A dis­grun­tled, aspir­ing copy­writer wrote me demand­ing clar­i­fi­ca­tions. He believes most copy­writ­ers lie and exag­ger­ate their claims of wealth. Let’s call him “Chuck.”

I under­stand where Chuck is com­ing from. Because I’ve been where he is. So I responded, not because I wanted to acqui­esce to his demands but because I wanted to give him hope, ideas, and, dare I say it, a million-​​dollar education.

He says he will be ask­ing other copy­writ­ers the same ques­tion, and even threat­ened (although, that may be too harsh of a word) to pub­lish my reply. I’ve decided to take the lead myself, and pub­lish it here.

For all I know, this copy­writer may be gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion to cre­ate his own prod­uct. Who knows? If he is, I must say that his strat­egy is bril­liant. A tad decep­tive, but bril­liant. Regard­less, if he does cre­ate a prod­uct out of this, good for him!

But I’m reprint­ing the con­ver­sa­tion here not just to take the lead but also because I believe it will help a lot of other strug­gling copy­writ­ers out there. Also, I’m open­ing myself a lit­tle more than usual. I guess you can say that I’m expos­ing the real “Michel Fortin.”

My answer might sur­prise you…

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Drop Your Goals (And Man­age Your Life) by Michel Fortin is a book writ­ten over a decade ago as the author was going through some tough times.

The result is a pow­er­ful look at how to stop set­ting goals and to start look­ing at your pri­or­i­ties and val­ues instead — called “guides” rather than “goals.”

It’s a bit spir­i­tual and meta­phys­i­cal in nature, so please read with an open mind. How­ever, the strate­gies it offers are real and practical.

I highly rec­om­mend that your read this book, which is brought to you free, and start using the G.O.A.L. method out­lined in the book, with tem­plates at the end.

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Here are the work­sheets to use when apply­ing Michel Fortin’s G.O.A.L. method. You can sim­ply use the tables below as a model to guide you. You can use them on a sheet of paper, in your jour­nal, or on your computer.

But if you do pre­fer the print­able ver­sion, you can down­load this book in dig­i­tal PDF for­mat by click­ing here. Most browsers have the PDF plug-​​in already installed.

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“I con­ceive that plea­sures are to be avoided if greater pains be the con­se­quence, and pains to be cov­eted that will ter­mi­nate in greater plea­sures.“
– Michel Eyquem de Mon­taigne (Circa 1500)

Remem­ber that it’s not your goals that really count but how you live your life accord­ing to what’s impor­tant to you. If you feel you can not incor­po­rate this sys­tem with your cur­rent job or other respon­si­bil­i­ties, you should first try it out.

You might find out that your job is indeed part of your pri­or­i­ties or that it doesn’t mean any­thing at all to you. If the first is true, then you will have a greater zest and love for what you do. How­ever, if the sec­ond is true, then start look­ing for some­thing you love or would love to do.

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“I prac­ticed the art of get­ting more things done rather than get­ting the really impor­tant things done well.“
– Alec MacKenzie

“We can no more afford to spend major time on minor things than we can to spend minor time on major things.“
– Jim Rohn

Now is the time to set your GOALs. Your “guides” are goals that will most likely stem from your per­sonal val­ues because, hav­ing gone through the process so far, you will have a pretty good idea of what kind of goals you truly want. Take a new sheet of paper and write at the top the words “My Guides.” Then, write down what you want to be, do, or have.

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“The most impor­tant things in life aren’t things.“
– Fran­cis the Talk­ing Mule

“One of the symp­toms of an approach­ing ner­vous break­down is the belief that one’s work is ter­ri­bly impor­tant.“
– Bertrand Russell

“Often peo­ple attempt to live their lives back­wards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want to they will be hap­pier. The way it actu­ally works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, to have what you want.“
– Mar­garet Young

First, take a sheet of paper and write at the top “My Val­ues.” Start by list­ing your top ten val­ues. Ask your­self what kind of feel­ing, value, or per­sonal mean­ing you would like in your life right now. What are your inner­most con­vic­tions? What do your really value in life? What are you truly pas­sion­ate about? What are your core desires?

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“Unless you live con­sis­tent with your deep­est val­ues, you’ll achieve but still lack the ulti­mate ful­fill­ment you truly deserve.“
– Anthony Robbins

“The secret to suc­cess and hap­pi­ness is to trans­late your val­ues into every­day life.“
– Hyrum Smith

Every­body has a set of deep core val­ues that gov­erns a person’s actions and a per­son can never ignore his core val­ues. When con­fronted with emer­gen­cies, pres­sure, impor­tant deci­sions, or chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tions, the actions he invari­ably takes will directly stem from his per­sonal set of values.

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