Finding your inspirational goal in 2021

We all know this, at the start of a new year. Everyone is making up a list of new year’s resolutions. Part of the story is however also, that latest by February, our new year’s resolutions are all long forgotten and our day to day lives have returned. There is another way of approaching this.

I don’t like the name new year’s resolutions and would rather introduce another term, that of an inspirational goal. Rather than having a ton of resolutions where we get lost and know that achieving them is more a wish than a realistic chance, an inspirational goal is a principle in coaching that helps us find orientations and guidance in our day-to-day doings.

An inspiration goal helps you to understand what you want to achieve in a given time frame but even better, why you want to achieve it. It not only provides a plan and a vision for the near or far future, but also helps you to reflect on your personality and determine what is important for yourself about this goal. An inspirational goal not only benefits yourself but also your close relationships and your wider network of work and family relationships. It is the motivation that will keep you on track. Rather than imposing goals on yourself coming from external influences and sources, an inspirational goal comes from within you, as a very personal desire to achieve something. Your goal can be anything from a change in your personality, to the achievement of a lifetime dream. Very often, the goal can be something very simple that will however in the long term have a big impact on your life.

So, the next question is how to come up with an inspirational goal. A very good starting point is to go through the different aspect of your life, your career, your relationships with others, your financial situations, or your work-life balance. This will allow you to identify potential challenges you might face in some of those areas mentioned. Once you know those, the next step is to identify which of those challenges bother you and hinder you from discovering or living out your full potential. Finally, you should decide on one aspect you would like to focus on, which will provide the foundation for your inspirational goal.

Let me share an example. An inspirational goal can be “I would like to make more space for leisure in my life” or “I would like to spend more time with my family”. However, it can also be related to your personally such as “I want to be more open towards others” or “Psychological barriers are no longer an option to approach other people”.

Once you have established your inspirational goal, you can develop a plan to gradually achieve it. Inspirational goals should encounter a timeframe between 3 to 6 months. Your path how to get there should include various milestones or smaller objectives. For example, in order to achieve your inspirational goal of spending more time with the family, you take as a milestone to read a bedtime story to your kids 3 times a week. You have to be realistic about your goals and small milestones can get you there.

In contrast to various new year’s resolutions, inspirational goals are much closer to your heart and therefore weight more importance for you to achieve them. They come from within you, reflect your personality and what is important for you in life. The personal attachment towards an inspirational goal is therefore much deeper than towards any resolution. Important though, be realistic and don’t expect miracles, small milestones will lead you towards achieving your goal.