The 7 Principles to Actually Achieve Your Goals

Stop wasting your life. I'm gonna share with you the seven principles to achieve all your goals this year.
These principles help me go from a distracted mess to a hyper-focused CEO. So here's how to make this year the best year of your life.
Welcome to the Martell Method. I went from rehab at 17 to building a $100 million empire and being a Wall Street Journal best-selling author.
In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life and business you don't grow to hate. My best-selling book, Buy Back Your Time, is out now.
Grab a copy at buybackyourtime.com or at any of your preferred online retailers. Starting with principle number one, set your standards.
People talk about goals all the time, but what they don't talk about is standards, the process that you hold that make the goals inevitable. So here's how I solve things.
You have to link your goals to your daily standards. So if you don't know what daily standard you would hold that would make your goals inevitable, then you really don't have a process or a blueprint for being successful.
So for example, if I want visible abs, I got to ask myself, what's my daily standard for my macros? What's my daily standards for working out? What's my daily standards for recovery? If I don't have that so I can measure black and white, did I do it or did I not? Knowing that if I showed up every day and held that standard, it would make that six pack inevitable. The cool part is that you might even choose a multiple standards from reading every day to posting on social media to making cold calls that would make the goal inevitable.
The key is to make it a daily standard or at minimum a weekly standard, but you got to keep the frequency up so that you have the process designed to achieve the goal. Another strategy I like to do is I like to write them down, obviously, make them smart, specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely, and then look at them multiple times a day.
I look at my personal goals for the year three times a day. I connect them to a trigger and I review them and I ask myself, am I showing up to achieve those goals? Is my calendar aligned to achieve those goals? What other aspects of my life do I need to align to make sure I hit it? When you write it down and you review it every day, it makes the whole process easier.
And that process is part of the five daily non-negotiables that I mandate every one of my clients to do inside of my coaching program. If you're interested in working with me directly to elevate your game this year, just find me on Instagram and message me the word YouTube Elite and I'll see if you'd be a fit.
But setting standards isn't enough. You have to make them easy to keep them consistent.
Which brings us to principle number two, design your environment. When I was 17, I ended up going to a rehab because I struggled with addiction and it was a tough period of my life.
The beautiful thing about going to this place where I spent 11 months to work on myself is that I got to learn the power of your environment. See, most people fall back because they go to the same bad environment.
Most people relapse because they're released back into their same family, their same city, their same school, and they really struggle to stay sober because they're exposed to the same negative influences in their life. Your environment, how you set it up will decide if you fail or you move forward.
of that environment brings up this philosophy I have which is it's easier to avoid the dragon than to slay it just deciding on what is in your environment what you take out so you don't have to make decisions every day will make the whole process of achieving goals so much easier for example before I go to bed I lay out my clothes for the next morning for the gym ready to Why? I don't want to make a decision around it. The way I think about it is most people want to either make more money or get in shape.
Those are the big buckets. So if you think about it, get in shape.
How do you design your environment to make it inevitable you'll achieve your goals? Well, first off, take all the crap out of your kitchen. Anything that is a slippery slope around a bad decision, especially late at night, take it the heck out of your life.
Now I got kids and what if my wife doesn't like it? Hey, have a conversation with them. If you're serious about hitting your fitness goal, you have to prune and design your environment.
Same thing with money. What makes it easier for you to make cold calls? Is it coffee in the morning? Get yourself a nice coffee machine in your office.
Is it your vision board in front of you? Is it a great chair? So when you sit down, you feel comfortable. If you just make the game easier to play, you'll have the highest potential of being successful.
So instead of buying that next video game or going out with your friends and spend a couple hundred bucks at the bar, spend money on your environment to make your goals easier to achieve. But there's another way that we can hack our mindset to make our goals even easier to achieve.
Before we get back to the episode, if you wanna jumpstart your week with my top stories and tactics, be sure to subscribe to the Martell Method newsletter. It's where you'll elevate your mindset, fitness, and business in less than five minutes a week.
Find it at martellmethod.com. Which brings us to principle number three, gamify progress.
There's actually a reason why video games become psychologically addictive is because they visualize progress per level that makes you feel like you're accomplishing small micro wins. Think about it.
You jump on something, big explosion, big celebration, the ability to build your character. These are all visual progression to the goal of winning the game.
Do that with your own personal goals. Having a calendar down in your kitchen, every time you work out, put a big X across it so that you feel like you're making progress.
The goal is to fill up the calendar. If you wanted to make more money, have a thermometer set up that you designed to have your goal per week so that you're hitting your goal every week.
And also I would recommend do it per day. My buddy the other day was telling about his software he built for snow removal.
He made it simple that every person is operators that are removing snow. He's got a map, all the places he's got to remove the snow are red.
And as he pulls into the driveway, it turns green. It makes it a fun little game for his snow operators to remove the snow at the client's house without ever missing a house because it's visual.
For me, it's a daily progress. It's a daily visual stepping on a scale and checking in and texting my coach.
That text message is part of that daily rhythm. I have a daily email that I get for all of my businesses that show me my cash position.
I check those. It is a habit that keeps my mind focused on my outcomes.
And that's why the more you focus on, the more it'll expand. Most people don't know this.
Your life is the results of your most dominant feelings, actions, and beliefs. If you think about goal setting, project planning, reviewing your goals, vision board, All of it is designed to keep you focused on your most dominant actions, feelings, and beliefs around what's possible.
And when you do that, you create your reality. But to actually achieve your goal this year, you have to think way bigger than your actions.
Which brings us to principle number four, connect to an identity. For me, identity is everything.
When I first started my fitness journey, it wasn't about trying to get fit. It was about becoming something.
So I used to write down that I was an athlete. And it's crazy because when I started doing CrossFit, all of a sudden now I'm competing every day because that's the way CrossFit set up.
And I started to build this identity of being an athlete. If you want to change your results, first change how you see yourself.
It's kind of interesting because most people think when I have that thing, then I'll do the thing, then I'll be the person. And the truth is, is that it doesn't work like that.
It's completely different. Reverse it.
First, you have to be the person. Then you do the work and then you'll have the results.
It always comes first. You know, Jim Rohn used to joke, you better hope nobody gives you a million dollars before you're a millionaire, because if you do, you're going to quickly lose it.
Oftentimes, you shouldn't get the thing until you're ready for it. A big part of that is the identity of being somebody that can manage it.
Even in my fitness program, most people think they're joining to get shredded or to put on some muscle. But the truth is, is they come into my life to reset their identity.
I make them design a mantra, a sentence of identity that they have to repeat to themselves all the time when they go to the gym, when they're reminding themselves what it's all about because that identity will make it so that that's just who they are. And you get to a place where eating a certain way isn't a diet, it's called food.
Think about when you can get to a place where going to the gym is just part of who you are, that not going to the gym would feel as weird as not wearing pants. You'd be like, I don't feel good.
I don't feel myself. That's why when you see me talk about exhaust the body, tame the mind, I'm really resetting the identity.
I'm getting my mind straight. I'm keeping the control over my thoughts.
And the more we speak our identity out loud, it's who we become. So I know it sounds crazy, but before I ever was an Iron Manor, I wrote it down in my journal every morning for years before I ever finished my first race.
Before we get back to this episode, if you prefer to watch your content, then go find me on YouTube. I have this episode on YouTube.
I'm Dan Martell on YouTube. Just subscribe to the channel.
Turn on the notification bell because then you'll get notified in real time. It'll tell YouTube to tell you.
You got a new episode, so you'll never miss anything. Now, let's get back to the episode.
But achieving your goals this year isn't going to happen by yourself, which brings us to principle number five, upgrade your peer group. I remember a long time ago, I was in my mid-20s.
I joined a mastermind to upgrade my knowledge and experience. Everybody in that room was running like an eight-figure plus company, and I felt like a frigging imposter.
It was super uncomfortable. What happened though, being in that group, forced me to raise my standards to match theirs.
Being in proximity of people executing at a higher level

forced me to reflect on how I was showing up.

I didn't wanna go to the next meeting

feeling like I was the low person on the totem pole

and it made me be a lot more serious

and a lot more focused about hitting my goals.

And this is how I do it today.

I ask myself a simple question.

Are the people in my life closer to my goals

or just closest to me?

Thank you. focus about hitting my goals.
And this is how I do it today. I ask myself a simple question.
Are the people in my life closer to my goals or just closest to me? See, if nobody in your life that you spend time with has achieved the thing you're trying to do, then you're always going to have to be fighting an uphill battle. So this is what's very unique about my approach.
Once I do my annual planning, I understand where I want to end up. I ask myself, who are the people that I need in my life to make those goals easier? I call it a relationship plan.
This is everything from mentors, people that will inspire me to make the right decisions, coaches, folks that have the blueprint, peers, other people along the journey to make it less lonely. I write down the names of the people.
And if I don't know who they are, I go search, I go research, I go on YouTube, I go on Instagram, I ask my friends. So building that relationship plan so that invest in people to be around them to travel and seek their guidance.
That to me is how I'm able to achieve my goals so much easier than most because they're trying to figure it out on their own. That's so crazy.
Find the people that have been to the mountaintop and ask them how. For example, when I hiked Mount Rainier, the guy that brought us to the top in a season, he does that summit 37 times.
Do you think maybe he has some experience to help us? You better believe it. Some of you are hiking Mount Rainier equivalent in your fitness, in your relationships, in your business, in your health for the first time.
And there's somebody right next to you. if you open up your eyes and just look around in your community that have done it 37 times a year and you haven't even asked them for advice, why? Is it because you're not capable or willing to invest in yourself? It's a flawed strategy and a very slow strategy to avoid seeking other people and really refining your relationships to make your goals easier.
People always wanna ask me like, who are the relationships I need to add? I always say, well, who are the people you need to cut? The other day, a friend of mine asked that same question. And I said, name me the one person that you know, and I know you're going to feel uncomfortable answering this, that you're going to have to cut out of your life to create space for those new people that you've been putting off that tough conversation because you care about them and they've been good to you.
Unfortunately, today in your heart, you know they've been an anchor in your progress. So now that you've been putting off that tough conversation because you care about them and they've been good to you.
Unfortunately, today in your heart,

you know they've been an anchor in your progress.

So now that you've cut out the people

that aren't closest to your goals,

here's how you find the people you need to add,

which brings us to principle number six,

get back on the horse.

I find it fascinating that most people

have this dream of a perfect morning

and if they don't do something,

they just throw away their whole day. They don't work out first thing in the morning.
They don't decide to go in the afternoon. They miss getting a good kickstart in their morning in regards to their calls or their process or whatever it is.
And they just write off the rest of the day. And the truth is, is you don't have to do it that way.
The other day, my buddy's telling me about this concept called the floor in the ceiling. He says, look, my floor is I went for a walk.
My ceiling is I got all the workouts done. I showed up at a 10 out of 10.
And all I hold myself accountable is being in between the floor and the ceiling. If you don't get back on the horse, then you might start what's called a negative downward spiral where you'll wake up in 35, 45 days and realize you haven't been to the gym.
You put on that five, 10, 15 pounds, especially after a vacation where you might not have made the best decisions. And instead of just saying, I'm gonna do anything today to get back on the horse, you throw it all away, all your gains.
There's this really fun thing I heard once. It said, you can start a diet halfway through a bag of chips.
It's that simple. If you keep showing up, even if you've been a few days without doing the thing and you don't quit, that's what makes people impressive.
Just because you had a bad moment doesn't need to make it a bad day. Before we get back to the episode, if you actually want to know what my real life looks like and see the people and the businesses and the companies I buy and my family and just like how I make it all work, go follow me on Instagram, Dan Martell, 2Ls of Martell on Instagram.
It's where I show the behind the scenes, the real deal, real time. I'd love to see you there.
Have an amazing day. But don't just try to go heads down and be quiet about it, which brings us to principle number seven, make it public.
When I made the decision to get visible abs at 44 years old, I could have easily just started a process, got on a meal plan, started working out and not tell a soul. And that actually would have been easier because soon as you tell somebody else, guess what? You're indirectly accountable to them.
They're going to ask you about it. And most people do this with their goals.
They keep it to themselves because they don't want anybody else asking them about it. They don't want to be public about it.
They don't want to be questioned about it. They don't want to be second guessed about it and the truth is is when you talk about it you activate your goals it's why i'm so passionate about creating content and publishing your thoughts public to the internet is because in many ways it's the most beautiful personal development program because it forces you to confront the areas of your life that you don't want to be accountable to all my clients clients in my business program, I make them do this because I want them to be accountable to people.
I want them to call their shot. Think of it this way.
Every person you admire has publicly called their shot, has told people, this is what I'm going to do. From Walt Disney to Dana White to The Rock, these are the folks that you see do massive things in the world.
But before they ever achieve those things, they said it. My favorite part about doing that is that you can also inspire others to join you in the process.
When I decided to do 75 hard the first time, I had 300 people that said, I want to do it too. Cool.
We're starting on Monday, get your weekend sorted and let's kick it off. It also attracts resources and people to you that

want to help you. One of the coolest things about this is you'll never know who you'll inspire.
I remember my buddy, Damon Fryer came up to me and he said, Hey, last time we met, you mentioned you quit drinking. I didn't really have a problem, but I knew as I got older, I didn't need it in my life.
And I haven't drank in a couple of months. And I'm thinking of doing the work to get absolutely shredded like you did.
And I introduced them to my coach and they started working together. Today, he is absolutely ripped.
Why? Because I decided to share my goals publicly. Most people are scared of looking bad, of failing publicly than anything else.
So you use that as a way to propel you forward. It's like you could hire a coach to hold you accountable or you could just tell everybody everybody you know what you're going to go do and have them question you if you're on pace.
Tell everybody you're doing that Spartan race. Tell everybody you're doing the Ironman.
Tell everybody you're going to go enter a CrossFit competition, even if you've not registered. Trust me, you'll probably want to go do those things so that you don't have to tell everybody that you didn't do it and let everybody down.
The coolest part about this process, even though, yes, it's fun to hit your goals and achieve things and be successful, is that if you do this right, you'll wake up every day to become the best version of yourself. In many ways, the person that you needed most in some of your darkest moments.
And then in sharing this process and telling other people about it, you'll inspire folks you didn't even know were watching. And in a few years, maybe they'll have enough courage to share it with you.
But I know you will impact their life.

Your decision to improve your situation will help other people. And if that's not enough

motivation to go after it, I don't know what else is. Thanks for listening to Martell Method.

If you like this episode, could you do me a huge favor and go leave a review? This helps us get

the podcast more ears and helps more people

get unstuck, reclaim their freedom and build their empire.