#19: Why you're not achieving your goals

Happy Friday 🎉 I binge-watched Queen Charlotte in a day and all of a sudden saying I have a green thumb in reference to my expert gardening skills has taken on a whole new meaning…

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Okay, let’s get into it 🚀

💡 1 thing I've learned this week

Make ridiculously easy goals

Having trouble achieving your goals?

It’s because your goals are too big.

Don’t get me wrong, big goals are great—shoot for the stars and whatnot.

But when doing the actual work, break down the goal(s) into tiny bits. Tiny Ridiculously Easy Goals (REGs).

Big audacious goals are easy to fail. And failing to achieve your goals hurts your confidence and causes procrastination.

If you break down your big goal into smaller REGs, achieving the smaller goals will build your confidence and the momentum you need to achieve the bigger goal over time.

As a budding writer, writing daily was critical, so I set an ambitious goal of writing 1000 words a day.

But I failed to achieve that goal.

I felt sad every time I looked at the unchecked task on my daily to-do list.

Soon, I wasn’t writing at all.

So, I made my goal easier—just write.

An observation. A few sentences on something I observed in my day. Something that made me laugh. Something that pissed me off. Anything.

The goal was now ridiculously easy.

And the best part is while writing those ridiculously easy things, I often hit the 1000-word mark in the process.

Crumbs make a loaf. Pushups make a workout. Words make novels.

I learned the term Ridiculously Easy Goals from Tim White.

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🙏🏾 1 thing I'm grateful for

Writing.

This week I wrote a lot. I wrote more than I have in a long time, and once I did, I remembered why I love writing.

I laughed as I typed some—what I think will be—[good] jokes. I smiled to myself like an idiot in the honeymoon phase of a ripe romance: phone plastered to the now hot ear, belly pressed against the rumpled sheets on an unmade bed; legs swinging back and forth in the air; not a care in the world.

I can’t wait for you to read [some of] what I wrote.

🚀 Pro-tip

Making you a PowerPoint savant in 3,2,1…

While making this week’s YouTube video, I realized I’ve avoided making an instructional video on PowerPoint despite the numerous requests I’ve gotten.

But why?

Well, first—because people asked. They asked and subconsciously I was like: “Don’t tell me what to do, shya!”

Okay, not really.

The main reason is I rarely use PowerPoint anymore because presentations are much easier to create these days.

There are tons of templates and AI tools that render it borderline self-flagellation to build presentations from scratch.

But I’ll throw you a bone.

Here are a few shortcuts that’ll make you more productive in PowerPoint:

Note: If you use a Mac, replace Ctrl with Command (⌘).

Keyboard shortcuts are fun once you get the hang of them. Plus, they’ll have you feeling—and looking—like a magician at work.

🧩 Games

Brain teaser

Brought to you by Braingle.

Can you decipher the following common phrase?

T M C
A U O
H S M
W T E

Hint: Rebus brain teasers use words or letters in interesting orientations to represent common phrases.

Answer below

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Have a great weekend,

— Shem

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