How To Manage Your Social Life (and still reach all your goals)

If you have been on X for a while, you start to believe that you should:

- work out 7 days a week

- build an online business 12 hours a day

- say no to everything, except 'growth'

But what if you are a person with family and friends? What if you are not some guru living in Bali, but a normal guy with a job, and hobbies interests?

You can't keep grinding day after day. Week after week, month after month. You need a break. You need to have fun.

What else is the point of life?

To live on a yacht with no one to share your life with, because you chased them all away?

That's not the way to go, and you know it.

What you need is a game plan:

A plan to work on (and achieve) your goals, have time for your hobbies and interests, and spend quality time with those important to you.

It's easier than you think. Follow the below 3 steps to manage your social life!

Have your priorities straight

You have to know the difference between spending quality time with your friends, and wasting your precious time.

Dan Koe said it best:

Plan your week ahead. Plan as much as possible (with flexibility)

Your biggest enemy is not having a plan.

Every morning, it should be clear what you are going to do that day. If you wake up to 'let's see what I can do today' you'll end up watching Netflix or Youtube.

Every Sunday, make a schedule for the rest of the week. It is the only solution against distractions.

Your mind will do everything in its power to distract you from the work. Simply because distractions cost less energy than working on your long-term goals.

Make the resistence for working on your goals as little as possible.

For every day of the week, I know what training I'll be doing. What writing I'll be doing. What reading I'll be doing.

I don't plan this to the minute. I keep enough flexibility, so that if something fun comes up, I have the freedom to do it.

My rule of thumb is this: If I did everything on my to-do list this day, can I call it a day well spend?

If there is 1 thing you learn from this newsletter, it's this:

plan your week ahead!

Develop a hierarchy of important things

I do agree with the gurus on 1 thing: if you don't prioritize your goals, you'll never achieve them.

Related to that, there is limited time in a day.

Most of you got a job, obligations, want a fit body, you name it.

The problefm is that there are only 24 hours in the day.

You sleep 8 hours.

You work (and commute) 10 hours.

You have your chores for 2 hours.

You train for 1 hour (at least).

That leaves just 3 hours of free time that you can spend on your friends, your hobbies or your side business.

How you spend these 3 hours every day, can determine the rest of your life.

You need a set of rules for this.

I demand of myself that I write 1 hour a day. This is non-negiotable.

I prioritize myself to grow my audience online for 30 minutes a day.

I prefer to see my friends twice a week.

I like to read 1 hour a day.

If I haven't written a certain day, and my friends want to go to the movies, I have to say no.

If I wrote and grew my audience a certain day, but haven't read a book, and my friends want to go for a ride, I say yes.

It's sounds lame. But we all know how time flies. And if you don't have constraints in place, months will fly by without achieving anything.

This hierarchy should be customized to your needs. We all value different things. So think deeply how you want to spend your day.

Know the long-term cost of not doing the thing (or doing the thing)

We think we have time. But every day not working on you goals is another day not getting closer.

Nowadays distractions are all around. And it's much more difficult to maintain focus than, lets say 15 years ago.

But there are also much more possibilities than 15 years ago. The rise of the internet is your greatest blessing and worst enemy.

Every time you decide to watch Netflix, scroll on TikTok, and watch Youtube, you 'postpone' your goals.

When you are about to distract yourself, ask this: "Is the short-term pleasure of distracting myself greater than the long-term happiness of reaching my goals?"

The answer is almost always no.

A well-known trick is to set a timer for 5 minutes and start working on your project. If, after 5 minutes, you still want to watch a show, go do it. But chances are that you want to keep on working.

Hanging out with your friends every day is detrimental for your long-term success. And your friends might not have big dreams, but you do.

Know when to work on yourself, and know when to spend time with friends.

Learn to say NO

What do Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs and Dustin Moskovitz have in common?

They all knew the importance of saying no.

Time and energy are finite resources. And if you are not careful, you'll waste it all.

Learning to say no is perhaps the most important skill to learn in your whole life.

Build resistance

If you are a people pleaser, like me, it will be incredibly difficult to say no to people. Your family, friends, boss, coworkers will all ask for your attention when you start leveling up (I don't make the rules, that's how it works).

You have to make the decision that your life is more important than the trivial things of your environment.

My boss asked me if I wanted to join the 'engagement board' that is in charge of connecting all the different departments. This would take me 3 hours a week.

That's 3 hours that I can't work on my writing, my business and myself. I had to say no.

2 Years ago I'd have said yes because I'd be too afraid to decline. But I practiced saying no. Now, I don't care about it anymore.

Start being comfortable with saying no.

Start small. Say no to things that don't matter. Slowly, build it up. Say no to a party you don't want to go to. Say no to your boss. Keep building your resistance up. So you can work on your own life.

An extra benefit: people will respect you more.

Nobody likes a yes-man. Stand for something. Do what your gut tells you.

Be intentional

It's so important to be intentional nowadays. The whole world is in your pocket.

I always plan my day. I set timers. I block out distractions.

Every hour you commit to the right thing sets you up for in a year from now.

That's the whole 'secret' to transforming your life: your intention.

If you want to be a writer, write. Every day. Post it online. Knock on doors. Let the world know you are a writer. Don't slack around.

If you want to transform your body, train with intention. Eat with intention. Every rep, every set, every bite either sets you up, or brings you down.

Everything you do matters.

I value my friendships a lot. So I meet my friends with the intention of nurturing these relationships. But you don't see me hanging out with them 7 days a week.

Don’t forget to have fun

"Locked in" seems to be the most used word this year on social media, especially on X.

And I get it. In order to succeed, you need to spend an enormous time locked-in.

But don't forget that it's all a game.

Life is more than your achievements

Life is more than the amount of money you make. The companies you start. The miles you run.

Life is the accumulation of all your experiences.

That's why it's so important to take care of your social life. Go out with friends. Get drunk. Go on vacation. Travel to knew countries. Meet new people. Work on a meaningful goal. Find your purpose. Have fun.

The guru who makes 200k a year and sits behind his laptop all day has a worse life than the guy who monetizes his passion for 100k a year, goes out with his friends and travels the world.

I can't stress this enough: have fun.

Start seeing social life as a playground for growth

The biggest pitfall is that we start seeing our social life as a 'waste of time'.

We cancel every social event for the sake of 'reaching our goals'.

But we can develop ourselves enormously in social settings, if we have the intention to do so.

Be interested. Be interesting. Learn how to hold a conversation. Try to keep present. Talk to beautiful women. Leave a good impression.

These are all things you can't learn behind your desk. You have to learn these things in the real world. It all starts with your intention. Every encounter, every person can be a reason for growth.

Don’t take yourself too seriously

Newsflash: you are going to die.

In three generations you will be forgotten. No one will remember how much money you made. How many employees you had.

So live a little.

Find happiness in everyday life. Laugh for no reason. In the end, it all comes down to 1 question:

did I live a good life?

And living a good life takes effort. It takes intention, discipline and will-power.

You have to make the decision how you want to live your life. Aim high, work hard, and have fun along the way.

I'll leave it at that.

Take care,

VK