75 Personal Development Goals & Ideas for 2021
When it comes to personal development goals, there’s no such thing as a bad idea. Just the fact that you’re creating personal development goals is a great sign. While it is true that most personal development efforts fail, they’ll fail even faster if you don’t have an end in sight.
To help you on the way to a better “you” at work, home, and life in general — we’ve put together a list of over 75 personal development goals and ideas for 2021.
Personal Development Goals for Work
Whether you’re leading a team, leading up, or just leading yourself at work — setting goals is crucial for success. Setting a target creates a unified vision for what the future should look like. It doesn’t mean success is inevitable, it just makes it more likely.
- Show up to work 10 minutes early every day
- Commit to creating and sending an agenda for every meeting you lead
- Build relationships across different departments
- Onboard/Train new employees with an agenda you design
- Build Employee Handbooks
- Create Process 1-Sheets for Your Team
- Design reporting dashboards
- Define KPIs for a campaign or project
- Develop a non-fiction book reading plan
- Work on your public speaking skills in an online course
- Shape up your presentation skills and learn some new tips & tricks
- Develop a healthier work-life balance
- Evaluate your weaknesses and work on offsetting them
- Write down your top strengths and double down in those areas
- Schedule an offsite and complete some quarterly planning
- Print out the next few months of the calendar and discuss the next major initiatives
- Perform a communications audit and ensure all of your communication is as it should be
- Fight your passivity and start pushing yourself in this area
- Grow your network and discuss your projects with others in your sector
- Use a free pomodoro timer to utilize your time more effectively
- Enroll in an online business course or leadership training
- Learn about SMART goals and make them for your team
- Learn about OKRs and begin utilizing them in your projects
- Seek 360-degree feedback on your leadership
- Download a reflective journal app and mood tracker
Personal Development Goals for Your Family & Relationships
Personal development goals and self-improvement may seem like an obvious fit for the office, but setting goals for your family is just as important. You may not have grown up with a written set of family values, a specific vision for the future, or non-negotiable meetings — but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start now. The personal development goals written below are just ideas to get you started, but you know your family and significant other the best. The most important thing is your heart and intentions behind setting these goals.
- Build a family vision book
- Create a set of family values
- Plan out the next 3 date nights with your significant other
- Send an encouraging text daily to someone you love
- Make time for 1:1 moments with each of your children
- Plan your vacations for the rest of the year
- Schedule a weekly family meeting or marriage meeting
- Start a game of “sticky note encouragement” where you hide sticky notes for each your family members
- Plan 1-2 family theme nights (taco night, pirate accent night, etc.) per week
- Make a 5-year plan for your family covering financial, professional, and relational goals
- Read the 5 Love Languages Book and learn more about your spouse or kids
- Take an Enneagram quiz and learn the tendencies of your number
- Develop a family budget and review it weekly
- Start planning weekly “family fun days”
- Incorporate some intentional questions in your next date night
- Buy a nice notebook and begin writing notes to your children for when they grow up
- Schedule an annual review & vision family meeting
- Begin planning out your meals and needs before your week gets started
- Use your commute to call friends and family to catch up rather than listening to the radio
- Make a list of anyone you need to apologize to or forgive
- Make a prayer list and include any family members on it that need your support
- Create a list of all of your family’s favorite snacks, foods, meals, etc. so you know exactly how you can surprise them best
- Perform a quarterly review for your family making adjustments as necessary
- Create a family vision board and put up images and words that represent your dream
Personal Development Goals for Life
Nothing is worse than going through life aimlessly. If you want success this year, you need to get clear on how you want to grow as a person. Realistically, you’re not going to level up every area of your life in a single year. But the key is to get started now. Pick 2-3 from the list below and try them out for 6 months. Strive for consistency and resiliency, not perfection.
- Purchase a habit journal and track your daily habits
- Read 50 books in 1 year
- Listen to 1 personal growth podcast per week
- Exercise for 30 min every day
- Begin counting your daily calories
- Drink 4 bottles of water per day
- Start a new hobby
- Attend a virtual or in-person meet up with people who share a passion you have
- Download a meditation app and start meditating
- Enroll in an online productivity course
- Read Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz and take good notes
- Find a personal development mentor
- Begin blogging or vlogging your goals
- Commit to running or walking 1 mile every day
- Sign off of social media for 30 days
- Quit caffeine or coffee for 30 days
- Track your sleep and shoot for at least 7-8 hours per night
- Begin a daily gratitude journal
- Cut 1 unhealthy food every month of the year
- Try getting rid of all liquid calories and make water your drink of choice
- Write a daily affirmation and recite it before you start your day
- Set your alarm one hour earlier than usual and use the time to journal, read, pray, etc.
- Create a set of elastic habits with varying levels of attainable success depending on how your day goes (e.g., 5 pushups on a hard day vs. 50 pushups on an easy day)
- Cancel your TV and use the time to read instead
- Get an Audible subscription (*Get up to 2 free audiobooks with this link) and listen to personal development books on your commute
Don’t leave this article without reading this part…
You obviously have plenty of personal development goals to choose from now, but the key is to put them into action. Consider purchasing a habit tracker or a reflection journal — or perhaps even download an app to get the job done. Whatever you do, don’t leave this article without first considering how you’re going to make these personal development goals and ideas a reality.
You got this! We’re rooting for you here at Learn Stash.
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