You’ve made lists of your life goals and we’ve given career and financial goals a closer look. Now let’s give your Personal goals a little more attention.

Personal Goals

Personal goals are a little harder for me to write about simply because they are personal. They are as unique and varied as each person.

You need to decide what is important to you. Maybe it’s taking up a sport or hobby, losing weight, community service, family, getting in shape, traveling…The list is endless.

Here’s an example of what your plan could look like:

1-month plan

• Goal #1: lose 10 lbs.
• Goal #2: have Sunday dinner with parents every 2 weeks.
• Goal #3: read a book

1-year plan

• Goal #1: achieve desired weight
• Goal #2: join Tai-Chi class
• Goal #3: volunteer in community

3-year plan

• Goal #1: Get married
• Goal #2: Move to desired location
• Goal #3: take trip to Cuba

5-year plan

• Goal #1: Own home
• Goal #2: Have a child
• Goal #3: Trip to Europe

10-year plan

• Goal #1: Own dream home
• Goal #2: Foster children
• Goal #3: Mediterranean cruise for 1 month

Whatever your personal goals are, they are your own. What may be insane and unimportant to one person is what gets someone else up in the morning. Without perosnal goals there’s no reason to have career and financial goals. There’s nothing to work towards, nothing rewarding at the end of the struggle. This is also an area where you can be a little unrealisitic. You can set your goals high and aim for them. If they are truly important to you, you will find a way to achieve them. After analyzing your goals you may realize that you will have to sacrifice a lot now to be able to reach them but only you can decide if that sacrifice is worth it. For example, you’ve decided you want to take a year off work when you turn 40 and sail around the world. That might mean you have to severely limit your luxury spending until then. No new cars, no annual vacations abroad. Take some time to research what it would cost you to do that if you decided to do it now. What would it cost to sail around the world? Document it and then you have a financial goal to aim for, something solid, not just something you’re dreaming about.

You may never achieve the goal, may even decide it’s something you no longer want. That’s ok. It’s the fact of having something to strive for, something to look forward to that’s important. It’s also that fact that without the plan you probably won’t be able to accomplish the goal should you still choose to.

You are now pretty much set. You’ve taken all three areas: Career, Financial and Personal , you’ve given them a lot of thought and you now have the basics of a solid life plan. Next time we will pull all of your hard work together and organize it a bit more so that you have a better was of seeing the whole picture and not just isolated parts of it.

[Picture Source: Flickr: Tenerife]