How to transform your life in 6 months19 min read

Six months ago, after my third hour on Instagram, surrounded by DoorDash, stuck at the bottom of my couch, I thought, “Is this what I want my life to be? Or do I want something different?”

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. 

My 6-month transformation, however, didn’t come from a burst of inspiration; it came from a detailed action plan outlined after I created my personal vision. I did this because it’s very easy to hear advice and very difficult to actually take action; I’ll be inspired by that Japanese guy in the water telling me to never give up or by an Alex Hormozi YouTube video all the time, only to end up right back in front of the TV.

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 by:

1. Finding your vision
2. Creating a 12-week plan
3. Using the 85% rule

Phase 1 (The Month Before) – Finding Your Vision

Planning can be boring and painful, but it makes success much more likely in the long run. People who don’t plan are up to 30% less productive than those who do.¹ Before we can even begin to figure out what specific actions we want to take, however, we need to figure out what direction we want those actions to take us. Or find our vision. The best way to do this is to figure out a daily and weekly vision and then simply work backward.

1. Daily Vision – What a dream day would look like
2. Weekly Vision – what a dream week would look like

Have you ever thought about what you really want in life? I didn’t either until 6 months ago. 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 your life magically with that vision. Once you have the vision, you can actually create the specific actions that get you closer to it.

In the great book The Alchemist, Santiago, a shepherd in Spain, feels unfulfilled in his simple life. He dreams of finding treasure near the Egyptian pyramids but dismisses these feelings as unimportant. In a pivotal moment, he meets Melchizedek, the King of Salem, who introduces the idea of a Personal Legend—one’s true purpose in life. 

Though hesitant to sell his sheep and pursue the treasure, Santiago is inspired by the king’s words: “It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.” Ultimately, Santiago commits to his dream of finding treasure, and while he faces challenges like losing all of his money, getting caught in tribal warfare in the desert, and nearly succumbing to fear and doubt, Melchizedek’s advice proves true: “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” He made it through every one of those challenges. After Santiago identified his personal legend, every experience and even setback aligned to guide him closer to his life’s vision.

So, how do you identify your vision? Well, maybe you already know it. I would still encourage you to try this exercise as it might reveal hidden parts of your vision that you weren’t aware of before. Outline a specific day in detail, and then expand further to week and then to your life vision. This isn’t set in stone! I redid this exercise for the past 3 years and have had changes to my vision every year!

So, with that in mind, let’s start with the daily vision.

1. Daily Vision.

Ok, so, 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 seriously:

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?

I wake up at 5 am. My wife is still asleep. I can see the sun creeping over the horizon out of my balcony, which doors were left open overnight. I get up and look out over the balcony with a glass of ice-cold water. I’m in the Tuscan countryside in a large home with four bedrooms, three floors, and no cars in sight. My family of 5, 2 younger boys and one older girl are here for two months in the summer. Everyone is still asleep.

I walk downstairs where my private chef has made me some amazing granola creation, with breakfast #2 of eggs, meat, and local bread ready to eat later. The chef leaves at 5:30 am. I take my granola and sit out on the porch, drinking a perfect black coffee and freshly squeezed blood orange juice, which nicely matches the color of the sunrise. I sit there in the stillness of the morning, watching the sunrise and journaling or reading for 15 minutes before my wife joins me. We chat briefly or simply hold hands, watching the sunrise.

The kids wake up around 7 am, and breakfast is already ready from the chef. They eat and then go off to their activities for the morning. This could be horseback riding, or archery, or painting, or whatever they like as long as some physical activity is included. My wife goes off to do her own thing, and I have a personal trainer who takes me through an insane workout or group workout, maybe running, swimming in the ocean, or weightlifting. I have a wonderful cold shower and sauna session followed by 2-4 hours of deep work on whatever excites me. Money is of no concern at this point in my life.

The chef returns around lunchtime, along with the children, my wife, and maybe some local Italian friends. We eat, laugh, and sit. Lunch lasts two hours. My children play with my friends’ children. All is quiet, all is well, and all is calm.

We then make our way as a family to the lake or beach or some body of water, where we all swim together—building castles, playing freeze tag, wrestling in the sun, sea, and sand. Around 5, we return to the house; my wife or I prepare a simple light dinner, we eat as a family, watch a silly television show as a family, and then the kids are off to do whatever they like before bed. My wife and I sit outside, talk, read, or simply look at the stars. We fall asleep to the breeze or soft summer rain.

Sounds pretty awesome, right? How does your dream day go?

Now, expand this to a weekly vision.

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? (4 days a week from 7 pm to 2 pm, 3 days in the office, and one at home. Saturday is a day off with no phone. I’m working on personal projects like in the daily vision.)
• Are you going on many trips? (I am not traveling much, settled into my home with my family)
• Do you have weekly activities like massages, tennis lessons, or kids’ soccer games to attend? What days of the week are these? (1x a week massage, 1x a week tennis lesson, 1x a week soccer game, lift 3x a week, hot yoga 2x a week).
• How close are you with your family? Your friends? Are you having weekly dinners or events? (daily family dinners with no phones 1x a week with family, once a week extended family dinner on a Saturday)

Then simply write out your yearly, which is essentially your life, vision based on that. So, my overall life vision based on my weekly and daily goal is:

1. Close connection with family, friends, nature, and self
2. Wife, 3 kids, 8 months year USA for kids school, 2 months summer family lakehouse in USA kids go to camp and explore nature, 1 month a year Caribbean, 1 month a year Europe/Italy/japan/travel
3. Monthly friend dinners, weekly extended family dinners, daily family dinners
4. Create and sell $100M company with 2 friends
5. Have $50M liquid and two $3-5 houses (normal home and lakehouse)

Ok, now that we have the vision, it will help align all of our actions towards that vision. Importantly, however, remember that life happens. We may not actually reach these things, but we are guaranteed not to reach those things if we don’t set a vision.

“Let all your efforts be directed to something, let it keep that end in view. It’s not activity that disturbs people, but false conceptions of things that drive them mad.” – Seneca

Our first step in getting closer to our vision is planning out some actions that will get us closer to this vision. I’ve found the 12-week game plan, or action plan, to be the best way to do this.

The reason for the 12-week segment is that we humans simply can’t reasonably think further than 12 weeks in the future. It’s like trying to picture 100 marbles in a Jar vs. 1 Million. Let’s picture the 100 marble Jar and plan the next 12 weeks of our life.

The 12-week Plan

Okay, the week before we begin our life transformation, we plan the next twelve weeks. Our goals for these first 12 weeks are one personal and one professional goal.

When I first tried this, I had five total goals. It was too many! People usually do best with only one personal goal and one professional goal.

For example, I have a lofty vision of having $30M in liquid assets (spending about $1M a year at 4% of my total assets with a fudge factor) and living in a different country (maybe Europe) for parts of the year. So, my two big goals for my 12-week segment are to hit a certain amount of cash flow and visit a certain number of countries (professional and personal). Importantly, however, my specific goals are not results but actions. I want to make sure everything that I set for myself to do specifically is under my control.

Therefore, every week, the things I think I need to do to accomplish those goals are inputs into the system:

• 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, and book my first trip.

And so on until week 12.

Now, the first time you do this, it will be shaky.

The first time I did this, I overshot what I thought I could accomplish and ended up only hitting about 50% of the actual actions that I wanted to take per week. That is OK! Seriously, think of how amazing work you would do if you created your vision, created this plan, and even accomplished 50% of it?

The fantastic feeling here is that we are actually working towards our goals—our dreams. Remember, we have a long time to do this, our entire lives, so what if 12 weeks didn’t work out? Importantly, however, I was trying to improve myself, actually taking action, as long as I improve a little bit, over time, that little bit will be a lot a bit!

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

Phase 2: Execute (Month 1 – 3)

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

Now, two options here:

• Time Blocking
• Prioritized To-Do Lists

The first time I tried this, I did time-blocking. The second time, now, I’m using a prioritized list. I’m not sure which one is better. The time-blocking felt a little restrictive, while the to-do list didn’t feel organized enough.

Here’s an example of a week when I was time-blocking:

Basically, because I had my specific and actionable goals every week for 12 weeks, at the beginning of every week (Sunday for me), I would create a list of what I would aim to accomplish for every day of that upcoming week (Monday – Sunday).

So, if the goal is to write 6 YouTube videos, maybe the goal for Monday is to write 2 videos, Tuesday is two videos, and so on, with Saturday being a day off for me and Sunday being a planning day with maybe a little work.

Now, the surprisingly most impactful thing for me was doing this with friends! Or creating a Weekly Accountability Meeting (WAMs) as outlined in The 12-Week Year.

We have our WAMs on Mondays at 6:30 PM, where I and two friends discuss what went well last week, what didn’t go well, and how we plan to improve for next week. Advising each other on how we think we could improve.

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.^3,4

Analyze, Modify – Weekly Review Day

My review and planning day is Sunday.

Every week, I assess the past week critically. What went well? What didn’t go well? Was my twelve-week goal too big? Too small? Then I get a percentage score that I can use to asses my week and bring to my WAM.

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 items done. This means my weekly score was around 65%, which is too low because I’m aiming for 85%. A 65% result means my actions were too hard, as evidenced by the academic literature investigating learning (those who hit that score don’t learn as much or gain as many skills).¹

The “best” number for learning is around 85%; that’s a key number that means it’s difficult enough that you learn but easy enough that you don’t get lost in the sauce. And again, I don’t consider it a failure due to me “being lazy” that I hit 65%, but it is my fault for setting unreasonable goals (unless I was actually being very lazy).

So, next time, maybe I only have 12 items instead of 15. This way, over time, I will start to learn what’s a reasonable weekly goal and what isn’t, getting closer to that 85% number.

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 for the whole 12 weeks. Now, as a grace period, for the first 6 weeks of the first time you ever do this, it’s ok to adjust the weekly goals, but from weeks 7-12, the goals should be set in stone. Then, at the end of your first 12-week session, you can look at your weekly percentages and create more items to do weekly (with a score >90%) or fewer items (with a score <80%). 

Month 4-6 Execute Again:

At the end of every twelve-week session, I do a big review.

I schedule a big 3-4 hour meeting with my friends, who are also doing this, to review the past three months critically and then create the next two-month plan.

We even do a “mastermind” session to realign our goals and visions, which takes an entire afternoon, usually in a nice nature setting after a hike, like a park or an outdoor coffee shop.

This is where we create our new 12-week plan, as long as it’s aligned with the vision. Remember, it must align with the vision because if it doesn’t, what the heck are we doing? We must fight our lizard brains!

Try to remember if you were happy or unhappy with the past during the last twelve weeks. Do you need to make any changes? Did it go perfectly, and do you need no adjustments? Or was it difficult,t and you need to tone it down a bit? Did uncontrollable life events happen? How can you focus on your inputs as opposed to outputs?

Make the individual goals for each week of the next twelve weeks, time block, or create a ToDo list for your first week, and begin again! Remember, no changes are allowed for each of the weekly goals unless it’s your first time, but the daily time blocks or to-do’s are allowed to change.

Phase 3: Reevaluate and Think Big (After 6 months)

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 year, but at least in an input kind of way. Which is what matters 99% of the time anyway!

For example, in my past year, I was extremely productive in the number of videos, newsletters, and products that I usually made during that time period. But, without realizing it, I also made much more money and gained more viewers (outputs) than 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 weeks off at this point. Maybe this is a real vacation. At the very least, I do not have a plan or action items for two to four weeks and try to have one extended trip (3 days or more) in nature.

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

Bill Gates

The great part about this is it’s finally shown me the possibilities of consistent actions. When I first started making YouTube videos, I thought, you know, “I just like making YouTube videos, so I’ll keep making them!” But now, it’s much more powerful, “Oh, I want to help people in this certain way and accomplish these actions because these align with my exciting and big dreams!”

And this isn’t big stuff, right? I’m at the beginning of my journey here at 30 years old!  For example, an action that aligns with every single one of my visions is simply reading more books because I know that teaches me things to help me learn more about business, relationships, and improving myself. 

Amazingly, I’ve gone from 1 book every two months to one book every two weeks because I have an hour every day now that I dedicate to reading, and now I’m ramping up to reading a book a week! Imagine the compound knowledge I am building, increasing my average reading from 1 book every 2 months to 1 book weekly! Even doing just this small action can have amazing results in the long run. Think about it: what small thing can you start doing regularly to improve your life? 

Ok, but you clicked this post because you wanted to change your life. You wanted to transform yourself in a positive way. It all begins with a vision. Taking the painful hours to truly think about what I want in life was hard. But now, every single thing I do has depth to it. A chewy center. My actions are now aligne,d and my motivation isn’t coming from seeking external approval, but from seeking “me” approval.  And it feels good. It feels real. It feels like me. 

Thank you so much for reading!

Work cited:

1. Yao, H., Lian, D., Cao, Y., Wu, Y., & Zhou, T. (2019). Predicting Academic Performance for College Students: A Campus Behavior Perspective. ArXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.06726
2. Wilson RC, Shenhav A, Straccia M, Cohen JD. The Eighty Five Percent Rule for optimal learning. Nat Commun. 2019 Nov 5;10(1):4646. doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-12552-4. PMID: 31690723; PMCID: PMC6831579.
3. Breitbart, William, et al. “Meaning-centered group psychotherapy: an effective intervention for improving psychological well-being in patients with advanced cancer.” Journal of clinical oncology 33.7 (2015): 749-754.
4. Patients who feel more accountable are more adherent: A clinical study in patients with xerosisCook, Madison K. et al.Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Volume 88, Issue 2, 481 – 483