This is how I set my goals and has helped me achieve my health, fitness, academic, and many other goals. 

Hopefully, this process will help you achieve yours too.

 

 

BEFORE THE PROCESS

 

 

the first step: identify areas of improvement

Write down all the areas of your life you want to make improvements. 

I suggest having four to seven categories but if you have more that is totally up to you. 

However, I find it essential to have at least four areas to not put all your eggs in one basket.

 

step two: roughly outline goals for each area

List all the goals for every area and write down long-term goals that you aim to achieve at the end of the year or after the next twelve months. 

Don’t be modest and let your inner voice of insecurity and fear stop you from setting the big goal you dream of. 

 

step three: prioritize

Identify which area is the most important to you and rank the others accordingly. This is necessary when drafting your energy timetable later on.

 

step four: break down your long-term goals 

Take every long-term goal you set and break it into the smallest goals possible and create a step-by-step plan for every month and every week in that month.

It’s important that the little goals are tiny enough to be achievable in a small timeframe. Be as specific as possible. 

This paves an achievable road to your success and gives you a map to provide structure and clarity to you.

 

step five: create an energy timetable

Get out your weekly calendar and identify how much time you can invest into every goal.

Create a schedule and dedicate time for each goal every week and adjust the time and energy put in according to you priorities that you sorted out in step three.

While doing that make sure that you don’t overpack your schedule and leave some time for emergencies and yourself.

 

 

 

IN THE PROCESS

 

 

step one: evaluate

At the end of every month look over your monthly and yearly goals and recognize how you progressed within the plan you set up for yourself.

 

Questions you can ask yourself are:

 

Have my priorities shifted?

Did anything surprising come up this month that took up more time than planned?

Were my monthly goals achievable? Were they set too small?

 

step two: readjust

Readjust your goals according to the reflection you have done previously. 

If things didn’t play out as you have planned don’t be discouraged. Take the new month ahead as a fresh start. Even if it doesn’t seem like it, your efforts will pay off long-term. 

 

step three: repeat

Repeat this every month to make sure you have the best road toward success. 

 

step four: be proud of yourself

Reward yourself for your great efforts toward your goals and the life you want to have. 

The road to success will not be easy but you did a phenomenal job this month! Acknowledge that.

Reward yourself with experiences rather than material things. Memories make your achievements way better than purchases you will forget about unless they have meaning.

 

 

 

MOTIVATION AND DISCIPLINE

 

The name of the game is consistency and it always was. 

Habits are the way to stay consistent. 

Having a consistent morning routine can help with that. 

But the key thing here is to identify what habits you have to implement into your life to reach your goals.

Let’s say you want to learn a new language. Make it a habit to practice twenty minutes a day right before bed which helps with learning and you have a set time you do this activity every day.

 

However, a little extra motivation never harmed anybody.

Here are a few things to motivate yourself to work towards your goals:

 

1. Visualizing

You can visualize your dream life with a guided meditation or just take ten minutes of your day to think about your ideal life and your goals and let it excite you.

 

2. Visionboards

If you are like me and have trouble visualizing your goal clearly in your head printing out pictures or downloading them and assembling a board might be for you.

After you creatively (or not) put your vision board together put it in a place where you see it every day and let it remind you what you are working towards every day. If you have it in digital form set in as your lock screen or your laptop wallpaper.

 

3. Affirmations

Affirmations are a great tool when struggling with fear and insecurities. 

 

You might think “yeah, I can say a few nice words but they don’t do anything” and to that, I say “yes, you are right unless you do it right”.

 

By doing it right I mean to implement these two things. First, affirm every day. Take a minute and affirm that you are capable of achieving your goal and that it is possible. 

You don’t have to use these exact words but say whatever you’re mind is not quite convinced of and do it consistently.

Secondly, do this at the exact moment that doubt and fear take over. Don’t give in to the voice in your head instead try to replace that one with a more positive one.

 

4. Motivational speeches

You can find them on youtube, on websites or I think even on Spotify. Be aware that there are also some not helpful ones so learn to distinguish.

They helped me a lot with motivation until I had trained myself to be more consistent and disciplined. 

 

 

 

EXAMPLE GOAL SETTING

 

Let’s say we want to learn a language:

 

before the process

 

1. The area of improvement would most likely be education for us but perhaps travel if we want to travel to a specific country.

2. The goal would be to learn conversational French or achieve B2 Spanish or whatever we please.

3. Next, we ask ourselves how important is that goal to us. We decide that it’s quite important but not the most important.

4. Now we set monthly goals: examples here could be: working through a workbook in a month, achieving certain levels on Duolingo at the end of every month, etc.

5. Let’s set time aside every week for our goal. 

• If we love to watch a certain tv-show every night we can only watch one episode and use the other 45 minutes to work on our goal. That’s almost five and a half hours a week.
• Or we can find other time to set aside for our goal.

 

in the process

 

 

1. At the end of the first month, we ask ourselves:

• Did we achieve our goal? 
• Was it manageable? 
• Has the importance of this goal shifted? (ex: Do we have important exams next month? Are our travel plans still in place?)

2. Let’s say we have important exams next month that we didn’t calculate previously. When thinking about next month’s weekly energy timetable, do we need to adjust the effort put in because the exams have a higher priority?