How to reinvent yourself in 6 months10 min read

Six months ago, I was sluggish, unmotivated, and weak, with no vision or hope for the future. Sounds grim, right? It was. Funnily enough, thanks to simply sticking to this plan.

I accomplished more in 6 months than in two years.

Six months ago, after my sixth hour on the phone, surrounded by DoorDash at the bottom of the valley, I thought, “Is this what I want my life to be? Or do I want it to be different?”

How do I go from point A, where I am right now, to point B, where I want to be? Point B felt about to easy to get to as the top of Everest, and without a helicopter.

Unfortunately, most people will read and skim this post in 5 minutes and move on to the next thing. Not changing, but, the sad part, expecting different outputs from the same inputs.

Whether you’re stuck in a rut, craving a fresh start, or wanting to level up in your life, I’ll show you exactly how I transformed myself in six months—and how you can, too.

We must: Plan, execute, analyze, modify, and repeat. Simple right?

Month -1: The Superhuman Manifesto

Here, we make an absolutely mind-bogglingly awesome plan that will let us be the person we always knew we could be. The superhuman manifesto is critical. People who don’t plan are up to 30% less productive than those who do.

And it all starts with Vision. What’s your:

1. Daily Vision
2. Weekly Vision
3. Yearly Vision
4. Life Vision

Haven’t you ever thought about this? I didn’t either, but it has changed my life. Really. Setting specific goals, whether that is the amount of free time, money in your bank account, or the size of your family, will start to align all your mini-goals and tactics in a magical way.

And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

The Alchemist

1. Daily Vision.

I’ve done this exercise with a couple of my friends, and they are always thrown off. They think it’s silly, but afterward, they are amazed that they never thought about it.

If you could snap your fingers and, tomorrow, wake up in the place, with the person, doing the things, with no restrictions, what/where/and how would that be? I want you to think about this:

Create a new page in a journal or notebook for daily vision, weekly vision, yearly vision, and life vision.

• What time do you wake up?
• Who do you wake up next to?
• Do you have any kids? What are they doing?
• Where are you?
• What size house or apartment are you in?
• What’s the first thing you do? With whom?
• What activities are you doing in chronological order?
• How do you feel when you are doing these things?
• What are you eating for lunch?
• What time are you going to bed?

2. Weekly Vision:

Ok, maybe that’s the perfect day, but what is the ideal week?

• How many days are you at work or working? Are you always at home?
• How many days and what exercises are you doing?
• Are you going on many trips?
• Do you have weekly activities like massages, tennis lessons, or kids’ soccer games to attend? What days of the week are these?
• How close are you with your family? Your friends? Are you having weekly dinners or events?

3. Yearly Vision

I think monthly isn’t helpful; daily and weekly are, and then we can break it down into yearly.

• How many months of the year are you in this place? 12? Do you spend three months in Europe, one month in the Caribbean, or two months traveling to new places?
• How do you get to these new places? First class on a plane? On a private jet? On a yacht? Bicicyling there yourself with your best friend? Solo running 1,000 miles?

4. Life Vision

• Where are you living long-term?
• Who are you living with?
• Do you have kids or a partner?
• What is that partner like? What are your kids like?
• What does your house look like? Is it your only one?
• What will I be working on? Will I be working?
• What would your 80-year-old self advise you to do right now?
• How do I want to feel at the end of my life?

The reason for the 8-week segment is that we humans simply can’t reasonably think further than this in the future. It’s like trying to picture 100 marbles in a Jar vs. 1 Million.

Week -1: 8-Week Goals

Okay, in week -1, you plan the next eight weeks. The first step is coming up with 1-3 reasonable goals aligned with your goals and that you think are reasonable to accomplish in the next eight weeks.

If you haven’t read it, I strongly recommend the 12-Week Year, on which I based a large amount of this post.

These can be personal or professional. You can have both.

For example, I have a lofty vision of having $30M in liquid assets (spending about $1M a year at 5% of my total assets with a 50% fudge factor) and living in a different country (maybe Europe) for parts of the year. So, my two big goals for my eight-week segment are to hit a certain amount of cash flow and visit a certain number of countries.

Then, every week, the things I think I need to do to accomplish those goals:

• Week 1: Write 6 YouTube videos, Record 6 YouTube videos, read two books, make a list of countries I want to visit
• Week 2: Finish the online course, edit and finalize four videos, read one book, book my first trip

And so on until week 8.

These first eight weeks might be shaky, but that’s okay. The fantastic feeling here is that we are actually working towards our goals—our dreams!

So, what are you going to do every week for the next eight weeks? Write it out as specifically and quantifiably as possible.

Month 1-2: Execute

Okay, now we know what we are doing every week. How about planning every individual week?

Time blocks are everything. This is the #1 most impactful thing you can do. If you only do one thing, do this. The reason is that we know exactly who planned for us to do these things, it was us! And we must trust in past-Zach! If we don’t, everything falls apart.

It’s okay if we don’t hit our goals every time block; we can adjust later. The great part here is that you know exactly what to do. You don’t need to have a to-do list of items on seven different apps or three different weekly itineraries in your notebook because you have it all on your computer calendar, which is hopefully synced across everything.

Here’s my last week, for example, where I hit about 75% completion:

Look at the above screenshot. Do you notice where I am with it? I am doing exactly that. I am writing this post while I am in a coffee shop. I guess I won’t have enough time to edit all my old posts, but I will try! I may need to push some of these goals to later in the week.

If you want to level this up, you can see on Mondays at 6:30, I have a “WAM” meeting. That is a weekly accountability meeting (WAM) with two friends trying to hit specific goals. There is evidence that when you have a group to keep you accountable, the chances of you sticking to your plan or tasks are up to 7x, or 700%, higher than when you are alone.

Analyze, Modify

Every week, assess the past week critically. What went well? What didn’t go well? Was your eight-week goal too big? too small?

Try quantifying the percentage of success for the past week. For example, in my first week, I had the goal of writing six videos, recording six videos, reading two books, and making a list of countries to visit. That’s 15 items.

I wrote six videos, recorded one video, read two books, and made a list of countries, which is 10/15 done. This means my weekly score was around 65%—too low! You want to aim for about 85%; that’s a key number in learning (best difficulty percentage) and task completion.

Next, were these goals aligned with your vision or not?

What will your next week look like? Bigger? Smaller? Do you need to spend less time on your phone or watching TV to accomplish these goals? Do you need to give more time to a certain goal?

Here’s the key: you can’t disagree with your past self. You must only work towards the goals your past self set in place. Trust in past-you.

You can change at the end of 8 weeks.

Month 3-4 & 5-6: Execute

At the end of every eight weeks, review every single week. What % did you score? What went well? What went poorly?

I schedule a big 1-2 hour meeting with my friends, who are also doing this, to review the past two months critically and then create the next two-month plan.

This is where you can finally change the plan, as long as it’s aligned with the vision. Remember, it must align with the vision becuase if it doesn’t, what the heck are you doing?

Remember if you hated or loved past you during the recent eight weeks. Do you need to make any changes?

Make the individual goals for the next eight weeks, time block out your first week, and begin again! Remember, no changes are allowed for each of the 8-week overall goals, but the time blocks are allowed to change.

Then, after month 4, do it again!

Month 7: Think Big, Reevaluate, Plan

If you stick to this for six months, your life will change. Maybe not in an output kind of way because this is our first six-month segment, but at least in an input kind of way.

For example, in my first six-month segment, I made 4x the number of videos, newsletters, and courses that I usually made in that time period in the past year. But, without realizing it, I also made 8x the amount of money I normally made. But I wasn’t focused on that; I was focused on my inputs. How can I put more into the system?

I take at least two to four weeks off at this point. Maybe this is a vacation to a beach where I just read. Or a ski trip. Or simply being home with my family for some time. Of course, you are likely working a real job, raising a family, or attending school so your time “off,” might be true time off or just not working before or after work.

However, even if your life is hectic, you must set lofty goals! The only time you are allowed to not be lofty is for the 8-week goals. These can be realistic. Maybe one day soon, you will be able to commit full-time to this big vision, and then, as I did, see exponential returns.

Month 8: Start again!

Half the year is gone, but you have likely accomplished more in six months than in the past two years.

Now, do it again.

Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.

Bill Gates