30-Day Skill Builder: How To Win (At Anything)

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Ahoy, Digital Writers!

Last week we released an in-depth guide to help you:

• Reflect on 2023

• Pinpoint what worked & what didn't

• And turn your biggest takeaways into content and a plan for the new year

The problem?

We often set goals that "sound" good without understanding what they mean (or how to accomplish them)—because we haven’t “operationalized” them.

And in Alex Hormozi’s YouTube video“How To Win,” he shares how to systematically break down and operationalize vague goals like "improve health" or "build better relationships," so you can spot the precise actions that remove ambiguity, drive results—and virtually guarantee success (even if you’re a complete beginner).

But here’s the best part:

Not only does his exercise help you clarify your personal goals, it also makes you a better writer, teacher, and copywriter—because when you can operationalize words you immediately become more relatable, understandable, and memorable to your reader/audience.

And since this is Write With AI, we turned Alex’s approach to goals into a ChatGPT prompt to make it easy for you to win in the new year!

Let’s dive in!

The Easy Way To Guarantee Success In The Coming Year

Most people don’t do things because they haven't broken them down into their most basic form.

Think about what happens when you don’t understand instructions. You get stuck. And then you don’t complete the task. It’s not because you are incompetent, but because you don’t understand the steps. A skilled person can run with a general command and be fine. But if you are less skilled you need to know how.

So, to be successful, to win, you have to break things down to an understandable level. Which makes it impossible for you to fail because you’ve made every step clear—and easier for yourself.

For example:

Let’s say one of your goals for next year is to be charismatic. Because charisma will help you close more sales, develop new relationships, and persuade your prospects to buy. Great goal, but how do you “do” charisma? What does “be charismatic” mean?

It means:

• You make eye contact

• You remember names

• You greet people with a smile

• You ask people about themselves.

• You address everyone in the room when you enter and exit

If you met someone who did those 5 things, then you would probably say, that person is charismatic.

When you set a goal like, “be charismatic,” you’re stuck! But if you break down your goal into “the 5 tangible things that charismatic people do,” you know exactly what to do because it’s broken down to a level you can understand.

This is the essence of learning how to learn, building skills, and accomplishing your goals.

Give yourself instructions that even a toddler could follow!

Turn Aspirations Into Observable Actions

To operationalize a goal you need to explain it using actions or behaviors you can see with your eyes.

Make it tangible.

• Hit enter

• Push the button

• Turn on the computer

You must be able to observe the action.

Can you observe “be charismatic?” No. Can you observe when someone smiles when they walk in the door? Yes. Can you observe someone making eye contact? Yes. You don’t need to know the science or the psychology. You just need to know that when you smile, say hello, and make eye contact, you’re more charismatic—and more people buy from you!

To operationalize a goal you need to ask, “What do I need do such that when I do it, I’m virtually guaranteed to get the result I want?”

Looks let at another example:

How do you “do patience?” What tangible actions and behaviors can you observe when you are patient? Well when someone is patient, what happens? They do something else while they wait. While you wait for your investments to accumulate interest, you work, you attend conferences, and you go on vacation. You do other things while you wait. Can you observe that? Yes. See how this works?

Learning and progress become a lot simpler when you only deal with what you can measure and observe.

It’s time to make your goals tangible.

Train ChatGPT To “Operationalize” Your Goals

For the purpose of this exercise, I’m going to assume you have some “Be” goals, some “Do” goals, and some “Have” goals.

We are are going to focus on Be goals since they are the hardest to translate. Things like: “Be kind," "Be patient," "Be resilient," "Be disciplined," or "Be charismatic" vs. a Have goal like “Buy a 5 bedroom, 7 bathroom mansion in Boca Raton.” Look at your list of goals for the upcoming year and find a character trait or value you want to acquire.

Then ask yourself the following question: “What does it mean?”

• What does it mean to be kind?

• What does it mean to be patient?

• What does it mean to be charismatic?

Name the observable actions and behaviors.

You could spend 2 hours thinking through each of your goals or you could hire ChatGPT to help—and build a 30-day tangible action plan in 10 minutes!

Step 1: Make Intangible Goals “Tangible”

Copy one of you goals into the following prompt: