In this video, we're going to talk about five pretty easy, evidence-based things you can do to massively increase the chances that you're actually going to achieve your goals. Now, obviously, when it comes to actually setting and achieving goals, generally the thing that separates people who do achieve their goals from the people who don't achieve their goals is the action that they're actually putting into them. But if you look at the science, there are actually these five relatively straightforward things you can do to stack the deck in your favor. Call them hacks, call them habits. They don't take very long, but they will massively boost your odds of actually achieving the goals. And so, if you are already doing all five of these things, fantastic, you are winning. And if you're not doing some or any of these five things, then you've got some very easy wins that you can apply pretty much as soon as you finish watching this video. And by the way, if you are new here, hello, my name is Ali. I'm a doctor turned entrepreneur and author. And since 2017, I've been making videos on this channel, which are all about the books, the ideas, the strategies and tools that can help us live more intentionally, be more productive and generally build a life that we truly love. I also spent ages researching and writing this book, Feel Good Productivity, which is a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller. And this dives deep into how we can get stuff done without burning out or sacrificing the things that matter most. And it's available in paperback, hardback, Kindle, Audible, basically everywhere books are sold and has also been translated into 35 languages. And it's got a couple thousand five star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. So if that sounds interesting, it'll be linked down below if you want to check it out. All right, so let's start with point number one. Now here I want to play you this clip from a guy called Jim Rohn. Now Jim Rohn was a multi-millionaire success coach guy based in the US. But at age 25, he was completely broke, but he managed to get mentored by this business tycoon guy called Mr. Shoaff. And here he is talking about an interesting encounter with Mr. Shoaff that completely changed his life. Not long after I met Mr. Shoaff, we're having breakfast one morning, so Mr. Shoaff said, Mr. Rohn, now that we've gotten acquainted, we know each other fairly well, he said, maybe one of the best ways I can help you, he said, let me see your current list of goals. Let's go over them and talk about it. And I said what? I don't have a list. He said, well, Mr. Rohn, if you don't have a list of your goals, he said, I can guess your bank balance within a few hundred dollars. Which he did. And that got my attention. I said, you mean my bank balance would change if I had a list of goals? He said, drastically. So that day I became a student of setting goals. And I've used it to dynamically affect my life. I've taught it to some of my business colleagues. We use it to do business around the world. Setting goals. Hmm, so this is interesting. Write down your list of goals. I'm curious, do you have a list of goals written down somewhere? Could you bring them up if someone asked you to see them? But you might be thinking, this seems a bit too good to be true. This is just some like personal development guru. It's like, it surely can't be that basic as just writing down your list of goals. Do we have any actual science or research to back this up? And to that, I would like to draw your attention to this study from the Dominican University. And these guys were basically testing, does writing down your goals compared to not writing them down change your chances of achieving said goals. So on the Y axis, we've got average goal achievement, and then we've got two groups. One group did not write down their goals, and the other group wrote down their goals. This was the average goal achievement for the group that set goals but did not write them down. And this was the average goal achievement for the group that set goals and did write them down. The researchers found that if you write down your goals, you're around 42% more likely to actually achieve them. Now, I don't know about you, but if I could improve by 42% the probability of me actually achieving the goals I've set for myself simply by writing them down, I would probably do that because it doesn't take that long to write down your goals. And that is why our evidence-based strategy number one for achieving your goals is to simply write them down. Now, it doesn't really matter what format you write them down in. I personally have a Google Doc that I I've named Goalkeeper, and I've been doing this for the last couple of years. And I personally like setting quarterly goals rather than annual goals. I refer to my quarterly goals as my quarterly quests, and each quarter, so every three months, I like to set around three or four of them. I found that if I set any more than four, I don't end up making progress on any of them. And so three or four seems to be like a reasonable number. Right, so now we come to insanely simple strategy for actually achieving your goals, number two. Now here, it is worth us understanding a little bit of the brain called the reticular activating system. Now, the RAS is basically a bundle of nerves at the base of your brain stem that acts as a filter and it determines what information your brain pays attention to. Obviously, in day-to-day life, there are millions upon millions of various sensory inputs that your brain could pay attention to. So how does it know which ones to focus on? Well, that's where the reticular activating system comes in. Generally, based on your goals and priorities, the brain filters out stuff that is irrelevant to those goals and priorities and helps focus your attention on the stuff that actually matters to you. The classic example of this is let's say you're buying a car and you're like, man, I really want to get a Fiat 500. All of a sudden, by the fact that you've set the intention to buy potentially a Fiat 500, you will suddenly start seeing Fiat 500s literally everywhere you look. And that is not because all of a sudden when you decided to set the goal of buying a Fiat 500, suddenly everyone else also bought Fiat 500s. It's because of your reticular activating system. Because you have set this as a goal for yourself, your brain is more likely to notice all of the Fiat 500s that are floating around the place. And so strategy number two for drastically improving our chances of actually achieving our goals is to actually look at those goals that you've written down every single week, if not every single day. Mistake number one that people make is that they don't set goals in the first place, but you're not going to make that mistake because you're watching this video. Mistake number two is that if they do set goals, they don't write them down. And mistake number three is that for so many of us, we set goals at the start of the year, and then we never look at them ever again. And so the idea behind strategy number two is that we can harness the reticular activating system by actually looking at our goals every single day or every single week. I personally review mine once a week as part of my weekly resets. I've got a little journaling prompt that says, what were my quarterly quests and how are they going? And that means every single week when I do my weekly resets, it just reminds me to check up on my quarterly goals. Each week, I also set three main priorities for the week, and then as part of my daily morning manifesto is what I call it, morning manifesto journaling practice, I ask myself a simple question, which is, what were our weekly priorities and how are they going? I like to refer to it as our rather than my because it sort of feels like I'm harnessing all parts of my brain. What were our weekly priorities and how are they going? So every single week, I'm reviewing my quarterly goals, and every single day, I'm reviewing my weekly priorities. This does not take very much time at all. This is like a 10-second job at most, but it's just that little job that the brain needs to be like, oh yeah, I did intend to sign up for that squash club, or, oh yeah, I did intend to make progress on that particular work task. And sometimes it's just so easy to forget those things otherwise, because we're so caught up in the day-to-day of what's happening in the calendar and what's happening in work and in life. But by literally spending 10 seconds every week looking back at your list of written goals or priorities, that alone is such a needle-moving insight that I'm amazed that more people don't do it. And I, you know, to be honest, this video is advice for myself because I also sometimes fall off. I know all the studies, I've read did a ton of research for my book talking about all this stuff, and still I forget sometimes to do my weekly reset where I look at my goals. And sometimes a couple of weeks pass where I haven't looked at my list of goals. And I'm like, damn, I've actually been less consistent with the goals that I set because I simply forgot to look at them. Oh, by the way, if one of your dreams or goals is to potentially grow an audience or to generate consistent revenue or turn whatever expertise you have into a full-time gig, you should definitely check out The Future of Newsletters report from HubSpot who are very kindly sponsoring this video. And you can download this report completely for free using the link in the video description. Now, having an email list and a newsletter is one of the most underrated, I guess, social media platforms out there, in that it's sort of like a social media platform, but it's also sort of not. It is in the sense that you can directly connect with your audience, but it's not in the sense that you actually own the platform of your newsletter rather than building the house on borrowed land, as it were. And this free report is packed with tips and insights to help you create and improve your own newsletter, whether you're a business owner or a content creator. I've personally had my own email newsletter since April 2018. So it's been over six and a half years and I've been sending it every single week. And one section I really love from the report is that it talked about a bunch of different ways that you can generate recurring revenue through subscriptions and a bunch of actionable ideas along that vein. This resource is made completely for free by HubSpot, who are today's video sponsors. So thank you very much for them for making this video possible and do check out the free report in the video description. All right, let's move on to strategy number three, and here we can cite this meta-analysis of, I think, 138 studies that covered nearly 20,000 participants. And the authors of the meta-analysis found that one simple strategy that you can use to improve your odds of goal attainment is simply to monitor your progress regularly. In my case, for example, in my weekly reset thing, I ask myself, what were my quarterly quests and how are they going? The and how are they going bit encourages me to actually monitor progress. Generally, I give it red, yellow, or green, or I just say kind of on track or off track. Just even that is enough for me to monitor the progress that I'm making towards my goals. Every single day, when I make the time to do my morning manifesto and I ask myself, what were our priorities for the week and how are they going? Again, I'm monitoring progress. I defined the most important priorities at the start of the week, and now I'm just checking in with myself to see how am I actually doing and achieving them. The other way that I personally like to do this monitoring progress thing, it's also fairly simple. I use an app, Things 3 for my to-do list. And within Things 3, I have the various projects that I'm working on. So I've got, you can ignore Irem and Angus. This is sort of two of my team members that I delegate stuff to. So that is a project because delegation and stuff. But I basically split up my projects into work and life. And you can see I've got these four different projects under work, company relocation, LifeOS, mastermind, and learn AI agents. And I've got get food on autopilot because I'm sorting out like some sort of food situation for my life. These are a couple of the projects that I'm actively working on. And about once a week when I update my projects list, I will just put a little emoji of like yellow or green. Green is it is on track. Yellow is that it's sort of a bit off track, but there's a plan to get it back on track. And if it's red, it's like off track without a plan. You can also monitor your progress in any which way you like. Back when I was writing my book, Feel Good Productivity, I monitored progress in terms of word counts for specific chapters because that's like an easy way to make progress more visible. It also just makes it feel better as you're achieving a goal, if you're able to monitor the progress, sort of like the leveling up bar in a video game. As you're killing the monsters and doing the quests, you're leveling up, your experience meter is filling, and there's something very satisfying about that. But what the evidence suggests is that people who just take a small amount of time to regularly monitor the progress of their goals are significantly more likely to actually achieve them. And that is why that is point number three, monitor your progress. Again, super easy, super simple, doesn't take very long. If you are not monitoring the progress of your goals, you are leaving a lot of free kind of goal attainment points on the table and you just might as well start doing it because why not? All right, let's move on to fairly simple strategy number four. And this comes from a psychologist called Gabriele Oettingen. And it's a strategy called mental contrasting. Now, mental contrasting is the idea where you basically visualize something that you want in the future, but it's not just about visualizing the outcome. We find that people who spend too long visualizing having already achieved their goals, actually in some in some studies are less likely to achieve those goals. But if you visualize achieving your goals and you also contrast it with the obstacles that you might encounter along the way, that is mental contrasting and that really seems to boost people's goal attainment. And so this psychologist, Gabriele Oettingen, came up with a fairly simple technique called the WOOP method, which stands for wish, outcome, obstacle, and plan. Now, the wish and the outcome is where you are basically setting the goal. There are all sorts of different ways for goal setting. You can use the GPS system, which is my personal favorite. You can think in terms of facts, feelings, and functionality. You can think in terms of wish and outcome, like what is the thing that you wish for and what is the outcome that would that would happen as a result of you achieving that goal. But then the key bit of the WOOP method is this obstacle and plan. You are visualizing the obstacles that might stand in your path. Let's say, you know, I've set the goal of, I don't know, writing my next book by halfway through next year. All right, cool. What are the obstacles that could get in my path? Well, one obstacle is I might not make time for it. Another obstacle is I might run out of ideas. Another obstacle is I might feel demotivated when I sit down to try and write. And then the final component of the WOOP method is plan. What is my plan for addressing those obstacles? So I might say, okay, cool, I'm going to put in three hours on my calendar block every single morning to focus on writing. I might do a few brainstorming sessions with my team to avoid the problem of running out of ideas. And I might use an app that me and my team have built called VoicePal to make writing more fun because then I can write the book while talking rather than while simply typing on computer. And so strategy number four that we have here is visualize obstacles and to make a plan. Again, doesn't take very long to do. Each time you set a goal, you can just spend literally three minutes thinking to yourself, okay, cool, wish outcome, WO, obstacle plan, what are the obstacles that could get in my way and what's my plan for overcoming those obstacles? And again, according to the research, this will drastically improve your odds of actually achieving the goal. And then finally, we come to fairly easy strategy number five, and that is to tie them to an identity. Now, the classic example of this is that there was a study where they looked at, um, voting. So for some of the people in the study, they asked, will you vote in this election? And for the other half, they asked, will you be a voter in this election? And they found that the people who were asked the question of will you be a voter were way more likely to vote than the people who were simply asked, will you vote? Will you vote is an action. Will you be a voter is an identity. So the key thing here is wherever possible, when you've got your goals, you want to just sort of spend an extra 20 seconds to tie them to an identity. For example, one of my goals is to reduce my visceral abdominal tissue because, you know, genetics and stuff and I want to live longer and healthier and I've been reading Outlive by Peter Attia. Now, setting the goal of improving my bench press or reducing my visceral adipose tissue or all that's all that kind of stuff is all well and good. But if I were to take the 20 seconds to tie them to an identity of I am a healthy person, that will make it more likely that I'll actually achieve the goals and I'll actually stick with it when the going gets tough because I've resonated with that identity. Similarly, I found when I was working on my YouTube channel, when I gave myself permission to lean into the identity of I am a YouTuber, that was what allowed me to stay consistent with making YouTube videos in the tough times. For ages, I did not identify with the identity of being an author or being a writer because I had all sorts of imposter syndrome around it. Who am I to write a book? Any of this sort of stuff. But when I lent into that identity of being an author, you know, I started this video, I'm a doctor turned entrepreneur and author. Leaning into the identity of being an author, you know, what does an author do? An author writes. What does a writer do? A writer writes. That makes it a lot easier in the mornings when I'm figuring out what I want to do with my day, what I want to do with my week. Oh yeah, I'm a writer. I guess I should do some writing. And these, and this is often in line with the goals that I have for myself. So the question would be, for whatever goals that you're setting for yourself, how can you tie them to an identity? Because, you know, there's a quote that I really like from Tony Robbins, which is that the strongest force in human personality is the need to stay consistent in how we define ourselves. If you label, if you define yourself as a procrastinator, you actually will stay consistent with that. If you define yourself as a YouTuber, you're more likely to stay consistent with that. If you can get over the imposter syndrome and define yourself as a high performer or as an entrepreneur, you're more likely to do the sorts of things that high performers or entrepreneurs or healthy people or whatever the thing might be. You're more likely to actually do those things. Therefore, you are more likely to achieve your goals in that domain. Now, if you incorporate all these five things, which I hope you do, because they're super easy to do and you might as well and they're evidence-based and they work. If you incorporate these five things, there is still one mistake that you might run into, which is the idea of setting too many goals. And here I want to link you to that video, which is my summary of Cal Newport's new book, Slow Productivity. And it makes a really strong case for doing less but better. And doing it in a way that doesn't foster burnout. So if you haven't yet read Slow Productivity by Cal Newport, you can check out that video over there where I summarize the kind of the key learnings from the book. And I hope you find that useful. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you later. Bye bye.
A man sits at a light wood desk, looking directly at the camera while folding a small white piece of paper.
"In this video, we're going to talk about five pretty easy, evidence-based things you can do to massively"
Setting: home office/studio — Soft, diffused frontal lighting, with a cool blue/teal accent light illuminating the wall behind him.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, leaning slightly forward, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — serious, focused expression
The man continues speaking to the camera, gesturing with his hands as he talks about achieving goals.
"increase the chances that you're actually going to achieve your goals."
Setting: home office/studio — Frontal lighting on the man, with a strong cyan backlight.
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• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — expressive, speaking
Text: "5 pretty easy Evidence based things you can do to achieve your 2025 Goals"
A montage of quick cuts shows the man in different settings: writing in a notebook, typing on a laptop in a cafe.
"Now obviously, when it comes to actually setting and achieving goals, generally the thing that separates people who do achieve their goals from the people who don't achieve their goals is"
Setting: office, cafe — Bright, natural, or ambient indoor lighting.
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• sitting, leaning over a desk/table, wearing white button-up shirt, then a pink hoodie and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — focused, concentrating
A split-screen shows two versions of the man at the cafe table. The left side is focused on his laptop, while the right side looks up and gestures expansively.
"the action that they're actually putting into them."
Setting: cafe — Artificial, colored lighting to differentiate the two sides.
People (1):
• sitting at a table, wearing pink hoodie and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — Left: focused. Right: animated, speaking.
A hand places five yellow sticky notes on a wooden desk. Numbers 1 through 5 are written on them one by one.
"But if you look at the science, there are actually these five relatively straightforward things you can do to stack the deck in your favor."
Setting: desk — Bright, even lighting from above.
The man is back at his home office desk, gesturing with both hands as he speaks enthusiastically to the camera.
"Call them hacks, call them habits. They don't take very long, but they will massively boost your odds of actually achieving the goals."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — animated, smiling, speaking
Text: "Hacks / Habits"
A montage shows the man writing in a journal, using a laptop with a calendar app open, teaching in front of a whiteboard, and walking in a park while talking.
"And if you're not doing some or any of these five things, then you've got some very easy wins that you can apply pretty much as soon as you finish watching this video."
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• sitting, standing, walking, wearing black/grey t-shirt, black t-shirt, white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — focused, speaking, concentrating
The man introduces himself, smiling and gesturing with open hands. His social media handle appears at the bottom of the screen.
"And by the way, if you are new here, hello, my name is Ali. I'm a doctor turned entrepreneur and author."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — smiling, friendly
Text: "@aliabdaal"
A montage of video clips is shown: the man in hospital scrubs, giving a presentation, and holding his book. This transitions to a screenshot of his YouTube channel page.
"And since 2017, I've been making videos on this channel, which are all about the books, the ideas, the strategies and tools that can help us live more intentionally, be more productive and generally build a life that we truly love."
Setting: various — various indoor lighting
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• walking, standing, sitting, wearing blue scrubs, grey t-shirt, light green t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — serious, speaking, smiling
Text: "Ali Abdaal", "6.01M subscribers"
The camera zooms in on a stack of books titled "Feel Good Productivity" on a table in a bookstore. In the background, the man is sitting and reading.
"I also spent ages researching and writing this book, Feel Good Productivity, which is a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller."
Setting: bookstore — Warm, ambient indoor lighting.
People (1):
• sitting at a table, reading, wearing light green t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — concentrating, looking down at a book
Text: "Ali Abdaal Feel Good Productivity"
The man walks through the bookstore, reading his book as he moves between shelves.
"And this dives deep into how we can get stuff done without burning out or sacrificing the things that matter most."
Setting: bookstore — Warm, ambient indoor lighting.
People (1):
• walking and reading, wearing light green t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — focused on the book
The man is back in his home office, listing the formats his book is available in. A list of languages the book has been translated into appears on a white screen.
"And it's available in paperback, hardback, Kindle, Audible, basically everywhere books are sold and has also been translated into 35 languages."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking directly to the camera
Text: "Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Indonesian, Malayalam, Malay, Arabic, Italian, Hindi, Spanish, Lithuanian, Hebrew, Chinese Complex, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Japanese, Chinese Simplified, French, Brazilian Portuguese, Slovene, Russian, Polish, Czech, Macedonian, Portuguese, Turkish, German, Swedish, Slovak, Romanian, Dutch"
A split-screen shows the book cover on the left and a screenshot of the Amazon review page on the right.
"And it's got a couple thousand five star reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. So if that sounds interesting, it'll be linked down below if you want to check it out."
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You", "4.6 stars, 2,114 ratings", "Editors' pick, Best Nonfiction"
An overhead shot of the desk shows five blank yellow sticky notes arranged in a pattern.
"All right, so let's start with point number one."
Setting: desk — Bright, even lighting from above.
A video clip of an older man in a suit begins to play. He is smiling and gesturing.
"Now here I want to play you this clip from a guy called Jim Rohn."
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• standing, speaking, wearing dark grey suit jacket, white collared shirt and not visible, short, white, neatly combed hair — smiling, expressive
Text: "Jim Rohn", "Entrepreneur, Author"
Ali Abdaal is back in his studio, explaining the backstory of Jim Rohn.
"But at age 25, he was completely broke, but he managed to get mentored by this business tycoon guy called Mr. Shoaff."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — expressive, telling a story
The clip of Jim Rohn continues. He is standing at a lectern on a stage, addressing an audience.
"Not long after I met Mr. Shoaff, we're having breakfast one morning, so Mr. Shoaff said, Mr. Rohn, now that we've gotten acquainted,"
Setting: stage — Stage lighting.
People (1):
• standing behind a lectern, wearing dark grey suit jacket, white collared shirt and dark grey trousers, short, white hair — speaking to audience
Text: "we're having breakfast one morning so Mr. Shoaff said..."
Close-up on Jim Rohn at the lectern. He looks down as if addressing someone directly.
"he said, let me see your current list of goals. Let's go over them and talk about it."
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• standing at lectern, wearing dark grey suit jacket, white collared shirt and not visible, short, white hair — serious, speaking
Text: "let me see your current list of goals."
The camera cuts to a woman in the audience who looks surprised and then smiles. It then cuts back to Jim Rohn on stage.
"And I said what? I don't have a list. He said, well, Mr. Rohn, if you don't have a list of your goals, he said, I can guess your bank balance within a few hundred dollars."
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People (1):
• sitting in the audience, wearing red and black top and not visible, short, curly, reddish-brown hair — surprised, then smiling
Text: "I don't have a list."
Jim Rohn continues his speech, looking directly at the audience with a serious expression.
"I said, you mean my bank balance would change if I had a list of goals? He said, drastically."
Setting: stage — Stage lighting.
People (1):
• standing at lectern, wearing dark grey suit jacket, white collared shirt and not visible, short, white hair — serious, emphatic
Text: "He said, drastically."
Jim Rohn gestures with his hands, concluding his point about setting goals.
"I've taught it to some of my business colleagues. We use it to do business around the world. Setting goals."
Setting: stage — Stage lighting.
People (1):
• standing at lectern, wearing dark grey suit jacket, white collared shirt and not visible, short, white hair — confident, speaking
Text: "Setting goals."
Ali Abdaal reacts to the clip, clasping his hands together and leaning forward on his desk, posing a question to the audience.
"Hmm, so this is interesting. Write down your list of goals. I'm curious, do you have a list of goals written down somewhere?"
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• sitting, leaning forward, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — thoughtful, engaging
Ali raises his hands in a gesture of skepticism while talking, questioning the simplicity of the advice.
"But you might be thinking, this seems a bit too good to be true. This is just some like personal development guru. It's like, it surely can't be that basic as just writing down your list of goals."
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People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — questioning expression
Ali gestures with his right hand, emphasizing his question about scientific evidence.
"Do we have any actual science or research to back this up?"
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• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — serious, inquisitive
A white screen appears with black text detailing a university study.
"And to that, I would like to draw your attention to this study from the Dominican University."
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA", "The Impact of Commitment, Accountability, and Written Goals on Goal Achievement", "Gail Matthews", "Department of Psychology, Dominican University of California"
A screenshot of the study's abstract is shown, with a specific sentence highlighted in yellow.
"And these guys were basically testing, does writing down your goals compared to not writing them down change your chances of achieving said goals."
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "Abstract (shortened)", "Despite this, its popularity in business circles inspired my research on how goal achievement is impacted by writing goals, committing to actions, and accountability."
An animated bar chart is being drawn on a white background. An L-shaped axis appears, followed by labels for the Y and X axes.
"So on the Y axis, we've got average goal achievement, and then we've got two groups. One group did not write down their goals, and the other group wrote down their goals."
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Text: "Average Goal Achievement", "Unwritten Goals", "Written Goals"
A red bar appears on the animated chart under the 'Unwritten Goals' label, rising to a value of 4.28.
"This was the average goal achievement for the group that set goals but did not write them down."
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Text: "4.28"
A green bar, taller than the red one, appears on the animated chart under the 'Written Goals' label, rising to a value of 6.08.
"And this was the average goal achievement for the group that set goals and did write them down."
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Text: "6.08"
Ali is back at his desk, summarizing the findings of the study. Large text appears on screen to emphasize the key statistic.
"The researchers found that if you write down your goals, you're around 42% more likely to actually achieve them."
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People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — serious, informative
Text: "If you write down your goals, you're ~42% more likely to achieve them."
Ali speaks directly to the camera, making a logical appeal based on the statistic just presented.
"Now, I don't know about you, but if I could improve by 42% the probability of me actually achieving the goals I've set for myself simply by writing them down, I would probably do that because it doesn't take that long to write down your goals."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — earnest, speaking
An overhead shot shows a hand writing 'WRITE THEM DOWN' on the first yellow sticky note.
"And that is why our evidence-based strategy number one for achieving your goals is to simply write them down."
Setting: desk — Bright, even lighting from above.
People (1):
• writing at a desk, wearing not visible and not visible, not visible hair — not visible
Ali explains his personal system while a screenshot of his 'Goalkeeper' Google Doc appears on screen.
"Now, it doesn't really matter what format you write them down in. I personally have a Google Doc that I I've named Goalkeeper, and I've been doing this for the last couple of years."
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "Goalkeeper - Ali Abdaal (2024)", "2024 Goals", "1. Health: Get into the best shape of my life"
Ali is back at his desk, explaining his preference for quarterly goals. The text 'Quarterly Quests' appears on screen.
"And I personally like setting quarterly goals rather than annual goals. I refer to my quarterly goals as my quarterly quests,"
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking, explaining
Text: "Quarterly Quests"
Overhead shot of the desk. A hand writes a number '2' on the second sticky note.
"Right, so now we come to insanely simple strategy for actually achieving your goals, number two."
Setting: desk — Bright, even lighting from above.
An animation of a human head in profile with a glowing blue brain inside appears. Text fades in.
"Now here, it is worth us understanding a little bit of the brain called the reticular activating system."
Setting: N/A — The brain graphic is the primary light source.
Text: "Reticular Activating System (RAS)"
The brain animation rotates to a back view, and the brain stem area at the base glows red to highlight it.
"Now, the RAS is basically a bundle of nerves at the base of your brain stem that acts as a filter and it determines what information your brain pays attention to."
Setting: N/A — The brain graphic is the primary light source.
Text: "Determines what information your brain pays attention to"
Stock footage shows a small white Fiat 500 parked on a country road. A man pops up from behind the car, waving his arms.
"The classic example of this is let's say you're buying a car and you're like, man, I really want to get a Fiat 500."
Setting: country road — Overcast, natural daylight.
People (1):
• popping up from behind a car, wearing dark jacket and not visible, short, dark hair — smiling
Text: "Footage: Freddie Dobbs"
The man from the previous clip is now sitting inside a car dealership, talking to the camera. A white Fiat 500 is visible through the window behind him.
"All of a sudden, by the fact that you've set the intention to buy potentially a Fiat 500, you will suddenly start seeing Fiat 500s literally everywhere you look."
Setting: car dealership — Bright, indoor lighting.
People (1):
• sitting at a table, wearing dark jacket over a shirt and not visible, short, dark hair — speaking, expressive
Text: "Footage: Freddie Dobbs"
Ali is back at his desk, explaining the Reticular Activating System using the car example.
"And that is not because all of a sudden when you decided to set the goal of buying a Fiat 500, suddenly everyone else also bought Fiat 500s. It's because of your reticular activating system."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking, explaining a concept
An overhead shot shows a hand writing 'LOOK AT THEM EVERY WEEK' on the second yellow sticky note.
"And so strategy number two for drastically improving our chances of actually achieving our goals is to actually look at those goals that you've written down every single week, if not every single day."
Setting: desk — Bright, even lighting from above.
People (1):
• writing at a desk, wearing not visible and not visible, not visible hair — not visible
Ali explains common mistakes related to goal setting. An animated graphic appears showing 'Mistake 1: Not setting goals'.
"Mistake number one that people make is that they don't set goals in the first place, but you're not going to make that mistake because you're watching this video."
Setting: N/A — N/A
People (1):
• sitting, wearing white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking
Text: "Mistake 1", "Not setting goals"
The animated graphic expands to show three common mistakes in a list format.
"Mistake number two is that if they do set goals, they don't write them down. And mistake number three is that for so many of us, we set goals at the start of the year, and then we never look at them ever again."
Setting: N/A — N/A
People (1):
• sitting, wearing white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking
Text: "Mistake 1: Not setting goals", "Mistake 2: Not writing the goals", "Mistake 3: Never looking at the goals"
Ali explains his weekly reset process. Text appears on screen to illustrate his journaling prompt.
"I personally review mine once a week as part of my weekly resets. I've got a little journaling prompt that says, what were my quarterly quests and how are they going?"
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "Weekly Reset", "What were my quarterly quests and how are they going?"
Ali describes his daily journaling practice, which he calls his 'Morning Manifesto'.
"Each week, I also set three main priorities for the week, and then as part of my daily morning manifesto is what I call it, morning manifesto journaling practice, I ask myself a simple question, which is,"
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking, explaining
Text: "Morning Manifesto"
Ali emphasizes how little time his review process takes, snapping his fingers for effect.
"This does not take very much time at all. This is like a 10-second job at most, but it's just that little job that the brain needs to be like, oh yeah, I did intend to sign up for that squash club,"
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — animated, speaking
Ali admits that even he sometimes forgets to follow his own advice, gesturing towards the book on his desk.
"I know all the studies, I've read did a ton of research for my book talking about all this stuff, and still I forget sometimes to do my weekly reset where I look at my goals."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — confessional, speaking honestly
The lighting in the room changes to a darker, more dramatic blue and purple hue as Ali begins a sponsor segment.
"Oh, by the way, if one of your dreams or goals is to potentially grow an audience or to generate consistent revenue or turn whatever expertise you have into a full-time gig,"
Setting: home office/studio — Dramatic, colored accent lighting.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking to camera
A screenshot of a webpage titled 'The Future of Newsletters' is shown. The HubSpot logo appears in the corner.
"you should definitely check out The Future of Newsletters report from HubSpot who are very kindly sponsoring this video."
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "The Future of Newsletters: How to Build a Media Empire [Report + Podcast]", "HubSpot"
Ali is back at his desk, with the dramatic blue lighting, explaining the value of newsletters.
"Now, having an email list and a newsletter is one of the most underrated, I guess, social media platforms out there, in that it's sort of like a social media platform, but it's also sort of not."
Setting: home office/studio — Dramatic, colored accent lighting.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking, explaining
A carousel of images from the HubSpot report slides across the screen, showing different pages and graphics.
"And this free report is packed with tips and insights to help you create and improve your own newsletter, whether you're a business owner or a content creator."
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "From Zero to 2M+ Subscribers", "The Future of Newsletters"
A screenshot of Ali's newsletter signup page is shown, with a phone mockup displaying the newsletter content.
"I've personally had my own email newsletter since April 2018. So it's been over six and a half years and I've been sending it every single week."
Setting: N/A — N/A
People (1):
• sitting, wearing white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking
Text: "Free Weekly Productivity Insights", "Join over 300,000 friendly readers"
A page from the HubSpot report is shown, detailing newsletter terminology and revenue generation tactics.
"And one section I really love from the report is that it talked about a bunch of different ways that you can generate recurring revenue through subscriptions and a bunch of actionable ideas along that vein."
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "Newsletter Terminology Definitions: A Marketer's Cheat Sheet", "Top revenue generation tactics from respondents"
A white screen appears with text detailing a meta-analysis from the 'Psychological Bulletin'.
"All right, let's move on to strategy number three, and here we can cite this meta-analysis of, I think, 138 studies that covered nearly 20,000 participants."
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "Psychological Bulletin", "Does Monitoring Goal Progress Promote Goal Attainment? Meta-Analysis of Experimental Evidence"
An overhead shot shows a hand writing 'MONITOR YOUR PROGRESS' on the third yellow sticky note.
"is simply to monitor your progress regularly."
Setting: desk — Bright, even lighting from above.
A graphic appears illustrating the weekly reset prompt, with the second half of the question highlighted in yellow.
"In my case, for example, in my weekly reset thing, I ask myself, what were my quarterly quests and how are they going?"
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "Weekly Reset", "What were my quarterly quests and how are they going?"
A montage shows Ali writing in a journal in different settings: at home and in a modern office.
"Every single day, when I make the time to do my morning manifesto and I ask myself, what were our priorities for the week and how are they going?"
Setting: home, office — Bright, natural light.
People (1):
• sitting, leaning over a notebook, wearing white t-shirt, then a grey t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — concentrating, looking down
Text: "What were our priorities for the week? And how are they going?"
Ali holds up his phone, showing the 'Things 3' app. A graphic with the app icon and a screenshot of the app's interface appears.
"The other way that I personally like to do this monitoring progress thing, it's also fairly simple. I use an app, Things 3 for my to-do list."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking, explaining
Text: "Things 3"
Ali continues to demonstrate on his phone, explaining how he uses emojis to track the status of his projects in the Things 3 app.
"And about once a week when I update my projects list, I will just put a little emoji of like yellow or green."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — looking down at his phone, then at the camera
A shot of a person typing on an iPad with a keyboard case in a cafe. The camera zooms in on the word count in the corner of the screen.
"You can also monitor your progress in any which way you like. Back when I was writing my book, Feel Good Productivity, I monitored progress in terms of word counts for specific chapters because that's like an easy way to make progress more visible."
Setting: cafe — Warm, ambient cafe lighting.
People (1):
• sitting at a table, wearing light-colored t-shirt and not visible, not visible hair — not visible
Text: "284 Words"
An overhead shot shows the sticky notes. A hand writes a number '4' on the fourth note. This is followed by a graphic introducing psychologist Gabriele Oettingen.
"All right, let's move on to fairly simple strategy number four. And this comes from a psychologist called Gabriele Oettingen."
Setting: N/A — Bright, studio lighting.
People (1):
• standing, posing for a photo, wearing dark long-sleeved shirt and not visible, brown, shoulder-length hair — laughing, smiling broadly
Text: "Gabriele Oettingen", "Psychologist"
A graphic explains 'Mental Contrasting'.
"Now, mental contrasting is the idea where you basically visualize something that you want in the future, but it's not just about visualizing the outcome."
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "Mental Contrasting", "Visualising achieving a future goal and contrasting it with the problems you might face in the process of achieving it."
Ali explains the WOOP method while sitting at his desk holding a grey mug. The acronym is built up on screen.
"And so this psychologist, Gabriele Oettingen, came up with a fairly simple technique called the WOOP method, which stands for wish, outcome, obstacle, and plan."
Setting: N/A — N/A
People (1):
• sitting, wearing white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking
Text: "Wish", "Outcome", "Obstacle", "Plan"
The graphic on screen highlights the 'Obstacle' and 'Plan' parts of the WOOP acronym.
"But then the key bit of the WOOP method is this obstacle and plan. You are visualizing the obstacles that might stand in your path."
Setting: N/A — N/A
People (1):
• sitting, wearing white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking
Text: "Wish, Outcome, Obstacle, Plan"
A montage shows text appearing over clips: 'No Time' over a clip of Ali in a hospital, 'No Ideas' over a clip of him thinking, and 'No Motivation' over a clip of him looking bored.
"And then the final component of the WOOP method is plan. What is my plan for addressing those obstacles?"
Setting: hospital/office — Fluorescent indoor lighting.
People (1):
• standing, sitting, wearing blue scrubs, light blue gown and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — focused, thinking, bored
Text: "No Time.", "No Ideas.", "No Motivation."
A shot of a team meeting around a large U-shaped table. People are listening to a speaker.
"I might do a few brainstorming sessions with my team to avoid the problem of running out of ideas."
Setting: meeting room — Bright, overhead lighting.
People (1):
• sitting around a table, wearing various casual and business-casual shirts and various, various hair — listening, engaged
Text: "Team Brainstorm."
An overhead shot shows a hand writing 'VISUALISE OBSTACLES (& MAKE A PLAN)' on the fourth yellow sticky note.
"And so strategy number four that we have here is visualize obstacles and to make a plan. Again, doesn't take very long to do."
Setting: desk — Bright, even lighting from above.
Ali is back at his desk, summarizing the WOOP method and emphasizing its simplicity.
"Each time you set a goal, you can just spend literally three minutes thinking to yourself, okay, cool, wish outcome, WO, obstacle plan, what are the obstacles that could get in my way and what's my plan for overcoming those obstacles?"
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking, explaining
An overhead shot shows a hand writing 'TIE THEM TO AN IDENTITY' on the fifth yellow sticky note.
"And then finally, we come to fairly easy strategy number five, and that is to tie them to an identity."
Setting: desk — Bright, even lighting from above.
An animated graphic shows two groups of people. Text appears above each group, posing a different question.
"So for some of the people in the study, they asked, will you vote in this election? And for the other half, they asked, will you be a voter in this election?"
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "Will you vote in this election?", "Will you be a voter in this election?"
The graphic highlights the difference between the two questions, labeling one as an 'action' and the other as an 'identity'.
"Will you vote is an action. Will you be a voter is an identity."
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: "is an action", "is an identity"
Ali gestures to his stomach area while explaining a personal health goal.
"For example, one of my goals is to reduce my visceral abdominal tissue because, you know, genetics and stuff and I want to live longer and healthier and I've been reading Outlive by Peter Attia."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking earnestly
A montage shows Ali setting up camera equipment and editing a video on his computer in various locations.
"Similarly, I found when I was working on my YouTube channel, when I gave myself permission to lean into the identity of I am a YouTuber, that was what allowed me to stay consistent with making YouTube videos in the tough times."
Setting: home studio/office — A mix of studio lighting and natural light.
People (1):
• sitting, standing, moving around, wearing green t-shirt, then grey t-shirt and blue shorts, short, dark, wavy hair — focused, concentrating
Ali sits at a long white table in a bright, modern room, looking down at a notebook with a pensive expression.
"For ages, I did not identify with the identity of being an author or being a writer because I had all sorts of imposter syndrome around it. Who am I to write a book? Any of this sort of stuff."
Setting: modern office/atrium — Bright, natural daylight.
People (1):
• sitting at a table, thinking, wearing light green t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — pensive, looking down, hand to mouth
Ali is back at his home office desk, explaining how adopting the 'writer' identity helps him prioritize his tasks.
"What does a writer do? A writer writes. That makes it a lot easier in the mornings when I'm figuring out what I want to do with my day, what I want to do with my week."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking with clarity
Ali poses a direct question to the viewer, leaning forward slightly for emphasis.
"So the question would be, for whatever goals that you're setting for yourself, how can you tie them to an identity?"
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, leaning forward, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — serious, questioning
Text: "How can you tie them to an identity?"
A graphic appears with a picture of Tony Robbins and a quote attributed to him.
"because, you know, there's a quote that I really like from Tony Robbins, which is that the strongest force in human personality is the need to stay consistent in how we define ourselves."
Setting: N/A — N/A
Text: ""The strongest force in human personality is the need to stay consistent in how we define ourselves."", "Tony Robbins"
Ali speaks passionately, using hand gestures to emphasize the power of self-definition.
"If you define yourself as a YouTuber, you're more likely to stay consistent with that. If you can get over the imposter syndrome and define yourself as a high performer or as an entrepreneur,"
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — passionate, speaking
A split screen shows Ali on the left and the five completed sticky notes on the right.
"Now, if you incorporate all these five things, which I hope you do, because they're super easy to do and you might as well and they're evidence-based and they work."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting.
People (1):
• sitting at desk, wearing white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking, smiling
Ali continues to speak, holding up one finger to signal a final point.
"If you incorporate these five things, there is still one mistake that you might run into, which is the idea of setting too many goals."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — serious, warning
Ali points up and to his right, directing the viewer to another video.
"And here I want to link you to that video, which is my summary of Cal Newport's new book, Slow Productivity, and it makes a really strong case for doing less but better."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — speaking, recommending
Ali smiles and waves to the camera to end the video.
"Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you later. Bye bye."
Setting: home office/studio — Soft frontal lighting with cool blue/teal accent light.
People (1):
• sitting at a desk, wearing plain white t-shirt and not visible, short, dark, wavy hair — smiling warmly