Goal Setting in Your 7 Main Life Categories
Successful goal setting, execution and achievement with the seven main life categories is key to living a fulfilling life.
If we take a step back and focus on all of the core elements that make up our lives over the 80+ years that we’re given, we’ll likely notice there are 7 core components that are part of our journey. Figuring out how to succeed in each of those areas is a key to living a fulfilling life.
Let’s dive into each of those 7 Main Life Categories.
Goal setting and life category #1: Personal
We all have so much going on in life. There’s work, career, school, home and family. The list goes on and on. It’s so easy to lose sight of what our personal goals are. We might want to finish a degree, complete a certificate, write a book or just learn a hobby or skill.
We say we don’t have time, but the truth is we don’t make time. Have you ever noticed if there’s something you truly wanted to do, you find the time to do it? Even if that means taking a sick day and doing nothing once in a while.
Expanding from this point, here are a few tips on how to create personal goals and how to achieve them:
- Choose one goal at a time – we all have the habit of getting overzealous in our personal goals and start out wanting to lose weight, diet and exercise, clean out clutter, take a class, earn a certificate, etc. and then we spiral out of control and fail at all of the above.
- Worse than this, we stop trying because we climbed too high, too fast and fell way too short. Start with smaller goals. It’s almost like a no-fail system. It’s a win/win. Start with one goal – even the type A personalities out there can do this. By starting with one goal and one goal only, you have no place to go but up.
- If you want to learn a new sport or skill, for example, start by simply exploring what’s involved a little bit at a time. Don’t take out 15 books from the library, talk to 20 different people about it and research for hours on end on the internet.
- Talking to too many different people will only leave you vulnerable, especially when it comes to personal goals. Other people don’t want to leave their comfort zone and they want you to stay there with them as well. Spend small increments of time each day and set the timer. Spend 30 minutes one day and 15 minutes another researching your new personal goal and stop there.
- Pick one person you trust to talk to about your fears, excitement and concerns.
- Pick an action step for the week and stick to it. Get an accountability partner you will have to report to.
- Continue to reward yourself as you go along and reach these milestones.
- Slowly begin to incorporate this new goal into your life through small, actionable and measurable steps.
- Acknowledge the success you are feeling on a small scale as time goes on. Don’t rush and don’t get ahead of yourself.
- Notice you are gaining momentum on your goal. It’s not bigger than you. It’s actually happening in smaller increments.
- Begin to get excited, and it will show. Power tip – the more you get excited about what you are doing, the more inspired you will feel and the more momentum you will create.
Goal setting and life category #2: Career
Career goals may be a little easier to achieve than personal goals. When it comes to personal goals, you get up inside your head and you think or feel too much. It’s easier to set career goals and detach from them in a colder, more logical way of thinking.
- Examine and explore which area of your career is not working.
- Ask yourself what your end goal is – do you want to retire earlier, work fewer hours, or have more power? What is your end goal?
- Once you have discovered your end goal, start creating a plan of action.
- Pick five action steps, beginning with the smallest.
- Record them on paper.
- Take one small action step per day for a set amount of time – let’s use an example of three weeks. Take one small action step per day for three weeks to get closer to the second action step. For example, you may want to show up earlier or on time for three weeks or you may want to speak up at meetings where as you never did so before.
- You may want to earn a certificate which will put you in line for more money or a promotion. You may want to take on more responsibility at work to show your new boss what you are capable of.
- Continue using this model until all five action steps are completed and you have arrived at your career goal.
Goal setting and life category #3: Relationships
When it comes to thinking and aiming big, you want to have success in all areas of your life. Success is not related to only money and career. Success in relationships equates to thinking and aiming big in all areas of your life.
In order to have big success in relationships, you need to think big. So many times, or actually all times, we come into relationships and bring into them every single relationship we’ve ever had in the past from our parents to our siblings. If you want big things in relationships, you have to put big goals into them.
- A successful relationship means being honest with who you are and also how you show up. It’s so easy to play the blame game in relationships without looking to take some responsibility of our own. It’s important to take a look at our actions, our thoughts, and our preconceived notions when we are relating to others.
- Relationships are not just love interests. Relationships are people we work with and people we don’t even know in line in the supermarket. How we can show up as a contribution to the other person is always a tough question to ask.
However, when you ask this question, you come up with a brilliant solution. What if you were to just express your anger without blaming someone else? Do you see how this could equate to a successful solution?
In business, when a boss or CEO blames their employee, their employee becomes defensive and less cooperative. It just makes sense. However, when a CEO guides and leads by example and makes reasonable requests for change and prosperity, people will follow suit.
This is the true meaning of a successful relationship. This works in personal relationships as well as career and other relationships.
Goal setting and life category #4: Money
Money has got to be one of the biggest blocks there is. Money has so much power to control us if we let it. Here are a few action steps to take around having success in the area of finances:
- What’s your story? We all have stories around money. It’s your job to uncover your story. Do you believe you’re not good enough to make that kind of money or do you believe only greedy people have and receive money? Do you tell yourself a story that only people who are better, smarter or more worthy will have money? Define your story.
- Once you uncover your negative money story and self-sabotaging habits surrounding money, you can now write your own brand new story.
- Start practicing positive affirmations around money. I can have more money flow easily into my life and for positive reasons. I can create abundance. I am already in flow and creating abundance. I feel so excited about the abundance of money coming my way. Financial prosperity is possible in my life.
- Practice these daily, several times a day, visualize on them and meditate on them if you truly want financial abundance. It’s not a “work harder/make more” scenario. It’s about being in ease and in flow.
Life category #5: Life Purpose
We all inherently know what our life purpose is, but we manage to use several negative tools against ourselves.
- We self-sabotage. The minute we feel we are close to success, we make excuses, we run back to our comfort zone, we fear success or believe subconsciously we don’t deserve success.
- We get comfortable in our comfort zone. We make excuses instead of making changes. We back slide and then feel guilty and miserable. We allow life to get in the way.
- We are not aware of our own blocks because we live in a busy world with busy minds.
If you want to find success and pursue your life purpose, you need to:
- Get out of your head and into your heart. Sometimes we all suffer from what is known as analysis/paralysis. We think too much and we don’t drop down into our own hearts.
- Take time to be quiet and sit still. Whether you go to the beach or the boardwalk or the park, you need to schedule time in to be quiet. As odd as it may sound, scheduling time to be quiet will actually help you to get into the process of being quiet anywhere, anytime randomly.
- When you sit still and get quiet, you can actually hear a little better than you normally do when there is so much noise in your head.
- Take notes. Take time to journal your thoughts and feelings on paper. When you journal, you don’t have to worry about filters. You don’t have to worry about what people will say, respond or how they think.
- Write your private thoughts, dreams, desires and wishes for your life purpose down on paper.
- Get clear. Once you take on the practice of getting quiet and being still, you now have the opportunity to get clear. To clear your mind of the clutter. To make clear goals. Taking notes is a great way to get clear. Once you get clear, it’s time to take some of those action steps as previously mentioned.
- Make a declaration. Once you are clear, start declaring your life purpose. Make positive and happy statements about how excited you are about pursuing your life purpose. Keep it simple, don’t elaborate and allow people to ask their questions.
- You don’t have to have all the answers. When you don’t have the answers, don’t doubt yourself, just simply be open to finding the answers. Keep declaring your passion and purpose anyhow. The answers will come in time.
Life category #6: Prosperity
Have you ever looked at somebody and wondered to yourself how they did it? Lots of people feel the same way about others who are successful. We tend to look at others and think they are lucky or they get all the breaks or their husband/wife/parent made it happen or they come from money.
When it comes to prosperity, it is vital to understand you don’t wait for prosperity and abundance to come to you. You create it.
Choose an area in your life where you want more prosperity. Is it in your career, your financial status, credit card debt or savings and retirement?
Once you’ve honed in on an area, take the following steps to create prosperity:
Prosperity is a mindset.
Once you understand prosperity is a mindset, the rest will flow. Prosperity is not something that happens to you. It is something you make happen. Change your mindset around prosperity.
Your subconscious mind is solely responsible for all of your habits, even your prosperity habits. In order to tap into the power and leverage of the subconscious mind, you will need to work on creating new mindset habits.
- Positive thoughts create prosperity. Your subconscious mind only knows its past history. All the stories, the negativity, and the events are ingrained in your subconscious mind.
- If you allow your subconscious mind to rule the roost, you will see the same habits and the same trends without much change. Begin to reprogram your conscious mind with positive thoughts and, over time, this practice will show you how quickly and easily you can create prosperity and success into your life.
- Take on the practice of positive thinking. You don’t necessarily have to make things up if you are not at that stage, however, you should take on the practice of what is working as compared to what is not. The more you focus on what is well in your world, the more enhanced wonderful things will appear and magnify in your life.
Life category #7: Spirituality
Success in spirituality comes when you allow and accept what works for you. No one can tell you what, how, when or where to practice your spirituality or what spiritual practices you should take on.
Spirituality success comes when you accept who you are and what works for you. Once you get beyond the mind and the ego, you can tap into spiritual success. Spiritual success comes from one very important tool – practice.
You need to try on many different things until you find the one, or the combination, which works for you.
Further reading about Goal Setting:
