6-6 project) for 2023.

🎭 My 4-4-4 exploration project

A big identity goal of mine is to be a provider, a protector, and a problem solver in life.

One of the related identity goals that moves me towards the above is to be a ultralearner. Another identity goal is to be a polymath (or a renaissance man).

I talked about this 2 years ago about being a specialised generalist (link below for more information).

With those identity goals as a compass, I came up with the 4-4-4 exploration project.

The 4-4-4 exploration project is simple; every month, I would explore one new thing.

It could be one new skill.

It could be one new subject.

It could be one new experience.

By the end of the year, I would have explore 4 new skills, subjects, and experience.

P.S. this project has a high chance of turning into a 6-6 exploration project (6 subjects and 6 experiences) because of my time commitment in PhD, Synthesis, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

📚 This week, I finished reading…

Have interesting gems you want to share with me and others? Share it by replying to this email and I will include it in the next gift box :)

With love,

Ryan O. 🎮

😈 Connect with me on:

🎬 YouTube, 🐦 Twitter, 👨🏻‍💻 LinkedIn, 🌍 Personal Website, and 📸 Instagram