How to Set Goals That Work

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” – James Dean

Goals are an essential part of living. Whether we realize it or not, most of us have some level of goals. For example, anyone who has had a job at some point set a goal (maybe a thought goal vs a written goal). They at the very minimum would have had to think to themselves “okay, I need to make some money to pay the bills required to live independently, so I better get a job.” They probably even took it a step further to think “and if I’m going to get a job, what kind of a job do I want? Maybe I want a job in an office instead of one that requires me to work outdoors.” Another example of a goal that most people have at some point is to find a significant other to spend their lives with. Maybe once they’ve found that person, they set a goal to have kids. Or maybe kids were not their goal but fun was, so they ended up with kids anyway (if you know what I mean).

Most of us set some level of goals throughout the course of our lives. What I’d like to talk about now however is a different level of goal setting. If you want to squeeze all the joy you can out of life by taking on purposeful challenges to live life to its fullest, you will want to have more thoughtful, empowering and inspiring goals.

How To Build Powerful Goals

There are several areas of life that most people consider when goal setting. These areas may include family/relationships, career, money, adventure, material things (homes, cars, boats, etc), health and others. I highly recommend categorizing your goals in this manner; it helps ensure you are consciously living all areas of your life in a way that supports your purpose. Regardless of how you organize your goals, what I want to focus on now is how to make sure your goals have teeth!

First, you need to clearly define your goal. For example, you may have an adventure goal stated as such: “I will sail my 30 foot sailboat with my brother John from Boston, MA to Dublin, Ireland before I’m 60 years old.” Notice I’ve put a time frame in to give this goal more weight. I could be more precise if I wanted to and add a number of days that I want to complete the trip in. While defining your goal is an obvious first step, it is of course the most critical step.