Now that you have completed Series One: Finding Happiness During Uncertain Times and Series Two: Creating Routines, welcome to the final series: Setting Goals! Setting goals is an important tool, not only to help you stay focused, but to inspire and motivate you to pursue your dreams and put yourself on the path to achieving them.
Exercise One: Make a list
As you may have noticed, I love making lists, but making a list of goals is always especially fun and exciting because it gives me something to work towards! I like to start by writing out a list of 10 goals. These goals could be any combination of things I want to accomplish. Some could be modest, short-term goals such as successfully completing a course, while others could be big and outrageous, long-term goals such as designing and planning a Grammy after-party for Beyoncé. Once I have my list of 10 goals, I will select one that I want to start working on and map it out.
Now, you try it!
Exercise Two: Goal Mapping
Once you have your list of 10 goals, grab another piece of paper and write that goal at the top, big and bold. Start mapping out your goal by answering the following questions:
GOAL MAP: Career in Law
- What is your goal? e.g. To be admitted into a graduate law program.
- Why this goal is important to you? e.g. Becoming a lawyer is my dream career.
- What is your deadline to accomplish this goal? e.g. September 2021
- What are the three action steps you must take to complete your goal?
e.g. a. Finish undergraduate degree with a 3.7 G.P.A.
b. Earn a 160 LSAT score.
5. What is your deadline for completing each of the three action steps?
Be as specific as possible when answering the questions above. You want to have a clear idea of what your goal is and how you plan on achieving it. Once you have established your deadline, you can break down your action steps even further if need be and give those smaller tasks additional due dates. Refer back to last week’s series: Creating a Routine to help you stay on track and don’t get discouraged if your goal map needs revising along the way. This is a normal process and as you delve deeper into the development stages of your goals, things often change course and sometimes for the better. The most important thing is to keep an open mind and embrace new paths this journey may take you on.
It is completely up to you to decide if you prefer to share your goals with others or keep them to yourself, but if you know that you sometimes have a hard time staying on track, try telling a close friend or family member about them. This can help keep you accountable to your goals and motivated to succeed.
Best of luck!