Thinking About Stronger Faith

on
0

25 Personal Goal Examples to Live Your Best Life

on

 

Credit - Asad Photo Maldives - Pexels




25 Personal Goal Examples to Live Your Best Life


"Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare." 

-Japanese Proverb


"You've got to have personal goals - short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals. Be flexible in getting to those goals, but if you do not have goals, you will not achieve them." 

-Gary Cohn


GOALS


I believe that setting goals is an integral part of anyone living their best life. I talked previously about how to reach your goals with proper goal setting. You can review that post here-


Read: 7 Ways to Accomplish Your Goals


After that post, a reader in Alaska reached out to ask if I could offer any specific tips on choosing goals, particularly personal goals. (Your questions are always welcome at info@dansbeenthinking.com). That is such a great question that I thought I'd use this post to talk about personal goals and offer some suggestions that may jump-start the process.





Personal Goals


Goals are important to getting things done. It gives you focus and clarity and allows you to work toward something with direction and purpose. You should maintain work and personal goals. An example of a work goal would be to get promoted to the next level within 6 months.

To set personal goals means that you pinpoint things that you want to accomplish that are all about you. You may involve others to get you there, but the measure of success becomes the goal not the comparison to anyone else.

Personal goals are clear objectives that you set for yourself to improve in a specific area, accomplish a personal milestone, or create growth throughout your life.


Benefits of Personal Goals


Before I look at some examples of personal goals, I'd like to review some benefits of setting personal goals:

  • Clarity in decision making
  • Sense of direction and purpose
  • Strong motivation
  • Prioritization of time and resources
  • Better relationships
  • Increased life expectancy
  • A way to measure progress
  • Celebration for accomplishment
  • Introduction to new life skills
  • Improved mental health
  • Mindfulness
  • Increased self-confidence


In a 1979 study by Harvard University, they asked graduates if they had written goals with action plans for their lives.

  • 3 percent had clearly defined written goals
  • 13 percent had unwritten goals
  • 84 percent had no goals in any shape or form

When they conducted a follow-up study of those graduates 10 years later in 1989, they found that the 3 percent who had written personal goals were 10 times more successful than the other 97 percent who had not.


Whatever stage of life you're currently in, whatever your background, age, ability level, education, family, or other factor, the POWER OF PERSONAL GOAL SETTING IS CLEAR.





Setting Personal Goals


Just ahead of introducing some examples of personal goals, I want you to look at some initial steps to do beforehand.

1. Look at the categories of personal goals you want to address - self-development, academics, fitness, finances, relationships, faith, health, travel, or life in general.

2. Identify your passions and interests

3. Review your purpose in life to make sure your goals align



4. Decide the kind of life you would like to live in the future

5. Visualize that ideal life and how it would feel to live it








I covered SMART goals in 7 Ways to Accomplish Your Goals that I referenced earlier, so I won't go over that here. However, there are some additional tips I would like to share that can help keep you motivated to achieve your personal goals.

  1. Be ready to fail on a step but not the goal
  2. Have your goals written and place them where you can see them
  3. Put deadlines on a calendar
  4. Break down big goals into bite-size pieces
  5. Continually set new goals
  6. Celebrate small and big wins
  7. Build off your successes and apply them to the next goals
  8. Track progress regularly and make needed adjustments
  9. Be flexible on deadlines if needed without abandoning the goal



25 Personal Goal Examples to Live Your Best Life

1 Read more

2. Be more proactive

3. Learn a new skill

4. Be a better listener

5. Travel more

6. Gain perseverance

7. Learn to let go of the past

8. Improve your growth mindset

9. Share what you know with others

10. Volunteer regularly

11. Improve finances

12. Conduct an annual life check-up

13. Be kinder and more compassionate

14. Wake up earlier

15. Improve health

16. Learn to handle conflict

17. Reduce procrastination

18. Improve your communication skills

19. Learn a new language

20. Practice self-care

21. Work to put family first

22. Improve empathy

23. Learn to be more organized

24. Get better at public speaking

25. Start a new hobby


There are so many personal goals that you can set for yourself because it's all about how you want to improve and move forward. Hopefully, these examples will give you a place to start.

You should set short-term, intermediate, and long-term goals as a rule. Sometimes a goal will require a combination of these to be reached. For example, when trying to learn a new language, you may have a short-term goal of learning conversational French, and a long-term goal of becoming proficient in speaking French.





Here are some examples to help:


Examples of daily Personal Goals:

  • Read for 20 minutes
  • Write in a journal daily
  • Spend quality time with loved ones
  • Exercise for 30 minutes
  • Do one random act of kindness
  • Drink 8 glasses of water
  • Practice mindfulness for 5 minutes

Examples of 1-Year Personal Goals


  • Travel to a new country
  • Start a new hobby
  • Learn a new language
  • Visit an out-of-town loved one
  • Read 10 new books
  • Volunteer regularly
  • Save money toward a specific purpose (car, home, vacation)
  • Run a 5K


Examples of 5-Year Personal Goals


  • Buy a house
  • Start a new side hustle
  • Get a degree or professional certification
  • Write a book
  • Travel to 8 new countries
  • Learn to play an instrument
  • Speak a new language fluently

Examples of Faith-Based Personal Goals


*Read the Bible for 15 minutes every day
*Volunteer at a church or faith-based organization
*Practice forgiveness and kindness
*Memorize Bible verses
*Pray every day
*Share your faith
*Start a home Bible Study



“May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.” 

-Proverbs 20:4


Final Thoughts on Personal Goals


These goals are personal goals. You get to decide what is important to you in order to live your Best Life. It doesn't matter where you are right now, it only matters where you are headed.

The things I covered here are only tools and like any tool, it does you no good lying locked in a toolbox. And just like any tool, you will become more proficient in its use the more time you practice with it.

Don't let others' definitions of success dictate what goals are important. True success means doing what makes you happy. You will be happiest when you remain true to yourself.


Read: 4 Tips for Remaining True to Yourself


Personal goals will help you become an overcomer. Life is full of ups and downs, detours and roadblocks, but having a set of clear goals will keep you on track and get you to your final destination.


Your life is up to you. You can set clear personal goals and make life happen, or you can sit back and let life happen to you.


Now go live your Best Life,

Dan







Comments

Post a Comment