A Simple Guide to Setting and Achieving Your Life Goals

Question from reader Bob:

I’ve finally realized that I need to put together a 5-year plan to continue my personal development and reach goals. I’ve found your post, Think About Your Life Goals , and it’s started me in the right direction, but left a lot of open questions. To start, I really don’t know what questions I should ask myself to get to the items I really want (if I even know what I really want in the first place). Is there some sort of personal plan worksheet that you know of that would cover the complete realm of development? I feel that I would be more successful if I could easily view my goals and track my progress within one main document.

A great question, but to tell the truth, since I wrote that article, I’ve simplified my goal-planning system. A lot. I’ll get into that simple system in a minute, but let’s break Bob’s question into three parts:

How to choose life goals
How to get there
How to keep track of all your goals and actions

How to choose life goals
There is no perfect answer here. Some people have known for awhile now what they really want, but just haven’t pursued it, and for them, it just takes a little contemplation to realize what they’ve wanted all along. Others will have a more difficult time, as they have never figured out what their dream is, or what they’d like to accomplish. For them, I’d make a few suggestions:

Take some time for quiet contemplation.
Think about what’s important to you.
Think about what you’d like people to say about you when you die.
Brainstorm — make a list of all the things you’d like to do in life, things that sound fun and exciting and wonderful, and then choose the best of the list.
You don’t have to come up with your life goals right now. You could just think of something you’d like to achieve over the next 6 months to a year, and continue to explore different things until you find your dream.

How to get there
If you know your goals, the next question is how to get there. A great method that I’ve seen numerous times, most recently by Mark Joyner in his Simple*ology system, is called backward planning, a method used by the military. Basically, here’s how it works:

Have a clearly defined goal with a clearly defined outcome — you should be able to visualize what it looks like when you’ve accomplished the outcome.
What is the last thing you’ll need to do to achieve that outcome? If your goal is to publish a novel, for example, the last thing you’ll need to do (before the publisher does the layout and design, printing, marketing, etc.) is edit and submit the final draft.
What is the thing you’ll need to do just before that step? In the above example, you might want to get an outside editor to review your draft and give your criticisms and suggestions and edits.
What is the thing you’ll need to do before that step? In the example, you’d need to do a revised draft to submit to your editor.
And so on, until you get to the first step. The first step is what you need to focus on. In the novel example, you might have “brainstorm novel ideas” as your first step.

If you follow this plan, you’ll have a step-by-step guide to achieving your goal. Now you just need a way to track your goals and achieve them.

How to track and achieve your goals - a simple method
As Bob suggests, it would take a well-planned form or software to track a bunch of goals, broken down by periods of your life (1 year, 5 years, 10 years, etc). That can be very complicated, as I’ve discovered myself.

So how can you simplify this? Of your life goals, choose one to accomplish within the next 12 months. If none of them can be accomplished in 12 months, choose a sub-goal of one of your life goals to accomplish in 12 months. And only choose ONE goal. Here’s an example:

Life goal: build my dream house
1 year goal: save $5,000 towards a down payment for my dream house

Once you’ve chosen your 1 year goal (and remember, only choose one — not one for each area of your life, but just one), then choose a medium-term goal that you can accomplish in 3-6 months. It should be a big chunk of your 1 year goal. For example:

medium-term goal: save $2,500 in 6 months

Then choose a short-term goal you can accomplish in 1-2 weeks. For example:

short-term goal: set up automatic deductions from my paycheck to go straight to savings — amount: $200 per paycheck.

The reason you should only focus on one goal at a time is that it’s hard to track a whole bunch of goals, and it’s hard to maintain focus on more than one goal at a time. If you just have to accomplish one thing this week, you can really put your energy into making it happen. But if you need to do 3-5 things in the next two weeks, it’s much more likely that you won’t do any of them.

So, focus on your short-term goal (1-2 weeks) and then when you complete it, choose the next short-term goal to get you to your medium-term goal. Once the medium-term goal is accomplished, choose a new medium-term goal to get you to your long-term goal (1 year). Once your long-term goal is accomplished, set your sights on a new long-term goal. Keep this up, and you’ll achieve a lot.

Here’s another example:

1 yr goal: Quit my job and work from home
medium-term goal: start an online business that will bring me income
short-term goal: brainstorm and research ideas for online business

I’ve found that this simplified system does a lot to helping me stay focused. It’s also hard to only choose one goal, as we always want to do 10 goals, but I think it’s worth it to decide what’s most important.

And the goal-tracking system is simple: on a simple 3×5 index card (or any sheet of paper), write down three things: your 1-year goal, your medium-term goal, and your short-term goal. When you accomplish the short-term goal, just cross it off and write a new one. It doesn’t require any fancy software or planning system.

The key is to maintain focus on your one goal, and to put all your energy into achieving it. Don’t forget it, don’t be distracted from it. Let it be the point on the horizon that you continually keep in sight, moving around obstacles but constantly heading towards that point. Maintain your focus, and you’ll achieve it.

What are your thoughts on this? Have a simple method for achieving and tracking your life goals? Let us know in the comments.

See also:

If you liked this article, please bookmark it in del.icio.us. Thanks!

A Simple Guide to Setting and Achieving Your Life Goals

Question from reader Bob:

I’ve finally realized that I need to put together a 5-year plan to continue my personal development and reach goals. I’ve found your post, Think About Your Life Goals , and it’s started me in the right direction, but left a lot of open questions. To start, I really don’t know what questions I should ask myself to get to the items I really want (if I even know what I really want in the first place). Is there some sort of personal plan worksheet that you know of that would cover the complete realm of development? I feel that I would be more successful if I could easily view my goals and track my progress within one main document.

How to choose life goals
How to get there
How to keep track of all your goals and actions

Take some time for quiet contemplation.
Think about what’s important to you.
Think about what you’d like people to say about you when you die.
Brainstorm — make a list of all the things you’d like to do in life, things that sound fun and exciting and wonderful, and then choose the best of the list.
You don’t have to come up with your life goals right now. You could just think of something you’d like to achieve over the next 6 months to a year, and continue to explore different things until you find your dream.

Have a clearly defined goal with a clearly defined outcome — you should be able to visualize what it looks like when you’ve accomplished the outcome.
What is the last thing you’ll need to do to achieve that outcome? If your goal is to publish a novel, for example, the last thing you’ll need to do (before the publisher does the layout and design, printing, marketing, etc.) is edit and submit the final draft.
What is the thing you’ll need to do just before that step? In the above example, you might want to get an outside editor to review your draft and give your criticisms and suggestions and edits.
What is the thing you’ll need to do before that step? In the example, you’d need to do a revised draft to submit to your editor.
And so on, until you get to the first step. The first step is what you need to focus on. In the novel example, you might have “brainstorm novel ideas” as your first step.

If you follow this plan, you’ll have a step-by-step guide to achieving your goal. Now you just need a way to track your goals and achieve them.

Life goal: build my dream house
1 year goal: save $5,000 towards a down payment for my dream house

medium-term goal: save $2,500 in 6 months

Then choose a short-term goal you can accomplish in 1-2 weeks. For example:

short-term goal: set up automatic deductions from my paycheck to go straight to savings — amount: $200 per paycheck.

Here’s another example:

1 yr goal: Quit my job and work from home
medium-term goal: start an online business that will bring me income
short-term goal: brainstorm and research ideas for online business

What are your thoughts on this? Have a simple method for achieving and tracking your life goals? Let us know in the comments.

See also:

If you liked this article, please bookmark it in del.icio.us. Thanks!

Posted on 25 June 2007 in Goals, Simplicity |
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Comments (17)

SpiKe Says:

June 25th, 2007, 5:46 am

Wow, very interesting read, I like the approach. I tie my approach down with the GTD vertical map and split my goals down into roles which when I look at your method seems a little too detailed.

Joel Says:

June 25th, 2007, 8:06 am

Excellent overview, and a very simple, doable plan for making progress.

Thanks

Alex Ion Says:

June 25th, 2007, 8:43 am

Yes backward planning is extremely great.
I am using it to focus on what I want to achieve.

Great article.

robyn Says:

June 25th, 2007, 9:08 am

this is actually very helpful to me. i’ve been trying to figure out some of my goals, honing them down to what i really want to do with myself and what i’ve just grabbed as good ideas based on other people’s dreams (i do that often, is that strange?). and this article is now printed off as well as bookmarked so that i can utilize it.

Leipeiqi Says:

June 25th, 2007, 9:50 am

Some other good questions are:
- A SWOT analysis (this doesn’t work only for marketing plans)
- Where do you see potential (future development)
- What things or situation you want to avoid (Some other good questions are:
- A SWOT analysis (this doesn’t work only for marketing plans)
- Where do you see potential (future development)
- Which things or situation you want to avoid (ask yourself why and accept them)
- Which things do make you really happy
- Other special things which also belong to you (put on a waiting list for later)

Also if you re-check with your lifegoal, also ask yourself: “do I bring wealth into this world?”
And always consider your environment, life is not a one-wo/man-show!

I’m writing this, because I’m in the same sort of situation.
So good luck…! :-)

Ruckus Says:

June 25th, 2007, 13:56 pm

Leo, great blog! I am a new reader and really look forward to reading your blog everyday. I endorse the new schedule, although I’d like to underscore some of the comments of other readers to continue your posts about GTD/ZTD. I am picking up my copy of David Allen’s book from the local library today and am excited about implementing the system. Your posts are very helpful! I had a question. You provide a link to the Simpleology website - is it legit? They ask you for your email address to access the information and the site looks a bit gimmicky. Thanks much.

Leo Says:

June 25th, 2007, 15:23 pm

@Ruckus: I did a little overview on Simple*ology here. They are legit, but I know what you mean by being spammy. Having read over the materials, I would suggest you get the free 101 course, but not buy the book or any other materials that cost money. It’s not worth the money, as all the ideas are pulled from other sources. But it brings together some good ideas, which I outline in the post I mentioned.

mike Says:

June 25th, 2007, 17:06 pm

“A great method that I’ve seen numerous times, most recently by Mark Joyner in his Simple*ology system, is called backward planning, a method used by the military.”

That’s reassuring - the military obviously has had a lot of success realizing its long-term goals…

Leo Says:

June 25th, 2007, 17:37 pm

@Mike: Lol. Good point. But the planning method works, even if perhaps the military’s implementation of its plans doesn’t work.

Actually, the problem with the military is that it is a huge organization … and those types of organizations have a hard time achieving any kind of long-term goals. A small Army unit, however, can get a lot done. But when you try to implement something across the entire organization, you have organizational inertia, conflicting goals of many different people, internal competition and strife, and dependencies that can hold up the whole process. So I wouldn’t blame the planning method, but the size of the organization. That’s why no government larger than a small school will ever be efficient.

I know from experience that this method can work for an individual, however. Thanks for the comment! :)

Travis Says:

June 25th, 2007, 18:47 pm

To me the whole secret is - “Look back from where you want to be and note down how you got there.” Then, check for validity of steps and implement or re-dream.

AgentSully Says:

June 25th, 2007, 20:00 pm

Hey Leo,
that’s funny we’re on the same wavelength today. This was the topic of my post too. When I talk to friends about my blog, this is the question they ask me to write about.

I think your method is a very good one of taking 1 goal in each time period (near term, short term and long term).

Great way to approach it.

The “capture” element of GTD is a great way to keep yourself focused while you have thoughts about so many other goals.

I have some goal tracking tools at my site today if any of your readers are interested.

Great job simplifying this process!

Frustrated Says:

June 25th, 2007, 21:50 pm

I like this idea. But I feel like focusing on ONE goal would leave too much out. I have too much going on in my life with work, family, home, and community to just pick ONE goal at a time.

So if you DO choose just one, what do you do with the rest of the possible goals in the other realms of your life?

Leo Says:

June 25th, 2007, 22:28 pm

@Frustrated: I know that this suggestion of only choosing one goal is a tough one to follow. Like I said, we all have 10 goals we’d like to accomplish. If you can’t stick to just one, at least only focus on 2-3 for now.

If you think about it, we all have a lot of goals we’d like to accomplish — but most often what happens is they all fall to the wayside, because we simply are not able to focus on all of them. And we tend to forget them, and they go unaccomplished, and we feel bad about it. Try this method to see if it works better.

As for the other goals that you’re not doing right now, you should still keep a list of them. Because if this method works, you will accomplish a major goal within a year … and then you can choose one of your other major goals. It may seem like it takes too long to get to all of them … and I understand that concern … but this way is much more effect, I’ve found.

And you know what? If you really concentrate, sometimes you can get your goal accomplished a lot faster than you thought … and move on to the next one quickly.

Good luck!

Abel Says:

June 25th, 2007, 23:12 pm

The best part of the post is simplicity. Most people just too hung up on the goal setting system or methodology which I find always too confusing. Focus is another key to achieving our goals. I have tried to do too many things in the past that I felt so exhausted and at the end I achieved nothing but mediocrity.

Cynthia Says:

June 26th, 2007, 0:22 am

Leo and for Bob who posed the question, for goal planning and trying to figure out what goals you might want to have, I have had success with Jinny S. Ditzler’s “Your Best Year Yet!” subtitled: Ten questions for making the next twelve months your most successful ever. She has a web site online where you can fill out the questions “free,” but the web site ‘prompts’ don’t contain as much information and examples from others as the inexpensive (at least through amazon.com :-) paperback book. I have found it very, very useful and it’s interesting to go back over it every year to see how your goals may (or not!) change.

Pril Says:

June 26th, 2007, 12:01 pm

I have done some research and motivational speakings for goals and a few web sites have came in handy.
Thinktq.com , bestyearyet.com

Here is what they suggest and i have followed this seems to work!
and your post is sooo close to it i can’t help but reinstate!

First insure your goals are close to your values in life! (you do need one life goal) and a ton of role goals! one for each role in your life!

Dream big there are no limititations to your dreams but when you turn your dreams into goals that’s where you need to have a realistic guideline! (meaning if someone has done it you can too) so lame comments like : i’ll never have enought money to own my own radio stations they cost 2-??? MILLION dollars! would be a personal thing i would have to over come!

how TQ sets up to plan your goals!
Write your goal and put a dead line on it!

1. They ask you to list major features highlights and details of your goal