Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals by
Michael Hyatt
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
I think that if you like books in this goal-setting genre, this one is pretty good. I'll probably also buy a copy for reference. I have to admit, I really love the title (maybe to a bias-forming level). *Warning! This review is more like note-taking on the book than a real summary. It's definitely more valuable if you take some notes on it.
Some of my favorite parts of the book were in the first introductory chapter:
1. Starts with a story about the amazing results of resilience. "Stay in the game and keep pushing" even if you're behind, you can still achieve your goals.
2. Set more than a few goals. Imagine accomplishing ALL of your goals a year : Health: best health of your life, energy to spare. Relationship: deepen your relationship. Finance: Debt-free with deep savings, money leftover and protected from emergencies. Spiritual: Feeling a connection to something greater and feeling grateful every day.
3. Document your baseline in the 10 domains so you can see your progress.
Ten Domains: Spiritual, Intellectual, Emotional, Physical, Marital, Parental, Social (friends), Vocational (career), Avocational (hobbies), Financial. Although I notice that home management seems to be missing from his list.
Usually, I give my thoughts on the books instead of summaries, but I wanted to record this for myself. So here's my little summary.
1. Believe the possibility- overcome doubts, be positive and abandon scarcity thinking, what's lacking and imagine putting it there, don't limit your goal based on your resources
(A bit repetitive: a. Recognize the limiting belief, b. Record it in writing, c. Is this belief helpful? d. Reject or reframe the belief. e. Revise the belief turn into liberating truth, f. Implement the new way of thinking.)
2. Get closure on the past and develop gratitude. After action review- write it down: What happened, why it happened, and what you can do to improve. You can do this with last year's goals. Adjust your beliefs and behavior. Gratitude makes you resilient and reminds us that we have agency. (A little repetitive here.)
3. Set goals that really work (Chapter 7)- Specific and measurable, habit goals, but also risky goals that stretch and challenge you.
4. Find your motivation to achieve your goal (this was my least favorite part). Find an accountability group.
5. Make it happen (Chapter 13-14): a. Start with the easiest /smallest part first for big projects (instead of eating the frog)- warm-up and create a positive feedback loop, if you get stuck try something else. b. seek outside help. c. Fully commit and schedule parts on your calendar. d. Activation triggers or cues to make responses easier. (Brainstorm triggers that are easier than your goals, optimize your activation triggers by automating them or taking them out of your control, decide in advance what to do if you're blocked, revise your activation trigger if it's not working.) e. Regular review of our goals: Daily review of all your goals (7-10 goals)- look for daily 3 actions; Weekly review: look for next 3 big actions and check at next weekly review; Quarterly review: rejoice your milestones, recommit to your goal- reconnect to your "why," revise your strategy or goal if it's not working, or remove the goal if you decide it's not worthwhile. If you remove it you might want to add a new one.
Celebrate your wins- both the overall goal and the milestones.
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The Martian by Andy Weir
