A goal without a plan is just a wish. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Setting life goals helps you focus on turning your ideal future into reality. Long-term goals provide a vision for the future and serve as a guide in all your decision-making along the path to achieving them. The process of achieving your life goals starts by defining them, creating a plan, breaking them down into manageable steps, and working towards them daily.
While some people have a clear vision of their future, others are still searching for their purpose in life. The first step to creating a big-picture plan for your life is to envision your future self. Visualize your ideal life.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
What is your career?
How do you spend your time?
Do you have a family?
Are you healthy?
What are you passionate about now that you want to make a big part of your future?
Is there one activity you enjoy so much you lose track of time when you are doing it?
Take some time to answer these questions. Think about what you will do in the future to stay happy, healthy, and financially stable. Define your top 5 core values and make sure those align with your life goals. Grab a journal and write down your vision for the future. List why achieving each of these goals is important to you. Set this aside to revisit later.
Once you have a clear picture of what you want to accomplish in life, use the steps below to break down your goals into a manageable plan for reaching them.
#1: Define Your 5-Year Goals
When I finished grad school, I started making a 5-year list of goals I wanted to accomplish. This has been instrumental in helping me stay focused on the big dreams I want to achieve in life. Every 5 years, I start a new note in OneNote and list out 3-5 goals that align with my vision for the future. I do one sentence goals and a visual for inspiration. Here is what my list looked like at 30.
#2: Make a Yearly Blueprint
At the beginning of each year, I do not make traditional resolutions because I never keep them. Instead, I make a yearly blueprint based on my 5-year goals. I identify my three main goals for the year and create a checklist of the actions needed to accomplish them. Each quarter I review the list to see what I have accomplished and what I have left to do. I create a personal and professional blueprint in OneNote like the example below.
#3: Set Your Monthly Intentions
This year I did something new. I made a list of habits I want to develop, change, or eliminate. These included things like taking a technology break, writing more, connecting with important people in my life, making time to workout, and practicing self-care. At the beginning of the year, I outlined one thing to focus on each month. Below is an example of my September goal of taking a technology break. I outlined the steps I would take to accomplish this goal. My intention was to determine if I get more done and am happier when I limit my technology use.
#4: Outline Your Weekly Priorities
Every week I outline my top priorities in four different categories: self, love, work, and house. This creates a balance in my week and allows me to identify three priorities for each category. I labeled the second category love tasks. These are things I do for people I love in my life. The last category is meant for household tasks, but I've also seen people use this category for community tasks. The purpose is to promote intentional, balanced living. Below is the table I use in OneNote to create a checklist of my priorities each week.
#5: Make a Daily List
I truly believe the things we do daily add up to big results in our life. Accomplishing big goals always starts with the small steps we do consistently. I have found the more I reinforce this one belief, the more I achieve. To stay organized, I created our daily list books. Each page has a to-do checklist, a place to write down your top 3 priorities for the day, and a daily notes section. I love these little books. They are small enough to fit in almost any bag and perfect for staying focused each day as you take those small steps to accomplish your big goals.
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