9 Types of Goal Setting Based on Different Areas of Life

Goal setting is an important part of personal growth, which you can use in all areas of your life.

It helps us prioritize what’s important to our overall happiness so we can learn new skills that can support both short-term and long-term goals.

When you set your mind on a goal all it takes is the right action plan and you’d be amazed at what you can achieve.

The first step in any goal-setting process is to think about the key areas of your life you’d like to focus on.

By thinking about setting goals this way, you can provide a good balance to ensure you’re not forgetting an important part of your life.

What areas of life can you focus on for goal setting?

Here are 9 categories you can use to help you identify the right goal for you…

1. Career & Business Goals
2. Personal growth
3. Financial
4. Family
5. Relationships
6. Home Environment
7. Spiritual
8. Mental Health
9. Physical Health

Before we go a little deeper into each category, let’s first talk about SMART goals.

What Does SMART Goals Stand For?

A SMART goal is a specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound goal.

It’s important to use SMART goals so you will know whether you’ve actually achieved a goal (or not).

Having the above criteria in place is the best way to create an action plan so you can be successful at reaching specific goals. 

9 Key Areas of Your Life For Goal Setting

1. Business and Career Goals:

Whether you are an employee or are self-employed setting goals in your career and business is imperative for future growth and success. 

Many companies ask employees to set goals on a quarterly basis and this is used to ladder up to big goals for the year.

However, even if a company doesn’t ask you to set goals I still encourage you to do so. 

Setting goals in your career allows you to:

• Get that promotion
• Take on new challenges
• Get a pay increase
• Open up new opportunities in your current company or a future company
• Feeling more comfortable public speaking

Also, as a self-employed person or entrepreneur goal setting is literally what helps you grow and be successful – or not.

You can set professional goals that are large and then create smaller goals to support that larger goal.

Example: You set a goal to get a promotion in your job.

How will you do this? 

Setting smaller more specific goals such as securing a big sales deal with xyz client or leading a team project your boss doesn’t have time to do.

Goals for Your Own Business Can Include:

• Learning SEO or hiring someone to take care of it for you
• Dedicating Friday afternoons to learning a new skill
• Staying on top of your monthly finances & filing your taxes on time
• Creating a daily to-do list that supports your month

2. Personal Growth

Goals that support your self-improvement and personal growth will help you dedicate more time to focusing on your own needs.

This can be self-care, self-love, work-life balance, learning a new skill and so many more things that personally matter to you.

This might mean you finally set a goal to…

• Practice gratitude on a daily basis
• Take that photography course you’ve been dreaming of
• Allocate regular alone time for yourself to properly unwind
• Learn how to love yourself more 

If you’re not sure what personal growth goal to set, ask yourself this…

• What do I need most in my life right now?
• What would make my life easier?
• What am I most passionate about?

By answering these questions you allow yourself to focus on a goal that will help you out considerably and, make you feel good.

This means there’s a high chance you will follow through on your goal.

3. Financial Goals

Goals that focus on your finances can encompass so many things…

• Paying down debt
• Buying a house
• Increasing your income
• Changing your investments for retirement
• Saving for a vacation
•  Spending less money

Even more so than some other goals prioritizing the right financial goals is critically important especially if you have bad debt.

So the best course of action to take when setting financial goals is to write them all down and then order them from critically important to nice-to-haves.

As an example, getting rid of credit card debt would be critically important, whereas putting money aside to go to Hawaii would be considered a nice to have.

4. Family Goals

No matter what your family looks like, families matter so setting a goal you can think about on a daily basis will do wonders.

Setting family goals can be for the individuals in your household and your extended family. It really comes down to what’s most meaningful for you.

Some ideas of family goals you can set:

• Having dinner together at the table every night
• Setting up a family games night every week or month
• Spending more time with your cousins
• Making sure all family members have chores
• Being a scout leader or coach for your kid
• Having a special Sunday night family dinner every week

Think about what goals you have for your family – some things you’d like to introduce.

5. Relationships

Whether it’s a romantic relationship or a relationship with your best friend, creating dedicated time to set goals will make your relationship stronger. 

Perhaps you want to try a couple’s bucket list or improve communications with your significant other, or maybe you’d like to see your best friend once a week. 

Regardless of your specific goal, prioritizing your relationships is one of the most important things you can do for a happy, well-balanced life.

You can set relationship goals individually and together.

Setting relationship goals can help you:

• Identify which relationships to prioritize in your life – in order words even think about removing toxic people that are keeping you down.
• Learn more about yourself and someone you love so you can create new goals together
• Create a future worth looking forward to in your relationship

6. Home Environment

Setting goals at home can encompass areas such as gardening, organization, decluttering, minimalism, renovations, etc. 

In many cases, these specific goals will actually help you in your larger personal growth goals. 

Why? Because having a home that is in disarray,  cluttered or doesn’t feel good to walk into can actually lead to stress and overwhelm. 

What goals do you have for your home environment? Here are some ideas you can consider:

• Clearing out a drawer or cupboard every weekend
• Finding small storage solutions for those cupboards and drawers
• Starting your first herb and vegetable garden
• Discovering how to simplify life at home with these simple ideas
• Getting more help from your family for the daily chores

7. Spiritual Goals

Whether you’re a religious person or not you can create spiritual goals to create inner peace and support your life in positive ways. 

What does this look like? Let’s look at some ideas:

• Making bible journaling a daily habit
• Learning how to practice meditation
• Going to church/temple/mosque every week
• Getting outside in nature every day
• Praying before bed
• Listening to music
• Learning about other religions

Creating spiritual goals that bring a larger sense of meaning and purpose to your life is the goal here and the way you go about this is entirely up to you.

8. Mental Health Goals

I am so happy that in recent years it’s become more of the norm to talk about mental health. 

This means there are more accessible resources out there of all kinds that can support your mental well-being.

There are so many things that can support your mental health – such as:

• Practicing gratitude
• Tracking your mood- check out my free printable mood tracker to get you started
• Finding activities you can do that make you feel good
• Talking to a therapist
• Attending group counselling 

Personally, I’ve done all of the above and I still have goals to support my mental health that I will always work on.

Working on mental health goals is for everyone – as we all go through challenging times that are difficult to get through.

So creating goals that can help you cope (and following through) can give you support when you need it most.

For those of you who aren’t going through a tough time, I still encourage you to allocate time for your mental health as we all need this to thrive and be content in life.

9. Physical Health Goals

In order to create the life you love being healthy is a key factor and this is where health and fitness goals come in.

You might be looking to improve your eating habits, lose weight, increase strength, reverse damage to your body from unhealthy habits or a number of other things. 

Following through on your health goals can seem difficult to many and this is because creating new habits can be hard.

I, therefore, recommend reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. He has an easy-to-follow framework you can follow to create new habits more easily. 

Examples of some physical health goals:

• Changing your diet to a whole food plant-based diet – check out this plan to help you get started.
• See your doctor when you need to – and attend your specialist appointments
• Get 30 minutes of exercise on a daily basis
• Drink 8 glasses of water every day
• Increase your overall strength
• Start running 3x a week
• Stretch before bed
• Get to bed at the same time every night

Next Step:

Once you think about the areas of your life and make decisions on your personal goals the next step is to choose your first goal.

Yes, I know you most likely have a lot of goals like myself, but going slow and steady wins the race, so choose a goal you’d like to start with.

Tip: As mentioned above, use the SMART goals method to set realistic goals so you have a higher probability of succeeding.

Having a Tough Time Deciding on a Goal? 

Ask Yourself These Questions:

• This time next year, what would you like to have accomplished?
• When thinking about your life goals, what’s the first thing you think of? Use this long-term goal and break it down into smaller short-term goals.
• What are your core personal values? Are there any goals you can think of to support these?
• Are there any aspects of your life you’d like to change? What goal can support this most?

Final Thoughts

No matter who you are or what goals matter to you the important thing is to always have goals. 

Sometimes you may focus on smaller goals such as drinking more water or calling your mom once a week.

At other times you might want to focus on larger goals like changing careers or buying a house.

So whatever path you’re on right now goals will help you create a sense of direction in your daily life that supports your vision for the future.

What Goal Setting Areas Are You Going To Focus on First? 

Share in the comments below to inspire others!

Related Goal-Setting Resources:

• 125 of the Best Life Goals To Set and Achieve
• Free Printable SMART Goals Worksheet
• How To Visually Plan For The Future: 6 Ideas
• 70 Examples of Personal Goals To Set
• How To Set & Achieve Your Mental Health Goals
• How To Set Daily Intentions + 15 Examples

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