Goal Setting For Life Goals
Making A Goal Setting Plan For Lifetime Goals
Once you get into the habit of goal setting you may face the difficulty of choosing the right goals to focus on.
It is therefore necessary to determine which of your personal goals will have the biggest and most beneficial impact on your life, if you are to succeed in completing any of them.
Which goals you should choose is entirely up to you, but it is generally recommended to start with personal goals that you feel will help you to achieve success, health, stability and happiness in your life.
By setting and achieving goals in these areas, you will also ensure that you become motivated to continue setting goals in the long term.
One of the best ways to do this is with a goal setting plan, and is what we shall be looking at in this article on goal setting.
Advantages Of Having A Goal Setting Plan
Although goal setting is quite a complex subject, the basic premise is simple. Goal setting is a process that allows you to achieve what you want out of life through planning how you are going to get it.
The advantage of creating a goal setting plan is that it enables you to reach your target in a step by step manner, so that you don’t become distracted with other tasks that add no value to your ultimate goal.
Having a plan for your goals will also help to keep you focused, which means you can organise your goals, time and resources effectively.
Once you have everything organised, you can then monitor your progress and receive continual encouragement as you achieve each goal on your list.
As a result, goal setting plans will help to promote long term thinking which will make you much more likely to stick to your goals when you encounter an obstacle.
This is important because people who expect immediate gratification (want something now without waiting) tend to give up on setting personal goals, because they become disappointed when they don’t get what they want immediately.
Creating A Goal Setting Plan For Life Goals
The first step in creating a goal setting plan is to broadly define what you want to accomplish in your life. These will be your lifetime goals.
Having lifetime goals are important because they help to give you an overall perspective of the things you want to achieve, which then makes setting shorter term goals that much easier.
As was mentioned before, setting life goals will encourage you to think in a longer term perspective, so make sure you take the time to really think about what you want to do in life.
However don’t feel as though you have to get your lifetime goals right the first time you think about them, as they are likely to change over time.
To help you with the goal setting process, have a look at the examples of lifetime goal categories below, and try to set goals in the areas that most appeal to you.
Setting Artistic Goals
An artistic goal is anything that involves your creativity. For example, writing a book, learning how to paint or learning how to play a musical instrument.
Setting Personality Goals
This category includes any aspect of your personality you would like to improve or change.
For example, do you often get angry? Do you talk too much? Do you want to improve your listening skills? Do you want to become a more confident person?
Setting Career & Business Goals
Career goals are the things you want to achieve in your career. Where are you now? Where would you like to be? Are you happy working for someone else? Or would you like to start up your own company?
Setting Learning & Educational Goals
Is there anything you would like to learn how to do? For example, learn a new skill, learn a new language or study for a degree.
Setting Family Goals
Do you want to have children? Do you want to spend more time with your family? Or give them more than you currently provide?
Setting Financial Goals
How much money are you currently making? How much would you like to make?
Are you good at managing and saving your money, or is this an area of your life you would like to improve? Do you want to get yourself out of debt?
Setting Fitness Goals
Would you like to learn how to play a certain sport? Or do you simply desire to loose weight and exercise regularly?
Setting Romantic Goals
Do you want to improve the quality of the relationship you are in? Or find a partner to spend the rest of your life with? Who is your ideal partner?
Setting Health Goals
Health goals include anything related to your health. For example, eating healthier food and avoiding junk food.
What could you do on a daily, monthly or yearly basis to ensure you remain in good health? If you are currently in poor health, how can you improve your current condition?
Setting Social Goals
Everyone needs time to relax and enjoy their life, so how are you going to do this? How will you balance your social and work life?
Setting Service Goals
Do you want to help other people in your local area? Do you want to help disadvantage people across the world?
Are you interested in protecting the environment, or helping endangered animals? How can you help others?
Organising Lifetime Goals
After you have decided upon your lifetime goals, the next step of the goal setting process is to organise your goals for life by prioritising the things that are most important to you.
You may need to do this several times until you are happy that your life goals reflect the type of lifestyle you would like to live, and the direction you would like your life to go.
It is also worth remembering that the goals you set should be the things that you want to accomplish and not what you think other people would be happy you doing.
Long term goal setting can only be successful if you are driven by your own wants and needs, rather than being driven by what other people want or need.
This is your time to be selfish, because it is your life you are planning and no one else’s.
How To Achieve Your Lifetime Goals
Once you are happy with your life time goals, the next step of creating a goal setting plan is to form a 20-30 year plan of smaller goals that will enable you to reach your lifetime goals.
The best way to do this is to work backwards. For example, first create a list of personal goals you want to achieve in the next 20 years.
Then using those goals break them down into a 10 year plan, 5 year plan, yearly plan, monthly plan and weekly plan. From your weekly plan, you can then set a list of goals and tasks to do on a daily basis.
The basic idea is to start with your large long term goals (your life time goals), and progressively set shorter term goals that will allow you to achieve your ultimate goal.
Once you have completed this goal setting plan, you should then have a good idea of what you are going to do over the next 20 years and how you are going to do it.
Review Your Goal Setting Plan Regularly
Creating a 20 year goal setting plan isn’t something you can do in 5 minutes, as it will most likely take you many days or weeks to complete.
However once you do complete your lifetime goal setting plan, it is important not to see it as being a rigid outline of your life that will never change.
Remember, all personal goals are likely to change over time. You may even decide that some goals are no longer important to you, and so you will remove them from your plan completely.
You should therefore constantly review your goal setting plan on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis, so that you can make these modifications as you go along and keep your focus on the longer term perspective.
So don’t worry about getting your goal setting plan perfect the first time, but rather see it as a work in progress. Something that will help guide you through your life and give it a sense of meaning, direction and purpose.
