Annual Planning: How to Plan a Historic Year

What's good? It's Rob Cressy and yesterday we hosted a Creating Your 2025 Vision with Help From ChatGPT Masterclass and it was a banger packed with so much gold. I know year-end wrap-up and year-forward planning is on the mind for most of us right now, so I wanted to share this to help with your journey. It includes some very high-level yet simple and practical things you can do to create a historic year.

So let's get this party started. Welcome everybody to Creating Your Vision in 2025 Using ChatGPT. I'm your co-host Rob Cressy alongside Colin Scotland. Colin, how are you doing today?

Super excited for this session, Rob, because I've had a sneak peek at what's to come and you guys are in for a treat. How about you, Rob?

Yeah, so planting the seed that the next 60 minutes has the opportunity to be one of, if not the most transformational events that you have ever been a part of because it is all around creating your vision and best year ever in 2025. And what we are going to do is we're going to pop open the hood on some world-class practices that Colin and I do to one, wrap up the year, and then number two, plant a powerful vision for 2025. We're also going to show how we can use ChatGPT to build better systems and processes and use this in a way that helps you create a significantly bigger vision.

I'm going to recommend you guys take notes during this. One thing that I really know is Colin and I are both outliers in the way that we operate in the best way possible. So, if anything that we share feels like a lot or it feels overwhelming or too much, my encouragement for you is to just take a few little nuggets. Don't feel like you have to do all of this because it has taken me over a decade to integrate all of this into my business and life.

And we want to just share what has served us in the process to help you along on your journey to create a powerful vision. Colin, anything else that you want to add to this?

No, I'm just excited to get in, Rob. Let's dive in. It's good to see some faces. Joanna, Eva, Juliana, Parul, lovely to see you. Hey. If you have any questions as we roll through, Rob and I love to make these lean forward experiences. So, if there's anything that comes up for you, feel free to either raise your hand or type your questions into the chat. And we're going to make it super engaging and interacting as we go through. So, please feel free to get involved as much as you like.

Yes. So, with this, we'll also be sharing links. We'll be sharing our screen on this. And there's a quote that I love. The bigger the dreams, the deeper the foundation. I learned that from Ed Mylett. And what we are going to do is build our foundation for turning 2025 into the best year of our life. But there's a few things you definitely need to make sure that you have part of your life or system to help you create that.

Number one, have a system. So, you know what's going to happen next year on December 19th? We're going to have the exact same conversation again. So, do you currently have a system in your life that says, when it's time for me to wrap up the year and then look forward towards the new one, what do I do? Because what we do not want is to have to recreate everything. Colin and I are both trained in something called building a second brain, which is all around personal knowledge management. And what this has allowed us to do is to do something once and then use it infinitely.

So, one of the things I'm going to encourage each of you guys to do, and we're going to show you how you can do this with ChatGPT, is to start building your foundation for both this year and years moving forward on what does it look like to create a powerful vision. Hey, what are those questions? What are those things that you're doing? Because systems scale and one of the biggest areas where people fail is they don't know what they're going to do. Oh, man, I just didn't get around to it because I don't have a template to follow. Well, guess what?

All Colin and I have to do is open up an Evernote file that says goals and year-end plan, and you click that little button, and there's everything that we've ever created there. Colin, what are your thoughts on creating or having a system for this and how important this is?

You know what it's like? Life's busy, right? And inevitably, things pop up. Oh, I've got, you know, I've not, I've left the stove on. I haven't done this. I've not done this. And without even realizing it, we become overwhelmed because of a lack of capacity. So the greatest gift that Rob and I received a few years ago was doing Tiago Forte's Building a Second Brain. And that was a process where we would extract, capture all of those thoughts and ideas and things whirling around our head and put them into an external brain, an external system, which frees up our bandwidth.

And so our encouragement to you, yes, we're going to share how we do all of this wizardry with ChatGPT, but it's deeper than that. There's fundamental processes and systems at play here that support the powerful work that we do with ChatGPT. And having a place to capture all of those things is like fundamental. It's foundational. Otherwise, what you find is you spin in your wheels because you're not fully focused on the thing that's in front of you because of those. I've got to feed the dog. I've got to do this. I've not done that. I've not paid that bill.

And so it takes away, it takes away all of that pressure from your brain and allows you to focus entirely on the thing that's in front of you. So if you're not familiar with what a second brain is or these PKMs, personal knowledge management systems, a format of capturing things in a way that you can recover them and look back and retrieve them when you need them is a foundational essential.

So Colin, what in the world does this actually look like? This is what this actually looks like. So in here, I have a goals and year-end planning folder in Evernote. I click this thing and here are all of the various ways, my vivid vision, my 2025, who I say yes or thank you to every year, my planning, the new story I'm creating for myself, quarterly goals. Every year, goals year-end, boom. I just click this and this is what I'm going to be sharing with you guys is some of the things we've created in this. But I just wanted to show you, this is literally how simple it is. It's just a simple document. Boom. And it's a series of documents right there.

So that's foundational thing number one. Foundational thing number two, time. You've got to give yourself the gift of time to work on creating a powerful vision for yourself. I estimate I spend between five and 10 hours just working on creating this powerful vision here. And as part of this, there's a few elements. Number one, you got to give yourself the time to number one, take what's in your head. And write it down. Because number two, you want to get clear. Clarity of vision because it's hard to create your best year ever if you don't know where you're going to go.

Yeah, we can say, oh, this is going to be my best year ever. Cool. Tell me what that looks like. Because number three, we want to create a process around this. So the way that we just showed the second brain, boom, that's a simple process for documenting this. And this is an easy one. But a thing that I would love for each of you guys to have for moving forward is, can you answer if somebody asks you, how much time do you spend wrapping up your year and looking forward on the next one and creating a powerful vision?

Do you have a number or is it like, well, I've never really thought about it. I don't know when I'm starting it. Like, I started this process at the end of September. I can tell you that because every September I start this. And there's five or 10 hours that are baked into this. Colin, what are your thoughts on the time side of this? Because if people don't do this, this is one of the biggest holes.

Firstly, I'm pleased to see that Evernote still has a customer, Rob. And that somebody's actually using it. That's really good. I use Notion for my second brain. So I like to just jibe up Rob for still using Evernote. Look, the way that we do anything is the way that we do everything. And so that applies to the way that we dance with time, the way that we run our business, the way that we run our lives. And so it pays huge dividends for us to set aside. This isn't a burden. Like, we're going to go 100 miles an hour today and it's going to feel like a lot.

It doesn't have to feel like a lot. The idea is that this becomes a light, easy and fun approach to your life and your business. But in doing that, there's a duty for you to have that discipline and that focus enough to actually commit to showing up and doing the work. The worst thing that we can do is be frustrated and angry at the results we didn't get for the work that we haven't done. And so the goal in all of this is to say, well, OK, and I do this today. This is my last session.

Then I'm clocking off for a bit of downtime over the holiday period for a few weeks. But before I finish today, after our session, I'll just do 10 minutes and I'll look back. Where are my projects up to? Where are my tasks up to? Is there anything outstanding that I need to move forward that I don't lose before we get before I go off the grid and drink some sherry? Like, what are those things that need to happen in order for that to be picked up? And so on a weekly basis, you can look forward.

So on a Sunday evening or a Friday, I'll look forward to the next week and back to the week previously. I didn't really do any learning last week. So I'm going to add a couple of Pomodoro blocks of learning into next week. And so just having this forward and backwards look can honestly make all of the difference. If you're not doing it, there's nothing wrong with not doing it. But know that it's going to hinder how well you're able to impact the world in the work that you know you're here to do.

And so be honest with yourself about that, what I've just said, that being frustrated about not getting the results for the things that we're not doing. And when we take a candid look, it's hard because it makes us feel, you know, that little imposter syndrome like, oh, I'm not doing this. I'm not doing that. And it's difficult to do that because we have to look in those dark corners and realize that, okay, well, actually, I'm not doing that. I'm annoyed that I'm not getting this, but this is why. And so that's our encouragement to you. Light, easy, and fun, but actually do it.

And this is high performance 101. This doesn't mean hustle and grind 24-7, but it means this is what the best in the world do to create the best year ever for ourselves. And the last part for this right here is a superpower, and it's two things. Number one, consistency, and number two, awareness. So when it comes to creating your best year ever, number one, you want to be able to see it. Number two, you want to have it written down. And number three, you want the ability to be able to consume it every single day.

So I've got the very first action item for every one of you, and it is literally the simplest thing on earth, and I can't believe more people don't do this. So by a show of hands in the chat, how many of you would love for 2025 to be your best year ever? I know I would. Well, it looks like there's two of us, Colin, me and you. So what is one simple thing that I do? So do any of us believe in setting a powerful intention? I certainly do. Well, what is this piece of paper right here? It says 2024, best year ever. And guess where this sits?

Right next to my bed on the nightstand. Why in the world would I do that? Step one, intention is going to be my best year ever. Step two, I'm going to write this thing down. Step three, I'm going to put this somewhere where I can see it. The awareness. Step four, consistency. What do I do at least twice a day? I wake up and I look right to the next me. What do I see? Best year ever. And then what do I do right before I go to bed? Best year ever. What is that? 750 times a year, drifting by head with no additional effort on this piece of paper.

It just says 2024, best year ever. And a little bonus Easter egg for each of you is I do mine in bubble letters and I even have a little number one down here because I want to make this an emotionally resonant document. I want to look at it and get excited. I don't want it to be all scribbled. I want to look at this thing and be like, yeah. Side note, one of the challenges is when I ripped the piece of paper and sort of like started to cut this thing off.

So I had to get scissors and be like, oh, wow, this didn't turn out the way that I wanted. But that sort of makes this its own special document right there. So a nice and simple thing.

So ask yourself, what are my consistency practices and what are my awareness practices? Because there's a book that changed my life called The Power of Consistency by Weldon Long. And one of the things that he said that stood out to me was the reason most people don't achieve their dreams is because they just don't spend enough time in them. He's like, the average person once a year will create a New Year's resolution and two weeks later, they're never going to look at it again.

But we, the best in the world, what would it look like if once a day, every single day for 365 days, you just read your goals or your dream or your vision? What do you think that would look like? God forbid we do it in the morning and then in the evening. That's not hard. It might take you four minutes. But once again, system, process, awareness, consistency, intention. These things all stack like Lego blocks. I call this effortless effort. The things that you can do in life that if you do them, you'll do them unconsciously. And the ROI becomes infinite.

What do you think the ROI has been for me in doing this for years? Best year, best year, best year, best year, best year, best year. Because here's the thing, best year ever is a mindset, a lifestyle and a way of being. It doesn't mean I had a baby, bought a house and got a new job. No, we know that we can only live on a moment to moment basis. We can't do anything about the past and we can't predict the future. Yeah, we can do some things to architect it. Therefore, our ability to create great moments. Moment, moment, moment, moment, moment.

So now you can start to see and feel and embody that this can be your best year ever. And we're going to show the system and process for making that happen.

So here's number one. And I'm going to drop this into the chat. And this is Colin and I's first gift for each of you guys. Planning templates. One second, I'm just dropping this in here. So here's my recommendation for each of you guys. You're going to see this here. Sometimes people don't do this. I put in here, make a copy. So what are you going to do? You're going to go file, make a copy so that you can do this for yourself. And this is my year-end planning template. And I've used this for years. And this is what I spend 10 hours on over the course of whatever.

And there's two sections to this. Number one, reflecting on 2024. So let's look back at the year that was because there is power in this. And you're going to see some great questions. Do not see this as an absolute or, oh my God, if I don't answer all of these. This is sort of the process for peeling the onion on the year that was. Hey, what's my biggest triumph? Smartest decision. Phrase. A lot of good questions and prompts. Biggest surprise. Biggest failure. So there's reflection in the way that we're going to look back. There's some really good ones. I love this. What would you vow to never do again?

What would you vow to do more of? And man, this is all about lifestyle design. So for any of us who are about that, creating our best year ever life, boom, surprise, failure. When did you feel most alive? It's like, wow. Look at all this. Most impactful books. Is there something that you need to let go of? How long is that list? I mean, do we have five hours just on all the things I need to let go of? How do I spend quality time with my kids? This is all about business, life, relationships.

Then we're going to look forward and embark on 2025. What would you like to be your biggest triumph? What advice can you give yourself? So part of the reason this is so powerful is that it removes the, what am I supposed to do, Rob? I don't know how to close out my year. I don't know what to do moving forward. Ah, I already created that for you. This is all the questions you can use into all of this. Look at this. If you knew you couldn't fail, what would you attempt in 2025? And we have many members of our community here on Unlimited Coach.

But many of the exercises that we do in real time together will come from this. So we have a call called Imagination Factory. And you'd be like, hey, what's one undeveloped talent you're willing to explore in 2025? And you're like, wow, never actually thought about that. I have not thought about that. It becomes a superpower because now you can think about this here. So boom, you can go through all of this.

And here is the next level for each of you. Imagine, and I've done this for myself, you answer all of 2024. How in the world do we think we could get even more reflective? Our good friend, ChatGPT. Imagine, copy, paste, inserted into ChatGPT and you're like, hey, ChatGPT, I just looked back on 2024. As my world-class coach, tell me what you notice in me based on this. And it's going to go, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. And let me show you a version of this. And this is going to be a little Easter egg for each of you.

So one of the practices that I picked up in a book is to write down one thing every day you value about yourself. Because so many of us have read a book but not take an action item, take an action on it. Well, in this book, it's like, if you really want to anchor in your value and your confidence, man, write down one thing you value about yourself. I'm like, cool, I'm in. Did it for 10 days. And then you're like, wow, this is kind of hard. You really got to start digging deep and getting intentional. But guess what I did last week?

I am on day 131 of doing this. So from my resilience to my generosity and my optimism, my creativity, I wrote into ChatGPT and said, every day I write down one thing of value about myself based on what I shared from a high-level world-class growth coach perspective, as if you're Ed Mylett or Tony Robbins. Mirror back to me what you see, as if they are my coach and are there to help me see the power and gifts and excellence in me and how that can be carried in all I do every day, especially in growing my business and serving others. So value every day or reflecting back or looking forward.

Same thing, right? Same process. This thing wrote something that I was like, oh my God, you saw into my soul and I'm ready to run through a wall. The power you carry, leadership with depth, a visionary mindset, grit and resilience, excellence in action, heart-centered giving. The obvious is sometimes not obvious to us. And Colin said this to me, and I say this all the time. He's like, Rob, you do things on a world-class level unconsciously that nobody else does. And the challenge in that is like, yeah, obviously this is what we would all do. And he's like, nobody does this. So this is ChatGPT's opportunity to mirror back to you.

And it called this your brilliance. So, all right, now this is how it translates to your business. Boom. So now we've taken this information and we're going to turn this bad boy into action. When you're right, speaker, coach, your depth of knowledge and care is felt deeply. Hope you guys are feeling that. Your optimism and creativity inspire others to dream bigger. Wow. Seems like we're doing that right now. Your consistency and follow-through set you apart. Well, it seems like the way that we started at the top of this call said consistency and follow-through. And now here ChatGPT is like, this is what sets you apart.

If I'm sitting there and I'm where you are right now, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, alarm bell should be going off. Consistency and follow-through. In a world where many over-promise and under-deliver, you over-deliver in ways that leave people better than they found you. Now put yourself in that shoes. This isn't about me. This is about you and your ability to create 2025 as your best year ever systematically. Ding, ding, ding, ding. How this fuels service. Your excellence is not just about results. It's about the experience you created for others. And then look at this. The world-class edge. I don't even need to read what it says, but I will.

Because this is what we're creating for ourselves. Is this edge. The inches of greatness. The embodiment of a creator coach who transforms businesses but lives. This is speaking about each of you. I'm just mirroring back to what ChatGPT said about me. So Colin, I know I just dropped a lot there. When you guys hear and see this, what's coming up for everybody right now?

It's affirming. It's affirming of your values. So it's kind of like we all work better under appreciation.

Amen, Connie. Amen. What about you, Colin?

Isn't it cool how ChatGPT is helping us to feel better about ourselves? I love that. One thing I did, Rob, while you were sharing is I took, firstly, I asked the question of Chat. Can everybody see my screen? Yeah. I asked the question of AI, how can I build reflection and look forward time into my calendar when I have zero time? So often we make the excuse that we haven't got enough time to do these things. And something that came up with, I thought was really cool, micro reflection moments.

So I remember learning about dead space, like standing in line, waiting for a train, waiting for the kettle to boil, you know, all of these micro moments of time throughout the day. I thought that was quite interesting. And then what I did is I took Rob's Google Doc and I hit file, download, adopt text version of Rob's Google Doc here. And then I uploaded this into ChatGPT and I asked it, act as a world-class mentor and guide me through my year end reflection one step at a time. So what that does is it triggers the AI to take the role of guide.

And it asked me this beautiful starting point question, right? Start by celebrating the wins. And it curated Rob's list into a micro kind of breakdown, like how can we break this down so it's manageable? And so I am genuinely excited to go play with this because I would have normally journaled about this. But I'm going to go and journal alongside ChatGPT. My good friend Rosario, who's also in our unlimited program, introduced me to the word co-intelligence. And one of the greatest gifts that we have with AI right now is that we have this co-intelligence that we can co-create with. It really is that powerful.

So it's like, I can't wait to the end of this call. I'm going to go and play with that before I finish up for the year. So cool, Rob.

All right, Colin, so here's the yes and to what you just said there. So if I'm each of you, this is your opportunity to design your system and process that you will use moving forward. You can just copy and paste my document. Boom, there it is. Or you could take that and put it into ChatGPT and say, hey, what are the themes, the categories? What is my own version of this? Is it what I do in value every day? Or is it my year-end, year-forward planning templates?

One of the things that is a prompt in that document is, what do you not want to carry with you moving forward? So another practice that I do is I'll spend some intentional time writing down how I want to get lighter moving into the year. Because man, there is just so much gold in not carrying things around with you. And the best way to change is to change. And if it just so happens that December 31st, the month of December is when this is top of mind for everybody there. How about we just take inventory of what do I not want to carry with me?

Maybe it's my garage is messy, or maybe there's somebody that I need to forgive. A lot of the work Colin and I do and the people in our community, the word letting go, man, it's a powerful one and it's a deep one. And it's the mastery level one because it's the work that you don't want to do. And one of the big reframes for me this year that just there's so much gold in it is the phrase letting go is creating. Could you see your ability to let something or let things go as actually a way of creating yourself into a better version of yourself?

So often we think that creating has to be forward action, doing more. But what if we let some things go? Now I'm not holding on. Now, what if there's more space, ease, lightness, flow, peace? Like, wow, man. I mean, if you only focused on letting go, you would have a 15 out of 10 year. God forbid us creating a powerful vision because what got us here isn't going to get us to where we want to go. So how about we prune like a rose? For a rose to fully bloom, you got to get rid of the dead petals because it's taking the energy from the good ones.

What's that look like in your life or in your business? And it's something that might not be the most fun work, but it's where the most gold is. Colin, anything there before we move on?

I think there's the energy with which we show up affects how we show up, which in turn affects our results. So I think we ignore those things at our peril. And, you know, wherever we, I love that what you put in there, the focus, attention goes, energy flows where attention goes, Joanna, you put. And I think that's so true. So, you know, living in that pays dividends for sure.

All right. So, Colin, here is the next thing that I'm going to show is let me find this in my document. All right. So I'm going to pop open our second brain again. And I'm going to share with you guys, this is an older one. But what this next is I create a brand new document. So change the number of it. So this is from 2023. And there's a few different categories or buckets that I'm going to want you to at least explore about creating for yourself. And I'm just popping open the hood on what it looked like for me two years ago.

Number one, my 12 outcomes for historic 2025. If you were to write down 12 things, you look ahead at 2025 and you're like, man, if I create history this year and one of my declarations is I am historic, man, I create history this year. Boom. Let's go. I'm doing this. You're creating that energy. You're creating that intention. What's that look like for you? This can be business, life, relationships. So number one, and then here's where I'm going to give you guys gold that you're not going to hear anybody else. And this is the world-class 1% of 1% stuff. What is your mindset for creating a historic year?

Because we can design all of these things in our life if we're intentional about it. I don't know very many people who roll in being like, oh, this is the mindset for me. So for me in 2023, commitment, historic and harmony. Man, you can probably feel how my year was in 2023 based on that. Execute faster through my fears and limits. Simplify. I think I might want to take that again for this year. All right. Then you can say, all right, what are my finance goals? Get specific. What are my content creation goals? Podcast, newsletter, webinar, Twitter, tweets. Like you just can be as specific as you want.

I'm just showing you what world-class looks like. It doesn't mean you got to do all of this. This is where I go because that's what I want to create in my life. And I love all of this. This isn't a have to. This is a get to. Next thing, relationship building. How do you want to build relationships this year? You have a goal for that? All right. What events? What races?

And then here's one that I picked up from Jesse Itzler being a part of his community for so long. It's called a Misogi. It's something that you do once a year that is so hard that the benefit of you doing it lasts with you for the rest of the year. So, for example, in 2024, my Misogi was running the Clearwater Marathon. And the year prior, it was teaching my son how to swim. So, it can be whatever you want. But if we're creating best year ever, epic, historic, man, let's create a Misogi here.

And then here's the next one. Man, this is my favorite. Creating a word of the year. By a show of hands and in the chat, how many of you had a word of the year for 2024? And if so, drop what it was in the chat. My word of the year for 2024 was freedom. Colin, did you have a word of the year? Easy. Amen. 2025, my word of the year is fearless. And I'm going to show you, actually, I'll just show you right now what I do about this. So, a word of the year is something you embody. It's an intention. It's something you want to bring to life.

So, once again, and you're going to keep hearing the same thing over and over again until this thing clicks. So, if we want to bring something to life and embody it, what do we do? Take it from in our head and you write it down. So, with your word of the year, the question that I have is, how do you embody it so you live it every single day? Once again, most people, New Year's resolution never see it again. For me, number one, I created a token. I have a bracelet here that says fearless. Every time I put it on, I speak the declaration, I am fearless. Boom. Boom.

And then I created a document, fearless 2025 word of the year. And I went through my second brain of all of the instances in which fearless appeared. Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire. So, every morning when I wake up, I'm like, boom, let me open up my fearless document. All the way down to here, Steve Hardison sees the world in a way where there is no fear in him. There are no worries. Living fearlessly. Being nothing, nothing between my intuition, action, and speak, and I am in flow all the time. Boom.

So, for your word of the year, one way you can embody this is, how about you just write down what it means to you? Because then you can create the consistency practice of every morning. Boom. Open that thing and embody it. Gabriela, you had a question there or a thought.

Question. If I have a goal, I really work hard until I arrive. But the planning is hard. You have all those goals, as you mentioned, you put them there. But step-by-step is what, for me, is so hard. How do you do step-by-step all that list that you have?

Colin, I'll let you jump into this. I'm going to give a quick, simple answer for you. Goals are a possibility, not an obligation. So, if I create 100 goals and I get to 12 of them, okay, that's better than zero goals. So, one of the things that is actually a problem or a challenge for high performers is we operate on such a level. If I don't do one of those things, man, I'm not enough. And if I'm not enough, Rob, what are you not doing? You're not doing things right. Whoa. Hold on.

We never want to create an energy where a goal that we create is not serving us, even if we do not do it. So, that would be step one. And then step two is we're living in vision. And a goal can oftentimes just be something that you're marching towards. So, it doesn't mean I either did or didn't it. What if it's a journey? You're like, man, I didn't hit that goal. But, man, I loved having that in my orbiter, in my purview. Because am I better for saying I want to create $100 million this year than if I didn't? Yeah, because I did a bunch of actions this way.

And then number three, and Colin, this is where you can come in because these are your words. You just roadmap it. So, Gabriela, my encouragement for you is goals is no different than year-end, year-forward planning. Right? So, if I have a goal, what is my process? Well, I need to create the time just to say what are the 10 steps. Colin, what do you want to yes into that?

Yeah, so I was just typing something into the chat there. I'm a huge Stephen Covey fan. And Stephen says, to start with the end in mind. So, there's a difference here between what we envision. And as Rob shared, our vision is aspirational. And it's not something that we'll achieve necessarily. It's something that we're constantly, as long as there's breath in our body, we're constantly working toward. And then within that, we can set very definite goals. So, this is where we would have, like, in a business, we would have objectives. So, we might be looking to increase revenue, to get more profit, to give more back.

Whatever that goal might be, you can break that down into things that become achievable then. So, one of my goals for 2025 is to complete my first book. I started a book six years ago, went by the wayside, started it again a couple of months ago. And I'm determined 2025 is, my word of the year is elevate. And I'm going to write that book. So, how on earth am I going to write 70,000 words when I've not got a spare minute in my day?

So, I turned to ChatGPT and I broke down that 70,000, 80,000 words into an actionable goal where all I have to commit is one hour a day. And you can start with the end in mind and then break that end down into milestones and chunks. I like to organize my year over 12 weeks. I use the 12-week year. So, I'll do sprints that will last 12 weeks on very specific projects. So, the book will last. My goal is to have it published in September of next year. So, I'll have sprints that last for the first three quarters of 2025. The book will run along that.

And then on top of that will be the other projects and things that I'm working on. And I track those in my second brain in Notion. But I have very definite things that I'm working on. Why that's empowering? Because it gives you all of the things that you can happily and gladly say no to. When you say yes to everything, you're saying no to the infinite possibilities the universe wants to give you. When you have the courage to say no, you're actually locking in that infinite possibility in a good way. So, you know, no is a complete sentence.

It's actually a positive thing to say no to a lot when you are focused on what you know you're here to do and achieve. That's rooted in vision. Why are you here? What are you here to do? What do you feel called to go and do? Are you doing the work? No. Something needs to change. Are you doing the work? Yes. Okay, great. Well, let's see how we can make that easier, make it lighter, make it more efficient and do more of that great work. And then just focus that attention onto those things that we know we can do in the next 12 weeks.

I can do this and this and this, but there's no way I can do that as well. So that then gets moved back into another block, another period. Did that answer the question, Gabriela?

Oh, all right. And I love this because here's the yes and to this. Here's the next thing that what I'm about to share has the ability to change your life forever because it did for me. And at the same time, it is something that I struggled with for one year. So you can either choose to save a year on your journey by doing this now or wait another year like I did until you do it again. So one of the consistency practices I picked up from Ed Mylett, who's worth like a billion dollars.

Now, part of one of his groups, he's like, one of the things that I do is I speak my goals on camera every year so I can listen or rewatch myself speaking my goals. And I was like, that's awesome. I'm all in. Let's do it. So I put on my get to do list, speak goals on camera. But then guess what? It came time for me to speak my goals on camera and I didn't do it. Why? Because I wasn't clear on my goals.

And I sat there and I was like, there's no way I'm going to record myself saying something that I don't believe in because I don't even have anything written down. And guess what? I kept on kicking this can down the road for an entire year until I jumped on another call with Ed Mylett in December the following year. And he's like, one of the things I do is speak my goals on camera. And I'm like, hello, how many times do I have to hear this until I do it? So I ripped the bandaid off and said, I'm going to be imperfect with this.

I'm just going to write down my goals. And then once I've committed to that, I will speak them on camera. And what I'm going to share with you is a snippet of what my goals on camera looked like this year. And I am now three or four years into the process of doing this. So I've gotten better. This year I did something I've never done before. I added music to my goals. Why? Because remember, consistency, awareness, process, vision, dreams. What are we willing to do that others are not? Effortless effort. So once a day in the morning, I have a little video on my home screen that says, push this.

And it's me speaking my goals on camera. And I am going to share the sound for this. So this is what my 2024 goals. And Colin, when I hit play, can you just give me a thumbs up if you can hear this? These are my 2024 goals. They are who I am. And I have them now. 2024 is the best year of my life. It is an unforgettable and historic year. Because I am a winner and a champion. And I really stepped into my power for receiving the Arete Core Value Award. Because I am that dude. And I shed that which does not serve me with positive action.

Because I am expanding. I create quantum leaps of 10x and 100x. I shatter my belief ceiling of what is possible. Because I redefine what's possible.

All right. So there's a little taste for that. So how in the world do you create that video for yourself? And this is actually going to answer Gabriela's question. What do we have right here? My spoken goals on video. So this is an unforgettable and historic year. Because I am a winner and a champion. And I really stepped into my power with the Arete Core Value Award. Because I am that dude. Right? I can just pick this up right off where that video was. Because this is a script. I am reading this like it was a podcast. And this is for me. A.K.A. This is for you. Right?

I just did this enough years to where I am like, hey, this is the process. Because what I eventually get to. Because that's only a 4 minute and 52 second video. It says, these are my 5 outcomes for a historic 2024. Number 1. I created the most revenue ever. In a single month. And in a single year. I set records. And then pick this up to put in your guys' toolbox. A grand slam. I created 1 million dollars. So this is the, these are my goals. But if I crush this bad boy, I'm speaking this. So to Gabriela as the, I've got these lists. What if this is out there?

I'm intentionally putting something out there that is so big. That I'm seeing it as this grand slam. And then I go through here. My word of the year is freedom. And it is coursing through me and who I am every single day. And when you hear my voice, this is the emotional resonance that I believe when I'm speaking this. So you could just say, for my family, I'm living a one week vacation. I'm going to ski cabin in Lake Tahoe. Or for my family, we have a ski cabin for two plus weeks in Lake Tahoe. Let's go. We're part of a church. We purchased an SUV.

Transfer that energy and that emotion to yourself. This is your vision. For my wife, I love Rachael the most I ever have. And man, all this was, was, all right, family. Write down four things. Wife, write down three things. My son, write down six. Well-being, write down four. And then here's the key to this. I say this. These are my 2024 goals. They are who I am. And I have them now. Because we do not want to create this. Oh, this is in the distance. One of the keys of vision casting and manifestation and creating a powerful vision is the embodiment of this.

Who are you being every day to be the person that spends two weeks in Lake Tahoe or loves your wife or husband more than you ever have? This isn't a future. This is like Benjamin Hardy's book, Be Your Future Self Now. Let's be our future self now. So that's why I started the video. These are my 2024 goals. This is who I am, identity, embodiment. And I have this now. And then I wrap up the video with, these are my 2024 goals. This is who I am. And I have this now. And then every day on my phone, just push that little button. I'm walking the dog. I'm going to the gym. I'm in between calls with Colin or my unlimited community members. Boom. Drip, drip, drip.

So now it's like, wow, we've covered or done a lot of things. Here is my document of a historic year. Here's my goals written down. Here's my goals spoken on camera. Here's my word of the year. And it's like, wow, this feels like a lot. But guess what? Seems pretty simple to me. Just like, let's just do this one thing. And then let's just do this one thing. And then let's just do this one thing. And altogether, it might take 17 total minutes a day to create your best year ever. Huh. What are you willing to do that others are not to create whatever it is that you want in your life?

And there is one last practice that I want to share. I think it's one last one. Oh, yes. That, as Tim Grover says in the book, Relentless, everything's labeled number one because it's almost important. But this is the gift of all gifts for yourself. On December 31st, every single year, I write a letter to my future self. From me to Rob, December 31st, 2025. So, and I don't always just open it on December 31st. I actually opened it last year, like in November. I was like, screw it. I'm going to do this now. And do whatever you want with this. Vision cast. Dream. Sell possibility.

But once again, create the time. This might take 30 minutes. You put on some music, grab a coffee or a water or whatever it is. You write it handwritten. Letter to yourself. Your best year ever. And live into that. And then, when you open that thing on December 31st, you're going to look and you're going to be like, wow. How in the world did I know this came true? How in the world would I have known this came true? And then you're going to look and probably 50% of it, you're like, not only did this not come true, I didn't even do a single thing about this.

And that's okay because how we feel right now, you don't know what happened six months down the road where all of a sudden, hey, life took a different trajectory. But the key is we're planting this intention. And I just put this thing right over here underneath this. And I just wanted to show you, obviously, Colin and I live this stuff. But this is such a beautiful gift when you just sit there and I'll do this in the next week. And you're going to open this thing up.

And Colin, I believe I actually texted you or talked to you when I was like, you will not believe what was in this relating to you and I. Where I was like, I planted the seed that Colin and I are going to work together. And like a year later, Colin and I are working together in this note right here. So what?

It's almost like magic, isn't it? Crazy how that works. Are you telling me we're bringing magic to life by the things that we're doing here? Like words actually become things? Is that a thing? Like, you know, we can think something and say it out loud and then do it and it becomes real. Right. Could life be that easy, Rob?

That's why we call this effortless effort, right? So is there anything individually that felt so hard where it's like, oh, my God, that's like a rocket ship to the moon. No. No. It's just peace, peace, intention, intention, intention.

So Colin, with all of this, now let's move this over to the ChatGPT side of things. Look at all the things that we've created there from a writing a letter to yourself. All right. Watch this. So what would we love to include in our letter ourself? I don't even know. All right. I want to write a letter to myself for 2025 and creating the best year ever. Ask me 10 questions I can answer that will get me inspired to be my best and create the best year ever.

I mean, we already gave you the list of questions from my year end template, but we want to bridge this gap right here of like how each of these things are practical. All right. If I could only accomplish three things in 2025, what would they be and why are they important to me? And you can just sit here and you can just answer that. Just write these things down. You're like, wow, this is awesome. All right. Let's try something else. All right. So we're going to try this different way from what Gabriela said.

I want to speak my goals on camera, but I'm getting overwhelmed at how to do it when I don't have the clarity or time. Can you help me chop this down into an easy manner? Give me buckets or categories to consider. Be world-class yet concise. Here's a streamlined framework. What did we talk about at the very beginning? System. Process. So you go with this and you literally just go copy, paste, Google Doc. Read every year. Answer every year. Boom. Start with the why behind your goals. All right. Watch this.

Show us that little trick of pressing that quote icon as well, Rob.

Yes. So if you like one of the things that ChatGPT does, like this section here, you can just push this little quote thing and just do this. So I was like, I love this. I want to explore my why deeper. Ask me five thought-provoking questions to uncover this. World-class. All right? All right. Five questions to explore your why on a deeper level to anchor your vision. Why? Purpose. Vision.

Oh, here's one thing that I glossed over because we were doing so many things. How many of you, by show of hands, have a self-talk goal for yourself? There you go, Joanna. I see you. I can't see everybody. And I see another one. I apologize if I get your name incorrect. Rule. Create a self-talk goal for yourself. This is like the mindset one. But why? Because what you think creates your actions, your actions create your results. The story you tell yourself will create the reality that you live in. So why in the world do we not have a self-talk goal for ourselves? But Rob, you're sitting there talking crazy speak.

All right. Right? So you want to create this thing. I want to create a self-talk goal for myself. But this is new and I don't know where to start. It's an easy way I can do this. My end goal is to have three to five things that are my self-talk goal. We are not 50. Bullet point, bullet point, bullet point. Because designing the story I tell myself is important, world-class, concise bullet points. Remember the context we give. Boom. Choose your focus areas. Confidence, resilience, success, well-being, relationships. Wait. Are you telling me we can just design what we think before we think it?

And then just go drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. Create empowering statements. Boom. Make it a daily practice. Example self-talk goal. Right? So now it's like I'm going to chop this tree down. Here's a simpler version. Treat myself better. Execute through fear. Stay present daily. Act with confidence. Choose progress over perfection. Right? Hey, maybe you want Tony Robbins to be our coach and to help us with this. I lead with unstoppable energy. Progress is my standard, not perfection. Huh. So what is it again that's stopping us from creating 2025 into being our best year ever? System. Process. Intention. Awareness. Consistency. Structure. Scalability. Heart. Heart. Vision. Colin. What are you seeing with all this? What's coming up for you?

I just want to go play in chat, in ChatGPT with those prompts from before, Rob, if I'm honest. But I think the thing in all of this is that, you know, experiment and play. We genuinely have this powerful tool at our fingertips now that can help us to spark that creative, that inspiration, to organize things, to help answer the questions that are unanswered in our minds. Yeah, but Rob, what about this? And I've only got that. And this doesn't apply to me because literally type those things into the AI and see what comes back and you'll be astounded. You'll be astounded.

Yeah. Love that. So, as we wrap this up right now, does anybody have a question or something that you want to drop in the chat? Otherwise, if you vibed with this and actually, Parul, what's on your mind?

Rob, thanks. Super helpful. My question is, how do you differentiate between outcomes and goals?

Interesting that I don't think, well, I see it because the 12 things for historic outcome. I don't think I really see a distinction. I mean, I'm sure we could diagnose what that distinction is. It would almost seem like an outcome happened, a goal is something that you're living into. But I would actually encourage you to see them as one in the same because our goal is where I want to, but an outcome is like, I did this. Like 12 outcomes for a historic 2024. So, maybe the outcome feels like the embodiment of it. And, oh, boom, this thing happened. I made a million dollars. Boom.

I wouldn't get too lost in the nuances of it. I think sometimes in language, it's, hey, I picked up somewhere along the way, 12 outcomes for a historic year. It could have been 12 goals for a historic year, right? What's the energy? What's the intention? Colin, anything you want to add on that?

I tend not to get too fixated on the goal, Parul. I tend to, I like to live in the vision, like my calling, what I feel like is real for me. So, in my world, my purpose is, and something that's really gotten rock solid in this last year is to help people awaken their truth and elevate humanity through my work and through their work. So, that just becomes the thing, the yardstick for me. And anything that comes into my world or onto my radar just gets held up against that. And certain things then, if I feel like it will help me to realize that purpose, then I'll give it consideration.

So, like my book, for example, that feels like something I need to do in order to realize that vision. So, then I'll set a definite goal specifically for that. And that's something that has a beginning and an end. So, a project with a finite lifespan. So, that book will get published and it will come to an end. And then that project will get put into the archive in my second brain. So, I find that that, as a woo-woo guy, right? Living in that energy of spirit of the invisible allows magic to still happen without keeping me inside of a box.

And it allows me to react to those synchronicities and those things that are meant to unfold, to unfold the way that they are, without getting too hung up on, haven't done this, haven't done that, haven't done this. Does that make sense, Parul?

A conversation between Rob Cressy and Colin Scotland. Transcript cleaned up for reading.