A Better Way to Set Goals for Self-Growth

Self-growth is the capacity to grow personally and professionally. It is embracing personal and professional development. Setting goals for self-growth will help you to learn new skills, enhance your talents, improve emotional resiliency, and apply effective communication.

Self-growth is a lifelong journey. You never master yourself and what you are capable of learning. Yet, the journey of self-growth makes a difference in the quality of your life. Setting realistic yet challenging goals is the best way to improve personal and professional development.

Choosing SMART goals for self-growth

To experience self-growth, you need to be intentional about what you want to accomplish. What do you feel led to do? What talents do you want to use for the Lord? What skills do you need to learn? The great thing about learning a skillset is that you can use it for the rest of your life – no one can take it away from you.

As you write out your goals for the new year or quarter, clarify what you want and need. Choose goals for every area of your life initially, then choose one or two top goals that will make all the other goals possible. For example, you may have ten goals you would like to accomplish this year, but your top two goals may be financial and health goals, as those two might make the others possible.

To set goals, make sure they fit into the SMART goals approach. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Timely. Each goal should include these factors.

Specific.

Your goal should be clear-cut and specific. What exactly do you want to accomplish? Instead of writing the goal of losing weight, drill down to the specifics. For example, you could write, “I want to lose twenty pounds.” Now you have a specific amount of weight to lose.

The same applies to financial goals. Instead of wishing you could save more money, write, “I want to save $1100 for Christmas.” The specific amount makes the difference, but you must drill it down further.

Measurable.

Each goal should be measurable, or you won’t know that you have hit your goal. With the above examples, you could expound further. You could write, “I want to lose twenty pounds and weigh 170 pounds.” Or you could write, “I want my Christmas account to have at least $1100 before the holidays.”

You can use this for other measurements. Instead of pounds, take measurements in inches and reassess every month or two. Or work toward specific pants or dress sizes. Keep a record to review your progress periodically to see if you are still on track to meet your goals.

Actionable.

Actionable goals are those that are attainable. It is essential to set challenging goals, but you should be able to reach them with hard work. Keep your goals realistic. For example, if you have never self-published a book, then setting the goal of writing and publishing twelve books in one year may not be attainable. On the other hand, writing and self-publishing two books may be just challenging enough to keep you on track all year.

When it comes to losing weight or saving money, choose healthy goals. Losing a half pound to one pound a week is a safe pace to lose 25 to 50 pounds in one year. When it comes to saving money, look at your income and expenses.

It may be impossible for you to save $500 a month and still pay your bills, but could you save $100 a month by cutting out a few unnecessary expenses? Your goal should make you a little uncomfortable so that you will experience self-growth, but not to the point that you sacrifice your basic needs or health.

Relevant and timely.

Your goals should matter to you. If not, it won’t mean anything for you to drop them later when you get busy. For example, why do you want to lose weight, save money, or publish a book? Do your goals align with your core values and beliefs? If they don’t, reaching those goals may cause issues in other areas of your life.

Lastly, assign a deadline for each goal. For example, lose 20 pounds or publish two books by December 31. Or, save $1100 for Christmas by November 15 so that you can shop the Black Friday sales and decorate for the holidays.

Make your goals exciting

If your goals are not exciting, you are less likely to pursue them. Motivation wanes, but you should want to reach these goals. For example, if you know you need to renovate a bedroom but don’t like the hassle, you may start the project but never finish it.

Then again, if you look at the renovation as a stepping stone, you are more likely to approach the goal with excitement. Such as turning the bedroom into a room to use later for a specific task, like an exercise room or library, or as the last step before selling your current home to purchase your dream home.

Choose realistic goals, but up them slightly to make them a little challenging. For example, your fitness goal may be to lift weights five days a week or to run for 30 to 60 minutes three days a week. But what if you make the goal challenging?

Maybe you could tackle a weightlifting program that runs five days a week for ten weeks. Or you could sign up for a marathon that takes place in four months. Now you have a reason to lift or run, giving you something to look forward to each day.

Break goals down into achievements or habits

In Michael Hyatt’s book, Your Best Year Ever: A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals, Hyatt discusses the difference between achievement goals and habit goals. He states, “Both achievement and habit goals can help us design the future we want.”

For example, your achievement goal may be to build a $1000 emergency fund by the end of the year to help in times of trouble. To accomplish this, your habit goal may be to transfer $50 from your weekly paycheck into the emergency fund. The habit goal keeps you on track to reach the achievement goal.

Habits are ongoing, but tasks may only happen once, and often you need a list of both to reach your goals. For example, the habit goal of transferring $50 to your emergency savings account is an ongoing habit, but opening the account is a one-time task.

List the habits and tasks you need to do to reach your goal. For the tasks, estimate how long each one will take you. For example, can you complete a task early in the morning before your family wakes? Do you have a few minutes during your lunch break to complete a task?

Try to break down larger tasks into several smaller tasks. For example, instead of tasking yourself to set up an account on TikTok, perhaps you start smaller with tasks like watching a video on using the platform, choosing an account name, figuring out a consistent schedule, sketching out the content you want to post, and creating content. You can complete most, if not all, of these tasks before you create your account on the platform.

What about learning a new skill set, like effective communication? You can apply these achievement goals and habits to all goals. For example, perhaps your achievement goal would be to learn how to communicate effectively to earn 20% more in commissions over the next twelve months.

Your habit goal could be to read for twenty minutes a day about communication techniques and to spend an hour each evening taking a course in communication. Your one-time tasks could include registering and attending a workshop on communicating with people with different personality types.

These are your goals, so spend time today breaking them down into achievement, habits, and task goals.

Need help with personal development and self-growth?

Are you interested in self-growth to grow your career or improve relationships? Contact Irvine Christian Counseling today to schedule an appointment with a personal and professional development counselor in Irvine, California. If leading a faith-filled life concerns you as you build your career, your counselor can help you discover how to lead a life of integrity and faith while pursuing self-growth. Give us a call today.