If you had to select 8 areas of life to set impactful goals for the new year, which areas would you choose?
Imagine your life as eight different pots of soil that need to be replenished with water every day to thrive. What if those pots symbolized the 8 areas of life that require nourishment for personal growth and development?
Your life should be run like a blooming business so treat it that way.
As human beings, we should never be stagnant but forever evolving.
Identifying areas of life to set goals regularly is important. Our self-discovery journey never ends.
Even in adulthood, we should always be seeking areas to improve in life.
Which 8 areas of life are of value to you?
When it comes to personal development, what’s important to me may not be important to you.
There are various areas of life that you can focus on for personal growth at the start of a new year.
In this article, I’ll be sharing the common 8 areas of life people focus on to set impactful goals, monitor personal growth, and daily improvements.
What are the 8 areas of your life?
Physical Health
Treat your body like a temple.
We should be conscious of the things we consume for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and substitute the nutrients and vitamins we don’t get from our food with supplements.
A healthy diet impacts our physical health significantly. There are numerous ways we can improve our diets and prepare food in healthier ways.
Don’t wait until the start of the year to better your physical health. Get your bum off the couch and move now goal-friend!
Our bodies weren’t built to sit in the same position for hours on end.
We need to move throughout the day to keep our hearts pumping and blood flowing.
No, you don’t have to do a few laps around the block for adequate exercise.
This is one of the 8 areas of life you can curate to your liking and level every single year.
There are various forms of exercise you can incorporate into your routine that fit your lifestyles, such as aerobics, cardio, swimming, yoga, Pilates, Zumba, sports, or ballet.
Or you can keep things simple with a 30-45 minute walk per day.
If you’d like to feel better, need to lose a few pounds, or live longer, physical health is an area of life that’s well worth the investment.
Career
We’re on Earth for a limited time so why not make the best of it and do what you genuinely enjoy?
The top of the year should be used to recalibrate where you want to be career-wise.
You don’t have to have everything figured out since your career choices will change over time.
Yes, it’s perfectly okay to be a teacher right out of college and a doctor by the time you’re ready to retire.
This, my friends, is the result of intellectual and personal growth. Some people hold various occupations in their lifetime because their interests naturally change or they outgrow certain environments.
Others leave their professional roles to start their own business after acquiring new skills or simply following their dreams.
If you have a choice to make money from different things, why not go for it?
Put your existing talent and skills to work.
I’d rather do something that’s much more fun and exciting than wake up and go to a job that bores the heck out of me because it’s safe and pays well.
Be spontaneous and intentional when setting goals for the new year.
Does your job make you feel happy or do you feel discouraged clocking in every morning?
If it’s the latter then maybe a career transition should be made a part of your new year goals.
A career is one of 8 areas of life most people hyper-focus on the most just to be disappointed in the end.
You need to be strategic when selecting career interests, college majors, and job positions when you’re building a career.
The last thing you want is to invest time and money in an occupation that is difficult to pivot away from.
Keep your options open, remain flexible when opportunities come your way in the new year, and never stop progressing personally and professionally.
Your career interests may change quite a few times before you find your landing.
We’re multi-dimensional beings with a purpose to fulfill at every stage of life, so, embrace it.
Social
Have you ever heard of the saying, “you’re the company that you keep?”
Well, I never heard a truer statement in my life.
While some people are fortunate enough to keep friends around for decades, some who’ve known their besties since they were in diapers, it’s just not common for most.
On average, friend groups change every 7 years. Sounds insane right?
I didn’t believe it after either but it’s normal.
As social creatures we accumulate friends from the environments we frequent often.
Some of those places include, but aren’t limited to, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, volunteer communities, and extracurricular activities.
Humans tend to befriend the people they are in proximity to, which means you need to be selective with your social environments.
Would you like to find a new social group next year? It’s never too late to upgrade your circle.
Picking the wrong friend group or crowd to hang around can cause significant delays in your personal, financial, and professional growth.
It’s perfectly fine to keep in touch and nurture old friendships when you’re in alignment and are on similar tracks in life.
When there’s a friend who is ambitious and the other is complacent, there have to be other aspects of the friendship that serve you both.
Friends don’t always have to be on the same career path or life trajectory, but they do need to be positive and supportive of each other’s goals.
More often than not, people outgrow one another. This applies to relationships too.
Fostering friendships and relationships is one of the top 8 areas of life that need ongoing work.
The people we associate with have the most influence and impact on how far we go in life and the ability we have to reach our full potential.
A stress-free no toxicity friend zone is a must for personal development. Yearly friend audits are helpful too. Use the month of January to evaluate which personal connections have run their course.
This includes assessing the type of friend you are to others and the type of people you’d like to surround yourself with.
Determine the value your friends, family, and partners bring to your life and what value and areas of their life you impact the most.
Spirituality
Spirituality is an area of life that focuses on our core belief system.
It’s the guiding light and principles we believe in, value, and live by in the real world.
We have the freedom to choose the religious foundation we stand on and are responsible for adhering to a moral code.
Unfortunately, it’s one of the 8 areas of life, people don’t invest as much time.
Meditation and prayer connect us to a higher power and spiritual realm outside of our own.
All too often we allow life to get in the way of forming a much deeper connection with our souls.
Taking care of the physical body is great, but loving the very thing that will move on to the afterlife while we are down here is important as well.
I’m an advocate for ‘checking in’ and doing self-work consistently.
How else will you know if you’re in alignment with your soul?
Try asking yourself a few reflection questions at the end of each day:
- Were you present in your interactions with others?
- In what ways did you bring love and light to the world?
- Did you show up as your best self today?
- How are you inciting a change in your community and those around you?
- What behaviors and habits do you need to practice to become a better person?
Manifest what you want out of life by putting it out into the world in the new year.
Write and repeat affirmations aloud daily.
Use weekly reflective questions to track your goals.
Make an effort to give back to others by lending a helping hand or being a resource to family and friends.
These are some of the steps you can take to feed your soul.
Personal Development
Personal development can be applied to any of the 8 areas of life but can also stand on its own.
Some people don’t believe in personal development and it’s reflected in their poor character, lifestyle, health, finances, and relationships as well.
We all know someone who refuses to do inner work. They are content with who they are no matter how much room for growth they have.
Personal development is an area of life they have willfully neglected, and because of this, they see no change or improvement in their lives.
People like this are usually fine with surviving instead of thriving and tend to make the same mistakes over and over again.
There’s no trajectory in their career goals or earning potential, and their relationships and friendships are either non-existent or change excessively.
We should collectively be working towards maturity and healing from past traumas in the new year.
Unfortunately, personal growth can’t take place if a proper self-assessment of the 8 areas of life isn’t conducted on a recurrent basis.
What areas of your life require improvement?
Mental Health
Therapy is a buzzword now and it will continue to normalize in 2023.
We hear and see the word quite often because the stigma behind therapy no longer exists for men and women.
Having a therapist is seen as cool and applauded by people who engage in self-care.
Out of the 8 areas of life, maintaining a healthy state of mind is sort of a big deal.
When our minds are clear and not filled with unnecessary clutter we make better choices.
Decision-making comes easier and we can pursue our goals without distractions.
Mental health should always be a priority as it’s the first barrier to stress and wards off depression.
To nourish this area of life, develop a list of activities that stimulate your mind, promote peace, and allow you to rest.
Intellectual
The final 8 areas of life to focus on for personal growth and setting intentional goals is education.
If you’re not striving to be a lifelong learner then be prepared to be left behind.
Technology has become so advanced that we’re now entering an era where jobs are being eliminated by AI permanently, virtual reality is infiltrating our homes, and life, in general, is unpredictable.
An apocalypse wouldn’t be much of a surprise to me at this point, to say the least.
But let us not jinx ourselves for 2023.
You’re probably wondering what any of this has to do with improving the intellectual area of your life in the upcoming year.
Educating yourself on current events and the community you live in is crucial to staying ahead.
Sure, keeping your head in the clouds is a tactic to stay worry-free, but that will no longer work.
Checking the news or social media outlets to stay up to date on what’s coming down the pipeline is a great way to stay informed even if it’s only a few times a week.
Also, staying abreast of what skills are a commodity will keep you marketable in the workforce.
As long as school or taking professional courses after graduation isn’t a financial risk or burden, make it a goal to learn something new each year or pursue a certification in a different field.
There will never be a limit to learning. As long as there’s an internet and an infinite number of books to consume we will all thrive intellectually.
Overall, the ultimate goal is to be a better human being at each phase of your life.
Cheers to personal growth in the new year!
How do you set goals in each area of your life?
First, identify your personal goals and determine how they will fit into your 5-year plan.
What areas of your life will take more time to improve? What’s your overall vision?
Short and long-term new year goals will come in handy depending on what milestones you plan to reach.
Refer to the 8 areas of life and consider how much work and changes you need to make in your lifestyle to set realistic goals.
Create and develop macro and micro goals for the areas of life you’d like to improve.
To avoid overwhelm, limit yourself to one or two new year goals per quarter.
You can also select three areas of life that you can make an impact next year, such as health, social, and finance to see a quick return.
If you need more ideas on how to implement a lifestyle change, try a one month challenge. Download the 31 Day Simple Living Challenge now available in the FREE RESOURCE LIBRARY!
I teach entrepreneurs how to simplify their life and business with less + own their time and maximize productivity towards their personal and monetary goals.
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