Only 18 more days to 2021...

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Candidate,

This year will be over in 18 days! How do you feel? Are you looking forward to 2021?

As the year comes to a close, now is the time when people start thinking about New Year's resolutions. "Work out more!" "Get healthy!" "Start a business!"

It's become popular for people to make fun of New Year's resolutions ("I always give up by February! Why bother?"), but few people understand WHY they don't work.

The reason is simple: They're too broad.

When we have a goal like "Get healthy," we set ourselves up for failure because we don't know where to start.

I know because I used to do the same thing. Back when I was first growing my business, I was in the middle of writing my book and just feeling overwhelmed.

One of my friends asked me, "What's your number one goal?"

I told him, "I want to be a bestseller, but I also want to generate $X in revenue and I want to do this publicity and blah blah blah —" He cut me off and said, "Cut the BS. What's your number one goal?"

Again, I hedged. But he pushed me and forced me to get crisp. Finally, I said, "I want this book to be a New York Times bestseller."

There it was. We hate giving ourselves constraints because it feels limiting. It feels like we're giving something up, and that's exactly what it felt like in that moment.

However, it's also freeing at the same time. Once I actually said that I wanted to become a New York Times bestselling author out loud, it became crystal clear what I needed to do in order to achieve my goal. I focused all of my attention on those things.

And now years later, I Will Teach You To Be Rich has hit the bestseller list — MULTIPLE TIMES. In fact, it was a NYT monthly business bestseller for five months.

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If you want to become successful — in any area of your life — you have to have that kind of focus.

Having a goal isn't enough. We need a plan and a system.

Enter the SMART objective.

SMART stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-oriented. And with each element in SMART objectives, you're going to want to ask yourself a set of questions that'll help you develop a winning goal.

Specific. What will my goal achieve? What is the precise outcome I'm looking for?

Measurable. How will I know when I've accomplished the goal? What does success look like?

Attainable. Are there resources I need to achieve the goal? What are those resources? (e.g., gym membership, bank account, new clothes, etc.)
Relevant. Why am I doing this? Do I really WANT to do this? Is it a priority in my life right now?

Time-oriented. What is the deadline? Will I know in a few weeks if I'm on the right track?

Here are a few examples:

TYPICAL NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION: I want to be fit.
SMART OBJECTIVE: I'm going to run for 15 minutes a day for the next 3 months.

TYPICAL NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION: I want a new internship that I love.
SMART OBJECTIVE: I want to intern at an independent publishing house focused on fiction in San Francisco this summer.

TYPICAL NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION: I want to be rich.
SMART OBJECTIVE: I'm going to invest 5% of my paycheck into a low-cost, diversified index fund every single month.

Do you see the difference between a vague New Year's resolution and a SMART objective? The SMART goals are more focused. They have a clear way to measure success. More importantly, they outline a system to get things done.

And they'll help you accomplish any goal you have this year.

TO DO TODAY
I want you to set a SMART objective for something you want to accomplish in 2021. Remember to make it focused and measurable. Then reply to this email and tell me how you're going to get it done. I read every response.

More tomorrow.