Ali Abdaal - Stop Wasting Time - How to Change your Life in 90 Days
The video outlines a three-step method to transform your life in 90 days. The first step, Reflect, involves conducting a mini life audit using tools like The Wheel of Life, which assesses satisfaction in areas such as work, health, and relationships. This helps identify areas needing improvement and encourages gratitude for what is working. The second step, Align, focuses on creating a compelling vision for the future, such as a three-year sketch or vision board, to motivate change. The final step, Plan, involves setting quarterly quests, or main goals, for work and life. These quests should be specific, verifiable, and emotionally compelling to ensure commitment and progress. The method emphasizes focusing on one main quest in each area to avoid overwhelm and ensure significant progress.
Key Points:
- Conduct a mini life audit using The Wheel of Life to assess satisfaction in key areas.
- Create a compelling vision for the future with a three-year sketch or vision board.
- Set specific, verifiable quarterly quests for work and life to focus efforts.
- Ensure each quest is emotionally compelling to maintain motivation.
- Focus on one main quest per area to avoid overwhelm and achieve significant progress.
Details:
1. 🌟 Reflect: Audit Your Life
- Implement the 'Wheel of Life' exercise to assess satisfaction across nine categories: work (money, growth, mission), health (body, mind, heart), and relationships (romantic, family, friends) by rating each from 0 to 10 to identify areas needing improvement.
- Add a 'joy' category to ensure focus on present happiness, preventing obsession with personal development at the cost of current satisfaction.
- Use a journaling method by splitting a page into four sections: work, life, what's working, and what's not working. Set a 5-minute timer to list twice as many items in 'what's working' versus 'what's not working' to foster a gratitude mindset.
- Focus on striving from a place of satisfaction, not dissatisfaction, to maintain motivation and appreciation for current achievements, inspired by the concept of 'strive satisfied'.
2. 🔮 Align: Create a Vision for the Future
2.1. Reflect and Envision
2.2. Creating a Compelling Vision
2.3. Visualization Techniques and Strategies
2.4. Benefits of a Compelling Vision
3. 🗺️ Plan: Set Your Main Quests
- Implement the concept of 'quarterly quests' by setting goals for the next 90 days, focusing on a single main quest for both work and life to avoid overwhelm and increase focus.
- Using playful terminology like 'quests' instead of 'goals' can enhance motivation and productivity by introducing an element of fun and reducing stress.
- Limit to one main quest each for work and life to prevent dilution of efforts and achieve significant progress in those areas.
- A structured approach to goal phrasing: "My work main quest is to..." followed by clear, verifiable objectives helps maintain focus and accountability.
- Example of a work main quest: Complete a productivity course by launching a new cohort and creating supplementary materials.
- Example of a life main quest: Develop a martial arts habit by attending 12 classes in 90 days, enhancing personal health and self-defense skills.
- Incorporate accountability through structured time allocation, progress logging, and team updates to ensure quest completion.
- Transform abstract goals into tangible actions using objective, verifiable criteria, like logging focused minutes to combat procrastination.
- Maintain emotional engagement with the goal by aligning it with personal values and interests to sustain motivation.
- Allow for 'side quests' in both work and life, which are less critical but still contribute to overall progress.