My identity grid

Taken from Ali Abdaal’s newsletter:

We need to figure out what our new identity looks like in three key areas of our life – health, wealth, and happiness – as these are the 20% of things that can create 80% of the improvements to our life.

For each of those three areas we write down an identity, some values, a goal, and a daily #1:

Identity – what is the inspiring identity you want to possess? E.g. ‘world fitness champion’ for health or maybe something like ‘David Goggins’ or ‘hawkeye’ if you want to attach the identity to a person / character.

Values – what 3 words guide the behavior of that identity? E.g. a ‘world fitness champion’ would be strong, relentless, and disciplined.

Goal – if a person with that identity set a goal for the next 3 months, what specific thing would that person achieve? E.g. a ‘world fitness champion’ would consistently hit the gym at least 4 times a week.

Daily #1 – what is one thing you will do today that will bring you closer to achieving that goal? E.g. going for a run, eating max 2000 calories, etc.

Ali Abdaal

Here’s my attempt. Let’s see if it’s helpful:

	Identity	Values	Goal	Daily #1s
Health	Warrior	Energy, discipline, outdoors	Run 20mi weekly Lift 3x weekly	Find a way to work out
Work	Will Larson	Writing, fun, being a river	Get out of your own way	Create an opportunity for growth or joy
Relationships	Samwise	Honesty, connection, humor	Death to unexpressed emotions	Make someone’s day better

Doesn’t feel very helpful, at least not yet. 🤷