Goal-Setting Template

Goals are the desired results we hope to achieve—the object of our effort and ambition. Goals are common in our life and work, but that doesn’t mean we’re good at setting and achieving them. Use this Goal-Setting Template to set your goals properly, based on the research and best practice.

1. Thinking about areas of your life that are important to you (e.g., health, personal growth, relationships (spouse, family, friends), work, finances, education, faith, service, fun), start jotting ideas for things you’d like to improve. Write freely here without thinking about criteria and without self-editing. Think of these as nuggets that could be turned into goals. List ideas in the space below.

1. Thinking about areas of your life that are important to you (e.g., health, personal growth, relationships, work, finances, education, service, fun), start jotting ideas for things you’d like to improve. Write freely here without thinking about criteria and without self-editing. Think of these as nuggets that could be turned into goals. List ideas in the space below.(Required)

(Examples: Save more money. Get fit. Lose weight. Study more. Learn Spanish. These are general ideas that we can work with to turn into proper goals.)

2. Using the criteria below, now create an initial draft of up to 10 goals from your ideas above.

Strive to make each draft goal on the right meet as many of the criteria on the left as possible. Don’t feel obligated to fill all the rows on the right. Just write as many or as few goals as seem relevant and necessary to you now. (Examples: Read at least one book a month this quarter. Save 15% of every paycheck this quarter. Reach level X in my language app by March 31. Increase my average daily step count from 7,000 currently to 8,000 by the end of August. Save $X by June 30 so I’m on track for a down-payment on a new home. Write 4 blogs of at least 1,000 words each month.)

Criteria for Each Goal:

1. Important to me: goals you can commit to wholeheartedly, knowing they’ll summon your dedication and resolve because they matter.

2. Authentic: goals determined by you, not others, and consistent with your core values and interests.

3. Purposeful: goals that have a clear “why” behind them, with aims that feel meaningful or significant to you.

4. Intrinsically motivating: goals you want to pursue out of interest, enjoyment, or inherent satisfaction, rather than the desire for a reward.

5. Clear and measurable: goals that are easy to understand and free from ambiguity—and that you’re able to quantify and determine without doubt if you’ve achieved them.

6. Time-bound: goals with a specific target date for accomplishing them.

7. Challenging but achievable: goals that are difficult and demanding, testing your abilities or determination, but also attainable with much effort.

Draft Goals That Meet the Criteria(Required)

Click on the + button to add a row. Click on the - button to delete a row.

3. Using the criteria below for the whole set of goals, narrow down the list of draft goals above to a final set of between one and five prioritized goals.

Criteria for the Whole Set of Goals:

A. Highly selective: a short list of no more than five goals that are the most important to you right now.

B. Complementary: goals that hang well together and that would add up to a powerful and complete whole for you.

C. Prioritized: goals in order of their importance to show you which one(s) to focus on if there are conflicts and which one must be dealt with before others.

Final Set of Goals for This Period:(Required)

Congratulations on completing this Goal-Setting Template—an important step in your development, and one that can help motivate you to achieve at higher levels. Please enter your name and email below to receive a pdf of your goals.

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