Step-wise approach to achieving big in anything

As a behavior science student, I love messy problems. I love problems that are far beyond my control. Problems that are so dynamic and so unpredictable. That is exactly why i am fascinated by the study of human performance.

As human beings we are amazingly greedy. We all want to look awesome, we all want great amount of wealth, we all want fantastic relationships in our inner and outer circles, we all want to have an exemplary careers, we all want to be more interesting & exciting. This list of human desires is endless. This is why I am not a big fan of goals. All our goals are the similar at the end of the day. So do goals really matter? If not what else matters?

What matters is do we really live that big life we all desire so badly? The answer to that question always puzzled me.

90% of human beings are not happy/satisfied/fulfilled with the lives they live. They feel they dream a big life but in reality live a small life. Isn't that interesting?

Digging deep into this problem, I found an insight around why we don't live a big life though we desire it so badly. Our cognitive bias gets in the way of making choices and decisions. As a result our behaviors are skewed and screwed. We can see this at play in our finanical decisions, health decisions, relationship decisions, productivity related decisions and everything in between.

This problem was exciting for me as a designer. I have been dabbling with the area of human performance for almost a decade now.

Here is my distilled step-by-step playbook to acheive anything big in life:

Step 1:
Set your intent/desire (goals if you want to call it that way).
Example: I want to achieve financial freedom. 10cr available at my disposal will make me feel contentded.

Step 2:
Grapple the first principles underlying the specific goal.
Example: Save more aka spend less, earn more and invest wisely. All compounding to work.

Step 3:
Create a principle driven systems
Example: 3 automatic bank accounts. One for income, one for spending and other for investing etc. Whatever your system design is.

Step 4:
Keep the systems running using routines
Example: Every month when my paycheck comes, on the same day, I will take 20% and push it for investing (SIP or Stocks or whatever). Automatic is even better. I will push the monthly budget into Spend account. I will track my spends every week etc.

Step 5:
Execute the routines on a daily, weekly and monthly basis
Example: Don't think. Just execute all the routines you have planned in Step 4.

Step 6:
Track your routines and measure the outputs using metrics.
Example: Spent 15% less. Yearly bonus added 26% more to investments etc.

Step 7:
Track your outcomes/results and how you feel about it.
Example: I have saved 14% more this year, spent 43% less on eating out & shopping etc. I feel so proud of myself.

Do the same steps for anything you want to accomplish. Your dilegence in keeping up the steps will help you achieve big.

I have designed elaborate systems and routines for myself for every aspect of life and that is how DesignU started. After following it for 5 years, I can confidently say the steps work for anything you want to acheive over a period of time: health, wealth, relationships, learning, community, content and anything you put your finger on. This is the power of designing your life instead of living an accidental one.

🥂 to big life!