How to Create Relevant Goals for Your Life | Goal Setting that Makes the Most Out of Your Life

Do you feel like you’re wandering through life without direction? When you set goals for work do they reflect what you want for your life? Do you want more but don’t know where to start? This method outlines how to create relevant goals for your life; making the most out of your life.

I knew goal setting was important for corporations and honestly thought personal New Year’s resolutions were a waste of time. I’m not going to sugarcoat this. The typical New Year’s resolutions are a waste of time unless they drive action.

How many times have you dreamed of the pie-in-the-sky lifestyle that you want but never did anything to make it happen? Me! I admit it. I have dreams of a lifestyle that I thought would eventually happen if I was the employee meeting or exceeding the goals in my performance evaluation.

Here’s the kicker. I was working hard for the company goals, but not for my personal career plan. My career plan was not going in the direction of my dreams at all. They were on a completely different path. I needed to make a change but where do I start?

I’ll be honest. When it comes to personal goals, I have sucked at keeping them. I constantly let distractions get in the way of me staying on track. I also didn’t set relevant goals to my pie-in-the-sky dreams.

It’s hard to achieve the dream if you don’t set relevant goals.

This time, I took the time to figure out how to create relevant goals that will keep me working towards my personal dreams. I have never felt more focused and love that I can review my progress and make adjustments if something isn’t going well.

Finding Your Vision
Set Long-term Goals
Create a Map
Set SMART Goals
Weekly Power Hours

Before starting you will need a way to journal or track your goals. Use whatever medium you feel most comfortable using; journal, notepad, computer, etc. It is important that you are writing down your dreams and keeping a record of how you got there will help you achieve other goals in the future. I personally use The Ultimate Life Goal Journal.

Step 1: Finding Your Vision

Start with a brainstorming session that will help you reflect on yourself and help you find your vision; your pie-in-the-sky dream. It is important that this is YOUR vision, not anyone else’s. If you aren’t being true to yourself then you won’t feel a connection to these goals.

You can start by answering these questions:

What are you most passionate about?
When are most fulfilled? Where do you get the most fulfillment?
What does being successful look like to you?
What is the one dream that never goes away?
How do you see yourself?
Can you envision yourself achieve those goals?
What is your ideal lifestyle?

Don’t let any self-doubt ruin this for you. Imagine all of those negative thoughts and memories of past failures floating onto another page and being tossed into away.

I know with my own personal failures why I failed is a direct result of not knowing how to create relevant goals for my own life.

Step 2: Set Long-term Goals

Now that you have your ideal vision for your life, you want to break that vision down to long-term goals. Specifically how you want your life to look, what you want to accomplish personally and professionally.

What do you want your life to look like 1 year from now? 2 years from now? 5 years from now?

Always keep the connection of these goals to the vision that you created in Step 1.

Step 3: Create the Map

This step, create the map, will help you set pathways to different areas of your life. It will help you break your 1-year goal into actions that will help you achieve that goal. Your map that you will create will be only be written in present tense sentences or statements.

I will, I can, I might don’t work here. When you write statements in the present tense you are making a commitment consciously to do that action.

Think about these areas of your life and what goals you can create that will move you toward achieving your 1-year goal. It’s thought that if you set goals for each area that you will further that connection on a personal level; the goals will complement your whole self.

I agree with this theory but personally find it overwhelming to try and achieve all of these areas individually. Instead, I use these as brainstorming questions to round out my top 3-5 big goals for the year. I then break out what I am doing to achieve them (creating a map), using these areas as a guideline.

Career – What statement defines actions I am doing to move my career toward that 1-year goal?
Relationship – State how you are improving the relationships in your life this year.
Health – What statement defines actions for improving your health this year?
Wealth – State how you will improve your definition of wealth within your life this year.
Personal Development – What are you doing to stretch your mind and improve your well-being this year?
Social Life – State what social life changes you are doing to help move toward your goals this year.

Now that you have answered these questions in the present tense, and you have picked the top 3-5 goals that will help you achieve your 1-year goal. Where to now?

Step 4: Set the SMART Goals for the Month

This step will help you break those 1-year specific goals into monthly goals. These goals need to follow the SMART goals technique to make sure you are progressing toward your 1-year goal.

Specific – task orientated
Measurable – these could be a checklist of actions, number valuations
Achievable – consider what other must-dos are happening
Relevant to your map – always look back and consider if this will help your 1-year goal
Timebound – a month or weekly goals only

There are two important factors to ensure when setting SMART goals: you must set goals that always map back to the 1-year goal, and the outcomes must be within your control.

For example, setting a goal for losing 5 lbs a month may not be completely under your control. The body is a complex being and water retention and muscle gain may shift your weight loss goal sideways, making you think you have failed. You didn’t fail at weight loss, you made the wrong choice in goal setting.

Instead, break this goal into specific actions you can control. Here are some examples that would start with I am (present tense):

walking or exercise daily for at least 30 minutes.
drinking my water daily.
choosing to do a craft instead of snacking in the evening.
planning my meals weekly, and am not going through the drive-thru.
taking care of my gut health to help my weight loss.

Step 5: Weekly Review Power Hour

Scheduling a time to review your weekly successes toward your monthly goals is important. I like the term, Power Hour because it reminds me that I’m taking the time to control my destiny.

There are 5 reasons for being proactive in your self-assessment for your career, and the same would apply here. It is hard to stay motivated if you aren’t giving yourself the opportunity to review what went well, what didn’t, and what plans you can adjust to improve your successes next week. Be flexible; don’t look at the setbacks as failures.

If you had a flat tire on a trip, would you give up and turn back home?

No, you would change the tire and keep going. Keep the vision close. Use the same journal to compare progress, feelings, celebrations, and adjustments as you go through the year.

Now that you have a better understanding of how to create relevant goals for your life. I hope you found little nuggets to help you achieve them. First, find your vision for your life, then create the long-term goals, and create a map to help you achieve them. Next break them down into SMART goals for the month. Finally, make time in your week for your power hour.

Let me know how this works for you? Are you excited about your journey? Leave me a comment below on how you create relevant goals for your life. I’d love to hear how your journey is going.