4 Steps For Setting (And Achieving!) Personal Goals

Whether you’re reading this at the beginning of the month, quarter, or the year, now is a great time for setting personal goals! Why? Because no matter how awesome and amazing you are, there is always room for improvement. Maybe you want to be a more present mother or partner. You may want to step up your organization game or take your business to the next level. Whatever improvements you want to make, this tried-and true goal setting method will help you along your journey. Ready?

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Be Specific When Setting Personal Goals

Think about the areas of your life that could use improvement. Take a minute to write down the changes you want to make and BE SPECIFIC. For example, “I want to work out more” is kind of vague, right? Instead, you could write “I want to work out at least three times per week.” Do you see how the second example is a specific goal rather than a vague hope for the future? Take a critical look at the changes you just wrote down and see if you can simplify each of them into a specific action.

In this step, I would recommend setting 3-5 personal goals. If you’re new to this process, keep that number on the lower end, so you don’t get overwhelmed or discouraged.

Be Realistic

You want each personal goal to be specific, but you also want them to be realistic. Don’t set a goal to give up sugar completely if you’re not prepared to skip the creamer in your morning coffee (talking to myself, here!). It’s important to motivate and push yourself, but you want to keep it within reason. The more reasonable and realistic your goals are, the more likely you are to actually achieve them. And that’s the whole point, right?

Employ At Least 5 Strategies For Each Personal Goal

This is where we get down to the nitty gritty. Now that you’ve come up with your personal goals, you need strategies to help you achieve them. These strategies are key to your success in setting personal goals. I like to develop at least 3, no more than 5.

Need an example?

Say one of your personal goals is to be more present with your family. What are some strategies that can help you achieve that goal?

You could have quiet time where everyone puts their phones away and talks. You could find some fun exercises online to get to know your spouse and kids better. When you find your mind wondering while you’re spending time with your family, you can make the effort to reel yourself back in and pay attention to what’s happening around you. If you’re a work-from-home Mama, you might resolve to write down any fleeting ideas or thoughts you have at the end of a working session, so you don’t end up obsessing over them during family time (talking to myself again!)

Wondering How The Strategy Part Helps?

Think about New Year’s Resolutions. If you’re into those, you probably make a few resolutions, maybe write them down or throw them on a vision board. But do you ever come up with specific actions to take to help keep those resolutions? Probably not. You may keep them through January and February, but as the year goes on, you start to slack a bit before giving up on them completely. In fact, in 2020, only about 35% of resolution makers ended up keeping their resolutions. That’s not too bad, but I believe it could be a lot better if you have actual strategies in place to help you achieve your goals.

By the way, congratulations on starting (or continuing!) your self-improvement journey! If you love this post, you might also enjoy my blog post on 7 tips for Moms who want to live more authentically.

Hold Yourself Accountable

This is the easy part, ya’ll! Set a date, whether it’s in a week or a month, to refer back to your goal worksheet and see how you’re doing. Are your strategies working? Have you come up with new ones? Use this time to self-reflect and make changes as needed.

This is a great opportunity to enlist the help of friends or family members. My Mom and sister are fellow business owners. So, every couple of weeks, we have accountability meetings where we discuss our goals and what we’re actually doing consistently to achieve them.

Don’t forget your FREE Personal Goal Worksheet!

I hope these tips help you in your personal development journey, and I hope they help you in achieving the goals you set for yourself. If you found this post helpful, drop a comment below and share a goal that you want to set for yourself.