Goal setting gets a lot of hype and lip service. Some of the most successful people will tell you to set goals, but they won’t walk you through the steps or tell you how to get from goal setting to completion. Today, I will give you an overview of the entire goal setting process, from start to finish, with tips on sticking to the process along the way.

Step 1: Get your priorities straight

Before even getting to the goals, I recommend spending some time on what I call my pillars. They are the areas of my life that are THE most important to me. Examples of pillars (btw the word pillars is from August Bradley’s system Pillars, Pipelines, and Vaults) include family, home, work, self care, fun, finances, travel, relationships. Any areas of your life that regularly need tending are your pillars. These big, broad areas of your life will help you to prioritize your goals- if you come up with a goal that doesn’t relate to any of your pillars, you need to reflect on if it is actually important to you. So spend some time getting these down before listing your goals.

Step 2: Do a brain dump

I talk about brain dumps when it comes to tasks and thinks to remember, but this one is a little different. Over a period of time, write any goal that comes to mind. If you find you have a lot going on in your head, you might do this over a short period of time, but if that doesn’t work give yourself a week or so to come up with ideas.

Step 3: Make a date with your list

Block out a time in your schedule to focus on your list. At this point your list of “goals” is just ideas. Now it’s time to work on it- cross out ones that aren’t important, relevant, or practical for you right now. If you want, you can store goals for later in whatever manner you like to store information (I would use Notion).

Once you have narrowed down your list to goals you are ready to work on in the immediate future, move on to…

Step 4: Evaluate your goals

Before moving on to categorizing your list, you need to get real with your goals. Are the goals you have on your list goals that you are reasonably capable of, that you have the resources for, and that you can reasonably fit into your schedule along with your other responsibilities? Are you willing to make any sacrifices that the goal might require? Depending on the goal, there might be other questions you need to ask yourself. Try to be as honest with yourself as possible, especially during this part of the process.

Step 5: Relate the goals to your pillars

Now you need to categorize your goals. There are different categories that I find helpful, but the MOST important, IMO, is to relate the goals back to your pillars. So line up the pillars you came up with to each of your goals. If there are goals that don’t line up with your pillars you need to re-evaluate either the goal or the pillars (especially if you are just starting to develop your pillars, it may be as simple as adding one vs. just ditching the goal).

There may be other categories that you might find helpful. Some people like to categorize their goals by time frame, like short term and long term; or short, medium, and long term. You might want to have status categories like active, on hold, future, etc, as well.

Step 6: Break your goals down into baby steps

Have you ever looked at one of your goals and thought “how could I ever accomplish something like that?” The answer to that question is break it down. If you can focus long enough to break it down, great, I’m thrilled for you. However, this tends to be a sticking point for a lot of people. If the idea of breaking a large goal down into steps gives you a case of the overwhelms, try out the free Goblin Tools app (available on iphone). Goblin Tools is an AI to do list app that will break down your tasks for you, to the level of detail that you need.

Step 7: Set a deadline

Once you have listed out all of your goal related tasks you should have a decent idea of the time necessary to finish your goal, so you can set a loose deadline. I say loose, because things happen, and I don’t want you to abandon your goals if you find yourself running behind. Not everyone needs a hard deadline in order to function, but if you’re not sure whether it is helpful to you, try setting one with these first few goals. Just remember to give yourself grace if things don’t stay to plan.

Step 8: Schedule that ish

Now that you have your list of tasks you’re all set to go, right? WRONG. If you don’t schedule the tasks, they won’t get done. I highly recommend using block scheduling, especially if you have ADHD or otherwise struggle with time management. In fact, nearly all of my blog posts are brought to you thanks in part to block scheduling, because if I think a task is going to take me more than 5 minutes I schedule a block of time to work on it on my Google Calendar. This is because, for any task that requires sustained time or focus, I’m going to continue to tell myself “you have time” until suddenly it is too late and I am too tired, and then it gets put off indefinitely. Schedule your tasks (or groups of tasks) and you will get more done.

Step 9: Track your progress

My notion board has a teeny, tiny, not at all flashy little progress bar on all of my goals (as well as on the courses I take, which I treat like goals in a lot of ways). That progress bar is super effective at keeping me motivated to reach my goals. Notion isn’t the only way to track your goal, though. Paper and pen, a specific goal planner (I used to use Power Sheets by Cultivate What Matters, which does a lot of what I outline above), a to-do or goal tracking app, a bulletin board in your office. You could even make one of those giant thermometer thingies fundraisers use on TV shows. Track in a way that is relevant to you, though. If you tend to be visual, do something flashy and put it in a prominant place. If you have auditory tendancies make yourself voice assistant reminders to check in and record your progress. If you are tactile use an app or a bulletin board that allows you to move around or add pieces when you complete a task.

Step 10: Celebrate your success

Once you have accomplished your goal, even if it took longer or didn’t quite go how you had planned, celebrate yourself and your accomplishments! I like to look at all the tasks that were accomplished leading up to the goal and remind myself “you did all that!” Not only will this feel good, but it will affect your relationship with goal setting in the long term.