How to Craft Personal Quests That Actually Transform Your Work and Life
When was the last time you felt genuinely excited about your quarterly goals? Can you remember waking up eager to tackle them, rather than dutifully checking them off your to-do list? What if your professional and personal objectives could feel less like obligations and more like adventures worth taking?
My Default operating system
These questions hit me hard back in Q4 of last year. I found myself in a familiar cycle – scrolling endlessly through social media, productivity videos, watching tutorials that explained, in theory, how I could transform my life. But theory never translated to practice. My evenings disappeared into binge-watching yet another series on Netflix, and my days followed the path of least resistance.
Procrastination wasn’t just a habit – it had become my default operating system.
The breaking point came when I realized I’d spent more time watching videos about productivity and how to do the things, I was eager to do, than actually being productive about them and following the advice I had gotten from those videos. I hadn’t been setting goals – I’d been collecting aspirations with no real intention of pursuing them. The more difficult paths that could actually transform my work and life remained untaken, while I continued down the comfortable road of consumption rather than creation.
There was always this voice saying things like: “You are not ready!”, “With what you know right now there is no way you will get anything done – it’s not enough!”, “You will fail – stay safe and don’t try silly things, that’s not your life!”. This is why I never got out of this loop of feeling inspired, watching something about how to get started, but never actually starting. One day I realized that I had been following my dream of publishing my own app for almost half a year (May – Sep), reading about it, watching videos about it, but never writing a single line of code. I was absolutely sick of myself and my behavior!
That’s when I decided to completely reimagine how I approached my objectives. During this time, I discovered content creator Ali Abdaal, whose approach to productivity resonated deeply with me. In his book “Feel Good Productivity,” he explains how to set “Quests” instead of traditional goals – challenges that feel meaningful and adventurous rather than obligatory. Q1 was my testing ground, and the results were transformative enough that I’m doubling down on this approach for Q2.
How to get from Binge-Watching to Passionate Productivity
It was end of September, I was on holidays with my family in France. Everybody was having a “siesta”, to recharge for the day that was still ahead of us, while I, as usual, watched something about how to code a random thing yourself. Why? Because it was probably the closest I could get to feeling productive, without actually being it. After all, everybody is sleeping, BUT I!, I am here watching this video and being Productive.
Towards the end of those holidays, I had enough of this. I realized, I had spent countless hours doing this same thing, but I wasn’t any smarter than before.
This is the spark that you need to find. The point where you feel like ok that’s enough!
Having read so far, I assume, you already have somewhere inside of you a feeling of, “I want to change” or “That’s enough”, so you are already further than most. 🎉
So, what now you might be asking yourself? Now, you have to take advantage of the momentum you have already built up by taking this first step, showing interest in getting out of your default operating system.
How? Well it is actually very simple, but it takes a lot of will power, since there are a lot of easier things we could do with our lives right now, rather than trying to overcome that initial friction.
Think of your habits as a heavy boulder blocking your path. This super heavy boulder represents all your default decisions: “Come on – 30 min more on Instagram, that’s alright, you worked a lot already!”, “Oh man, they cut off that episode with a huge cliff hanger – I have to watch one more!”, “I will get started tomorrow, for real this time!”. For you to actually reach that void we call “Tomorrow”, you will have to push that boulder over the edge. This metaphor from Ali Abdaal illustrates the initial friction you have to overcome. After you push it uphill for a bit – which will be hard, frustrating, uncertain and maybe fear-inducing – then your boulder will carry on moving down that hill all by itself. You will no longer have to work so hard against it, since it is already in motion!
Here’s a simple action plan to get started today:
- Take 5 minutes to list your daily default behaviors (social media scrolling, Netflix binges, etc.)
- Choose ONE thing from that list to eliminate or replace today
- Decide on a tiny first step toward something meaningful (just 5-10 minutes)
- Set a specific time to take that step (not “later” or “when I feel like it”)
- Tell someone else about your intention to create accountability
By taking these small actions today, you’re beginning to push that boulder and clear the path to reach your dreams!
My Quarterly Quests – Goals You Can Actually Achieve
After taking those first steps for myself towards the end of Q4 in 2024, I decided to actually start changing my life in 2025! We all know that feeling, just like pushing everything to tomorrow, we also are very certain each year that we will manage to hit our New Years Resolutions. After all, this year will be different, this is the one! Right?
A recent survey by the University of Scranton found that only 8 percent of adults manage to achieve their new years resolutions; that’s a staggering 92 percent failure rate. – Source: How High School Students Can Set — and Accomplish – Their Goals
I usually never even bothered to set goals for the New Year. This way I would at least not get disappointed. But I also didn’t achieve what I wanted either.
How can we set goals, that we actually are able to achieve then?
Productivity books like “The 12 Week Year” by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington, “Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business” by Gino Wickman, “Make Time” by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, “Atomic Habits” by James Clear, “Deep Work” by Cal Newport, “The ONE Thing” by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan and many more. They might all have different definitions and focus on slightly different topics, but they all see eye to eye, when it comes to how goals should be set up and followed up on:
1. Goals Need to Be Specific and Measurable
- Vague goals = vague results.
- Whether it’s “12 Week Goals”, or the “ONE Thing”, all stress clear, measurable targets.
- 📌 Example: “Get in shape” becomes “Work out 4x/week for the next 12 weeks.”
2. Time-Bound, Short-Term Focus (Quarterly is Ideal)
- All these systems break big dreams into 90-day sprints or focus periods.
- Why? A quarter is long enough to make real progress, but short enough to stay urgent and avoid procrastination.
- ✅ The 12 Week Year formalizes this; EOS (Traction) calls them “quarterly rocks.”
3. Goals Are Broken Down Into Weekly & Daily Actions
- Big goals are worthless without consistent action.
- These frameworks create a bridge from big vision → quarterly goal → weekly task → daily action.
- 🧱 The daily execution becomes a system (Atomic Habits, Make Time).
4. Focus & Prioritization Are Essential
- You can’t do it all – focus on fewer, more impactful goals.
- The ONE Thing drills this idea in: what’s the single most important task today?
- Make Time calls it your “Daily Highlight.”
5. Frequent Reviews & Adjustments
- Weekly reviews are built in.
- You reflect on:
- What worked?
- What didn’t?
- What needs adjusting?
- In Traction they speak about weekly team meetings.
- The 12 Week Year has weekly scorecards.
6. Identity, Motivation, or Vision Anchor the Goals
- Goals should tie back to something meaningful – your vision, values, or identity.
- Atomic Habits emphasizes becoming the kind of person who does those things.
- The ONE Thing and Traction tie goals to big-picture visions.
This is exactly what I tried to stick to during Q1. First, I came up with the goals that would most energize me – Quests for this Q and made sure to make them time bound, by committing to a deadline (Step 1, 2 and 6):
- Finishing the MVP for my first ever App by the 29th of Mar
- Publishing a Website by the 28th of Feb
- Finishing a holiday video to have a nice memory of the Ski Vacations with the Fam by the 21st of Feb
I made myself a type of tracker in an app called Obsidian (this would work the same with Apple Notes, Google Docs, even a sheet of paper), where I would have a folder for the goals I wanted to reach withing the next 3 months. In there, I had also a folder for each week, where I then broke down all goals into subtasks that would, when accomplished, ensure success in reaching the main ones. Those had also to be time bound, making sure they had a due date (Step 3). Each week I took on one subtask, that way I was making sure I stayed always in line with the big picture. I then split those subtasks yet another time into smaller tasks as described by “The One Thing”, where each day I decided what was the most important thing I should get done today to get one step closer to the weekly goal (Step 4). After each week I reviewed what had worked, what hadn’t and what needed to be adjusted or improved (Step 5).
Guess how many of them I met?
Yeah I wouldn’t have guessed it either, but I managed to complete all of them and even before the deadlines I had set out for them! You can’t imagine the thrill you feel when you cross of the last Quest on that list, that you wrote nearly 3 months ago, when you thought “Ok, that seems ambitious, but I’ll try it anyway!”.
This proved it for me a 100% – I was able to do what ever I wanted as long as I tracked it, followed up on it and made sure to put my priorities where they needed to be.
My Q2 Quests – Spring Reset by Ali Abdaal
Last week I joined a webinar hosted by Ali Abdaal, called Spring Reset 2025, where he walked participants through his methodology for defining Quests for the upcoming quarter. This was incredibly helpful, not only because it forced me to sit down and plan my Q2 goals as I had done three months ago, but also because doing it alongside others provided new perspectives and motivation. This is precisely why I wrote this post – to spark that same interest in others who might be ready to take their first step but haven’t quite gotten there yet. I would love for someone to read this and say “Alright, this is the day, today I’ll start changing my life!”
How I set up my main quarterly Quests:
The webinar taught various approaches to goal-setting, as it’s not always straightforward. The key takeaway is to have two main Quests – one for work, one for life – and then up to three side Quests for each area. For me, choosing just one life main quest was challenging, as I had several priorities competing for attention. Research reveals an important balance: While setting specific and challenging goals leads to higher performance than easy goals in 90% of studies, another study with 271 participants found that only 10% successfully achieved their ambitious goals. This demonstrates that setting too many goals or making them too ambitious can be counterproductive. We’re better off focusing deeply on one meaningful goal than spreading ourselves thin across many. With this understanding, I decided on two main quests:
- Learn more about AI agents and what they are capable of to understand how I can leverage their abilities for my own work. (By the 30th of June) – Work
- Start calisthenics again. (By the 30th of June) – Life
Why those goals:
- Learning about AI: I always wanted to learn more about AI and all the new things there are coming out lately. There is a lot of potential there that each of us could take advantage of by learning more about what there is to know.
- Start calisthenics: If you don’t know what calisthenics is, here is the definition of it. But basically it’s like gaining super powers. You feel like being able of defying gravity and doing crazy things that require an immense amount of strength. I used to be very good at it, but then day to day life got in the way. Of course this is just an excuse, because there is always time for the things you decide to prioritize. Which is what I decided doing for this Q!
The next step was to decide on actionable steps you can take to measure your progress towards those goals – remember: Goals should be measurable, time-bound and actionable.
So I decided on the following:
- Learning about AI:
- Finish 50 courses/webinars/articles/etc. about AI Agents
- Put into practice what I learned in them (10 small projects)
- Start calisthenics:
- 1.5 Min handstand
- 10 solo handstand pushups
- solid straddle planch (3 – 5 sec)
Then each of those will get subtasks to ensure each actionable step is completely met. And as before, each day, I will choose the most important task, that will move me towards those goals in the most impactful way and finally follow up each week on those subgoals, to determine whether I am going in the right direction or if it needs a realignment, because they just didn’t work.
The Side Quests:
To always have a sense of adventure and experimentation, Ali suggests as well to have side quests that keep you motivated when you want to take a brake from the main ones. That way you can let yourself wonder as well and see how other things make you feel and how they affect your life.
Again, here he suggests three side quests for Work and three for Life at most. Here are mine:
- Work:
- Keep working on the website:
- 2 posts per month
- 1 Newsletter per month
- Publish my first App to the Play Store (android only for now)
- Keep working on the website:
- Life:
- Go on motorcycle trips to discover the area and have a sense of adventure
- Connect more with friends
- Have more date nights!
Those are the points that I personally decided would make the most impact and help me balance out everything that I’m trying to handle.
Of course there is way more planning and brainstorming to it than just coming up with goals out of the blue and having absolute clarity after having thought about it for 5 min. It’s not like we all have a thousand topics, we want to learn about and get better at and know exactly with which to start with. This process took most of the two hours of the webinar and a few more the day after, to actually plan each of them out in depth. Nobody said this was a quick and easy exercise that would promise life changing effects for free and with no time investment – that doesn’t exist!
But it is an easy thing to start right now! We have the privilege of having access to a nearly infinite amount of resources, idea generation tools and brainstorming frameworks, completely for free for most purposes – Chat GPT, Claude, Gemini, etc. They all helped me a lot with each of the steps I had to take to finalizing my ideal quests and the best way to achieve them. We live in a new era having those tools within our grasp at all times. We should use them to the fullest! Which is why I have left a template linked below, to help you figure out your energizing and adventurous Quests for Q2 2025, built with the help of what I learned in the webinar, Claude and Chat GPT.
Conclusion
To recap, everybody struggles at one point with getting started, because we let ourselves get blocked by big boulders formed out of the easy paths that life and society give us on a daily basis. To push that boulder away and start building up momentum, we just need to start. Anything, whatever it might be, but start choosing slowly but surely those more difficult paths, until you have overcome that initial friction, to reset your operating system and download a new update that will change your life.
Additionally, start crafting your own quests with the help of the template I left above and the AI tools we have at our disposal. Make sure you focus on what actually matters to you and start aiming toward it on a daily basis, choosing the most important thing to move the needle in the right direction. That will help you as well, keeping this boulder moving, as it will fill you with energy every time you cross off a big goal you thought was never possible to achieve!
Of course, there will be setbacks. You’ll have days when motivation disappears, when old habits call you back, or when external circumstances disrupt your carefully planned routines. When this happens, remember that progress isn’t linear. A missed day doesn’t mean failure – it’s just a data point. Use these moments to learn about your triggers and obstacles, then adjust your approach. Sometimes the most important growth happens not when everything is going well, but when you’re figuring out how to get back on track after a detour.
Call to action: Your Turn!
Heaving read so far, I firstly want to thank you for taking time to read what I had to say, but especially thank yourself for taking this first step in getting interested in changing your life.
The next step would be to sit down, put 5 min on a timer and start writing down every thing that you would like to achieve in your life. Doesn’t matter if you think it is silly or if you think you will never get there. Turn off those thoughts and really take that time to give yourself the permission to think about what you want!
Lastly I recommend you tell someone, your partner, your best friend, you sibling, anyone who got your back and wishes you nothing, but the best – tell them about the list you just made, so you don’t feel alone and so someone knows about your ideal future life. That person then can also serve for holding you accountable, when they see you about to drop the ball again.
Final Words
This journey requires genuine effort. There will be days when you feel drained, when the couch and Netflix seem to call your name. But something remarkable happens when you start seeing results -the first time you accomplish something you’ve been postponing for months, or when you achieve a goal you once thought impossible. That feeling of accomplishment is what I’ve experienced these past few months. It’s the quiet confidence of knowing that what you commit to, you can achieve. It’s the realization that you are capable of taking your destiny into your own hands and building the future you once thought was out of reach. I won’t promise overnight success or effortless transformation. What I will promise is that consistent small actions compound dramatically over time. The person you’ll be a year from now – with new habits, achievements, and a completely different mindset – will look back at today as the turning point. The day you decided to push that boulder and set it rolling downhill. Your future self is waiting. The only question is: will you begin today?
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