So I’m a little late in getting to this post. Honestly I meant to post this last week to go along with the challenge I was hosting this week, but time got away from me. Sometimes life just happens.

Tomorrow is the last day of the 5 Days to Purpose-Driven Goals challenge, but if creating purpose-driven goals is something you are interested in learning how to do, then you can join the Facebook group here to get access to the live videos. If you’d love the worksheets to go along with the live trainings, you can sign up for the challenge emails here as I plan to send out an email at the end of the week with all of the worksheets from the challenge. It’s ok if you’re a little late the party! I’ll make sure you have all the resources you need if interested!

If you’re just here for the article, there’s a few things that you need to address in your life in order to create goals that align with your purpose. I’m sure you’ve had goals you’ve created and even achieved, but didn’t make you as happy or fulfilled as you thought you’d be when you obtained them. I know I have! That’s because our goals didn’t align with our values!

Values are your life’s guiding compass. Values should determine your priorities in life. Before setting goals or even making decisions in life, you should be crystal clear on what your values are.

Secondly, you need to define what happiness looks to you and whether or not you consider yourself to be happy. Then, you need to dig deep into why you are or are not happy.

Next you need to sit down and figure out what you are currently prioritizing in life. That means writing out all of your day-to-day activities and determining how much time you spend each day or per week on those activities. I bet you’ll soon discover that you waste more time than you thought on [insert mindless task]. This could be scrolling social media, checking email, watching TV, etc. Chances are you’ve been skipping out on activities that truly make you happy (like hobbies, etc.) because you’ve felt you’ve never had the time. After this exercise, I’m sure you’ll be able to find a little extra time to squeeze in more mindful activities that fulfill you, by taking out some of the less fulfilling activities that clutter your calendar.

Then you need to analyze what roles are present in your life. There’s you the individual, family roles, work/career roles, community roles, etc. Be as specific as possible. Write out those roles in order of importance and meaning. I highly suggest prioritizing you, the individual, first as you can’t fully be present and serve others from an empty cup. When your cup is overflowing, you can serve others with the abundance and overflow. It guarantees that you will show up best for others in your life. If you feel like you are missing some roles, go back and look through your daily activities and I’m sure you’ll find roles tied to those activities that you might have missed.

Lastly, you should assess past goals and whether or not they provided happiness to you in the past. Spoiler alert – goals that have been meaningful and enjoyable are the ones that are aligned with your values and purpose!

Now it’s time to set some goals! Thinking about your values, your life roles, & your priorities, start to envision what the future looks life for you. Who is present? What does your environment look like? How does it make you feel? Etc. Etc. Then set down and write out short-term and long-term goals for each of your life roles. If you are struggling to create goals, start with your future vision and work backwards towards short-term goals.

Always make sure your goals are SMART goals – specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.

Let me know in the comments what you thought of this exercise!