How to set weekly goals.
This is a fantastic question—and it speaks to a crucial tenet of goal-setting theory.
Every year is comprised of 52 weeks. This means that when you set long-term yearly goals, you can break them down into 52 individual short-term blocks.
Then, you can customize each specific one of those blocks to help you reach your overarching goal.
And this is exactly what weekly goals are.
Personally, I’m a huge fan of setting weekly goals for specifically this reason.
A week gives you exactly 7x more time than a day gives you.
Therefore, you can get a lot more accomplished in a week than in a day.
A week gives you plenty of time to see actual progress on the things you care about.
And the fact that there are four weeks in a month means that you can also set up your weekly goals to help you reach monthly milestones.
So here’s the big question:
How do you set weekly goals to give yourself your very best odds for success?
This is a great question.
And in this post, we’re going to dive deep into it and give you everything you need to know.
Let’s get started.
4 Steps – How to Set Weekly Goals
1. Figure Out What You Want to Achieve
Setting weekly goals could mean that you’re going to:
- Set a goal for the week and break it down into daily tasks.
- Or, set yourself up with tasks that are going to take place on a weekly basis.
So for example, you may have a workout routine that you’re going to break down and perform every day.
Or, you may choose to take a class once per week, and make that a weekly goal until you finish the class.
In any case, it’s important to identify what you’re trying to achieve with the goal.
Ask yourself:
What would success look like for you?
This is an important thing to clarify because it helps you to figure out why you’re setting the goal to begin with.
It also sets you up for your best possible odds for success by helping you to understand how you can use the goal to achieve the outcome you desire.
For best results, get really specific with this.
The more specific you can get, the better off you’ll be in visualizing the outcome and then pursuing it in a strategic and focused manner.
To get a bit more clarification on this step, consider checking out this guide: 13 Tips For Planning For A Successful Future.
2. Write Down the Weekly Goals You’d Like to Meet
This is a crucial step on the path to learning how to set weekly goals.
Let’s go through a few of the most important things to keep in mind.
Writing Down Your Goal Is Extremely Important
Science tells us that people who write down their goals are much more likely to succeed at them than people who keep them ‘hidden away’ within their mind.
This is a powerful step on the road to success.
If you want to achieve a goal, it’s in your best interest to write it down not just once, but every single day.
This helps to keep you focused and motivated on the path to achievement.
Consider Using a Goal Planner
There are many different types of goal planners available to help you to set weekly goals.
Personally, I would recommend either the Self Journal or the Full Focus Planner.
However, there are many other options that you could choose from as well.
You could also choose to use a goal-setting sheet, or even a blank notebook or bullet journal.
If you’d like to try a goal setting sheet before investing in a planner, you can download my weekly goal-setting sheet, print out a few, and give it a try.
You can also sign up for my email list to get a free copy of my Goal Setting Essentials Starter Kit, which comes with 3 additional printable sheets and 2 free ebooks.
If you’re interested in using just a notebook, you can check out this handy guide: How To Organize Your Life With A Notebook – In 12 Steps.
I always say that where you choose to write your goals isn’t nearly as important as the act of just writing them down.
So regardless of whether you’re using a notebook, a goal planner, a goal-setting sheet, a journal, or even the back of a napkin…
Just write those goals down every day.
This is where the real magic happens.
Write Down Each Goal as a Smart Goal
The quicker you learn to write your goals as SMART goals, the better off you’ll be.
SMART goals basically help you to channel all of the most important principles of goal-setting theory into your everyday goal-setting practice.
When you set a SMART goal, you’re basically setting a goal that is:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- And time-bound
3. Break Each One of Those Goals Down into Daily Tasks
If your weekly goal is going to consist of daily tasks that you’re going to perform every day on a weekly basis, then you’ll want to break your weekly goals down into achievable milestones that will facilitate the accomplishment of the larger goal.
For example, if your weekly goal is to write seven pages for your new book—then you could easily break this weekly goal down into daily tasks by assigning yourself a daily goal of writing one page per day.
You would probably agree that writing one page per day is certainly more achievable than writing seven pages per day (at least, it is for most people).
And so, this gives us insight into how goals, when properly set, can really help us to accomplish larger tasks in a more strategic fashion.
Don’t Overload Yourself
One of the big mistakes that overachievers make is that they tend to load themselves up with goals that are simply too ambitious to be realistic.
You only have so much time and energy every day.
So if in doubt, always make sure that your goals are falling on the ‘easier’ side of achievable.
With that being said, it’s also important to make your goals challenging.
So if a goal ends up being too easy, you can always crank up the difficulty just a little bit.
Ambitious goals are good for you.
However, if you set unachievable goals, you’re basically going to set yourself up for failure.
That’s not fair to you, and it won’t empower you to make meaningful progress toward success in the long term.
4. Stick With Your Daily Tasks and Check Them off Your List as You Get Them Accomplished
As you accomplish your weekly goals, it’s really important that you refer back to your planner, to-do list, or wherever you wrote them down and check them off as you complete them.
This will fill your brain with positive reward chemicals that’ll make you feel awesome for successfully completing the goal.
This is incredibly motivating—and will help you keep your head in the game for the long term.
FAQs
How do you write weekly goals?
The best way to write weekly goals is in a SMART goal format.
In other words, you want each goal to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
This is by far the most powerful way to write your goals to facilitate greater odds for success.
How do you set weekly and daily goals?
One of the best ways to accomplish larger weekly goals is to break them down into daily tasks.
Therefore, you could say that your daily tasks should consist of weekly goals that have been broken down into smaller, more achievable portions.
By the same logic, your weekly goals should also consist of monthly goals that have been broken down into weekly portions—and your monthly goals should consist of yearly goals that have been broken down into monthly portions.
This gives some insight into the truly incredible power of goal setting and what it can help you to achieve in the long term.
How many weekly goals should I set?
Very best goal regimen is one that delicately balances the line between challenging and achievable.
You want to make sure that you set yourself up for success by writing down achievable weekly goals.
However, it’s also important that you push yourself by making those goals ambitious.
If you don’t push yourself and challenge yourself, you may make some progress—but you won’t make near as much as you could have made had you challenged yourself just a little bit more.
When you find the perfect balance between these two principles, you’ll know exactly how many goals to set for yourself—and how much you’re capable of achieving at peak efficiency.
In Conclusion
Hopefully, this post has given you some useful information that’ll help you with learning how to set weekly goals—and how this can help you in your goal-setting and life-success journey.
Of course, at the end of the day, this is just another part of the larger, overarching process of turning your dreams into goals, and writing those goals down to create a roadmap for success in your life.
This is how you begin your journey to success and crush it.
You’ve got this. I believe in you.
Now it’s time to get to work.
Best wishes…
Jay O’Donnell