Goals 101: Step-By-Step Printable Goal Setting Worksheets

Goal-setting worksheets work as a guide and can help set us up for success by walking us through smart goal-setting each year.

I am not a believer in New Year’s resolutions. Starting with a plan every year is a good idea. I made you some helpful goal-setting worksheets to go along with this post. There is nothing more powerful than putting pen to paper to get all your thoughts and ideas out of your head.

Here are some tips for goal setting that I think will help you.

These are systems I have learned from my mentors that help me reach my goals over and over again. I think this training will definitely break it down easily for you with the goal-setting process to make sure you are setting achievable goals.

You may be asking yourself, “What are some of the best goal-setting questions, worksheets, or exercises?” 

I hope to be able to walk you through this process today so you feel confident setting smart goals in the future in the most effective way!

2. Spark Your Motivation 

Start by building that emotional energy by reflecting on everything you accomplished in the previous year. 

Set a timer for 5-10 minutes to do a brain dump exercise on your goal-setting worksheets or on a plain piece of paper to acknowledge every achievement that you have possibly overlooked. This can encompass BIG and SMALL wins. 

Once you have your list of accomplishments on your goal worksheet, you can move on to the next exercise. 

Set your timer again for 5-20 minutes (this depends on how much time or how detailed you are). You complete another brain dump of what you would like to accomplish. You can do this on the back of your free worksheets OR you can purchase the Manifest Printable Planner for a small fee! 

3. Steps To Setting Goal

You may be familiar with this terminology. Since I am a Health & Wellness Coach by trade, I use this terminology a lot and it is relevant to any goals you want to set. Using the acronym SMART to set goals is a solid approach to make sure you are clear and concise about what you are working towards. 

SMART goals stand for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant, and time-bound/Time Specific. 

I am breaking down that way to get to the perfect SMART goal for you with my smart goal worksheets with step-by-step instructions below. 

4. How To Make Your Goal Specific

Explaining this in terms of examples is the best way I can approach presenting a specific goal. A complex goal, needs a specific plan to break it down into smaller steps.

• Example #1 – I will make money this year to repay my student loans. 
• Example #2 – I will work on multiple streams of online income to increase my overall income by adding $3,000 per month to pay off my student loan debt. 

Which one of these types of goals examples sounds more specific for you? The second one right?

I know that seems like a “duh” but that is how detailed you have to be when setting goals, otherwise, how will you know that you have reached your goal? 

5. How To Make Your Goal Measurable

By using the same examples as above, we are going to add measurability and target dates to this Example 2 goal. This will help set clearer expectations instead of setting a more vague goal that can be easy to muck up the process.

Setting clear goals, even small ones are better then setting vague goals. I encourage you to remove words like “better, more, or less” in your goals. Example of this, I will make more money! What does more mean? That means something different to everyone.

Another example, I will do better with my time management. What does that mean? I hope you are picking up what I am laying down. Criteria and details are important. Think of it at one of the golden rules of goal setting.

• Example #2
  • “I will work on multiple streams of online income to increase my overall income by adding $3,000 per month to pay off my student loan debt.” 
• Example #2 (with measurable detail)
  • “I will work on developing 3 streams of online income. I want to increase my overall income by adding $3,000 monthly. I plan to pay off my $15,000 in student loan debt within 6 months.” 

I hope the difference here is obvious. It just takes writing down your initial goal on your goal-setting worksheets and then going through these steps to help you make the goal clearer and more concrete on what you are trying to accomplish. 

This makes it more tangible and helps reverse engineer how you will get there in the short term. 

6. How To Make Your Goal Achievable

I feel like working with the same example will help drive my point home. In the previous step, we added more measurable information to our goal so we had numbers and a rough timeline. Keep in mind your own ability at the time you set the goal. You may realize you need to set smaller goals to reach the big challenging goals you have in mind.

Now depending on where you are in your current career. If you already have a small side hustle online OR you are just getting started. 

• Example #2 (with more achievable detail) –  “I will work on developing 3 streams of online income. I want to increase my overall income by adding an additional $3,000 per month. I plan to pay off my $15,000 in student loan debt within 6 months.” 

This will determine if you think the measurable goal is achievable. Be honest with yourself. 

This is my biggest piece of advice for this step. I like to use a confidence scale between 1-10 to double-check that I am setting an achievable and realistic goal for myself.  

So ask yourself, “Is this an achievable goal for me?” 

If you are an 8 or higher with your goal on the confidence level that is a clear indicator that you believe it is possible. If you are anything less than a 7, it’s better you go back and adjust whatever you believe may be a stretch for you. 

Here is an example of what we could do to the goal if let’s say you gave yourself a 6 on the confidence scale.

Think about what I could do to make this goal a 7 if I am a 6.

• Example #2 with more achievable undertones to boost self-confidence.
  • “I will work on developing 1 stream of online income to increase my overall income adding an additional $2,000 per month. This will be used to pay off my $15,000 in student loan debt within 8 months.” 
• Example 2 is a more refined “achievable” goal to make the confidence level move from a 7 to an 8.
  • “I will work on developing 1 stream of online income that will require only 1-3 hours per week. I plan to increase my overall income by adding $1,000 monthly to pay off my $15,000 student loan debt. I will do this within 15 months.”

7. How To Make Your Goal Relevant.

I will let you decide what this will be for you. I usually work in terms of being realistic but if you know you have set goals that don’t end up being relevant to your values, then what is the point? 

Types of questions you could ask yourself in this step to line up your decision making for even the most complex goals. 

• Does the goal make a difference in my career? 
• Is it going to improve in my personal life? 
• Is it going to significantly make a difference to my business?
• Do I believe it is possible to make this happen?

8. How To Make Your Goal Time Specific

For effective goal setting, making your goals time-bound or time-specific helps you in the reverse engineering step of how you will make your goal happen by a deadline. Does the goal state a clear and specific date?

I am using our 8-confidence goal example. 

 “I will work on developing 1 stream of online income that will require only 1-3 hours per week. This will increase my overall income adding an additional $1,000 per month to pay off my $15,000 in student loan debt. I will do this within 15 months.”

Let’s say you are setting this goal in January. 15 months from then would be the following March of the next year. Your deadline would be March 31st of the next year. 

The good news is that this COULD happen sooner than 15 months. But if you plan for that goal you can work out how much you want to make each month and even to each week and day if you want to get really granular. 

See how this is working? It may seem a little tedious initially but when you have moved through every step, you are setting yourself up for success. 

9. Focusing On and Thinking Ahead Of Possible Challenges

Now that we have our example goal we have worked through how to set it and add all the details needed to make it SMART. Put on your problem solving hat and start to brainstorm possible plans of action. Let’s think ahead and plan for any potential obstacles or roadblocks that could present themselves.

Make sure to write on your goal-setting worksheets. 

Writing out my goals and intentions for the year and the action steps needed to solve problems I may currently face can help me plan ahead and work around them. This is a great use of your goal-setting worksheets.

Using our additional income example from above. Let’s say the current obstacle we anticipate is that you don’t know if you have enough time. It does take some time to dedicate to nurturing an online business. Because even if some tell you online that they have invested little time, that could be false. 

From my own experience developing my hobby blog was born in April 2012 and turning it into a full-blown business took a lot of time and effort initially. It still requires time but not like it did in the early days. 

I do know that there are clever workarounds where you may not need to develop a business as you might imagine with a website etc.

You could simply start by listing things in your home that you don’t need or use to sell on different platforms. Examples like Facebook Marketplace, NextDoor App, LetGo App, Poshmark (use my code ARTSANDCLASSY to EARN $10), Mercari, and eBay. 

I know of a teacher who wanted to pay off her student loan debt so she started a YouTube channel. She was documenting her experience learning how to flip and sell furniture to pay off her debt. 

If you want to see more of her process, her name is “Furniture Flipping Teacher” on YouTube. My understanding now is that she has turned this into a full-time business. She ended up leaving her Teaching career after paying off all her debt. You just never know where this could lead. 

I know that was a bit of a tangent, but my point is to try using an if-then statement.

If you can figure out a workaround to solve your time obstacle, THEN you can focus on less time-consuming ways to earn money to reach your goal. 

Another important thing to consider. 

Accountability is important. Try getting a partner to set goals with someone to help hold you accountable or someone to check in with to make sure you are staying on track. If you are more intrinsically motivated, how will you keep yourself on track?

10. How To Make Your Goal Prioritize Your Goals

Let’s use our goal from above to address the time obstacle that we worked through.

“I will work on developing 1 stream of online income that will require only 1-3 hours per week. This will increase my overall income adding an additional $1,000 per month to pay off my $15,000 in student loan debt. I will do this within 15 months.”

The next step to take would be to create new habits and behaviors you want to work on to achieve your long-term goals.

If we were to create some short-term goals, they could look like the following… 

• Declutter and organize each room of my home to find things we don’t need or use.
• Research the value of items I believe I could sell online or locally vs what I want to donate. 
• Research if anyone else is selling items like mine and how I could price them competitively.
• Research ways to take good-quality photos of my products.
• Join some local and buy/sell Facebook and NextDoor groups to connect with people in my area.
• Research some apps that are good for taking product photos.
• Research what makes a good listing to sell online
• Complete research SEO basics
• List 5 items per week on apps to sell online and locally

Once you have a list of smaller day-to-day tasks in mind, you can begin planning out your days so that you fit your time of 1-3 hours a week of work. 

By giving yourself 3 smaller tasks that you can accomplish each day to move closer to your goal, you will see yourself making traction and getting closer and closer to your long-term goal!

I like to add that doing a 30-day check-in is a great place to access and keep track of your progress.

It’s a way you can see if you are on track or perhaps you realized you can dedicate more time to increasing that income. 

Instead of 1-3, you realize you can do 4-6 hours a week. You can adjust your strategy and work on hitting your goal sooner if you wish. I find that these are effective ways to not only process your goals but also to gain encouragement to achieve anything you want to do!

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