Setting personal goals is more than manifesting what you want; it gives you control over your focus and priorities in life.
If you set them right, they will direct your actions and behaviors. If you don’t, you may just be dictated to by society, companies, politicians, and even your own family.
Your personal goals are your guidelines for how to live an extraordinary life and unlock your fullest potential. They are the destiny you create for yourself.
What are personal goals?
Personal goals are short-term and long-term objectives you set for yourself to achieve. You can have personal goals for various aspects of life, such as health and fitness, career, education, relationships, and finances.
According to Jon Butcher, creator of Lifebook and trainer of Mindvalley’s Lifebook Online Quest, the human experience falls into 12 dimensions:
- Health and fitness
- Intellectual
- Emotional
- Character
- Spiritual
- Love relationship
- Parenting
- Social
- Career
- Financial
- Quality of life
- Life Vision
Setting personal goals for all of them will help complete your life vision. Most importantly, as you move towards their realization, you will eventually reach self-actualization.
Why are personal goals important?
They give you direction in life and a sense of purpose and mission grander than yourself. They motivate you and keep you focused on what’s important.
When you achieve your goals, it gives you accomplishment and fulfillment. In other words, they are your ultimate tools for self-actualization and self-transcendence.
8 tips to set personal goals
The purpose of setting personal goals is to keep you focused on your priorities. This is why choosing authentic goals is crucial, because if they don’t speak to your soul, you may just lose your motivation along the way.
Here are some tips for setting authentic personal goals:
1. Reflect on your values and beliefs
Jon explains that your actions, decisions, and behaviors result from your fundamental values and beliefs about a specific area.
For example, if you believe that the love of money is the root of all evil, this limiting belief will block you from financial abundance. On the contrary, empowering beliefs will help you set audacious goals and dream as big as possible.
2. Identify your purpose
Your purpose is the reason why you want to achieve your personal goals. The more compelling it is, the greater the chances of achieving them. Jon believes that if your purpose is not strong enough, you will eventually give up on your goals.
3. Tap into your life vision
According to Jon, goal-setting against a clear vision accelerates your results significantly because every personal goal you set leads you to your compelling life vision.
4. Identify your overriding goal
An overriding goal is your one single important personal goal. When you accomplish it, 70% of your other goals will fall into place. “The more you know about it, the more clarity you will get about other goals,” Jon adds.
5. Make them SMART
A SMART goal-setting framework stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound:
- Specific: Make it as specific and clear as possible.
- Measurable: You should be able to measure it to track your progress.
- Achievable: Your personal goal must be daring enough to push you forward and realistic enough to keep you motivated.
- Relevant: Personal goals, by definition, must be relevant to your unique values and aspirations.
- Time-bound: Having a deadline is crucial to keeping you focused and helping you prioritize the most important things.
6. Break them down into smaller sub-goals
These are your smaller goals that direct your daily actions and decisions. Taking small steps is better than aiming big right away. It will allow you to stay consistent and reap big rewards.
7. Come up with strategies
Setting your goals is one thing, but without understanding your hows, your personal goals have no substance to them.
Jon explains that your strategies give you clarity on where you are at right now and what you should do to reach your goals. They include your daily choices, habits, and attitudes that need to be implemented to get you where you want to be.
8. Celebrate your small victories
Celebrating your victories is crucial for keeping you motivated; it gives you a sense of accomplishment and builds self-confidence. Most importantly, it helps you focus on the goal rather than on what it takes to achieve it.
50 examples of personal goals
Personal goals differ from person to person, just like tastes. From a universal perspective, however, we all want happiness and fulfillment in all aspects of our lives. Here are some inspirational examples of personal goals you can set for yourself.
5 examples of long-term personal goals
Long-term goals are the goals you set for your future. The best timeframe for them is five years from now.
Here are five examples of long-term personal goals:
- Start a business.
- Get promoted to a leadership role.
- Reach an ideal weight and maintain it.
- Become fluent in a new language.
- Settle down in a new country.
5 examples of short-term personal goals
Short-term personal goals are stepping stones to achieving your long-term ones. You can accomplish these within a short period of time or adjust them as you go.
Here are five examples of short-term personal goals:
- Learn a new skill.
- Move to a better neighborhood.
- Incorporate a healthy habit.
- Plan my budget regularly.
- Travel to a new country.
5 examples of personal financial goals
Your financial life is one of the most profound dimensions. Before setting any financial goals, it is crucial to ensure they stem from empowering beliefs, as what you believe about money will determine your financial success.
With money, people can easily exchange their work, talents, and skills—the very best [of] what they have within themselves for the best [of] what is inside of others.
— Jon Butcher, trainer of Mindvalley’s Lifebook Online Quest
Here are five examples of personal financial goals:
- Become financially independent.
- Start making passive income.
- Invest in stocks and bonds.
- Pay off all debt.
- Save for retirement.
5 examples of personal relationship goals
These goals include your romantic relationship, family, friends, and social life. They aren’t time-bound, as this area requires your continuous commitment to cultivating and nourishing the most important connections in your life.
Here are five examples of personal relationship goals:
- Master communication skills, verbal and nonverbal.
- Spend more quality time with my family and friends.
- Start a weekly date night with my partner.
- Stay connected with friends and family members who aren’t physically present.
- Spice up my sex life with my partner.
5 examples of personal character goals
Your character is who you are internally, and it translates into the ways you show up in your external world. To reach your personal goals, you should cultivate traits and virtues to match the person you aspire to be.
Here are five examples of character goals:
- Cultivate self-discipline.
- Listen more and speak less.
- Develop resilience and inner strength in the face of adversity.
- Practice moderation.
- Rely on myself at all times and strive to meet my own needs.
5 examples of personal goals for intellectual life
Intelligence is about your capacity to learn, adapt, and make smart decisions.
Here are five examples of personal goals for your intelligence:
- Cultivate a better growth mindset.
- Develop leadership skills.
- Learn a new hobby.
- Improve critical thinking.
- Expand knowledge in my professional area.
5 examples of personal health and fitness goals
Your physical health affects every single aspect of your life. Without a good state of health and fitness, it’s impossible to attain your personal goals.
Here are five examples of personal health and fitness goals:
- Quit unhealthy habits.
- Incorporate intermittent fasting into my lifestyle.
- Get quality sleep each night based on my chronotype.
- Live a healthy lifestyle.
- Practice mindfulness.
5 examples of personal goals for emotional life
Emotions help you navigate your life, and your willingness to cultivate an intimate connection with the emotional aspect of yourself can heal you and elevate your relationships with others.
Here are five examples of personal goals for emotional maturity:
- Practice daily gratitude.
- Improve emotional regulation.
- Choose to experience joy and contentment.
- Cultivate inner peace and resilience.
- Forgive myself and others.
5 examples of personal spiritual goals
Spirituality is your gateway to living a life grander than yourself. It’s your awareness of your spiritual essence and dedication to the unique spiritual path of enlightenment and self-actualization. When you discover your spiritual purpose, you discover your ultimate purpose in life.
Here are five examples of personal goals for your spiritual path:
- Attain self-actualization.
- Practice meditation every day.
- Strengthen my connection with spirit guides.
- Develop intuition.
- Learn to surrender and trust higher guidance.
5 examples of personal goals for the quality of life
Your quality of life reflects the material things you want to have, the experiences you want to create, and the environments you want to be surrounded by. It’s what happiness and fulfillment mean to you in your daily life.
Here are five examples of personal goals for the quality of your life:
- Enjoy high-quality food, products, and services.
- Travel the world in first class and stay in luxury hotels.
- Live in my dream house near the ocean.
- Have a personal driver.
- Go to authentic spiritual retreats twice a year.
Final tips on how to achieve your personal goals
The key to successful personal goal-setting is to treat your goals as your ultimate focus funnel—your life vision is at the top of it, followed by your personal goals in every area of your life. So, every bigger goal can be broken down into smaller subgoals, and then you distill these subgoals into daily actions you should take to get closer to your life vision.
In other words, your most audacious personal goals can be achieved by taking small incremental steps every day. And if your reasons for reaching them are compelling enough, nothing can shift your focus away from your achievable dreams.
Regain control over your life with Mindvalley
In the modern world full of distractions, the truth is that most people don’t even think about what they truly want. Even if they do set goals, they are often limited to their career and finances. For the same reason, even successful people achieve success only in several areas at the expense of their health, relationships, or spirituality.
The way out of this autopilot way of living is not to let the world dictate what you should strive for to be happy and fulfilled.
If you are ready to think deeply about what you want, why you want it, and how you can achieve it, take a free, 90-minute Lifebook Online Masterclass with Jon and Missy Butcher. They will guide you through the fundamental process of setting your personal goals and regaining control over your life.
Welcome in.
