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You're Not Behind: How to Change Your Life in 90 Days

2025-01-21 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 21:23 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Goals, purpose and life design · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: His own products discussed, Feel-Good Productivity thesis, Family, Sponsor segment present

Ali's three-step method to change your life in 90 days: reflect with the Wheel of Life and a what's-working journal page, align with a three-year sketch or a vision board, and plan one main quest for work and one for life, phrased with objective, verifiable criteria.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — A three-step method to change your life in 90 days: reflect, align, plan

  • ★★★ Ali's three-step method to transform your life in the next 90 days is reflect, align and plan; he says he has used it personally for years. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Since 2024 Ali has hosted free online workshops on his three-step method every few months and has taken tens of thousands of people through it. — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — Step one, reflect: the Wheel of Life, the what's working and what's not working page, strive satisfied

  • ★★★ Ali's Wheel of Life splits life into work (mission, money, growth), health (body, mind, heart) and relationships (romantic, family, friends), and rates satisfaction in each of the nine from 0 to 10. — 00:00:59
  • ★★ Ali does the Wheel of Life whenever he feels a vague sense of unease about his life, because it puts numbers on it. — 00:01:28
  • ★★ Ali adds a tenth category, joy, outside the Wheel of Life, because people into personal development easily fixate on growth and forget to enjoy the present moment. — 00:01:28
  • ★★★ Ali's reflection journaling prompt: split a page into work and life columns and what's working and what's not working rows, set a five-minute timer and jot bullet points without overthinking. — 00:02:27
  • ★★★ Ali's rule for the what's working and what's not working page: the what's working list must have at least twice as many items, which forces type A people to find gratitude for what they already have. — 00:02:56
  • ★★★ Ali says we should grow from a place of satisfaction with where we are: if you grow from dissatisfaction, you will still feel that dissatisfaction when your lot in life improves. — 00:03:25

  • ★★ Ali loves the phrase "strive satisfied" of his mentor Brendon Burchard: it is fine to strive for more while being satisfied and grateful for where you already are. — 00:03:25

    “Strive satisfied. It's okay to strive for more”

00:04:07 — Sponsor read for Skillshare

00:05:06 — Step two, align: the three-year sketch and Ali's first vision board

  • ★★★ Ali's step two is to align yourself with a compelling vision for your future: it need not be exact, but without some direction it is very hard to change your life. — 00:05:06
  • ★★★ Ali's favourite way to create a compelling vision is his three-year sketch: imagine today's date three years from now and write down what life looks like if things go well. — 00:05:35
  • ★★ For the three-year sketch done solo, Ali suggests a walk with music, preferably instrumental, visualising your best life three years from now without worrying how to get there or letting limiting beliefs hold you back. — 00:06:41
  • ★★ Ali says a three-year sketch should feel exciting, because that excitement generates the motivation to do what it takes to change your life in the next 90 days. — 00:07:11
  • ★★ The week before this video, Ali's wife Izzy hosted a vision boarding workshop for their productivity annual planning event, and following along Ali made his own vision board for the first time, in about 10 to 15 minutes. — 00:07:11 · Izzy Sealey
  • ★★ Ali's vision board has a very flexible, muscular man because he wants to get into martial arts and improve his flexibility and mobility. — 00:07:40
  • ★★ On his three-year vision board Ali has a co-working space: he would love to build an office with great vibes where he and his team can all work in person. — 00:08:09
  • ★★ Ali and his team are building productivity software: they have released VoicePal and are working on others, including Superfocus and ProgressPal. — 00:08:09 · VoicePal
  • ★ Ali's vision board wishes for three kids in three years, which he says is probably not going to happen. (playful, hedged) — 00:08:09
  • ★★ Ali wants to get better at singing, guitar and songwriting, which is why John Mayer is on his vision board. — 00:08:36
  • ★★ Ali says his wife Izzy is super into yoga while he is bad at flexibility, and he would love to be able to do acro yoga with her. — 00:08:36 · Izzy Sealey
  • ★ Ali wants to get really good at playing squash. — 00:08:36
  • ★★★ Having made a vision board for the first time and found it quite nice, Ali recommends making one, using any of the many YouTube tutorials. — 00:09:05

00:09:24 — Step three, plan your two main quests: the work main quest, its phrasing and Ali's LifeOS example

  • ★★★ Ali's step three uses quarterly quests: goals you will accomplish in the next 12 weeks, 90 days or quarter. — 00:09:33
  • ★★ Ali warns against taking life improvement too seriously: heaviness sucks the fun and joy out of it, leads to burnout and stress, and makes you less likely to achieve it. — 00:09:56
  • ★★ Ali says even something trivial like calling a 90-day goal a quarterly quest makes it feel more fun, like being on an adventure. — 00:10:26 · feel-good productivity (concept)
  • ★★★ Ali's key recommendation for quarterly quests is to allow yourself only one main quest for work and one for life. — 00:10:26
  • ★★★ Ali says multi-passionate people easily set too many goals and make no progress on any of them; focusing on one thing gives enormous progress in that area. — 00:11:24
  • ★★ To find your work main quest, Ali asks what single goal or project is most important in the next three months, what would move the needle most, and what would make you most proud in three months. — 00:11:53
  • ★★ Ali says watching productivity videos without doing the thing only feels productive and becomes mindless entertainment or "productivity pornography". — 00:12:20
  • ★★★ Ali's phrasing for a main quest: what it is, why it is the most important thing for the next 90 days, objective criteria someone else can verify, why it feels exciting, and what you will do to make sure you complete it. — 00:13:10
  • ★★★ Ali's work main quest for the quarter is to make LifeOS, his productivity course, an absolute banger, because once finished it becomes his main calling card in the productivity niche besides his book. — 00:13:54 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ Ali commits that within 90 days he will have launched and delivered the third cohort of LifeOS, created the LifeOS field manual with all concepts and tools, and filmed and released the evergreen version of the course. — 00:14:25
  • ★★ To complete his LifeOS quest, Ali will spend the first two hours of each workday on it, log his focus time and send daily progress updates to his team for accountability. — 00:14:49
  • ★★ Ali calls it the least productive and most heartbreaking thing to spend so much time being productive and efficient only to reach the wrong destination. — 00:15:18
  • ★★ Ali says this should not become a recipe for never doing anything, since you can never be fully certain, but half an hour once a quarter to decide your main thing is worth it. — 00:15:49
  • ★★ Ali's further examples of work main quests include applying for core surgical training, which he would have used as a doctor, and starting a YouTube channel as a side hustle. — 00:16:16

00:16:45 — The life main quest, objective criteria, Ali's martial arts example and side quests

  • ★★ To find your life main quest, Ali asks what would make you proudest in three months, what one change would improve every other area of life, and what you have been avoiding that would transform your relationships or happiness. — 00:17:14
  • ★★★ Ali says "stop procrastinating" is no verifiable goal; turn it into tangible criteria someone else can check, such as logging 180 focused minutes every workday 80% of the time, which makes you more likely to achieve it. — 00:18:31
  • ★★ Ali says a focus log, simply tracking the time you spend focusing, is completely needle-moving for your ability to focus. — 00:18:31
  • ★★★ Ali's life main quest for the quarter is to build a martial arts habit: he commits to attending at least 12 classes in the next 90 days, about one a week, to find which martial art he enjoys and where. — 00:19:26
  • ★★ Ali says his martial arts quest matters most this quarter because he has put it off for years and it will transform his health and, he hopes, his ability to defend himself and his family. — 00:19:26
  • ★★ To complete his martial arts quest, Ali will make a Notion page of nearby options, ask his wife Izzy to hold him accountable, check each week in his weekly review that a class is scheduled, and mention it in a YouTube video. — 00:19:54 · Notion, Izzy Sealey, weekly review
  • ★★ Besides the main quest, Ali allows himself two or three side quests each for work and life: the main quest absolutely has to be done, the side quests are nice to have. — 00:20:25

00:20:55 — Recap of the three steps and the video on achieving goals

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Ali did martial arts for six months, two to three times a week from January to July 2025, then decided to take a break. — creator comment
  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Asked whether self-help is just the same material repackaged in different ways, the channel answers: honestly, pretty much. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: quarterly quest · three-year sketch · vision board · wheel of life

Also: People: Brendon Burchard · Izzy Sealey · John Mayer

Projects: Life Operating System · The Feel-Good Productivity Annual Planning Workshop

Works: Feel-Good Productivity (book) · Harry Potter (book series)

Organizations: Moleskine · Skillshare

Concepts: acro yoga · Core surgical training · strive satisfied · time tracking · weekly review

Products: Notion · ProgressPal · Superfocus · VoicePal

Also centred on quarterly quest: A Week in My Life · Vlog · 6 Habits to Make 2026 Your Best Year Yet · How To Crush Your Goals Every Time

Also centred on vision board: I visualised my goals and this is what changed

Also centred on wheel of life: How to Make Next Year The Best Year of Your Life · What does your wheel of life look like? · How to Figure Out What You Really Want in Life · Change Your Life by Journalling - 10 Powerful Questions · How to Change Your Life

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