How to Set and Achieve Personal Goals
Tired of not reaching your goals?
Ready to throw in the towel because nothing seems to work? Before you do that, let’s take a deeper dive into what may be blocking you.
I have been setting goals for decades, I have naturally been drawn to them.
But that hasn’t always made them easy to achieve. In fact, there have been many, many, many times I found myself overwhelmed, frustrated and ashamed that I wasn’t able to get what I wanted.
But I kept going.
And in doing so have learned what makes a good goal, how to plan properly, and what might be blocking you – that you didn’t know was.
Below is what I have learned from decades of experience!
What Are Personal Goals?
Before we dig into setting goals, let’s first get clear on exactly what a personal goal is.
A goal is simply something that you want to achieve. This is typically something that wouldn’t happen with some thought or planning around it.
For example, you wouldn’t have a goal to go to the bathroom every day, get the mail at least once a week or turn the lights out at night. Those are more regular activities. A goal on the other hand is focused on something that will take more coordination to achieve. Such as getting your college degree or saving for retirement.
Let’s look at some goal examples.
Personal Goal Examples
- Compete in a triathlon in 6 months.
- Save $15,000 for a down payment on a house.
- Achieve 60 minutes of deep sleep a night.
- Meditate for 10 minutes every day.
- Travel to all continents by the time I am fifty.
- Get an internship with an NFL team for next summer.
- Improve my public speaking skills.
Why Setting Goals is Helpful
The best reason to set a goal is that without it, it is difficult to achieve the life you want. You might end up with a life you like, but you might not! By setting a goal you are declaring what you want and then working to achieve it.
It helps you make decisions in your life, because you know what direction you want to go. If you have a goal to buy a house and you are asked to go skiing for the weekend with your friends. But you hate skiing and would just be going to hangout. Your goal to save for a house might be that one more piece of information, that makes you say no instead.
How to Set Personal Goals
The first step is to determine what you want from life. You can do this by imagining what you want your life to look like in five, ten or twenty years.
Second you want to prioritize what you want. You might have a list of fifty things you want from life. But that is way to much too take on at one time. Instead, start to put everything in order that you want them today.
For example, maybe you want to have a family. But not for at least five years. You would put that further down your list and instead prioritize things that you wanted to do before you have kids.
Third, pick just three things you want to work on achieving right now. Why three? More than that and your focus becomes divided, and you can’t make the progress you want. When can you expand that number?
When one of your goals is long-term and doesn’t take much effort that can become a fourth. For example, saving for retirement by the time you are 60. You can work on that goal without much effort once you have your investing plan in place. It can be automated and only reviewed once a year. Thus, allowing you to focus daily on other goals like health – so you can still go do stuff when you are retired!
Starting your list of what you want can be difficult. To help you out here are some journal prompts to get your list started.
Journal Prompts For Goal Setting
- What would make me happy if I accomplished it?
- What values do I want to focus on this year?
- Create a list of things that you want to: be, do or have.
- What do you enjoy doing? Can that become a goal?
- What does my perfect day look like? What in this day do I need to work on to make a reality?
Still stuck trying to figure out what you want from life? Check out my Life Planning Workbook to make the process easier!
Required Question Before You Set Your Goals
Before you finalize your goals, there is one more question you need to ask yourself. And this one is REALLY important.
Is this goal something you want? Too many people rush past this step without clarifying this.
I hear you, I just set them, why wouldn’t I want them?
Because we often go into automation mode when setting goals. Assuming we still want the same thing, we wanted 5 years ago.
Or that we want something that was actually put on us by our parents, or teachers or partners.
So, ask yourself: if I could start over today and go after anything. What would it be?
How to Achieve Goals
Reaching your goals depends on four main things. Mastering each of these is needed for success. You can do everything right in one category, but not have success because of the others.
The Right Goal
This is why that last question above is so important. You need to have a goal you want to work to achieve. If you set a goal that is because your parents want it, then you will end up sabotaging yourself. The more you don’t want a goal, the more hurdles you will put in your own way. This is typically subconscious, so it hard to spot the problems. Leaving you frustrated.
Planning
Proper planning is critical to achieving your goals. You don’t just set a goal, cross your fingers and hope it works. You need to create detailed plans about what you do and when you do them.
Begin by breaking down into small parts what needs done. Then add a timeline to those parts. And finally add it to your calendar.
For example, you have a goal of reading one book a month. You decide you are going to pick out a new book on the first day of the month. Then divide the number of pages of that book by the days in the month. Giving you exactly how many pages you need to read a day. You would add to your calendar on the 1st to pick a book. Then add to your daily schedule how many pages to read.
The bigger the goal the more details and dates you will have. You may also find that with big goals you only plan a month or two out. This will allow you to adapt what needs adjusted as you go.
Knowledge
This one is straight forward. It is understanding what you need to know to achieve your goal. Some examples:
- If you set a financial goal you need to know the specifics for that. Such as budgeting, investing or general personal finance.
- If you set a goal to run your own business, then you need to know that!
- If you set a goal to manually take your own pictures of the Northern Lights, then you need to know what all the settings are on your camera and how they interact with each other. Especially at night.
Part of your planning process needs to include figuring out what you need to learn and how you will do it. Using the example of taking pictures of the Northern Lights, you would need to buy a book or take a course to learn about photography. This needs to go on your calendar so that you learn it in time for when you want to take the pictures.
Personal Management
Personal management is about the blocks you encounter because of you. This is where if you have the right goal and plan but don’t implement it, you will need to work on your personal growth.
For example, you might struggle with time management, discipline, mindset or energy management. To narrow in on what the problem is you might journal or work with a coach to identify it. Then create a plan to fix that.
More Tips to Achieve Your Goals
- Track your goals, but also track the breakdown. For example, from our example about reading a book a month. You will track not just the books you read, but what days you meet the number of pages you need. You may even jot down notes about what isn’t working, so you can find patterns.
- On a bad day, don’t give up. Instead take a break. You can’t go all out all the time. Self-care and a reset are needed too. (If you think you need to give up, go watch this video first. It has questions you can ask yourself.)
- When you are working on a goal you can’t always see what the problem is. This is normal. It happens to everyone. The important part is that you ask for help. Stuck on a problem, ask a mentor, a friend, a coach – anyone you trust.
- Set aside time each month to review how you are doing and if you need to make any changes. If you keep working on the goal without evaluating you won’t know when you are off track. The sooner you catch problems, the faster you get to your goal.
Still feeling overwhelmed with starting to change your life? Check out my article on how to get started with life changes.
Not Sure Why You Are Stuck?
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