How to Set Goals

Co-authored by Sydney Axelrod

Last Updated: September 10, 2024 Fact Checked

Whether you have small dreams or lofty expectations, setting goals allows you to plan how you want to move through life. Some achievements can take a lifetime to attain, while others can be completed in the course of a day. Whether you're setting broad overarching goals or planning specific manageable goals, you'll feel a sense of accomplishment and self-worth. Getting started can seem daunting, but you can build up to even the loftiest dream.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Setting Achievable Goals

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1
Determine your life goals. Ask yourself some important questions about what you want for your life. What do you want to achieve: today, in a year, in your lifetime? The answers to this question can be as general as "I want to be happy," or "I want to help people."^{[1]
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Research source} Consider what you hope to attain 10, 15, or 20 years from now.
- A career life goal might be to open your own business. A fitness goal might be to become fit. A personal goal might be to have a family one day. These goals can be incredibly broad.
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Break the big picture down into smaller and more specific goals.^{[2]
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Expert Source

Sydney Axelrod
Certified Life Coach

Expert Interview. 30 June 2020.} Consider areas of your life that you either want to change or that you feel you would like to develop with time. Areas might include: career, finances, family, education, or health. Begin to ask yourself questions about what you'd like to achieve in each area and how you would like to approach it within a five year time frame.^{[3]
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- For the life goal “I want to be fit,” you might make the smaller goals “I want to eat more healthily” and “I want to run a marathon.”^{[4]
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  Sydney Axelrod
  Certified Life Coach
  
  Expert Interview. 30 June 2020.}
- For the life goal “I want to open my own business,” the smaller goals may be “I want to learn to manage a business effectively” and “I want to open an independent book store.”
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3
Write goals for the short term. Now that you know roughly what you want to accomplish within a few years, make concrete goals for you to begin working on now.^{[5]
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Expert Source

Sydney Axelrod
Certified Life Coach

Expert Interview. 30 June 2020.} Give yourself a deadline within a reasonable time frame (no more than a year for short-term goals).
- Writing your goals will make them harder to ignore, consequently making you accountable for them.
- To become fit, your first goals may be to eat more vegetables and to run a 5k.
- To open your own business, your first goals may be to take a bookkeeping class and to find the perfect location for your bookstore.
4
Make your goals smaller steps that move you towards larger life goals. Basically, you need to decide why you're setting this goal for yourself and what it will accomplish.^{[6]
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Expert Source

Sydney Axelrod
Certified Life Coach

Expert Interview. 30 June 2020.} Some good questions to ask yourself when figuring this out are: does it seem worthwhile? Is now the right time for this? Does this match my needs?^{[7]
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- For example, while a short-term fitness goal might be to take up a new sport within six months, ask yourself if that will help you reach your bigger goal of running a marathon. If not, consider changing the short term goal to something that will be a step towards meeting the life goal.
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Be open to opportunities. "I've learned that if I only put my mind to one thing that I can get tunnel vision. Then I may not be as open to other opportunities because I'm so focused on one thing. I think what's worked better for me personally is I have three goals every day: be nice, work hard, and make friends."
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Adjust your goals periodically. You may find yourself set in your ways concerning broad life goals, but take the time to re-evaluate your smaller goals. Are you accomplishing them according to your time frame? Are they still necessary to keep you on track towards your larger life goals? Allow yourself the flexibility to adjust your goals.^{[8]
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- To become fit, you may have mastered running 5K races. Perhaps after you have run a few and worked on improving your personal best times, you should adjust your goal from “run a 5K” to “run a 10K.” Eventually you can move to “run a half marathon,” then “run a marathon.”
- To open your own business, after completing the first goals of taking a bookkeeping class and finding a location, you may set new goals to obtain a business loan to purchase a space and to apply for the proper business licensing through your local government. Afterwards, you can move towards buying (or leasing) the space, then obtaining the books you need, hiring staff, and opening your doors to business. Eventually you may even work towards opening a second location!

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Practicing Effective Goal Strategies

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1
Make your goals specific. When setting goals, they should answer the highly specific questions of who, what, where, when, and why. For each specific goal you make, you should ask yourself why it is a goal and how it helps your life goals.^{[9]
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- To become fit (which is very general), you have created the more specific goal “run a marathon,” which begins with the short-term goal “run a 5K.” When you set each short-term goal—such as running a 5K, you can answer the questions: Who? Me. What? Run a 5K. Where? At Local Park. When? In 6 weeks. Why? To work towards my goal of running a marathon.
- To open your own business, you have created the short-term goal “take a bookkeeping class.” This can answer the questions: Who? Me. What? Take a bookkeeping class. Where? At the Library. When? Every Saturday for 5 weeks. Why? To learn how to manage a budget for my business.
2
Create measurable goals.^{[10]
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Sydney Axelrod
Certified Life Coach

Expert Interview. 30 June 2020.} In order for us to track our progress, goals should be quantifiable. "I'm going to walk more" is far more difficult to track and measure than "Every day I'm going to walk around the track 16 times." Essentially, you'll need a few ways of determining if you're reaching your goal.^{[11]
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- “Run a 5K” is a measurable goal. You know for certain when you have done it. You may need to set the even shorter-term goal of “run at least 3 miles (4.8 km), 3 times every week” to work towards your first 5K. After your first 5K, a measurable goal would be “run another 5K in one month, but take 4 minutes off of my time.”
- Likewise, “take a bookkeeping class” is measurable because it is a specific class that you will sign up to take and go to every week. A less measurable version would be “learn about bookkeeping,” which is vague because it’s difficult to know when you’re “finished” learning about bookkeeping.
3
Be realistic with your goals. It is important to evaluate your situation honestly and recognize which goals are realistic and which are a little far-fetched. Ask yourself if you have the all the things you need to complete your goal (skill, resources, time, knowledge).^{[12]
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- To become fit and run a marathon, you will need to spend a lot of time running. If you do not have the time or interest to devote many hours every week to running, this goal may not work for you. If you find this is the case, you could adjust your goals; there are other ways to become fit that do not involve spending hours and hours running.
- If you want to open your own independent bookstore but you have no experience running a business, have no capital (money) to put towards opening the business, and you have no knowledge about how bookstores work, or you’re not really interested in reading, you may not be successful in achieving your goals.
4
Set priorities. At any given moment, you have a number of goals all in different states of completion. Deciding which goals are more important or time-sensitive than others is crucial. If you find yourself with too many goals, you're going to feel overwhelmed and are less likely to accomplish them.^{[13]
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- It may help to choose a few top priorities. This will provide you focus when conflicting goals come up. If it's a choice between completing one or two minor goals and completing one top priority, you know to choose the top priority.
- If you’re working towards becoming fit and you have set the smaller goals “to eat more healthily,” “to run a 5K,” and “to swim 1 mile (1.6 km), 3 days per week,” you may find that you do not have the time or energy to do all of those things at once. You can prioritize; if you want to run a marathon, first running a 5K may be more important to your goal than swimming every week. You may want to continue eating better, because that is good for your overall health in addition to helping you run.
- If you’re working towards opening your own bookstore, you may need to obtain a business license and be sure you can qualify for a business loan (if you need one) before you begin selecting specific books to carry in your store.
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Keep track of your progress. Writing in a journal is a great way to keep track of both personal and professional progress. Checking in with yourself and acknowledging the progress made towards a certain goal is key to staying motivated. It may even encourage you to work harder.^{[14]
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- Asking a friend to keep you on track can help you stay focused. For example, if you're training for the big race, having a friend to regularly meet up with and work out with can keep you on track with your progress.
- If you are getting fit by working towards a marathon, keep a running journal in which you record how far you ran, how much time it took, and how you felt. As you improve more and more, it can be a great confidence boost to go back and see how far you’ve come since you started.
- It may be a bit more difficult to track your progress towards opening your own business, but writing down all of your goals and sub-goals, then crossing them out or indicating when each one is complete can help you track the work that you’ve done.
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Assess your goals. Acknowledge when you have reached goals and allow yourself to celebrate accordingly. Take this time to assess the goal process—from inception to completion. Consider if you were happy with the time frame, your skill set, or if the goal was reasonable.
- For example, once you have run your first 5K, be grateful that you've completed a goal, even if it seems small one in comparison to your bigger goal of running a marathon.
- Of course, when you open the doors of your independent bookstore and you make your first sale to a customer, you’ll celebrate, knowing that you have worked towards your goal successfully!
7
Keep setting goals. Once you have achieved goals—even major life goals—you will want to continue to grow and set new goals for yourself.^{[15]
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- Once you run your marathon, you should assess what you’d like to do next. Do you want to run another marathon, but improve your time? Do you want to diversify and try a triathlon or an Ironman race? Or do you want to go back to running shorter distance races—5Ks or 10Ks?
- If you have opened your independent bookstore, do you want to work on implementing community events, such as book clubs or literacy tutoring? Or do you want to make more money? Would you like to open additional locations or expand by adding a coffee shop inside or next door to your bookstore?

Template to Set and Track Goals

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Question

How does setting goals lead to success?

Annie Lin, MBA
Life & Career Coach
Annie Lin is the founder of New York Life Coaching, a life and career coaching service based in Manhattan. Her holistic approach, combining elements from both Eastern and Western wisdom traditions, has made her a highly sought-after personal coach. Annie’s work has been featured in Elle Magazine, NBC News, New York Magazine, and BBC World News. She holds an MBA degree from Oxford Brookes University. Annie is also the founder of the New York Life Coaching Institute which offers a comprehensive life coach certification program.

Annie Lin, MBA

Life & Career Coach

Expert Answer

Basically, it turns goal achievement into a routine. If you set goals regularly, you'll get in the habit of focusing on achieving your goals. This frees up a lot of mental space and energy for other tasks.

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How do I stick with my goals?

Sydney Axelrod
Certified Life Coach
Sydney Axelrod is a certified life coach and the owner of Sydney Axelrod LLC, a life coaching business focused on professional and personal development. Through one-on-one coaching, digital courses, and group workshops, Sydney works with clients to discover their purpose, navigate life transitions, and set and accomplish goals. Sydney has over 1,000 hours of relevant coaching certifications and holds a BBA in Marketing and Finance from Emory University.

Sydney Axelrod

Certified Life Coach

Expert Answer

Know that it's not always about making a 180 degree shift. Instead, it's about what one-degree shift you can make in your life that will change your life's trajectory. Make changes in the form of small, sustainable habits and don't beat yourself up when you get off track. We're human and life happens. Rather than focusing on perfection, ask yourself what you plan to do when you mess up and how you plan on bouncing back.

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How can I measure my success when tracking my goals?

Sydney Axelrod
Certified Life Coach
Sydney Axelrod is a certified life coach and the owner of Sydney Axelrod LLC, a life coaching business focused on professional and personal development. Through one-on-one coaching, digital courses, and group workshops, Sydney works with clients to discover their purpose, navigate life transitions, and set and accomplish goals. Sydney has over 1,000 hours of relevant coaching certifications and holds a BBA in Marketing and Finance from Emory University.

Sydney Axelrod

Certified Life Coach

Expert Answer

The first step with that is to really ask yourself what success means to you with this specific goal. If you get clear on why you want to achieve that goal, you can measure your success by creating a benchmark of one to 10. For example, if your goal is to feel more at peace, rate how you feel at the beginning of the month on a scale from one to ten. After following through with your goal throughout the month, such as meditating a few minutes each day, compare how you feel at the end of the month based on that same benchmark.

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Tips

Use the SMART method to create actionable goals. SMART is a mnemonic used by life coaches, motivators, HR departments, and educators for a system of goal identification, setting, and achievement. Every letter in SMART stands for an adjective that describes an effective way to set goals — namely Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely.

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