Personal Goals List
Time flies by and it can be easy to go from one year to the next following the status quo. But if you want to improve your life and become the best version of yourself, it can be helpful to define your values, create a vision for your life and set annual goals. This goals template will provide the structure you need to capture and action your goals for the year.
In this article, you’ll learn:
Benefits of outlining your personal goals
Overview of how to set up your goals
Other recommended resources for goal setting
Why should you set personal annual goals?
You can find focus, improve your life, and work towards a long-term vision by setting and working on annual goals. There are many reasons you might want to set personal goals each year, and some of the benefits include:
Getting clarity on what's important
Going through the exercise of setting your goals will help you gain clarity on what is important and where you should invest your time. If you spend the time mapping out your long-term vision and setting annual goals to work towards it, you can always know what your north star is.
Staying focused for personal improvement
Once you have your goals defined, you’ll have a clear idea of where to spend your time in order to achieve them. Whenever you have free time to improve yourself, you’ll know where to focus the time and how to direct your attention.
Accountability to put in the work
By having goals and a system to track progress, you’ll be able to hold yourself accountable to making improvements and achieving your dreams. And by setting ambitious goals for yourself, you’ll put your best foot forward in moving towards your long-term vision even if you don’t achieve everything on your list.
If you are interested in any of these benefits or have other reasons for setting annual goals, use the steps below to get started or buy our goals planning course.
There are many options out there for different ways to set your personal goals. Below are the steps I’ve used with my sister for the past 5 years of annual goal setting, and below that you’ll find materials for other ideas and systems. If you want to use our system below, you can find a template for a goals list here and the step-by-step instructions and printouts for the system in my personal goals course here.
How to build your personal goals list
Define your values and long-term vision
Start by defining your core values and a vision of where you want your life to be. Consider defining both in 5 areas including Work, Love, Health, Play, and Home/Finance.
To define your values, consider what is most important to you in your life. What are the principles that guide your decisions and inspire you. What characteristics stand out in the people you admire? Draft a long list and then refine down into your top 5-10 core values.
To set your long-term vision, imagine your life 10 years from now as good as it could be. What is true about that version of your life? Who is with you? What work do you do? How do you feel? Where do you live? How do you spend your time? Write down the key elements of your vision.
Reflect on the past year and current state in 5 areas
Next, reflect on what has gone well and not well over the past year in the same 5 areas, Work, Love, Health, Play, and Home/Finance. What were your big wins and misses in each area? Write these down as well.
Then, reflect on how you are doing in each area. Rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 in each area of your life and write down keywords for why you are ranking yourself that way. Think about why your score is no higher or lower than where you ranked it and write these down.
Define your goals
Once you have your values, vision, and reflection on how you are doing in each area of your life, you’ll use these as inputs for your goals. Look back at everything you’ve written down and circle anything that you feel energized to work on over the next year.
For each item you circled, draft a goal for what you can do to improve in this area over the next year.
As you draft each goal, make it measurable, actionable, and specific to what is achievable within the year.
Make sure each goal has a measure of success so you will be able to definitively know whether or not you succeeded at the end of the year.
Put this list of goals into a digital tool, such as Google Sheets, Asana, or Airtable in a place that you can reference over the course of the year.
Create a plan of action
Now that you have a list of goals, you need to create a plan for how you’ll act on them so that you can realize your vision. To start, go through each goal and write down the smallest possible step you could take to get started.
For each action item you note, add a date and put it into your task management, reminders, or calendar system so you will be reminded to act.
Make sure to space your action items out over time so that you’re not trying to do everything at once
Every goal should have the first action item captured and dated
Once the first steps are outlined, then go back and add in all of the other steps you’ll need to take to accomplish your goals. You can either do this now, or create a reminder for yourself to finish this planning in the next few weeks. To have your full plan of action, you should have clear steps to achieve each of your goals, all with due dates assigned to them. This will ensure you’ll be able to keep moving forward on your goals and will help keep you accountable to making progress.
Set up an accountability system
The last step for achieving your personal goals is setting up a system to hold yourself accountable. The dated plan of action is the first component of this, and check-ins and an accountabilibuddy will reinforce your efforts.
First, schedule a quarterly or monthly check in for yourself to review your goals. Add it to your calendar so you will commit to making it happen. During this time you should review the list of goals, note progress you’ve made on each one, review the next action items, and update any information as needed. Try to be honest with yourself about where you need to invest more energy and take time to celebrate your wins.
Next, find an accountability partner (aka accountabilibuddy) who can check in with you and give you the encouragement and the push to stick with it.
Review your goals with this person and discuss how and when they should check in with you.
Schedule a mid-year check in with them and put it on both of your calendars so you can have a dedicated time to discuss how your goals are progressing
Finally, you should keep your goals list updated over time as you make progress. Being able to update statuses and mark goals complete can give you a small sense of accomplishment and can provide the motivation you need to keep going.