How to change when life is SO BUSY!

Article #125 of Life Unlocked - A newsletter by Dr Yath Prem, MD

Dear Friends,

I'm writing to you from sunny Maldives this week, where despite fish swimming beneath our water villa and a hammock with incredible turquoise views tempting me, I'm keeping up with my weekly newsletter. I never bulk write or schedule far in advance because I genuinely enjoy sharing what's resonating with me each week as it happens.

Have you ever felt like traditional goal-setting methods just don't work for your biggest ambitions? Maybe you've set a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely) only to find yourself frustrated when life throws curveballs at you or give up when work gets super busy.

I recently finished Anne-Laure Le Cunff's book Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World, and one insight about goal setting feels like a game changer. Le Cunff introduces the PACT framework as an alternative to SMART goals, particularly for ambitious, long-term endeavours like learning to code, mastering a new language, or getting fit (sound familiar?).

Here's what makes PACT different:

• Purposeful: Unlike SMART goals that focus on what's relevant right now, purposeful goals connect with your long-term vision. Ask yourself: "Does this goal align with my deeper purpose in life?" When I started this newsletter, it wasn't just about growing an audience, it was about creating meaningful conversations around mindful personal growth and helping others.

• Actionable: Instead of focusing on outcomes (which are often outside our control), PACT emphasises outputs you can actually control. Rather than "gain 5,000 subscribers" (outcome), my goal should rather be "publish consistently every week" (output). This shift puts us back in the driver's seat.

• Continuous: Great goals involve simple, repeatable actions rather than complex, overwhelming plans. Le Cunff notes that many goals fail because of "choice paralysis.” When there are so many options that you spend more time researching what is the right thing to do than doing. So with that in mind, we should think what is one small (or tiny) continuous daily (or weekly) action we could take toward our purposeful and actionable goals?

• Trackable: Notice this isn't "measurable" like in SMART goals. Le Cunff favours a simple "yes or no" approach to tracking. Did you write today? Did you practice Spanish? Did you publish your newsletter? Yes or no? This binary tracking cuts through the complexity and keeps us focused on consistency and gives us that much needed dopamine hit.

As a doctor with a "squiggly" career path and countless interests, I've always been full of ideas and ambitions. In school and medical training, external structures forced consistency through exams and deadlines. But now, as an independent adult without someone watching over my shoulder, I find myself starting projects only to be seduced by the next shiny idea a week later. That rigour and discipline I once had seems harder to maintain. The PACT framework will be a revelation for me. it creates a structure for consistency without the rigidity that makes me want to rebel.

The first PACT I’ve made this year is to write my newsletters more consistently, it looks something like this:

• Purposeful: Write newsletters because it fits with a value in my life which is to teach by sharing ideas and inspiring others.

• Actionable: Publish one newsletter every week.

• Continuous: Collect ideas throughout the week, open Substack on a Sunday, pick an idea to write about, write it, and schedule it to be sent Monday 9am GMT.

• Trackable: Did I post - yes or no?

Rather than setting outcome-based goals like "reach X subscribers by Y date", I can now focus on a purposeful, continuous habit of writing weekly.

This week, I invite you to take one goal you've been struggling with and reframe it using the PACT approach. Does if feel more sustainable to achieve?

Have a great week,

Dr. Yath Prem, MD

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Quote of the week:

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it.

— Seneca

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Thanks for reading Life Unlocked! I really do write these because I feel like even if one person resonates with an idea or learns something new, then it’s worthwhile.

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