A Guide for Self-Organization: Goal Setting

If you haven’t checked out my first post, A Guide for Self-Organization: Planning, please go ahead and check that out as this article further builds off that one.

Goal setting on its own is such a broad term.

For the purpose of this article, I’m going to be talking about goal setting when it comes to your weekly, monthly, and yearly goals.

Where to even begin?

Why is goal setting important?

Goal setting is important for a variety of different reasons.

The first and most important reason (in my opinion) is that goal setting forces you to evaluate your current lifestyle and helps you determine where you want to be in a set amount of time. It forces you to make decisions about what you want your future to look like and then helps you set up action points to begin making that dream life possible.

The second reason is that simply setting goals and targets to hit for yourself will increase your motivation and your commitment to obtaining the things you want to accomplish. Without goals, we wander aimlessly towards what we want instead of keeping a steady focus on the best way to that get that end result.

The third reason is that the act of setting out goals for ourselves and beginning to accomplish them builds our self-confidence and the trust in ourselves that we can do challenging things. We begin to see things that were once impossible to us as possible for us too. It allows us to begin to dream bigger and to take action on the those dreams. It helps instill the belief that we are the creators of our future and that we can accomplish big things when we set our minds to those goals and actions.

Yearly Goals

Personally, I feel the best place to start is your yearly goals if you’re starting from scratch.

Coming up with yearly goals doesn’t just encompass the specific goals you want to achieve for the year, it’s so much more than that. Your yearly goals planning should be a vision, a vision of how you see your goals and lifestyle for the year playing out.

This can be used as a starting place no matter where you are, feel free to use these suggestions to get started in the middle of your year as well.

Intentions

So when we start with yearly goals, I like to begin with intentions.

What are some words or phrases that you envision this year being about for you? What aesthetic do you see yourself embracing? What kind of person do you want to strive to be this year?

Start off your goals setting session with 5 words that support the life you would like to lead this year.

For example, my words this year were: Growth, Relax, Courage, Release, and Nourish. These were the words that I build my yearly goals off from. They were the kind of life I wanted to embrace this year.

Optional for all those who love to go the extra mile and are creative: Create a vision board or mood board with pictures, colors, and words that really embrace the life you are looking to lead this year.

SMART Goals

Once you’ve come up with your words (or vision/mood board), you’re ready to decide on your yearly goals.

When setting goals, it’s extremely valuable to remember to set SMART goals.

Specific : what steps need to be taken to accomplish it, how do you plan to achieve this goal Measurable : how can you track progress for this goal Achievable : is this something you can reasonably accomplish Relevant : why are you setting the goal you are setting Time-Bound : how will you stay on track to meet the goal, when will you know you have accomplished your goal

This foundation for setting up goals has helped me become more realistic about my goals while still allowing me the space to dream big. By setting SMART goals, I’m able to break my really big dreams down into small actionable items that allow me to get closer to what can sometimes seem like the impossible. SMART goals help you realize that anything is possible. Taking actionable small steps will allow you to step into your biggest dreams.

Possible Goal Ideas

What areas of life are you most looking forward to focusing on this year? Is there one area that needs extra attention or are you planning on spreading out your goals equally? Do you have any non-negotiable items this year?

Some of the categories to focus your efforts in:

• Physical Health Goals - Ex: eating healthier, exercising more, losing or gaining weight

• Relationship Goals - Ex: spending more time with friends or loved ones, being more present in your relationships

• Career Goals - Ex: getting a promotion/raise, starting a side-hustle, more education

• Home Life Goals - Ex: using cleaning routines, starting a house project

• Spiritual Goals - Ex: going to church more often, reading a religious book, more education

• Mental Health Goals - Ex: building self-care habits or routines, going to therapy, journaling

• Financial Goals - Ex: building an emergency fund, saving up for a downpayment on something, investing

• Personal Development Goals - Ex: volunteering, improving time management, read more books

While brainstorming, list out all the goals you would like to accomplish or start this year. This is your initial list and a good place to write all your goals down, even if you aren’t sure you will be able to accomplish them this year. You can prune down your list later when putting your goals into Monthly and Quarterly goals.

Quarterly Goals

I personally prefer to split up my months into Quarters. This splits my year up into 4 main segments that help me keep my goals organized and on track.

Quarter 1: January, February, March

Quarter 2: April, May, June

Quarter 3: July, August, September

Quarter 4: October, November, December

Rather than working on your goals all at one time, now is the time to take your goals and split them up into different Quarters. This will help ensure you’re focusing on the right goals for each time frame and not getting distracted by your other goals.

Some goals, like fitness, may take up more than one Quarter and that’s completely okay. What you want to create is a simple guideline of what your year will look. This will help ensure that you’re being realistic about your goals and what you can do within a year.

Remember, this is a simple guideline, and it’s likely this may change as your year plays out.

3 months is a long time but having a guideline of what you plan on doing will help ensure that you are not overestimating how much you can accomplish and sets you up for successfully completing the goals you were striving for at the end of your months and your Quarter.

Once I have a general idea of what my quarters will look like, I move to focusing only on the Quarter I am in.

This means getting serious about what goals you want to accomplish within the next three months.

Monthly Goals

Setting yearly goals is beneficial because it keeps us aimed at our major targets we want to accomplish but the break down into short term goals is where we really should be focusing the majority of our time and energy.

When trying to break down your goals into months, it may be helpful to have a main focus each month with one bigger goal combined with a few smaller, more attainable goals. This will help keep you motivated and encouraged by the progress you are making, even if one goal is more challenging than the others and takes longer to see results.

Now is the time to look at each goal you’ve set for the month individually. This is where I really focus down on what I want to accomplish each month.

To begin with your monthly goals, start brainstorming what each goal will look like for you. What actions do you need to take each week to accomplish each specific goal? How can you best support yourself when attempting to reach your goals? How much time do you realistically have to work on your goals each day or each week to reach your final goal?

Start by writing which actions you need to take for each goal. Then, begin scheduling them into your weekly and daily planners.

Be careful not to overestimate the amount of work you can do each day or week, be realistic about what you can accomplish around your other daily to-do’s and tasks.

When starting out your goal-setting, I highly encourage starting small so you can accurately map out just how much extra time you have in each day or week to work on your goals. Once you have a more fluid system in place for managing your goal-setting times, planning to work on harder and more significant goals will be much easier to work through and manage.

Once you have your weekly action items for your goals, the only thing left to do is ensure you’re taking these steps each week to reach your goals.

Using the planner system set up in my last post, you’ll have a great way to track how much progress you are making towards your goals.

Important tips while planning goals.

Be responsive to feedback.

When working on our goals, one of the most important things to remember is to be OPEN and RESPONSIVE to feedback you are getting. Don’t ignore what your results are telling you.

A good way to get feedback on your goals is by setting aside time to reflect on how you’re doing at certain periods in time. Personally, I set aside time each week to look at my goals and see how I’m doing and also to see if there is anything I need to change up. Additionally, I do this once a month in a Monthly Reset and Mid-Year for my goals as well.

Make your goals positive.

Some of our goals can sometimes have a negative undertone, for example: stop eating junk food every night. Instead, reframe your goals with a negative undertone into a goal that sounds more uplifting and positive, for example: eat healthy 4 nights a week.

Although it may seem like a simple thing that doesn’t really matter, the way we speak to ourselves DOES matter. More positively focused goals are more likely to keep you motivated, confident, and successful.

Review your goals often.

Ideally, you should be looking at your planning outline for your goals daily.

Looking at them daily will help ensure that you are taking the time to update your progress or results and that you are taking the time to really make sure you’re following through with the actions you’ve set out for yourself.

Reward yourself for your successes.

Rewarding yourself for your successes is a great way to keep the motivation and self confidence flowing even after you’ve accomplished a goal.

Be careful in how you celebrate though. Take care to not undermine your goal by making your reward something that specifically negates your goals intentions. Example: If you have eaten healthy for 4 nights, don’t make your reward binge eating candy. Instead, try something else, like having a nice dinner at an expensive healthier restaurant.

Celebrate in ways that honor the commitment and focus you had for your goal.

Goal setting is an easy topic to talk about but is a rough topic to actually start doing. Begin by giving yourself space to make mistakes that you’ll learn from. Give yourself time to settle into a system of goal-setting that works best for you and your lifestyle.

Setting goals and accomplishing them can be our biggest confidence boosters and help remind us that we are in control of our lives.

Don’t let the fear of failure stop you. You got this!

If you have any helpful tips on goal-setting that have worked for you, feel free to share them in the comments below!

And stay tuned for my next post, A Guide to Self-Organization: Home Life!