How to Set Personal Life Goals for Growth
Change is said to be the only constant in life. Who you were five years ago is not the person you are today. However, you might be feeling like you are just drifting through like aimlessly without any target for where you want to be.
If that feels like you, then you probably have not set any life goals for yourself. Life goals are important because they give guide you, give you focus and a yardstick to know when you are headed in the right direction.
What are life goals?
When most people think of personal development, finances come to mind. However, personal development entails continuous expansion of various facets of your life including spiritual, social, mental and physical.
If any one of these facets of your life isn’t in order, then all the others might crumble. Self-development, therefore, is multi-faceted and a continuous process that seeks to achieve self-actualization. It therefore never stops.
How to Set Personal Life Goals
You probably have heard that goals should be SMART. This means that they should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. When your goals are SMART, you are able to visualize them and set up a plan on how to achieve them in the decided time-frame.
Before you jump into writing down SMART goals, you must visualize your life in five or ten years to come. What do you want to achieve by then?
Take the large goals and the big picture and break it down into smaller goals that you should achieve progressively starting today. The smaller you break down your goals, the easier it becomes to achieve them. As you achieve smaller goals, you get motivated because the bigger picture becomes that much closer every day.
Categories you Might Set Life Goals In
As stated earlier, personal development is multi-faceted. It involves all aspects of your life including the following: career, financial, education, family, health, attitude, physical, pleasure, social, love, relationships and spiritual.
It is essential that you focus on all aspects of your life and aim to get better every day.
Take Action
Setting goals and having a plan is one thing; but without action, it all becomes wishful thinking. It is important, therefore, that you start today to work on your goals. As started earlier, it becomes easy to achieve the bigger goals when they are broken down into smaller ones.
Do something daily or weekly that works towards your long term goal without thinking of how long you have to do it. This will prevent you from feeling overwhelmed by how much you have to achieve.
Conduct Progress Reviews
You will not know how far you have come unless you are able to measure your progress. A progress review helps you know whether you are still on track or you have derailed off what you should have been doing.
You can choose when to do the progress reviews based on the goals you need to achieve. You can do it annually, semi-annually or even quarterly.
Go on and use this guide to set smart personal life goals that will see you achieve you dreams in all the facets of your life.
