5 Steps to Set Goals for All Areas of Your Life

Mind

It’s 2016 – time to make our dreams happen! I’ve spent a lot of time journaling leading up to this year to focus on how I can make 2016 the best year possible. I did this exercise to how see how I can achieve goals in all aspects of my life. It left me feeling so empowered and on the right path to achieving my dreams.

We all have things we want to accomplish, places we want to go, and power moves we want to make. Sometimes when you look at goals or dreams, they can feel out of grasp or overwhelming. Putting intention and planning into your goals will help you get control and on the right path to achieving them. This exercise will help you feel empowered and ready to tackle goals in all areas of your life.

5 Steps To Setting Your Goals

Step 1.   Divide your life into categories. – Relationships, Health, Recreation, Money, Business/Career, Inner Growth, Service and Environment. These are the categories I chose, but you can substitute them or add in a few if you want.

Step 2.   For each category, create 3 goals that you would like to achieve. Make sure these goals are specific, quantifiable, and on a timeline.

 Here are some ideas to create goals around: (These are just ideas to get your brain going. It’s up to you to make them individualized, focused towards your vision, specific and measurable.)

  • Relationships – clearer communication, more loving behaviours, seeing loved ones more often, meeting new people, attending more events, creating a date night.
  • Health – Eating for your health, weight loss, body composition, joining a gym or class, stopping an unhealthy behaviour.
  • Recreation – adding a creative outlet to your life, travel, trips, reading, drawing, hiking.
  • Money – amount in savings, amount earned from your job, amount earned from your passion project, amount saved for a trip.
  • Business/Career – a step towards your dream career, further education, number of clients or consumers, new project, new position or job, attending events, networking.
  • Inner Growth – spirituality, reading, writing, prayer, meditation, knowing your story.
  • Service – volunteering, smiling at strangers, donations, helping the community or loved ones.
  • Environment – shifting consumer habits, reducing waste and pollution, eating sustainably.

Step 3.   Write out a step-by-step plan of how you can achieve each goal. – What actions are you going to take to make that goal a reality? Make the steps very specific and include deadlines where applicable. Here are a few examples:

Health
Goal #1: Run a 10k race by my birthday
-Find a race and sign up by January 25, 2016
-Pick a training program and start it on February 1, 2016
-Hit weekly running total and number of workouts, add it to weekly checklist

Money
Goal #1: Have $10,000 in savings by September 30, 2016
-Determine how much you need to save a month to hit this goal
-Achieve monthly balances: January $4250, February $5,500, March…
-Add this goal to my monthly checklist

Growth

Goal #1: Know my story – Have my SFD (Shitty First Draft-Reference Brené Brown) by March 1, 2015
-Write 2 hours a week free writing
-Identify themes, shame, and triggers
-Relate values and beliefs, then look at my vision, my purpose and my why
-Add this goal to my weekly checklist

Service
Goal #1: Donate $10 a month to SumOfUs and sign 10 of their petitions monthly
-Go online and set up an automatic monthly payment
-Add to my monthly checklist to sign 10 petitions

The idea is for each goal to be written step by step, so that if you gave your goals to someone else it would be so straightforward they could achieve it themselves no problem.

Step 4.   Create a weekly checklist and a monthly checklist. – Every week and start of a month look over your goals and write out what you need to complete. It’s really important to have a weekly checklist you are trying to achieve and an end of the month checklist. At the start of the week, write down everything you need to accomplish by the end of the week to stay on target, and at the beginning of each month write down what you need to have completed to stay on track. Having these weekly goals and end of month checklist will help you stay focused on the immediate goal activities along with the bigger picture.

Step 5.   Have an accountability meeting. – Once a week meet with a buddy or with yourself (preferably on Sunday) to review your goals and your week, where you’re excelling, where you can do better at and what changes you need to make. Make adjustments and prepare for what you need accomplish in the week coming up. This is a great time to also do step #4 and write out your goals for the up coming week.

The amazing thing about setting these goals is that we get a much clearer picture of what we need to do and we feel empowered to do it. By following the steps we laid out and hitting our weekly and monthly goals, it’s as simple as just doing it to make our goals a reality. Here’s to making 2016 a year of dreaming big and achieving our goals!

With love,

Lucy

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