3 Epic and FREE Goal Setting Worksheets To Achieve Your Dreams

Do you need a goal setting worksheet to finally hold you accountable for your goals?

As legendary coach Lou Holtz said, “If you are bored with life, if you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things — you don’t have enough goals.”

Goal setting is one of the most common habits of successful people and is needed to achieve your maximum potential. Did you know that 10% of the world sets goals?

Unsurprisingly, those 10% control 90% of the resources of the world. If you’re not setting goals in your life you’re missing out on achieving greatness.

Setting goals are one thing but achieving them is totally different. Luckily, I’ve created these goal setting worksheets to help you crush all your goals.

Goal Setting Worksheet by John Assaraf

This goal worksheet is based on the unbelievably effective videos from Neurogym CEO, John Assaraf. John has worked in personal development and psychology for years.

He is featured in the movie “The Secret” and built a billion-dollar business. The worksheet is based on these two videos. They are about 40 minutes between the two but well worth your time.

Here’s how to use the goal setting worksheet and start achieving your goals.

Set Clear and BIG Goals

The most common way to set goals historically has been SMART Goals. While they are a good place to start setting goals they have one major flaw. The “R” in SMART stands for realistic. The problem with most people is that they set “realistic” goals.

Don’t undercut the power of your brain. You have the ability to achieve greatness but you have to set a goal worthy enough of greatness.

John recommends setting goals in six major areas:

Health
Financially
Business/Career
Relationships
Charity

Vague goals produce vague results.” — Jack Canfield

Start by thinking about what you want to achieve in each of these six areas. Your goals need to be precise, focused and clear. The more specific the better.

The next part is determining when you will accomplish the goals. Without a completion date, it’s very easy to not follow through on your goal.

How will you know when you reached the goal? John says “To set the perfect bullseye of what you want to achieve.” A date will give you clarity on when you are reaching your goal!

Goal Setting Mistakes

The goal setting worksheet will help you achieve your goals but it’s important to avoid these major goal setting mistakes.

Setting goals from the past and present circumstances. You need to set goals that make you feel uncomfortable. These goals might scare you and make you uncomfortable. That is when you know you are setting amazing goals.
Not writing down your goals or making them vague. If you don’t clarify your goals your brain will be confused and not sure what you want to achieve.
Trying to develop new strategies and tactics. You are not responsible for the strategy, tactics, and process if someone else has already achieved the goal. Learn from people who have already accomplished the goal!

Focus On Your Goals Daily

How often have you set a goal only to forget about it a week later? Life can get in the way but if you want to achieve your goals you must focus on them regularly. As Les Brown said, “Review your goals twice each day in order to be focused on achieving them.”

Reviewing your goals should be part of your morning routine. The morning and evening are the best times to review your goals as your brain is most acceptable to suggestion. Spend 5-10 minutes when you wake up and before you go to bed focusing on your goals.

Implement Strategy, Tactics & Processes

Setting goals are the easy part but you need to create a way to achieve them. John recommends creating a strategy and implementing tactics to achieve them.

Create a Strategy (What You Need to Do)

For every goal, you want to achieve you need a strategy to make it happen. Hoping for a goal to end up completed is not a strategy. Every goal you want to achieve has a blueprint of what you can and should do to complete it.

If you want to lose weight there is a clear way to make that happen. If you want to earn more money outside of work there is a way to make that happen. Almost every goal has already been completed by someone else. Use their strategy to save time and speed up results!

Success leaves clues.” — Tony Robbins

Each goal needs to have its own strategy to achieve it, don’t make one strategy for all six goals.

Practice the Tactics (How You Need to Do It)

Once you create a strategy and know how to achieve the goal you need specific tactics. This is in the form of habits and your daily routines.

If your goal is weight loss start scheduling your exercise and meals. If your goal is to make money online start creating a specific number of blog posts.

The strategy is the big picture, tactics are the day to day activities to make it happen.

Process (The System)

The process is just the system to help you make the goal complete. For the previous weight loss example, this could include hiring a personal trainer for accountability or cooking all your meals every Sunday afternoon.

Create New Habits

Things in your life must change if you want to change. What has gotten you here will not get you to your goals.

Habits are what drives the behavior every single day.

Just because you set big goals doesn’t mean your habits will automatically change. With willpower, you can change your habits for the short term but it’s unlikely to last forever.

Studies have shown that habits take anywhere from 21-66 days to go from conscious to unconscious behavior. The problem is that most people get stuck in habit loops.

Think about it, from the moment you wake up you are pretty much on autopilot the majority of the day. Brain studies have also shown your subconscious control 95% of your daily activities.

The way you think, the answers to questions and the activities you do every day happen almost automatically.

New Habits

Think about your goals every single day!
Create new triggers.

Habits are triggers, routine, and rewards. John gives a good example of a typical morning routine.

Wake up (trigger)
Check email, texts, news in bed (routine)
Satisfaction of checking everything (rewards)

Your habits drive your behavior every single day. You have to become the person that can achieve your goal.

Learn How to Change Your Beliefs

You will almost certainly need to change your beliefs to accomplish your goals. Beliefs are nothing more than patterns.

What you believe about yourself is nothing more than a culmination of what everyone has told you throughout your life. This is how your life has been programmed thus far:

Beliefs –> Habits (how you are supposed to behave) –> Created strategy & tactics –> Results

It’s time to change the loop. You can recreate your own beliefs.

How to Change Explicit Beliefs

Explicit beliefs are external. “I believe I can lose weight” or “I believe I can make more money” are examples of explicit beliefs.

But studies have found that external beliefs do not drive new habits. While it’s important to share your goals with others you still need to change your implicit beliefs.

How to Change Implicit Beliefs

Implicit beliefs are underneath the surface. Think of implicit beliefs as the small voice in your head that only you can hear. They will sound like this:

Am I smart enough?
Do I really deserve success?
What if I try my hardest and fail?
Can I really do this?

Everyone has implicit beliefs on some level, I know I’ve fought bast some my whole life.

If you have implicit beliefs your mind will create doubts. Doubts kill your goals.

For example, let’s say your goal is to make $250,000 in the next 12 months but you have a belief that you aren’t smart enough to earn that much. If there is a gap between inner belief and your goals you will NEVER accomplish that goal.

Luckily, you can create new beliefs and get rid of limiting beliefs.

How to Change Your Beliefs

Start by reading your goals with emotion every single day. After reading your goal spend a moment visualizing the goal as being achieved. Imagine the feeling of completing each goal.

Warning: In the beginning, your inner critic will be loud! Negative self-talk can last for weeks and months but you have to keep going. Negative self-talk is a lifelong habit that you are trying to break. But eventually, you will break through.

Once you create the new belief you will change your life forever. Your goals will become implicit and start to believe it from the inside out. You will see new opportunities and take action like never before. Plus, the habit of reading and visualizing your goals on a daily basis will develop the habit of consistency.

Staying consistent will give you a compound effect on your results.

You were not given a dream if you weren’t able to fulfill it.” — Jack Canfield

Find Your Big Why

The last part of this goal worksheet is to understand what is your big why. Why are you trying to achieve these goals?

Do you want to help yourself, your family or your friends? Do you want to impact others by giving back and contributing to causes you believe in?

Everyone will have a different why. If you don’t have a strong why you are more likely to quit when things get tough.

Your why will give you the extra bit of motivation to help you accomplish your goals. Spend time with yourself and really figure out a strong why (or several) to give yourself absolute conviction to achieve the goal.

Download the Goal Setting Template From John Assaraf

SMART Goal Setting Worksheet

If you went through almost any school system I’m sure you remember the S-M-A-R-T goal setting method.

Smart Goals Definition:

S-Smart
M-Measurable
A-Achievable
R-Relevant
T-Time-Bound

Specific

This part of the acronym I fully agree with. Instead of saying “I want to have a better body” or “I want to earn more money” you need to have specific metrics.

There can’t be grey areas in SMART goal setting. Your brain needs your goals to be as specific and clear as possible.

Remember, as Jack Canfield said, “Vague goals produce vague results.”

Measurable

The second part of the SMART goal setting is to create measurable goals. You need to measure and track your goals in some way to know if you are making progress towards achieving them.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” – Peter Drucker

This will allow you to have a big goal (i.e. Earn $10,000 from your side hustle) and chunk it down into small, tangible, bite-sized goals. You need to measure progress so you know when your goal is accomplished.

This will allow you to celebrate mini-victories and give yourself a feel-good, dopamine hit along the way.

Achievable

This is where I begin to question the SMART goal setting method. How do you know what is achievable and what isn’t?

The problem is that most people set goals based on their past instead of their future.

When you set goals really dive into what is “achievable” before committing to your goal. You need to find a balance between achievable and impossible by setting challenging goals.

If your goal is to earn $100,000 tomorrow that’s not likely achievable. But if you want to earn $100,000 in 6 months that might be challenging but still achievable.

The problem that people get into with SMART goal setting is that they set their goals too low, too achievable.

Your goals need to be big. In fact, they need to be huge! Your goals should be so big they are almost scary to say out loud.

Relevant

The fourth part of the SMART goal setting method is making your goals relevant. This means that your goals need to have a purpose and align with the rest of your life. If they aren’t relevant don’t waste your time on them.

Time Bound

Human beings need urgency. Have you ever noticed that whenever a deadline for work comes up you always find a way to get it done?

Your goals are similar. They need a target date to give yourself a sense of urgency to complete them.

Otherwise, it’s easy to procrastinate and not actively work toward them. Make sure your time frame is realistic to each goal.

SMART Goal Setting Example

Goal: Earn $20,000 dollars with a side hustle in eight months to save for an epic and extravagant vacation.

Specific – $20,000 dollars.
Measurable – Yes, as it is a dollar amount. Numbers goals are crucial to ensure you can track the success.
Achievable – Depending on the side hustle this is definitely doable and would average out to be $2,500 per month.
Relevant: Yes, it will help you save enough for a trip of your dreams.
Time-Bound: You have 240 days to complete the goal.

This is a great example of a SMART goal.

How to Use the SMART Goal Setting Worksheet

This one is pretty easy to fill out and start implementing today.

Step 1: Identify the Goal

No more than two-three sentences
Include exactly what needs to be accomplished
Who is in charge of completing the goal?

Step 2: Is The Goal Measurable?

How will you know the goal is done?
How is the goal going to get done?
Is there a way to chunk it down so you can have checkpoints?

Step 3: Is The Goal Achievable?

Make sure it’s not a pipe dream but you can achieve it with hard work and persistence.
Don’t set yourself up for failure by setting unattainable goals in too small of a time frame.
Remember, don’t get held back by being “realistic.” Dream big!

Step 4: Is The Goal Relevant?

How will this goal make a difference in your life?
Is it going to improve your life, business, health or relationships?
Could this change your life entirely?

Step 5: Is The Goal Time Bound?

Humans need deadlines. Otherwise, it’s easy to never accomplish your dreams.
Make sure your goal has time to achieve it by. This needs to be super specific.
Go all out and say a date, time, and exact hour.

Dream big and you can make it happen!

Download the SMART Goal Setting Worksheet

Ed Mylett Goal Setting Worksheet

The creator of this goal setting worksheet is Ed Mylett. I listened to his podcast where he went in depth on how to achieve your goals.

If you don’t know Ed, he is a Forbes 50 under 50 and has a net worth at roughly $400 million. And he’s 100% self-made.

But the best part about Ed is that he wants to help others achieve their goals.

Here are his biggest keys to setting goals and the worksheet to help you get started:

1. Set Clear Goals

People are walking generalities.

“I want to lose weight.”
“I want to earn more money.”
“I’d love to read more books.”

Your brain doesn’t understand general goals. It needs ultra-specific goals, the more details you can provide the better.

“I’m going to lose 10 pounds in the next 60 days and drop 3% body fat.”
“I want to earn $5,000 more in the next 45 days from a side business.”
“I will read 6 books in the next 12 weeks.”

If you’re struggling to achieve your goals, start by getting ultra-specific about what you are trying to accomplish.

Goal Setting Example

A great example is Jim Carrey, who wrote himself a check for $10 million dollars and dated it Thanksgiving 1995, despite being a broke actor at the time. It was a pipe dream at the time. But thanks to the success of his other movies and hard work, he made $20 million for Dumb and Dumber just before Thanksgiving 1995.

Another amazing example of specific goals is JFK as he announced in 1962 that we should put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. He made a very clear goal in his epic speech and with hard work, his goal was realized in 1969.

As JFK said, “Things do not happen; things are made to happen.”

Start setting specific goals and your brain will help you find ways to make them happen only when you are specific with the outcome and avoid these other mistakes.

2. Create Strong Reasons

Getting clear about your goals is the first step — creating strong reasons why you want to achieve them is next.

Creating strong enough reasons is almost as much as work as creating a motivating set of goals. Without strong strong reasons, you’ll give up nearly every time.

Reasons are other people or specific dreams you have in life.

Here are two goal-setting examples using strong reasons:

Goal: “I want to earn $5,000 more in the next 45 days from a new income stream of my business.”
Reason: “To be able to hire someone part-time to allow me to spend more time with my family.”

Goal: “I want to gain 1,000 subscribers in 60 days.”
Reason: “If I don’t then I will have to work too many hours as I won’t have enough leads. This could mean I might skip out on the gym or not have enough money to hire a designer for my website.

What are the consequences if you don’t reach your goals? Reframe your goals so they aren’t all about you.

Goals that are solely centered around you rarely last.

Make your goals mean something and have reminders all around your home and office to keep you motivated to achieve your goals.

3. Get Some Accountability

Clear goals and strong reasons are a good start but they aren’t enough. You need a team or at least a partner to help you make them happen.

The most successful people in business and sports have accountability, why shouldn’t you?

Enroll one or two people to help you stay accountable for each goal you set. One person doesn’t have to be your accountability partner for every goal. You have too many hats you’re wearing to achieve unbelievable goals alone.

Remember, willpower doesn’t always work.

Attach Accountability Partners To Your Goals

Hire a coach or pay an accountability partner to help you succeed. Often times seeing money leave your bank each month is motivating to show up and put in the work.

You need to share your goals with others to get the results you want.

“You have to share your goals if you want to get results. The trick is to only share your goals with the right people, those who will support and encourage you. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to find the right people. — Craig Ballantyne

How to Find an Accountability Partner

If you think everyone in your life won’t understand your goals, look outside people you know. Join challenges, Facebook groups, and forums of like-minded people. Find people who are enthusiastic about what you want to achieve.

Never underestimate the power of social support in a group. This has been huge in helping me stay accountable to big goals. Plus, you can help others along the way by providing tips and inspiration on what is working for you as well.

4. Review Your Goals Constantly

As Les Brown said, “Review your goals twice every day in order to be focused on achieving them.”

Each day you need to spend 10–15 minutes reading and visualizing your goals as though they are already complete.

First thing each morning, look at your goal list.

Read them out loud and see them happening. Imagine what it will feel like when each goal is complete. Then, do the same thing before bed.

The morning and evening are the best time to review your goals because your subconscious mind is the most active at those times.

Plus, it’s a great way to bookend each day and identify to your mind what your objectives are each day.

5. Set Outcome Goals

Outcome goals are easy to set but you need to have the right processes to back them up.

I used to set audacious outcome goals with no process. After a few weeks of not making progress, I’d give up easily.

While I’m all for setting big goals, make sure there is a realistic process, even if it is a stretch.

“The key to achieving your goals is to have the right steps in place to move you towards them. Without these steps in place, a lot of people lose momentum and quit pursuing their big goals and dreams. That why you need to create several small process goals that will support the achievement of your outcome goals.” — Craig Ballantyne

How to Set Outcome Goals

If you want to earn more money, identify the habits it will take to achieve the goal. Is it sending more emails, making more calls, calling at different times, partnering with someone in your space?

Identify what actions you need to take to make your goals happen.

Chunk them down so you can start taking action.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small, manageable tasks, and the starting on the first one.” — Mark Twain

As you take action, you can always change the processes but you need to have a process in place that can make the goal achievable.

Don’t rely on hope or positive thinking. Make a clear plan with measurable steps so you can take massive action.

5. Set Ultra Clear Deadlines

New Year resolutions fail for a lot of reasons.

One of the biggest reasons is that the goals aren’t really motivating. “I want to lose some weight or make some more money aren’t very inspiring to your mind.”

But another reason they fail is that they lack deadlines entirely. Or the deadline is the following year! 365 days away is too far away in the future for most goals.

Your goals need ultra-specific deadlines. They can be 21 days, 60, 90 or even 180 days. The length isn’t important, it’s that they are realistic and still short enough to PUSH you to get it done.

Once you set a goal you also need to add some reminders as well. It’s really easy to set a goal for a few months away only to forget it when the next disaster strikes your business.

Add reminders in your calendar on your phone, pop-up email messages or notes around your house.

Become relentless with deadlines. Humans need deadlines to create urgency.

6. Set Huge Goals

S-M-A-R-T goal setting is stupid.

The “R” in SMART stands for realistic but setting realistic goals are hardly inspiring to hungry entrepreneur. You need to set big goals, with the right time frame, to keep you motivated.

“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” — Michaelangelo

It doesn’t take any more energy to create a big dream than it does to create a small one. If you set big goals and don’t achieve them, you’re still ahead of someone who sets a small goal and achieved them.

7. Celebrate Your Mini Victories

Every time you reach a milestone toward achieving your goals it’s essential to celebrate your mini-wins along the way.

Why?

You get a massive dopamine hit which your brain really enjoys. If you keep hitting goals but don’t acknowledge yourself for making progress, it’s very demotivating to your brain.

Celebrating your wins is crucial in achieving your goals. On your worksheet make sure to notate how you will celebrate along the way and at the end.

Download The Goal Setting Worksheet

Start Setting Epic Goals Today

Hopefully, these videos and post will help you give you the framework to start achieving your goals. I love this quote:

“You weren’t an accident, you wren’t mass produced, you aren’t an assembly-line product. No, you were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on the Earth by the Master Craftsman” — Max Lucado

Begin immediately by creating goals that mean something to you and your business today. Start by printing one of these goal setting worksheets. Dedicate time to use the worksheet that works best for you.

Don’t rush the process. This could be 30, 60, 90 minutes or longer. Once you have completed it, put the worksheet somewhere you will see it daily.

Remember, your goals need daily focus. Spend time each day and night reviewing your goals to give yourself the best chance of success.

Goal Setting Worksheet (FREE Printables)

Remember you are lucky to be able to set goals. Unlike other organisms in the world, humans get to decide our goals.

Align your life with your goals. Once you have coherence for everything you will attract more of what you want in your life.

For more information on John Assaraf check out his awesome interview with Lewis Howes to unlock your brain’s full potential. For more inspiration on goal setting check out the best goal setting quotes.

Do you set goals? Have you used a similar worksheet before?

Let me know in the comments.

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Michael Leonard

Creator at Inspire Your Success

My name is Michael and I'm the creator of Inspire Your Success. My goal is to give you the tools, resources, and inspiration to build an epic freelance writing business.