Examples of goals: 100 personal goals, each with a first step

What makes a good personal goal

A good goal names one action and one number. At bedtime, you know if you did it.

Put the verb first, then the number.

Psychologists Edwin Locke and Gary Latham spent decades testing goals. In their 2002 review (opens in a new tab), people given specific, hard goals did better at the task than people told to “do your best”.

That finding is about getting a task done. It doesn’t say a word about happiness. We won’t stretch it.

But a clear goal still needs a start. A big goal with no first step sits on the list like a gym bag that’s waited by the door since March.

So every goal below gets a step for today, sized like the small goals you can finish before dinner.

10 examples of goals with a first step for today

Each of these ten has a normal day’s step and a busy-day step. The numbers are the starting lines from our app’s ready goals, and you’re free to change any of them.

The last column is the one to read first. It’s the step for the day when the bus breaks down and dinner turns out to be toast eaten over the sink, which happens more often than any plan admits.

Plan for that day.

A busy-day step counts as a full day.

That rule keeps a goal alive through a bad week. Two pages is still reading. And a short hello is still calling home.

35 body and calm mind goals

The first 20 are for your body, and the next 15 are for slower, calmer minutes.

They run from one glass of water on the desk to an album played start to finish, with the phone in another room. Each line is the goal, then the first step.

Body goals for moving more

• Run 3 times a week. Today: run or walk fast for 10 minutes.
• Work out 3 times a week. Today: 5 minutes of squats in the kitchen.
• Stretch or do yoga 10 minutes a day. Today: 2 minutes on the floor before bed.
• Take the stairs at least once a day. Today: one flight, then the elevator.
• Learn to do a full push-up. Today: 5 push-ups against a wall.
• Ride a bike to one regular place. Today: pump up the tires.
• Reach 8,000 steps on most days. Today: check today’s step count, no judging.

Body goals for food and water

• Eat 5 portions of fruit and veg a day. Today: add one piece of fruit to lunch.
• Eat less sugar or junk. Today: swap one sweet thing.
• Bring lunch from home 3 days a week. Today: put the lunchbox by the fridge.
• Eat breakfast sitting down. Today: set out a bowl and spoon tonight.
• Cook one new vegetable a week. Today: buy one you’ve never cooked.
• Keep coffee to 2 cups a day. Today: count today’s cups.

Body goals for sleep and rest

• Be in bed by 10:30 pm. Today: wind down for 2 minutes first.
• Wake up by 6:30 am on weekdays. Today: get up when the alarm rings.
• Charge your phone outside the bedroom. Today: move the charger to the kitchen.
• Take a real lunch break. Today: eat for 10 minutes away from a screen.
• Stand up once an hour while you work. Today: set one reminder.
• Book the dentist check-up you keep moving. Today: find the phone number.
• Swim once a week. Today: look up when the nearest pool opens.

Calm mind goals for slower minutes

• Take 3 breathers a day. Today: take 1 slow breather.
• Write down 3 good things a day. Today: write down 1 good thing.
• Keep a one-line journal. Today: one line about today and a word for how it felt.
• Spend 10 minutes doing nothing at all. Today: 2 minutes looking out a window.
• Listen to one album start to finish each week. Today: pick the album.
• Do a crossword once a week. Today: solve one clue.
• Keep one houseplant alive. Today: move it where you’ll see it.
• Plan tomorrow in 3 lines. Today: write tomorrow’s first task on a sticky note.

Calm mind goals for less screen time

• Have 30 phone-free minutes a day. Today: put the phone away for 10 minutes.
• Skip the phone for 15 minutes after you wake up. Today: leave it face down tonight.
• Turn off one app’s notifications each week. Today: turn off the noisiest one.
• Eat one meal a day without a screen. Today: dinner with the TV off.
• Delete one app you open out of boredom. Today: move it off your Home Screen.
• Take one screen-free afternoon a week. Today: pick the afternoon.
• Unsubscribe from 5 emails a week. Today: unsubscribe from 1.

The one-line journal in that list has its own guide: the one-line journal method. It sits next to any goal on this page without taking extra time.

20 learning and making goals

Learning goals like to start big. “Become fluent” sounds great on a Sunday night, written in a fresh notebook with a good pen, and by Thursday nobody can remember what it was supposed to mean.

Too big.

So give them a minute count.

Goals for learning a skill

• Practise an instrument 15 minutes a day. Today: 5 minutes, one scale.
• Study or focus for 50 minutes on weekdays. Today: one 10-minute focus block.
• Finish one online course. Today: watch the first lesson only.
• Learn to touch type. Today: 5 minutes on the home row.
• Learn one new card game. Today: read the rules.
• Take a first-aid course. Today: find one near you.
• Learn the names of 10 trees on your street. Today: one tree, one name.

Goals for making things

• Write 15 minutes a day. Today: write for 5 minutes, about anything.
• Draw 15 minutes a day. Today: sketch whatever’s on the table.
• Take one photo a day. Today: photograph something by a window.
• Knit one scarf. Today: cast on 10 stitches.
• Write one letter by hand each month. Today: find a stamp.
• Bake bread from scratch. Today: read one recipe all the way through.
• Grow herbs on a windowsill. Today: buy one pot of basil.

Goals for one bigger project

• Memorize one poem. Today: learn the first 2 lines.
• Start a blog or newsletter. Today: write down 3 possible names.
• Learn to code one small thing. Today: one free beginner lesson, 10 minutes.
• Get your driver’s license. Today: look up how to book the theory test.
• Build one simple shelf. Today: measure the wall.
• Learn to sew on a button. Today: find a needle and thread.

The starting line is a suggestion. If 10 pages feels like a lot, make it 5.

The goal is yours, so the numbers are too.

30 money, people and home goals

The money goals use small amounts you can see, in dollars. None of it is investing or debt advice.

The people and home goals are smaller still, and most of them take about ten minutes on a normal evening, less if the drawer you’re clearing is mostly rubber bands. Nobody’s timing you.

Money goals for saving

• Save for a trip, $10 a week. Today: put $1 in the trip fund.
• Save $500 for surprise bills. Today: label an envelope or a savings pot.
• Save every $5 bill you get. Today: check your wallet for one.
• Put spare coins in a jar. Today: find the jar.
• Save for gifts ahead of time. Today: write down the next date and amount.
• Save $1 a day for a year. Today: set a reminder for the same time daily.
• Sell 5 things you don’t use. Today: photograph the first one.
• Save up for one thing you want. Today: write its price on a note.

Money goals for spending

• Write down every purchase for a month. Today: write down today’s.
• Make a monthly budget. Today: list your 3 biggest bills.
• Cancel one subscription you don’t use. Today: list every subscription you pay for.
• Pack a snack when you go out. Today: put one in your bag.
• Wait 48 hours before any buy over $50. Today: start a “wait list” note.
• Check your bank balance once a week. Today: check it, just look.
• Read your last payslip line by line. Today: find it.

Goals for the people you love

• Reply to messages within a day. Today: answer the oldest one.
• Eat together at the table 3 nights a week. Today: clear the table.
• Make one new friend this year. Today: learn a neighbor’s name.
• Remember birthdays. Today: add the next 3 birthdays to your calendar.
• Write one thank-you note a month. Today: send one sentence of thanks.
• Visit an older relative once a month. Today: pick the date.
• Plan one day out with a friend each month. Today: send two possible dates.
• Volunteer once a month. Today: find one place near you that takes volunteers.

Goals for home

• Tidy up 10 minutes a day. Today: tidy for 2 minutes.
• Make the bed every morning. Today: straighten the blanket before you get in.
• Clear one drawer a week. Today: empty one drawer and put back half.
• Fold laundry the day you wash it. Today: fold the pile on the chair.
• Go to bed with an empty sink. Today: wash what’s in it now.
• Fix one small thing in the house each week. Today: list the small fixes.
• Host one meal for friends. Today: pick the dish you’d make.

That chair has held more clothes than the wardrobe for years. One fold tonight starts the eviction.

Goals that stretch over years, like a home of your own or a long trip, belong with life goals examples. This list sticks to things you can start this week.

Short-term goals you can finish this month

Some goals have a finish line. These five come with an end date: the last day of this month.

A finish line four weeks away is close enough to picture on a Monday morning and far enough away that you’ll need a first step today. Four weeks. That’s it.

• Clear out one closet. Today: take out 5 things.
• Try 4 new recipes, one a week. Today: pick the first.
• Back up your phone’s photos. Today: check how much space is left.
• Visit 4 places in your town you’ve never been. Today: list them.
• Put last year’s best photos in one album. Today: make the album and name it.

A month is long enough to finish and short enough to remember why you started.

How to pick one goal from 100

You only need one goal today, so leave the other 99 here. The page isn’t going anywhere.

In 1940, a 15-year-old named John Goddard wrote a list of 127 life goals.

He died in 2013, and his nephew said he had checked off 120 of them, as KSL reported (opens in a new tab). Along the way he kayaked the length of the Nile and learned to fly a plane.

That’s one man’s list, worked on for 73 years. You don’t need 127 goals to start. You need the first one.

1. 1

   Circle three.

   Scroll back up and circle three goals that made you think “I’d like that.”

2. 2

   Cross out two.

   Keep the one you’d still want on a bad day.

3. 3

   Take its smallest step.

   Do the first step today, or the busy-day step if today is full.

Start the goal with the smallest first step.

The other two can wait a month. And once the first goal runs on its own, which can take a few weeks of plain, unexciting repeats, adding a second one is easy.

Turn a goal into a step you’ll take

A goal moves when the step is small enough for today. That’s the whole trick.

It helps to tie the step to something you already do:

• Read 2 pages after you brush your teeth.
• Put $1 aside when you plug in your phone.

Once the new step sits right behind an old one, the old habit drags it along every day, even on the days when you’d rather skip both. That anchor is the heart of how to stay consistent.

After that, you write one line about it. “Read 2 pages. The detective is lying.”

But why bother with the line? Because a step you did a minute ago is easy to write about, and the lines pile up into proof.

In Yumemira, the small-steps goal journal for iPhone, you pick from the 26 ready goals or make your own. Then each day works like this:

1. 1

   Mark done.

   Tap it when the step is finished, and Mira, the app’s star, cheers “Nice. That counts.”

2. 2

   Say how it went.

   Tap it, and one question opens: “How did it go?”

3. 3

   Write one line.

   Something like “Read 2 pages. The detective is lying.”

If you’d like the step and the line in one place, try it in Yumemira. A notebook works the same way, minus the star.

Then write one line about it, in a notebook or on your phone. Little by little, those lines add up to a record of a goal that moved.

“Be better” can stay on the old list. Tonight, read two pages.