Set aside intentional time to evaluate your year and identify your next batch of exciting goals. Here are 5 good goal setting steps.

1. Reflect on the year

First things first. Reflect on this year’s accomplished goals, unmet goals, and lessons learned. This will help you identify any goals that need to be carried over into the new year and may inspire some new and improved ones. If you didn’t have any particular goals this year, that’s 100% okay — it’s never too late to begin goal-setting. If you didn’t achieve all of them, that’s actually a sign of good goal-setting (according to Measure What Matters) and means that you tried to healthily push yourself this year.

2. Identify your goals

Now for the fun part. Think about your biggest, dreamiest goals for the year. Most people like to set goals around health, career, family, finances, hobbies, or all of the above. Are you taking the leap of faith and turning a hobby into a side-hustle? Are you set on getting your finances in better shape? Are you ready to make an honest effort towards a healthier lifestyle? In any case, try to make your goals awe-inspiring, exciting, and motivational so that they stay on top of your mind throughout the new year.

3. Map out Steps

You just wrote down your badass goals for the new year, but it’s definitely not enough. You must now go through the most time-consuming, nitty-gritty, yet crucial step of mapping out each step needed to accomplish to reach your goals. For example if one of your goals is to launch your personal website, your steps could look something like this:

Goal #1: Launch website featuring my creative portfolio by June.

• Identify 3 potential domain names by January.

• Purchase web domain by February.

• Create website logo by March.

• Purchase website hosting service by April.

• Create website style guide by May.

• Launch website in June.

Be patient with yourself and take time to write these down. It’s really worth it. While you should spend some thoughtful time on writing these action steps, remember that this list is only your best guess and will never be perfect. For this particular reason, it is crucial to implement step 4.

4. Track Your Progress

If you made it this far, congrats. You completed the hefty task of creating your first draft of your action steps for the year. But to make sure all of that goal setting isn’t put to waste, track, track, track your progress. I suggest a program management tool like Asana or Freedcamp, but Google Sheets works just fine. To be honest, life happens and you will most likely edit your goals, action steps, and timeline regularly.

If you are serious about your goals and are tracking your progress daily or weekly, you will naturally adapt and improve your plan, and increase your chances of achieving your goals throughout the year.

5. Share your goals

And finally, call a trusted loved one, open up about what you’ve learned this year and your goals for the year to come. Sharing them will hopefully remind you that you are not alone in this journey of goal-setting and personal development. Happy New Year!