Setting and achieving goals usually concerns the mental and physical aspects of life. However, this does not work 100%. Learn how to work with holistic goals.
Table of Contents
Before you learn how to measure the progress made on your goals, let’s learn what kind of them can be set in the areas of body, mind, emotions, and spirit. You also need to define the partial goal and define the difficulty of each goal.
Examples Of Non-Holistic Goals
You probably met with these:
I will become a millionaire next year.
I will win the lotto next week.
I will lose 5 pounds within 2 weeks.
I will be self-confident.
Unfortunately, these goals do not include the spiritual aspect of life, plus they are not written correctly. more about how to define goals in my next articles. Now I will give you examples of goals that you could pursue.
What Are Holistic Goals
There are generally four main areas of self-development: personal growth, relationships, career/financial and health.
However, most of the mainstream self-help books ignore the spiritual aspect of holistic growth or focus on the mental aspect only. I suggest adding some more categories to have the full picture of your goals: holistic goals.
Healthy Body
I eat only raw, unprocessed food daily
I walk for one hour at least five times per week.
Happy Mind and Heart
I keep negative thoughts for no less than five seconds whenever they appear.
I vent my anger by writing affirmations whenever it appears.
I worry about the future for no longer than 30 seconds.
Happy Soul
I am patient with my partner whenever he/she is talking to me.
I avoid using offensive words and use more positive substitutes at all times.
I also classify the goals into four categories:
Self-Care – of your body, emotions, mind and soul. If you neglect them helping others, growing, and making your dreams true will not be possible.
Skills – the things you need to master to take care of your body, mind, emotions, and soul; to help others and to fulfil your dreams.
Helping and sharing – only those who can share their resources (i.e. time, wealth, wisdom, skills) give these resources back. So your work, and nurturing your relationships belong here.
Fun and dreams – do not forget about enjoying your life.
How to Set Up the Difficulty of My Life Goal?
A Word of Warning about Holistic Goals
The examples of goals listed above in the four areas of life may be too difficult. Reading, you might say or think “It’s crazy! I will never do that!” You may be right because your current situation differs from someone who has set these goals.
We usually set too difficult goals and do not appreciate their difficulty. According to Brian Tracy, a goal that is over 10% bigger than our present comfort zone will be overwhelming.
Not all the goals can be so clearly analysed, but let’s take the financial one. Here is an example:
Financial Holistic Goal
If you make €500 a month and want to earn more, do not set a goal of €5000 within a month. Planning yearly assumes that you will make 10 to 30 % more than now which means that your goal will be between €550 and 650.
Then divide this goal into monthly and quarterly goals and even weekly ones. To plan your monthly amount, divide the €500 into 12 – this will be your extra monthly amount to earn.
This option may work well if you have a job with a steady income and want to start making more money selling something.
Similarly, you can set goals concerning your fitness regime, diet or weight. For example, if you do not walk at all, start by doing it once per week in the first month. after five months, you will reach five times per week.
Intangible Holistic Goals
Some goals are more intangible, especially those concerning your spiritual growth. assertiveness or stopping negative thoughts. Make the goals tangible first. How to do it? Let’s take assertiveness.
Decide how many times you want to be assertive during a day or week. Now you can set the goal, ready for monitoring its progress. Let’s say that the next month you are assertive at least once per day while you have been once per a couple of days.
You check if you met holistic goals daily. If being assertive once per day is too difficult at the beginning, set an easier one.
Remember that you need to think of your goal as ten times more complicated when it is being set. It means that your goal can look like “I behave assertively at least once per week,” even if you plan to work on assertiveness daily.
In the same way, you can set a goal concerning the number of offensive words used per day and the number of cases when you blame someone/something for your discomfort.
What Is Lifebuoy Goal and How to Set It?
While working on your holistic goals, you are at risk of giving them up. It happens when you experience failure. And one failure can trigger an avalanche of failures. How does it work?
Suppose you decided to stop eating sweets. However, there will be days when you face temptation. And what happens when you do eat these sweets? You start feeling guilty, and angry and your motivation plummets.
Then you say: “What the hell! I cannot achieve that goal; I’ll eat the sweets again.” And in this way, you have abandoned your goal.
How to avoid that? Set a smaller, lifebuoy goal, which when met means that you haven’t collapsed your resolution. Suppose that in the case of sweets, it can be: “I eat no more than one sweet per week since (add the date).” Remember that before you set the lifebuoy goals, define the difficulty of the main goals.
Examples of Lifebuoy Goals
I swear every day I am worry-free for six days per week.
I swear no more than 10 times a day I worry for no longer than a minute daily.
I swear a maximum of 50 times daily.
How to Measure the Progress of Your Goals
What is progress? In the shortest, improvement. For example, you do something faster or slower, more or less of it, improve quality or increase/decrease quantity.
Holistic goals can be separated according to their time frame. In each case, you plan and evaluate them over a given period. So, do not expect that your yearly goal will be achieved within a week, although it might happen rarely (e.g. while making money by product launch).
Long-term goals where you check the progress every five years. Some even recommend 10 years.
Medium-term goals which are yearly or last for 36 months, 2 years on average
Short-term goals which last for every quarter. You check their progress every 90 days and set another goal for that period. Monthly goals are also important here.
Decade/weekly goals – which are set for ten or seven days, then evaluated and revised.
A Word of Caution
Today it is hard to predict what will happen in five years, maybe your age and the fact of growing older. But even this can be modified by raising vibrations, nutrition, or medicine.
However, because we are living in the transformation era, preparing us for a new one, the Golden Age, nothing is constant, especially your finances and any material issues.
But you can always work on your goals from a holistic point of view, by taking care of your mind, body, emotional life, and soul. In other words, growth is a life-long process. And you can also share your resources with other beings, just the way of doing it can change.
Some skills to grow and help others (work) also need some time to be developed. Let’s just mention assertiveness speaking a foreign language or learning how to practise meditation.
If you want to measure the progress of your holistic goals, always do it in writing.
Buy a special notebook for this purpose and check your notes regularly.
I will write more about setting goals later in December. In the shortest, if you have never set goals, just think about what is the most important in your case in each of the four categories of goals (self-care, skills/growth, giving and sharing, fun and making your dreams true.)
Measure the Progress of Holistic Goals
Doing so starts with your long-term goals and then moves to the shorter ones. Do not be disappointed if, e.g., your monthly goals have not been achieved. From the year’s perspective, you might have been doing well.
1. Describe Your Holistic Goals 5 Years Ago and Now
Define where you have been then and where you are now. Read again the beginning of this article and list your achievements in the fields of self-development, mental health, relationships, physical health and career, finance and spirituality. This is the progress made. Of course, it can be a backward result, but it is never too late to start again.
Then reflect on the brutal facts about your life, answering the questions, preferably in writing:
- Where was I 5 years ago?
- Where am I now?
- What has changed?
- What can I change now?
2. Define the Progress of Your Yearly Holistic Goals
I usually do not plan goals for 36 months but yearly. We often make New Year’s Resolutions (more about later in December.) So, recall your resolutions of 2020 and check what you have achieved so far (in the area of your health, thoughts, emotions, spiritual growth, learning new skills, helping others and having fun.)
3. Check Your Monthly Holistic Goals
Then you can look at the current month and the one before. Use the same categories. For example, what was your diet, quality of thoughts and emotions, have you grown in assertiveness or acceptance? What about having fun and nurturing your relationships?
4. Monitor Your Progress Weekly Or per Decade
You also set goals for each week or decade and evaluate their progress every seven or ten days. And plan for the next ones. Each week is planned by setting daily tasks.
The Last but Not Least About Holistic Goals
Treat each of your goals as a mission, even if it is only one task of your weekly aim. Remember to set emergency goals for the short-term goals, too.
In A Nutshell
Today you have learnt how to measure the progress of your goals. Take all the areas of life into account and do not forget to set lifebuoy goals. Also, be aware of the difficulty of each of your goals. Good luck. With all of love and light,
Vicky Yang
