What is holistic goal setting? In a nutshell, it means to set goals with consideration of the whole. To illustrate this principle, let’s look a very short-term goal as an example. Let’s say at a restaurant someone is served a meal that is twice as much as they can comfortably eat, for instance, a 24-ounce T-bone steak. For whatever reason, this person makes it a goal to eat the whole thing.

But if this person makes that a goal, it would not be with consideration of the holistic self. For instance, he or she would be ignoring issues of health, especially cholesterol levels and weight. It would probably create a stomach- ache which would interfere with sleep, which would impact performance at work the next day. Enthusiasm at work would likely take a hit. This example points to the fact that in holistic goal setting, one needs to take a look at the dynamics of the spiritual, physical, emotional, financial and mental.

Holistically, it makes no sense to have a goal such as owning a multi-million dollar home if it is going to cause one to suffer financially and mentally. Perhaps it would force one into unethical ways of making money. We need to always be looking at the whole picture.

When what we do makes us better spiritually, physically, emotionally, financially and mentally, then we can be confident that we are on the right track. To live life contrary to this is to invite failure to creep into your life.

Take a vacation house as a metaphor. What would happen if you put all of your attention, resources, and energy into a new kitchen, but ignored the roof? Then you go away for a year and the roof starts leaking. The inside of the house gets wet. Mold starts to grow. Floorboards start to rot. When you come back after a year’s absence, you find that the house is ruined. Your kitchen, along with the house, is worthless.

Every person in the world devotes countless hours to thinking of their future and their present situation in life. Almost everyone wishes that there were something that they could change in their life. But before we go off wildly and enthusiastically into chasing goals, it pays to set the goals with awareness, with consciousness, just as someone starting off on a road trip to a new destination would consult a map.

Time for Growth

Perhaps the first and primary step is not change, but growth – the cultivation of wisdom and the awakening of consciousness. Have you ever noticed how many people set goals and are incapable of following through with them? That is indicative of a fragmented mind. When you have the force of your whole being propelling you forward, you hit your target. It’s like an arrow. If it has the force of a strong bow to propel it forward, its path will be straight and true. If not, it will fail to hit its target.

How many times have you decided on a course of action and simply didn’t follow through with it? If this is frequently the case, take a personal inventory. Was your whole being aligned in purpose to achieve the goal? Would your whole being benefit from attaining the goal?

That is pretty much the norm for most people. Consciousness precedes form. Make the change within first and the manifestation of the goal will follow. That’s why setting goals can be so hard. We have inner work that needs to be completed before we can begin the outer work. If you lack confidence in reaching a goal, it is a sign that the prerequisite inner work has not been done.

To see this principle most clearly, just look at all the new years resolutions that fail so miserably. Talk is cheap. Inner work is hard. But having said that, goals are important. As long as we don’t put the cart before the horse, we can succeed.

In this 5 part series, you will learn how to set goals in your life for:

·Healthy relationships
·Work
·Finances
·Personal health and fitness
·Friendships and more.

By setting goals you can:

·Achieve more in your lifetime
·Improve your overall performances in life
·Increase your motivation to achieve the most out of life
·Increase your pride and satisfaction in your achievements
·Improve your self-confidence
·Plan to eliminate attitudes that hold you back and cause unhappiness

People who use goal-setting effectively:

·suffer less from stress and anxiety
·concentrate and focus better
·show more self-confidence
·perform better in all areas of life
·Are happier and more satisfied with life

Holistic Goal Setting Also Helps Self-Confidence

By setting holistic goals, and measuring their achievement, you are able to see what you have done and what you are capable of. You become more than the sum of your parts. You become a synergistic system that operates out of awareness and inspiration.

The process of achieving goals and seeing their achievement gives you the confidence and a belief in yourself that you need to be able to achieve higher and more difficult goals.

Providing that you have the self-discipline to carry it through, goal setting is also relatively easy. The following section on goal setting will give you effective guidelines to help you to use this technique effectively.

How to choose holistic goals

Sometimes setting goals alone is not the only problem that you must face. Sometimes, choosing the right goals to begin with is harder.

Goal setting is nothing more than a formal process for conscious personal planning. By setting goals on a routine basis you decide what you want to achieve, and then move in a step-by-step manner towards the achievement of these goals.

The process of setting goals and targets allows you to choose where you want to go in life. By knowing exactly what you want to achieve, you know what you have to concentrate on to do it. It allows you to weed out the distractions.

Goal setting is a standard technique used by professional athletes, successful business people and high achievers in all fields. It gives you long term vision and provides you with short term motivation.

It helps to focus your attention and knowledge. This is key when it comes to organizing your resources. By setting sharp and clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals. You can see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless effort.

By setting goals, you will also raise your self confidence, as you recognize your and ability to meet the goals that you have set. The process of achieving goals and seeing this achievement gives you confidence that you will be able to achieve higher and more difficult goals later on.

Goals are set on a number of different levels. In the first place, you decide what you want to do with your life and what large-scale goals you want to achieve.

Second, you break these down into the smaller aims that you must hit so that you reach your overall lifetime goals. Finally, once you have your plan, you start working towards achieving it.

Beginning your holistic goal setting plans

Start with your lifetime goals, and then works through a series of lower level plans culminating in a daily to-do list.

y setting up this structure of plans you can break even the biggest life goal down into a number of small tasks that you need to do each day to reach the lifetime goals.

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime. Setting lifetime goals give you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making process.

To help give you a broad, and balanced perspective in all areas of your life, you need some honest introspection. Try to set goals in some or all of the following categories:

Artistic:
Do you want to achieve any artistic goals? If so, what is it? Do you want to write a book; paint a masterpiece, or write a song? What is your vision of the world and life in general? Share that as only you can express it.

Attitude:
Does your own mindset hold you back from making progress? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you for example, do you talk too much? If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.

Career:
What level do you want to reach in your career? Is it your goal to be the boss or own your own company someday, or do you want to be the president of someone else’s company? What is your soul wanting to express in this life?

Education:
Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular or some area of study that you would like to pursue? What information and skills will you need to achieve these goals? Are you following your bliss? Is this why you were put on earth?

Family:
Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want your partner or family members to see you? Do you have the other aspects of your life in balance? Do you have, for instance, the spiritual, financial, and emotional resources that will be required?

Financial:
How much do you want to earn by what age in your life? What can you do to make that come about? How does this fit in with your creative, spiritual, and emotional goals?

Physical:
Are there any athletic goals you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?

Pleasure:
How do you want to enjoy yourself? You should ensure that some of your life is geared toward making yourself happy for no reason other than being happy

Service:
Do you want to make the world a better place by your existence? If so, how? The more “whole” you are, the more you have to give.

But don’t be inflexible with your goals. If you discover that you are unhappy and miserable while you pursue a goal, take a step back and figure out why. It’s no different than a college student changing majors after the first semester of the freshman year. Striving towards a goal should be something that strengthens you.

If you sense that you are not wholehearted in your pursuit, then there must be a reason. This brings in the holistic aspect once again to goal setting. Your inner experience cannot be ignored. What you feel matters. Forget about what others think. Do what makes you happy. Do what makes you feel like a better person.

Success only happens when you are working for your own well being because doing it for others will ensure that you sabotage your own success. The only way to be true to your self is to know yourself. And only then can you truly be inspired — in the truest sense of the word – inspirited. That’s when goals consistently become realities.