 You know a frustrating thing about improving yourself is that we work on all of these actual specific rituals that we want to change. We change the diet, we change the strategy for dating on a dating app, we change our approach to looking for jobs, but sometimes those things still don't work despite all of our best efforts. And I think this video is going to be incredibly important because if you are someone who wants to reach your full potential in life and you feel like you're doing everything right, but you just aren't getting the results that you really want, you're probably missing the centerpiece of this puzzle. So in this video today I want to share what I think that centerpiece is that we very rarely talk about. Hey it's Alex Hyen, author of the book on habits master the day. So below this video I've included a free goal-setting worksheet to help you plan out how to have the best year ever of your life and an exact process you can use to go about planning and scripting that dream year to make it happen. So you can check it out right below this video. So there's a missing part of the self-growth equation. You know you've probably gone through that exercise, probably from me to be honest, where you plot out your whole life as this puzzle, as this wheel, and you plot out the different quadrants of your life. So maybe you have fitness in one quadrant and your financial life in another, or maybe you have your career and meaning and purpose in another, and you have family and love and relationships and belonging in another. So what we end up with is we have this kind of wheel of life with all these different quadrants, but most often people don't put what I think is the most important quadrant, which is the center. So I want to show you exactly what I mean. You know a big problem with goal-setting is that we may list out the various quadrants of life and there's obviously more here I haven't listed, and we say, you know, I need to work on my finances so maybe I should figure out some new financial habits or how to save more money, or with our health it's you know I need to lose some weight, I need to eat better, or leisure. I need more time off, like I need rest. I'm not in the best health or love, you know. Finance is going great, but I'm single and I don't want to be single, or spirituality, or the other quadrants of life you could put here as well. But what is the hollow that unifies all those spokes? I would argue that it's character, it's virtue, it's why in the old days people talked about character and virtue and honor and discipline and these old medieval like night traits that they would bring up quite often is because that dictates your success in love. That dictates your success in being a dedicated spiritual seeker with character discipline. It dictates your results in finance. If you're willing to do the hard work and you're willing to be someone who's consistent and honors her word, if you're willing to do the work to be healthy, which may mean living a very disciplined harder life because there's distractions around you. It's the character that is the thing that unifies all the spokes of the wheel in life. And as long as that's missing from the center, you may feel like you're getting some results, but you're never getting that ultimate picture of the holistic fulfillment and success that you want. So we plot out all the different parts of life, but we forget the thing that is the most important and is the engine for whether or not those other parts of life work, which is your fundamental character. The reason that reaching goals fails is not always because of the strategy, it's because of me. The reason why failing to get into that relationship or whatever doesn't work out is not necessarily because of the strategy, it's because of me. I'm the one executing the strategy. And the reason why I don't end up building this really amazing fulfilling life is again, not the tactics, the things that you read a book about or you watch a YouTube video about. It's me. My fundamental character is the reason I haven't reached my goals. Now, in previous generations, this was something that was talked about a lot more. I mean, there are amazing books written bringing up this topic. There's a book called The Road to Character. There's a book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, where the first chapter of the book, Stephen Covey, is talking about what he calls the character ethic, which is that as he was studying all these great self-growth authors in previous generations all the way back to the 1800s, you know, back then what they talked about was not the super simple hacks to success. What they were talking about was developing a rock solid character. Being someone who deeply cares about other people who's very disciplined, who's gritty and knows how to endure when things are difficult, being positive and upbeat and having a good attitude, these kind of evergreen character related goals. And they weren't so related to the tactics of success because fundamentally, the tactics come secondary to the character. Now, why is this important anyway? Like, why is it essential to put, you know, virtue, character, your actual core essence as the center of that? Like, if I want to not be single anymore, can I just go on a bunch of bumble dates using some strategy to be a better conversationalist? Probably. But if you think about why most people fail, especially in this modern era, why do most people fail? Like, why did I write a whole damn book on this stuff? Because I felt like the essence was not information. It was not not knowing what to do. It was not not knowing what's healthy. It was not, what do I do for workouts? It was not, how do I stay consistent? It was doing it. That was the freaking hard part. Because now in the modern world, you know what to do if you have the internet, how to get healthy and lose weight. You could find a strategy that will probably work. But what happens when Friday night rolls around, all your friends have got margaritas out and pizza and beer, and you had a goal to lose 20 pounds or get ripped or stay healthy and reverse your diabetes. That's the rubber meaning the road, right? That's the arena of life. That's the battle. That's the inner war. So for us, the battle is behavioral change. Behavior is closely tied to character, and character is closely tied to your self-identity. So you probably have some idea of what to do to get fit. You probably have some idea for what to do to find love during COVID. And you probably have some idea for what to do to find more meaning and purpose in your life. But how do you really do it, right? What separates us now these days is fundamental character. Is the person who also knows how to lose 20 pounds? But guess what? Saturday morning, they get their ass into that yoga class they said they would rather than watch another YouTube video. It's the person that decides that they are going to build this passion project, this business, they're going to take a risk on what they love. And so what they're going to do is that Saturday morning, Saturday night, Friday night, they're not going to go out. They're going to go to their favorite cafe that's open late. They're going to sit down with a glass of wine and they're going to map out their master plan for building that passion business they've always wanted. That is the character that gets you to do that. It's the character that makes you the kind of person that when you say something, you do it. And you honor your agreements and you have an unusual grit and unusual positivity even in the face of continual failure and all the continual frustrations of your life. That is what sets you apart and not tactics and not skills by themselves because those can all be learned later. Now what do we really do about this? Right? Cool story, Alex. Character is the fundamental thing that you should be working on. Well, I want to share how I changed my own goal setting process because I think it's going to help you. So each week I've shared how I usually just work on three goals and no more than three habits per goal for each year. But now at the bottom of my goal sheet, I write down three character traits I want to work on. So the top half is my goals and the habits, bottom half is my character traits. It's almost like outer work and inner work. And those character traits for me this year are no criticizing, no complaining, and be a warmer, friendlier person when you first meet somebody. So now I'm equally pushing out on all those domains, those quadrants of life that I really want to work on. But also my actual fundamental character, the thing that no one can ever take away, that will be there if I fail, if I succeed, if I have one love, if I've lost love, that eternal thing that is the true engine of your holistic success is always going to be there. So this year, as you go about setting goals, set character goals, your fundamental essence, those old school virtues work on those just as hard. And I think you're going to have a lot better success. Hope that helps you guys again. First link below this video is for a free goal setting worksheet to help you plan out how to have the most epic year of your life. And then before you go, I have two related videos on this exact topic right over here.