Life is a journey. Do you have goals or a map to help you navigate your life journey? But you may ask where you are going to get such a map? And so I will tell you that you will create your own.
Determine your destinations and then figure out a pathway to get you where you want to go. Your destination is who you want to be, what you want to have and what you want to accomplish in life. These are your goals and how you reach these goals are your road maps.
Instead of wandering through life aimlessly or just grabbing onto dear life and letting it take you wherever – have a vision, set intentions and set goals. Life will always throw you the unexpected and can momentarily derail you from where you want to go, but you will always have your map to guide you back on track.
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I want to share with you the stops on my map. I went to school, got a degree, started my career, got married and we now have 3 wonderful kids. Up to this point, I was just living day by day without actually having a vision or intentions of what I want my life to be. Although having “accomplished” a lot, I want clarity of where I want to continue with my life.
Upon embarking on a “self-improvement” journey, I now have set goals that I want to achieve in the next year, 5 years and 10 years. One of my goals is to achieve “financial freedom” so we have the means to work less and to be able to enjoy life to it’s fullest.
We all know that life can be short. In order to achieve this goal, my focus is to maintain great health (so I can continue to work and feel great), have excellent relationships with my family (I need my family to enjoy the financial wealth) and be smart with our finances. These are the main pitstops on my road map to my destination of financial freedom.
Think about how your life would be without a map (or goals)? How do you know what to aim for if you don’t know where to go? Let’s go through some ways you can create your map to help create the life you deserve.
Setting intentions, setting goals and having a vision
The first thing you need to figure out is what do you want? Who do you want to be, what do you want to have and what do you want to accomplish in life? What are your ultimate goals?
Here are some main goals to consider:
Financial Goals
Money is interwoven into almost every aspect of our lives. So financial goals should be on the top of your list. When do you want to be debt-free? What’s your plan to pay off your loans? How much do you need to save up for your kids’ education? When do you want to retire? When do you want to achieve financial freedom?
To help you review your finances to come up with money goals, you may find the following posts helpful:
- Calculate Your Net Worth
- 9+ Money Saving Tips for Families
- 9 Steps for Effective Meal Planning
- 11 Must-Know Money Mistakes Women Make
Career Goals
We spend a good portion of our days at work or doing our jobs. If you are going to spend that much time, you might as well be good, efficient and effective with your work. In addition, doing well in your job or career can help you with your financial goals.
Furthermore, having a job you enjoy or find purposeful allows you to feel more fulfilled and thus happy. Do you know anyone who hates their job (or perhaps you do)? It’s hard to head to work and spend most of the day doing something you don’t like. So perhaps a goal is to get a job that you love and supports your financial goals.
If you are looking for a new job, check out Jooble – a job and employment website for over 71 countries.
Relationship Goals
Living life is best shared with loved ones. Perhaps your relationship with your spouse, kids, parents, friends needs some nurturing. Darren Hardy explains in his book “The Compound Effect” how he nurtures his relationship with his wife. Every day he would write in a journal one way he is grateful or appreciates her. Every day for one year he did this and then on Thanksgiving he gave her this journal. Darren describes how this method helped make his relationship with his wife stronger and also made himself a better person.
If you have kids, consider what type of people you want them to grow up to be. What type of traits do you want them to have? Kind, responsible, independent, and good citizens? Be intentional on how you would raise your kids to have those traits.
Do you have other important people in your life that you haven’t given much attention to lately?
Personals Goals
I personally believe self-care is another focus area that you should have goals in. You ultimately need to take care of yourself before you can be effective in the other areas of your life.
When my kids were babies, sleep deprivation led me to the ugliest version of myself. I couldn’t focus, I was cranky, I couldn’t lose the pregnancy weight and my health basically suffered. So I came up with health goals. I wanted to be fit, be healthy and feel good about myself. Now, I exercise daily and make sure I am well-rested. I highly encourage you to have health goals.
Related post: The Power of Sleep
Even though most of us are past the school phase in our lives, we should never stop learning. Whether you want to continue to expand knowledge in your career or learn something fun, lifelong learning in a particular subject can be a goal. Maybe you want to learn to be a better cook, learn a new language, sport, how to cook, sew or continue on self-improvement or personal growth. Knowledge is power.
Podcasts and audiobooks are a great resource for learning. If you commute to work, you can use this time to listen to the podcasts or audiobooks. The internet has a wealth of free information. The library is a fantastic resource as well! Most libraries give you the option for digital loans for ebooks and audiobooks. Schedule some time in your day for learning even if it’s just 15 minutes per day.
Short Term and Long Term Goals
Now consider the timeline of your goals. Some goals may need more time to achieve and some can be done quickly. Prioritize your goals. Which ones do you need or want to reach or accomplish first? You can categorize your goals as short term (1 year) or long term (3 years +) or sometime in between!
As you write down your goals, I want you to write them as though you have accomplished them. Instead of writing down “I will be healthier” write it down as “I am healthier”. It’s a little trick to get you into the mindset of what you want to accomplish. You are reinforcing it in your mind that it can be a reality and believing that it can and it will be so.
VISION BOARD
Once you determine your vision and goals, you need to put them down on paper. A fun way is to create a VISION BOARD. You can be creative and use your craft supplies or just write them down with pen and paper. The idea is to put them down on paper so you can review them daily.
That’s the key point: you will see it every day. Your list of goals should be reviewed daily to help remind you of the direction and destination that you want to head towards. If it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind. Visualize your goals every day.
When I was growing up, I always wrote down my goals on New Year’s eve. I would put them aside and then forget about them till I looked at them the following New Year’s eve. That wasn’t effective at all. I had an endpoint or destination but no map. The goals that I set were obviously just wishes.
I placed my own vision board in my closet. Every morning when I am getting ready – I read it. My goals are on my mind when I’m starting my day. Now every year on my birthday, I re-do and update my vision board.
It’s important to note that your goals should be reviewed periodically to ensure this is the direction that you want to head towards. Sometimes some goals don’t make sense anymore and you need to change them or pivot towards a different direction.
Figuring out the road map to get there
Now that you have your destination/goals laid out, let’s figure out the road map to get there. Pick one or two goals that you want to work towards now. Here are some tips to help you with your map:
Routine and Habits
For most goals, it comes down to incorporating a new habit into your daily routine. These new habits, behaviours and changes in routine will be your pitstops and pathways on your map. New habits could either be adding a new one or eliminating bad ones.
Eliminating bad habits
Identify bad or harmful habits that are in the way of your dreams and goals. What are some things that you do that suck up precious time? What are things that don’t move the needle? Browsing social media is a good culprit. If this is you, how can you minimize your time on social media? Do you spend hours watching Netflix every week? Or do you spend a lot of time figuring out what to cook everyday?
Be more intentional with your time. Be creative and find the time you need to work on your goals.
I used to wake up and the first thing I did was browse social media. I would waste at least 15 minutes of my morning viewing other people’s lives. At the end of the day I would do the same thing. I have now eliminated this habit. Instead, I take a few minutes in the morning thinking of “what and who am I grateful for” (my minute of gratitude) and what I want to accomplish today. At the end of my day, I read a book and figure out the top 3 things I need to accomplish the next day.
Do you hang out with people who may be holding you back? You may have “toxic” people in your life. Can you find ways to stop seeing them or reduce your exposure to them? You have the choice to decide who you interact with.
Morning and evening routine
Use your morning and evening time to work on some of your goals.
As a parent, I have created “me time” at both the beginning and the end of my day. These are the times of the day when I have control over them. Many things can happen during the day that I can’t control. Thus, my morning and evening routine are used to work on some of my goals.
Do-it Lists
Prioritize 3 things that you will want or need to accomplish daily. From your “TO DO” list, put it on your “DO IT” list. These 3 things will help you reach your goals or destination.
Automation
Do you have any goals that you can use “automation” systems to help you out? Automation in this setting is basically to have something or someone else do the work for you.
For example, a common financial goal is to save more money. Most online banking will allow you to set up automatic transfers into a savings account. When you get paid, you can set it up to automatically do the transfer for you. You can set up automatic bill payments so then you never would miss another payment. Take a look at this post “How to Best Automate Your Finances” for more information.
Hiring help could also be another means of automation. You can hire someone to help you clean your home, do your groceries, cook or help take care of your kids. This can free up more time to work on things that are on your map.
Tracking
Tracking is an extremely effective way to keep you on track with a new habit. For example, you want to incorporate exercise into your daily life. Create a chart and document each day when the exercise is completed (i.e. length of time, number of steps). If you want to lose weight, keep track of what you eat all day. This tracking technique really helps keep you motivated and accountable for your new habit!
Apps
Check out the plethora of apps available on your phone or tablet to help you with your goals. Consider planners, schedule apps, weight trackers, food trackers, financial apps (money trackers, saving money, investing, budgeting), podcast/audiobook apps and alarm apps (to set reminders) etc.
The above are just some ideas to help you create your road map and of course you don’t need to use them all. You can see what fits best with goals for your finances, career, relationships, and personal goals. Categorize them into short and long term goals.
We can live for a long time or perhaps the unexpected happens and we live a short life. Whatever time we have on Earth, live it wisely and live the life you deserve. How do we create and maintain a happy life? It’s about being intentional, having a focus, and a dream or a vision. Create your own life journey map.
I hope that I have inspired you to start thinking about your life goals or to keep going with what you have already set.
Now go and create and live the life you deserve.
Hello, thanks for sharing with us! Nice tips, I totally agree
I need to figure out how to stick with my weight loss goals. I am STRUGGLING right now.
I’m no expert in weight loss (cause I’m working on mine too!), but I have found it super helpful and effective to track everything. I’ve tracked what I’ve eaten all day (which is the basis for Weight Watchers). I’m currently tracking my daily activities – I write down how many steps I take a day, the number of minutes on the treadmill, and if I’ve done strength exercises (abs, legs). Tracking has been such a good motivator to keep me moving.
These are all great tips. I’ll be sure to incorporate them in my routine for a more organized year ahead. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Seema! Good luck with your routine.
Great tips! Having a plan makes everything seem more manageable.
Thanks Adriane! Yes having a plan definitely makes everything more manageable, especially when one has so many things on the go!