Daily Goals are the Secret to Living Your Best Life. Here’s Why.
When you think of setting goals, it’s natural to dream big. You may want to lose 100 pounds, or become a millionaire, or find your soulmate.
But setting big goals and then stopping there is where so many of us go wrong when trying to make meaningful changes in our life. For example, you may start out on an aggressive diet after setting your goal to lose 100 pounds. But, when the results are slow and the radical change from your old lifestyle becomes tough to maintain, you may slip into old habits. Your goal then quickly starts to feel completely out of reach, and you may start to feel like you’ve failed.
The secret to actually achieving your big goals is to work at them day by day. They are the small steps you need to make sustainable change and create opportunities for easy wins.
In this article, we’ll explore why, and give you plenty of examples of powerful daily goals you can set for yourself. Keep reading.
What Are Daily Goals?
At their simplest, daily goals are tasks you want to complete each day. They can be anything from unloading your dishwasher each morning to getting in 10,000 steps.
At their most powerful, daily goals are stepping stones towards living the life you dream of. They are the habits that the best version of you does effortlessly. When added up over time, they will drive you towards the happiness and success you want to achieve.
Benefits of Daily Goals
There’s a reason why successful people spend so much time setting and working towards goals. Research shows that setting goals can change your brain for the better by physically rewiring it to make you more effective at achieving those goals. (This process is known as neuroplasticity, and is key to shifting out of bad habits and negative thought patterns.)
The types of goals you set are key if you want to unlock these brain-changing benefits. Ideally, your goals should be ambitious and should be something you feel an emotional connection to (more on that later). They shouldn’t, however, be unachievable. Research also shows setting goals you consistently fail to achieve can cause your brain to rewire itself for the worse. Failing to achieve goals over and over again can create a negative cycle that makes it harder to achieve what you want.
Daily goals are a great way to balance this out. They are low-risk ways for you to challenge yourself and offer consistent, easy wins for you to celebrate. This allows you to feel good about the progress you’re making, and gives you the best chance to make your brain work its magic for you.
Daily Goals vs Long Term Goals
The weight loss example I just used is an easy way to understand the importance of setting daily goals. The problem with long-term goals like “lose 100 pounds” is that they can push you to make extreme changes all at once.
Here’s the hard truth: Huge changes that don’t fundamentally shift the way you do the small stuff in life will never work. It’s exactly why fad diets and quick fixes are so rarely successful, and why so many of us can’t stick to our New Year’s resolutions.
Daily goals allow you to form sustainable new habits. They allow you to build the momentum you need to work your way towards that big life goal.
How to Set Daily Goals
The whole point of setting daily goals is to make changing your life as easy as possible. The tips I’m about to share will help you set effective and meaningful daily goals, but you really only need to keep these two things in mind:
- Keep it simple. Don’t overcomplicate this process. Find what works for you, and stick with it.
- Write your goals down. Unwritten plans are better described as hopes and dreams. Make a habit to write down your goals for the day in a place where you’ll see them.
1. Break Down Long-Term Goals
It should be pretty obvious by now that daily goals should relate to your big life goals. So start by thinking about the daily habits you would have if you were to achieve your goals, and start implementing the simplest ones.
Let’s return to the weight loss example to see this in action. A person who has successfully lost 100 pounds may do a few of these things every day…
- Exercise for a certain amount of time.
- Drink water instead of soda.
- Take the stairs instead of the elevator.
- Bring homemade lunches to work instead of eating out.
If you are just starting your weight-loss journey, you may want to break down these goals even more. You might set a goal to simply move your body for 10 minutes a day. This could look like going on a walk, dancing, or doing a traditional workout. Once you consistently achieve that goal for a few weeks or months, you can then re-evaluate and find new ways to challenge yourself.
2. Ask Yourself “What Would Make Today Great?”
I mentioned earlier in this article that it’s important to set goals you feel an emotional connection to. This is because research shows that you are much more likely to achieve a goal that excites you than one you feel neutral about.
So when setting goals for the day, try to include at least one that answers the question “what would make today great?”
Answering this question ensures you set out to do something that makes you happy each day. This will help create the positive momentum you’ll need to achieve more challenging goals. It also ensures that your goals are things you actually care about, and are tied to your personal version of a happy and healthy life.
My version of a successful life is one where I spend as little time as possible doing things I don’t like. Asking myself this question each day helps me keep myself on the path that will bring me the most joy and fulfillment.
3. Keep Track of Your Progress & Reward Yourself
One of the main benefits of setting daily goals is that they give you easy ways to track your progress.
There are plenty of ways to keep track of your goals. You could download a habit-tracking app or use a spreadsheet to mark off which goals you did and didn’t achieve if it helps you. But remember, simple is usually best.
By just looking back at your list of goals at the end of the day, you can take a moment to reward yourself for a job well done. Or, you can pause to re-evaluate what you may need to do differently the next day.
A key thing to keep in mind while goal tracking is that daily goals are about progress, not perfection. Know that most people don’t achieve every single daily goal they set for themselves — and that is OK! Cut yourself some slack, reward yourself when you can, and always stay positive. Remember that tomorrow is a fresh chance at achieving your goals.
Daily Goal Examples
Now you know the why and the how of setting daily goals. But if you still aren’t sure what makes for a good daily goal, this list of 14 daily goal examples should be a good place to start.
Use this list as a jumping-off point to select two or three goals to tackle each day. You can scale your number of daily goals up as you get into the swing of things, but there’s no need to be overly ambitious out of the gate.
1. Tackle Your Most Important Task (MIT)
This is the task that you’ve been putting off. The one that you can’t stop thinking about, but never actually get around to doing. Take 10 minutes to fold your laundry, pay that bill, or schedule a doctor’s appointment first thing in the morning.
2. Move Your Body
Simply committing to move your body for a certain amount of time each day is a great way to build a positive relationship with fitness. Moving your body each day could look like…
- Going on a short walk around your neighborhood.
- Joining in a game of tag with your kids.
- Dancing.
- Stretching.
- Playing a sport.
- Going to a fitness class.
If you already exercise regularly, you could step this goal up to be slightly more challenging or commit to doing a more traditional workout each day.
3. Read for 30 Minutes
Studies show that reading for 30 minutes per day can help reduce blood pressure and ease feelings of stress.
Personally, I commit to reading for 30 minutes to an hour each day. This works better for me than trying to read a certain number of pages, because I can count reading almost anything as achieving this goal. It doesn’t just have to be books!
4. Spend Time Learning Something New
In addition to reading every day, I also make it one of my daily goals to spend time consuming information that teaches me something new. I like to do this by watching/listening to podcasts, but you could also commit to spending 15 minutes a day using an app like DuoLingo to learn a new language or following along with a YouTube tutorial of some kind. It’s an excellent way to re-ignite your curiosity and keep your brain engaged.
5. Spend Time with People You Love
The people we spend time with each day have a huge impact on our overall satisfaction with life. If you find yourself feeling unfulfilled, commit to spending time interacting with people who light you up, make you laugh, and who understand you.
6. Eat Food that Makes You Feel Good
Most people are quick to set daily goals like “eat less than 2,000 calories.” This may be a good goal to set if you are hoping to lose weight, but it’s missing the positive emotional connection that makes goals easy to stick to.
Instead of counting calories, try creating a daily goal to only eat food that makes you feel good. This may lead you to naturally avoid highly processed or high-calorie foods if you notice they make you feel sluggish or even sad after eating them. Shifting your relationship with food into a healthier place will likely help you achieve your weight loss goal in a way that is much more sustainable in the long term.
7. Drink More Water than Anything Else
Simply drinking enough water each day is one of the easiest ways to dramatically improve your wellbeing. So start by committing to drinking more water than any other type of beverage. This could look like swapping out your third cup of coffee or afternoon soda for a glass of water.
You could also commit to drinking a certain amount of water each day. A good rule of thumb is to aim to drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water each day (otherwise known as the 8x8 rule).
8. Limit Screen Time
One of the best ways to unlock an extra hour or two in your day is by putting a stop to endless scrolling. Start by committing to cutting your average daily screen time down by 25%, and continue to work your way down to a more reasonable level from there.
9. Do Something You Enjoy, Just for the Fun of It
If you’re looking to up the joy factor in your life, commit to finding time to do what makes you happy. Ask yourself, “what would make today great?” and then spend time actually doing those activities. This could take as little as 5 minutes, and is a great way to spend the time you’ve freed up by making limiting screen time one of your daily goals!
10. Get Outside
Spending time outside is proven to have huge mental and physical health benefits, as it is one of the best ways to get vitamin D. Studies show that not getting enough vitamin D, can lead to an increased probability of suffering from conditions like depression, fatigue, heart disease, and even some types of cancer.
Commit to going on a daily walk around the block, or spending your lunch break sitting outside away from your desk.
11. Get Out of Bed With Your First Alarm
Are your mornings constantly rushed because you snooze your alarm again and again? If so, a great daily goal may be to commit to getting out of bed the first time your alarm goes off. This will make for a calmer start to your day. It will also help you find a bit of time to put towards achieving some of your daily goals right off the bat (such as tackling your most important task!).
12. Notice (and Break!) Negative Thought Patterns
A key step in making major life changes is to notice the negative thought patterns that hold you back from achieving your goals. These thoughts are often deeply rooted in stories we’ve been told by our families, friends, and the media about who we are and what type of life is available to us. But you have the power to choose a different path for yourself by simply deciding not to act on negative thoughts.
Commit to replacing your most common negative thoughts with something more positive. Here are a few examples of how to transform negative thoughts into something positive:
- “I can never be fit” becomes “I am committed to making healthy choices every day.”
- “I am not good enough” becomes “I deserve all of the positive things in my life.”
- “I will never get out of debt” becomes “New opportunities to pay off my debt are all around me.”
13. Reset Your Home Before Bed
If you feel like keeping your space clean is overwhelming, setting a goal to spend 10 to 30 minutes tidying each day is a great way to create a space that feels safe and comfortable. Focus on doing tasks that make your home work in the way you need it to. This might look like ensuring your sink is free of dishes at the end of each day or that your clothes are organized in a way that makes getting dressed in the morning as easy as possible.
14. Save a Certain Amount of Money
Getting out of debt, buying a home, and becoming financially free are some of the most common life goals. If your goals involve making major financial changes, it pays (literally!) to start small with a daily goal like “commit to saving $10 each day.”
This might look like skipping your morning coffee run or you could set up an automatic daily transfer from one account to another. The key here is finding an amount and a cadence that feels comfortable to you — and that will help you make a dent in your long-term goals.
Final Thoughts
Setting daily goals is a powerful way to build a life that you love, and is one of the keys to unlocking success. The ideas I’ve provided here are meant to help get you started. Remember that the best, most effective goals will be the ones that both challenge you and work for you. So don’t be afraid to give things a try and switch things up when you need to. Let me know what works for you in the comments below!
You can explore other powerful — and simple! — ways to change your life by checking out my book, Life Hacks: Simple Steps to a Healthier Life.
If you liked this article, please consider giving it a clap and following @wellnessmadeeasy on Medium for more simple ways to improve your life.
