With 2020 around the corner, let’s talk about how to set goals, and actually achieve them. You might be thinking, well, I don’t even know what I want my goals to be!! And that’s ok. Together, we will go through an exercise to help you uncover your subconscious dreams, and desires, and THEN we will break those down into goals, and actions steps toward actually achieving them.

Before we get started, I’d really love for you to grab a pen and paper, so pause and go do that, because I want you to actually do this exercise with me in real-time. The reason this is important is that if you do this the first time you hear it, your true desires will come up rather than if you give yourself days to think about it, your analytical mind will jump in and distort your true desires. You’ll end up being really rational, and that’s no way to dream BIG!

I used to create goals for myself that were largely around career and physical fitness. But what I noticed was that I would ignore my mental and emotional health, need for sleep, and personal relationships, in pursuit of these other goals. I knew something was off, but I felt, “well, you can’t have it all. You can’t have success and happiness in all areas of your life, it’s just not possible.” What I came to realize was that this was simply a belief that I had, these limitations weren’t real, they were simply there because I believed they were there. So, I started to look into ways that I could create more holistic goals, and reject the belief that I couldn’t be successful and happy in all areas of my life.

Now, let’s start with personal development, I want you to start writing down who you want to become. Ask yourself the following questions, quickly write down your answer and move on to the next question.

Personal Development

• What do you want to be like?
• How do you want to act, and behave?
• What habits do you want to have?
• Who do you hang around with? Is it the same people you hang around with now? If not, -what are these new people like and how do they behave?
• What do you want to learn?
• What do you want to teach?
• Do you want to write a book?
• Do you want to give a speech or presentation?
• What do you want to buy / experience?
• What do you want to own? (house, car, clothes)
• Where do you want to travel?
• What experiences do you want to have? (theatre, sky diving, mountain climbing)
• How do you want to travel? (private plane, first-class)

Financial

• How much money do you make?
• How much money does your business make, and what is the profit margin?
• How much money do you save?
• How much money do you invest?
• How much money do you donate?

Health

Physical

• How much do you weigh?
• What is your body-fat %?
• Do you want to run a marathon?
• Do you want to compete in a fitness competition?
• Do you want to practice yoga every day?

Emotional & Mental

• What’s your mood like?

Spiritual

• Do you want to meditate?
• Do you want to get out in nature more?
• Do you want to start going to church?

Relationships

Marriage

• What does it mean to you to be a great partner?

Parenthood

• What does it mean to you to be a great parent?

Friends & Family

• How often do you want to see your friends and family?

 

Now, go through each goal and label it as either a 1, 3, 5, 10, or 20-year goal.

Now, grab your top, 1-year goals from each area, and list them on a separate sheet of paper. These are the things you are 100% committed to achieving in the next 12 months.

Now, we want to make sure these actually happen, let’s apply the SMART philosophy to them. This is a super common approach that’s widely used, and it’s applicable no matter what kind of goals you are setting.

So, SMART means, Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.

SPECIFIC: Ask, Who, What, When, Which (requirements/constraints), Why (purpose or benefit for accomplishing this goal)

MEASURABLE: Establishing concrete criteria for measuring progress towards the attainment of the goal. So, what are the metrics? As you progress, you’ll be energized. How much, how many, how will I know it’s accomplished, what does success look like?

ACHIEVABLE: When you list your goals, you will start to grow and expand, traits, and personality that will allow you to possess these goals.

REALISTIC: Must be willing and able to work towards it. Have you accomplished anything similar, what conditions would have to exist? Has someone else achieved this goal? THINK ” If she can do it, I can do it.”

TIMELY: Goals need to be grounded in a time frame. Now, go through and put a time frame on the 1, 3, 5, 10, or 20 years.

Now that you have SMART 1-year goals, you can start to break down what you need to do each month, week, and day, to get there.

Create a written form of your goals and a visual form of your goals. Have them up everywhere, and say them aloud 3 times a day, while looking at your visual goals.

Lastly, create ONE action that you are going to take within the next 24 hours towards each goal. Doing this is SO important because it signals to your mind that you are SERIOUS about taking action, and going after the life that you want.

If you want some extra help, grab my Goal Setting Worksheet here.