Personal Development Goal Setting

If you've been putting off your personal development goal setting for any length of time you might often wonder what it would be like to live a life that you are truly passionate about. A life with no regrets and filled with joy, wonder, and excitement.

I’m sure you do, so what are you still waiting for? Why haven’t you taken the steps to start living the passionate life you dream of? Let me remind you that there is no better time to focus your attention on realizing your dreams than now.

Frankly speaking, yesterday was a better time. The day before yesterday was even better than yesterday. But the past, is well, the past. There’s no point in lamenting over lost time, but to delay further would be a disservice to yourself.

I can’t overemphasize the importance of time when it comes to achieving your goals. Each day, week, or month’s delay may mean lost opportunities and could further derail the timeframe you’ve set to attain your personal development goals. Your life is urgently imploring you to act. The question is, “when will you"?

Life can, and usually does, get in the way our dreams and best laid plans, but that is no excuse to abandon your goals altogether. The moment you decide to get back on track with your dreams doors will open up for you. I know from personal experience that life rewards action, so stop dreaming and get busy creating the life you know you were meant to live!

Here are some tips on personal development goal setting:

Consider Your Long Term Goals

The best way to do this is by writing down all this things you hope to accomplish in your life. This may seem like a tall order, but giving real attention to your life is important work. The easiest tool for this is the Wheel of Life shown below.

Here are instructions on how to use this tool:

1. Review the 8 areas on the Wheel of Life. The Wheel must, when put together, create a view of a balanced life for you. If necessary, you can split categories to add in something that is missing for yourself. You can also re-label an area so that it is more meaningful for you. The usual suspects are:

1. Family/Friends
2. Partner/Significant Other/Romance
3. Career
4. Finances
5. Health (emotional/physical/fitness/nutrition/wellbeing)
6. Physical Environment/Home
7. Fun/Recreation/Leisure
8. Personal Growth/Learning/Self-development
9. Spiritual wellbeing (religion or sense of self)
10. Others could include security, service, leadership, integrity, achievement or community.

2. Think about what success feels like for each area.
3. Now, rank your level of satisfaction with each area of your life by drawing a line across each segment. Place a value between 1 (very dissatisfied) and 10 (fully satisfied) against each area to show how satisfied you are currently with these elements in your life.
4. The new perimeter of the circle represents your ‘Wheel of Life’. See the example below.

Set Your Short Term Goals

Now that you have an overarching view of your long term personal development goals you can break them down into short term goals. Short term goals should motivate you to achieve your longer term goals, and can be broken down into the following categories:

5 years
1 year
6 months
1 month
1 week

Create a written action plan to accomplish these short term goals, and be sure to reflect on them regularly. Also, find enjoyable ways to reward yourself once you've completed each goal. Consider sharing them on the goal setting success page and check out our SMART goals page for more specifics on setting attainable goals.

Achieving goals gives sense of empowerment and helps you boost your self confidence quicker. Employ these steps, and start getting more out of your life today.

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