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Now that we’re into January, it’s time to start setting goals for the year!

I’ve created a system this year for how I set my yearly goals, and I wanted to share that method with you guys so you can set your own goals!

1. Start with setting big goals for the year

The first goals you want to start setting are any big goals you have for the new year.

I personally set 4 big for this year. I started out just writing them down in a notebook and then organized them later.

So what are the big things you want to hit by this time next year?

And while you start setting goals for the year, you want to think about the bigger picture of your life. What are some of the long-term goals that you have?

Consider personal goals along with financial, health, and business/work goals as well.

Maybe you want to quit your job to travel as a full-time blogger, or you want to have more time with your kids.

Maybe you want a fresh start and buy a new house, or your dream car, or hit a saving or financial goal in the future.

All of these goals can align together.

So for me, I want to buy a house this year, so I need to set goals for my business to help me save up and afford that house.

I also want to pay off debt, so I need to consider that in my income for the year with my money goals.

You want to set goals that are high, but at the same time attainable as well.

And try to make them specific so you know exactly where you want to go, and you can also break them down easier later.

Saying you want to “pay off debt” doesn’t really help.

How much debt? All of it? Or just one credit card?

Get specific with your goals so you can break them down easier in the next steps.

Where to start with setting goals for the year

If you’re really lost when it comes to setting goals for the year, a good place to start is to write down what a dream day for you would be.

Or just any big dreams that you have. What is something you’d like to have, or do in the future?

What habits do future you have… what are you doing?

It’s okay to dream big and you want to think about this as if money was no object.

This will help you really figure out where you want to go in life so you can think about the best goals to set for yourself.

Get specific with the details and it’ll help you set your goals to get there.

I did this for myself and I found it really helpful to decide what I really want to improve and do in the next year!

2. Set a word for the year

Next, you can try setting a word for the year.

This is something I’ve done for the past two years, and I find it helpful when you think about your focus for the year.

Think about what you really want to accomplish and come up with a word to describe it. It’s like your theme for the year.

I couldn’t come up with just one, so I ended up choosing a phrase. Which I think is okay because there really aren’t any rules when it comes to this stuff!

So my personal word was “listen and let go” and my business word was “growth”.

You can just set one word to encompass everything, but my personal and business goals are a bit different and I want to focus a lot on myself this year.

Whatever word you choose will become your mantra for the year.

Feel free to also write down some ways you can achieve this as well.

So for example, my phrase “listen and let go”, my list looked a bit like this:

• Listen to my body, my anxiety, and my needs
• Listen to the universe when it shows me my path
• Let go of things that no longer serve me
• Let go of limiting beliefs, and any thoughts that tell me I’m not good enough

So any time you find yourself in certain situations or trying to make certain decisions, you can ask yourself does this align with your word of the year?

If yes, great! If not, maybe it’s time to redirect or consider something else.

3. Find a method to organize your goals

Now you want to find some way to be able to organize your goals and make sure it’s someplace you’re going to see often.

You don’t want to keep your goals in some random notebook that you’ll never open again, or even have the potential to lose.

I have two methods. Mine are in my bullet journal and I came up with a Trello doc for them as well.

Here’s what mine looks like:

I got the idea from this blog post here, and it’s been pretty helpful so I recommend you try it out as well!

I’ve done mine a bit differently though, and we’ll break it down over the post.

Starting, with the first column.

• My “One-a-Day” list

I got this idea of a “one-a-day” list from a book I’ve been reading called “Embrace your Almost” by Jordan Lee Dooley.

It was a great book, I recommend you pick it up here if you’re into personal development, goal setting, and things like that!

But she talks about going through some rough times and having a hard time getting back to normal. So she choose to do one thing a day.

And this can be applied to big goals, business aspirations, and more!

It’s also similar to “theming your days”.

So I chose one thing a day that I was going to do for my business in order to break up the big tasks I need to do each week.

You can break your week down just like this!

4. Break down your big goals

Once you’ve done all that, you can start breaking down the big goals that you have to make them more manageable.

I find it hard to plan out the entire year all at once, so I stick with Q1, which is just the first 3 months of the year.

That is more manageable than wasting time planning out the entire year because you really have no idea what is going to happen in that time!

This is another thing that I learned from the book “Embrace Your Almost”.

She talks about planning out all of 2020 but then needed to replan her whole year a few times thanks to the world shutting down and a few other setbacks.

So, for example, my big goal breakdowns went from:

• Make $600 a month
  • Get 10k pageviews a month to increase Ezoic ad revenue
  • Create consistent affiliate ad revenue
  • Make $100 a month in YT ad revenue
  • Have a successful Etsy shop

Those are all the ways I plan to get $600 a month!

So take your big goals for the new year and break them down a bit into more manageable pieces.

If you’re looking to pay off debt, first you need to see how much debt you have.

Add it all up from credit cards, car loans, mortgages… whatever you have.

You also want to look at interest rates and see which ones cost you the most.

From there you can look at what you make in a month, and then decide which ones are the best to tackle first.

It may look something like this:

5. Set a few “would be nice goals”

You can also set some goals that you would like to hit, but you don’t have to.

These can be smaller goals that “would be nice” to help you along your journey to get where you want to go, but not things you absolutely need to do.

For example, one of my goals is to reach 3,000 subscribers on youtube. It’s likely a goal I’ll hit anyway, but not something that is absolutely needed, so I set it as something that “would be nice” to do.

You can set goals like “Save for a vacation”, “lose 10 pounds” or anything else that would be great to do but doesn’t have to get done.

6. Set your Q1 goals

Next, we’re going to break down your goals even further into things you want to hit in the first 3 months.

I set 3 main goals for Q1 that are just a small breakdown of my big goals.

So I’m working on;

• Adding 6 new products to my Etsy shop
• Finding affiliate companies to work with
• Paying $300 off my credit card

All of these align with my bigger goals, but they are things I can accomplish in just 3 months.

You can also set a few other goals that are smaller, but you still want to hit them in 3 months.

This is where I stop in terms of big planning because as I said, you have no idea what’s going to happen in a few months so planning that far in advance may be a waste of time.

7. Plan January goals

Now you can worry about planning January goals.

I set 3 main January goals and then other smaller goals that I still wanted to hit.

These are all going to be things that you think you can accomplish in just the next month. Set a few to meet your big goals, and anything else you think you can do.

So in the end, your goals may look something like this:

Of course, your goals will look different than mine, but you get the idea!

If you end up planning all of your goals this way, you’re bound to reach your bigger goals!

8. Set weekly and daily goals last

The last thing you need to do of course is set your weekly and daily goals!

This year, I seem to have a theme of setting three main goals each set, so I’ll continue this weekly and daily.

Each week, choose 1-3 main goals you want to hit that will add up to your bigger goals, and then each day choose 1-3 things max that you can accomplish towards the weekly goals!

Your weekly and daily goals are going to be super small, actionable steps that you can complete to reach the monthly goals. The monthly goals will help you hit the Q1 goals, and so on…

These super small goals are often the hardest goals to set because this is where the action and hard work come in.

No longer are you just planning your big goals and breaking them down- now you have to take action toward them!

But, thankfully these tasks don’t need to be very big.

For example, my big goal “have a successful Etsy shop” and “create two products for January” my first week’s goal can just be “brainstorm product ideas”

That’s all I would need to do.

And then a daily goal could look something like “research other similar shops/products.” Or “Begin drafting product ideas.”

Simple enough, right?

See, when you really break down your goals into bite-sized pieces, they don’t seem as scary or as daunting!

I hope this helped you in setting goals for the year, and if it was, check out these other blog posts from me that you might enjoy!

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