Life Audit: The Last Goal Setting System You Will Ever Need

Bold promise, but stick with me

This EXACT system has helped me get 30 million views on social media, a full-ride scholarship, transfer from SFU Criminology to UBC Sauder (13% acceptance rate), and run a half-marathon.

And last time I checked in the mirror, I’m not anyone special.

If it works for me, then it can be for you too.

Only if you are open-minded and you’re willing to change.

This could work wonders on you.

There’s a saying that goes “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force it to drink.”

After reading this whole document that I spent hours on

You can take action on it and improve your life

Or you can continue living life, chasing the next “self-help” book to make yourself feel “productive.”

Now that that’s out of the way, let's start

To begin, I want you to imagine a car…

There are TWO PETALS: Gas and Brake

Imagine driving as fast as you can but then your foot is stuck on the brake

Without realsing the brake, you’re stuck, and even if you’re going - you’re going at 10km/hour

Have fun trying to get to your destination with that speed

Chapter 1: Releasing The Brake

Before you start with any goal setting, I want to think to yourself

And answer honestly

Only you will know if you’re lying to yourself or not

“What is holding you back from where you want to be?”

I want you to pinpoint where you lack

What limiting belief are you still holding onto?

What bad habits are you currently doing that are holding you back?

Is it doom scrolling, porn, entertainment, Netflix, or lack of commitment

You fill in the blank

Because of xyz, I am not where I want to be in life.

Take some time to think about this.

Because this might be the first time you’re reflecting in this area of life

And it takes practice to fully see through all the protective layers that your body has in place to find the root cause of your issues.

Don’t overthink too much and stay in the negative for too long

This is only step 1 of the journey.

Chapter 2: The Gas Petal

Before you can apply gas to your goals.

We first have to figure out where we’re trying to go

Rome wasn’t built by accident; it was by design

Similarly, like the guy in the gym with the dream physique you want

That wasn’t an accident; it was built through meticulous training and careful design

If nothing happens by “accident.”

Then why are you living life like it was an accident?

Now I want you to reflect on “What does success look like to you?”

Think big scale (ignore thinking “realistic”)

What do you want your future to look like
I want you to design your life out as if it were perfected

The ideal timeframe I find worked best for me is 6-12 months (adjust it how you see fit)

Since if you drag it out too long, you might tend to push it off, thinking it's too far out of reach (at least that’s how I thought)

Now, I want you to close your eyes and visualize the type of lifestyle you would be living

Go into meticulous details, don’t leave anything out

The more detail you define now, the easier it is for you in the future to know EXACTLY where you are going

What type of friends would you be with

What do your finances look like

Where would you live

What does your physique/health look like

How does your social aspect (family/love life) look like

What car would you drive?

These are just guiding questions to ask yourself; they are not exhaustive

You know your life better than I know your life.

The goal of these questions is to get you started, not finish the job

Once you figure out where your end destination is, we can move on to the next step

This is similar to putting the location on Google Maps

Chapter 3 - Previewing the Destination

Sticking with the Google Map metaphor, once you know where you’re heading

Your dream reality - of everything perfected

Now let’s work backwards

If you knew all of your goals were achievable and that it would all be completely in the time frame you set yourself

How would your present self act now

What type of behaviour would you adopt?

Would you still doomscroll for 4 hours?

Would you still act without a care in the world or tomorrow?

Or would you act with a sense of purpose and urgency?

How would you feel?

Would you still be anxious about whether you will hit your goal? (Because if you follow this system, it will be inevitable that you will hit your goals GUARANTEED)

Or would you be calmed and relaxed knowing that your goals are achievable?

Essentially, this is to construct a mental model from the BEST VERSION of yourself to the present self

You are quite LITERALLY transforming into that ideal/best version of yourself, so then you can operate from that standpoint instead of your present self, because if you do the same thing as you’re doing now

You will get the same results as now

“Insanity is repeating the same thing and expecting different results” - Albert Einstein

Chapter 4 - Creating the plan

Imagine if you could create a plan that makes it IMPOSSIBLE for you NOT to succeed

That sounds like a crazy promise, right

But hear me out…

Imagine your goal is to get 6-pack abs

But if we reverse engineer a system to make that goal impossible for you NOT to SUCCEED

It would go

• Train at the gym 3-4 times a week
• Progressively overload
• Eat healthy

On a long enough time frame

If you do that continuously, it will be physically impossible for you not to succeed.

Now for this part, I want you to forget the end goal

Forget the results

Now we will be focusing on the INPUT

What action can you take towards your goal that would make it impossible for you not to succeed

What type of input can you work towards the goal?

The goal here is not to make it massive (run 5km per day if you haven’t run a day in your life and you want to run a half-marathon)

The point here is to build the consistency muscle

Stack your daily wins

So then, once you win enough days, you’ll win the week, and once you win enough weeks, you will win the year

We already established our MACRO viewpoint of where we want to be in life

Of who we want to become

But now this step is to drill down into the micro aspect

What can you do daily to make it impossible for you not to succeed

And you already know all the right things to do

The point is, how can you make sure to complete it every day

Extra tip: employ principles from Atomic Habits to make your habit stick: make it easy, make it obvious, make it satisfying, and make it attractive.

Build out a daily schedule that is Reasonable but doable for you to stick to

Time table or to-do list

Tracked by the hour or tracked by the day as a whole

This is for you to experiment and see what works best for you.

Experiment on yourself

Again, you know yourself best.

Chapter 5 - Driving to the destination

(The Most Important Part)

Unfortunately, there is no substitute for this

You already have all the information

You have the plan

Now the only missing piece of the puzzle
Is ACTUALLY driving the DAMN car to the location

Imagine saying to your friends that you will meet them at McDonald's

But you spend all the time worrying about what the most OPTIMAL route to save on gas is

How many right/left turns to take that optimizes xyz

Imagine how ridiculous that sounds

The same way you do the same to your goals

You stand there…

Waiting for the perfect moment…

And it never hits.

Another year goes by…

Same spot.

Wishing for change.

But no matter how motivated I get you to feel from this document

You still have to do the work

Take the action

Every. Single. Day

And that will drive your success

You got this!

I believe in you :)

-JP Zhou

follow @jpzhouoffical on all platforms if you find this useful

Have a beautiful day