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Greet from the deep,

With 2024 creeping up on us, it’s impossible not to think about annual goal-setting.

Sure, it’s stooopid to only set goals because it’s a “new” year (which it basically is every day).

But still…

Setting annual goals is infinitely more useful than having no goals.

Especially as solopreneurs, because we have nobody except ourselves to rely on for guidance, it’s vital to set clear goals, and create clear paths to act on them.

The problem is:

Most solopreneurs are never taught how to set meaningful goals (or how to reverse-engineer them into real plans).

That’s why, in this edition, you’ll learn:

• Why you shouldn’t set annual goals (and what to do instead)

• 3 powerful principles for setting ambitious goals (that’ll make you actually achieve them)

• How to create a  blueprint to dominate 2024 through the Annual Action Mapper prompt

Let’s d-d-d-d-dive in! 🤿

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INTRODUCTION

Why you shouldn’t set annual goals (and what to do instead)

Yearly goals are kinda like vegan cheese:

They sound great in theory, but suck in practice.

See, the biggest problem with setting yearly goals is that their very nature is working against our brain’s reward center.

The reason for this is that your brain:

1. Has a hard time comprehending such a long time frame

2. Struggles to stay motivated that far toward the goal

Also, in the fast-moving world of entrepreneurship, one event can change EVERYTHING and make your yearly goals redundant.

I like to think about it this way:

There’s a distinct difference between setting goals and having a vision.

Having a vision, that is, a rough imagination of where you wanna be in 1, 5, or even 10 years is powerful.

But for setting actual goals - tangible milestones of success - I use a shorter time frame.

Which time frame?

Well, according to scientific trials, the longest time period for setting goals is 3 months

(Recommended listening: Huberman’s episode on goal-setting)

It’s just long enough to set ambitious goals, but also not too long to loose motivation.

That’s why we will create quarterly goals for you by using your yearly vision as a North Star for guidance.

3 powerful principles for setting ambitious goals that’ll make you actually achieve them

Principle 1: Set action-oriented goals instead of outcome-oriented goals.

Focus your goals on actions that you can control directly instead of outcomes that could result from them.

This makes you feel more control over your progress, making you likelier to achieve your goal(s).

For example, setting the goal “reach 500 Twitter followers” is focused on an outcome you can’t control directly - you can’t force people to follow you (unless you’re Liam Neeson).

A more sustainable, action-oriented goal would be:

“post 3 Tweets a day, 2 Threads a week, and spend 30 minutes engaging every day for 3 months.”

Another example:

❌ Outcome oriented:

“reach $2500 monthly income from my services”

✅ Action-oriented:

“send 20 cold DMs a day and post 5 pieces of content that talk about my offer a week for 3 months”

Principle 2: Set only 1 goal per quarter

I often feel the motivational surge to just change EVERYTHING in my life.

“I’ll set goals for my health, business, social life… and now that I think of it, I also wanna go and rent a hut in the mountains for 1 week, grab a bunch of synths, and start making music again”

Don’t make this mistake.

The problem is that having too many goals to focus on makes you much less likely to achieve any of them.

The harsh reality is that you haven’t figured out what your ONE priority is…

…so you’re trying to cope with a lack of decisiveness by trying to set goals for everything at once.

Accept the trade-off.

Set ONE goal.

Of course, don’t ignore all the other things in your life, but keep them more in a “maintenance mode”.

Principle 3: Set challenging goals using the 4% rule

An overlooked aspect of goal-setting is getting the difficulty right.

Most “normal” people set too easy goals, and hustle culture tends to push entrepreneurs to set inhumanely high goals.

Both approaches suck.

❌ If the goal’s too easy, you won’t be motivated to work towards it.

❌ If the goal is so hard that you feel like it’s impossible to achieve, you’ll loose motivation.

Instead, make your goals just challenging enough using the 4% rule.

Set goals just 4% / slightly above what you think is possible with your current skill set.

This ensures that the goal excites you, but doesn’t feel too hard.

How to create a  blueprint to dominate 2024 through the Annual Action Mapper prompt

This prompt helps you to create a yearly action plan and dominate your next year:

(instructions below - warning, the prompt is long)

I want you to act as the Annual Action Mapper, an AI specialised in turning aspirational annual visions into actionable, tangible quarterly goals, and turning these quarterly goals into an actionable business roadmap for me.

The time horizon for this exercise is 12 months, and your goal is to lay out an plan for the entirety of the year of 2024.

My 1-year vision is {1. INSERT YOUR VISION}

For context, {2. INSERT YOUR CONTEXT}

Using the specifics of my vision and my context, help me reverse-engineer my goal into a 3-month actionable roadmap that I can follow to reach it.

The thinking behind this is that each yearly vision is just the sum of a few tangible outcomes, and these tangible outcomes are just the result of quarterly goals, and the quarterly goals are the sum/result of weekly action steps.

Your output should contain my annual vision quarterly goals and weekly KPIs.

Constraints:

1) The KPIs for each week should be quantifiable

Every quarter of the 12 months of the roadmap should be formatted like this:

Quarter 1: [QUARTERLY GOAL]
# Month 1: [BIG GOAL OF Month 1]
Summarize the month's goal and KPIs
## Week 1: [BIG GOAL OF WEEK 1]
Summarize and quantify weekly actions that I need to take to reach week 1's first goal (in a way that I can put it into my calendar)
## Week 2: [BIG GOAL OF WEEK 2]
Summarize and quantify weekly actions that I need to take to reach week 2's first goal (in a way that I can put it into my calendar)
## Week 3: [BIG GOAL OF WEEK 3]
Summarize and quantify weekly actions that I need to take to reach week 3's first goal (in a way that I can put it into my calendar)
## Week 4: [BIG GOAL OF WEEK 4]
Summarize and quantify weekly actions that I need to take to reach week 2's first goal (in a way that I can put it into my calendar)
# Month 2: [BIG GOAL OF Month 1]
Summarize the month's goal and KPIs
## Week 5: [BIG GOAL OF WEEK 1]
Summarize and quantify weekly actions that I need to take to reach week 1's first goal (in a way that I can put it into my calendar)
## Week 6: [BIG GOAL OF WEEK 2]
Summarize and quantify weekly actions that I need to take to reach week 2's first goal (in a way that I can put it into my calendar)
## Week 7: [BIG GOAL OF WEEK 3]
Summarize and quantify weekly actions that I need to take to reach week 3's first goal (in a way that I can put it into my calendar)
## Week 8: [BIG GOAL OF WEEK 4]
Summarize and quantify weekly actions that I need to take to reach week 2's first goal (in a way that I can put it into my calendar)
# Month 2: [BIG GOAL OF Month 1]
Summarize the month's goal and KPIs
## Week 9: [BIG GOAL OF WEEK 1]
Summarize and quantify weekly actions that I need to take to reach week 1's first goal (in a way that I can put it into my calendar)
## Week 10: [BIG GOAL OF WEEK 2]
Summarize and quantify weekly actions that I need to take to reach week 2's first goal (in a way that I can put it into my calendar)
## Week 11: [BIG GOAL OF WEEK 3]
Summarize and quantify weekly actions that I need to take to reach week 3's first goal (in a way that I can put it into my calendar)
## Week 12: [BIG GOAL OF WEEK 4]
Summarize and quantify weekly actions that I need to take to reach week 2's first goal (in a way that I can put it into my calendar)
Quarter 2: [QUARTERLY GOAL]

Etc

Make this very detailed and tactical.

Rules:

1. ALL goals need to be hyper specific and countable and tangible.  That means I need to be able to count the goals, and if someone would ask: “did you achieve [GOAL DESCRIPTION]?” I need to be able to objectively answer that question with a yes or no.
2. The weekly goals need to be action-oriented
3. The goals should roughly suit the workload of the given time period. In other words, weekly goals should take 2-5 business days of hard work.

Here are 3 principles for setting goals:

Principle 1: Set action-oriented goals instead of outcome-oriented goals.


Focus your goals on actions that you can control directly instead outcomes that could result from them.

This makes you feel more control over your progress, making you likelier to achieve your goal(s).

For example, setting the goal “reach 500 Twitter followers” is focused on an outcome you can’t control directly - you can’t force people to follow you (unless you’re Liam Neeson).

A more sustainable, action-oriented goal would be:

“post 3 Tweets a day, 2 Threads a week, and spend 30 minutes engaging every day for 3 months”


Another example:
❌ Outcome oriented:

“reach $2500 monthly income from my services”

✅ Action oriented:
“send 20 cold DMs a day and post 5 pieces of content that talk about my offer a week for 3 months”
Principle 2: Set only 1 goal per quarter

I have ADHD, so I often feel the motivational surge to just change EVERYTHING in my life.

“I’ll set goals for my health, business, social life… and now that I think of it, I also wanna go and rent a hut in the mountains for 1 week, grab a bunch of synths, and start making music again”

Don’t make this mistake.

The problem is that having too many goals to focus on makes you much less likely to achieve any of them.

The harsh reality is that you haven’t figured out what 1 priority you want to have, and you’re trying to cope with a lack of decisiveness by trying to set goals for everything at once.

Accept the trade off.

Set ONE goal.

Of course, don’t ignore all the other things in your life, but keep them more in a “maintenance mode”.
Principle 3: Set challenging goals using the 4% rule

An overlooked aspect of goal-setting is getting the difficulty right.

Most “normal” people set too easy goals, and hustle culture tends to push entrepreneurs to set inhumanely high goals.

Both approaches suck.

❌ If the goal’s too easy, you won’t be motivated to work towards it.
❌ If the goal is so hard that you feel like it’s impossible to achieve, you’ll loose motivation.

Instead, make your goals just challenging enough using the 4% rule.

Set goals just 4% / slightly above what you think is possible with your current skill set.


____


Now, do the following:

1. Ask me about details you need to know about my annual vision to set the right quarterly goals. Depending on what lacks/exists in the context I give you, the amount of questions you need to ask will vary. I would imagine that you always need to know at least:  my target income, my target lifestyle, how an ideal day in my vision looks, which people I wanna spend time with, and how much I wanna work and with what

2. Once you have sufficient context, reverse-engineer my annual vision into quarterly goals and a weekly action plan as described above

WRAP UP

I’ve celebrated my new year 3 days early this year.

(Went to a classic Berlin rave during the day on Friday)

My step count doesn’t lie.

The AI solopreneur is a dancefloor lunatic.

I hope you all have a wonderful start to 2024.

You will crush it, I’m sure.

Keep diving,

Ole

P.S.

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