How to Write Goals: A Practical Guide

Ready to accomplish your goals? Here's a step-by-step process that shows you how.

I love goal-setting. But some Christians don’t. I can see why: goal-setting can be crippling for some personalities. If goal-setting is overwhelming, it’s not because of the goals itself, but because of how they’re written.

Working hard toward God-approved goals increases my happiness and overall quality of life. I can’t explain it, but I’m sure there’s science behind it. I know from experience that setting goals gets me out of my comfort zone, gives me direction in life, and usually leads to more productivity.

To help you accomplish your goals for the new year, I’ll give you my step-by-step goal-setting process.

Challenge: Write at least 3-5 goals using the steps below. 

How to Write Goals: A Practical Guide

1. Start with prayer.

When James tells us to ask for wisdom, the immediate literary context is suffering (James 1:5). But another application is to pray for wisdom in life’s decisions, such as goal-setting. Spend time with God before making your goals, asking for his guidance; spend time with God after making your goals, asking for his blessing. It honors the Lord when you acknowledge him first in prayer before setting goals.

2. Cultivate the right mindset.

If you think setting goals is only for secular people, you’ll never be serious about goals. If you think having goals in ministry is wrong because, after all, God is sovereign over all things, then you won’t seriously consider ways to set goals for your church. If you struggle with low self-worth, you might feel like an unworthy candidate to push yourself to accomplish something great. Either way, your mindset is key. You need to believe God can help you, that goals are a great tool for success, and that you can accomplish your goals. Mindset is crucial.

3. Use pen and paper ― at first.

I encourage you to write your goals down on paper, perhaps in a journal, before writing them in an app (such as Evernote or Notion). I know that’s an extra step, and good productivity advice avoids extra steps when necessary. But in this case, there’s something powerful about writing down your goals on paper. You don’t need a fancy pen or an expensive notebook. Don’t overcomplicate this. Any pen and paper will work just fine.

4. Dedicate 1-2 hours at a scenic place.

I live in Northeast Florida. The beach is just around 10 minutes away from my house. You might live near mountains or a nice lake or you might like being out in the woods. While you don’t need to be dramatic and book a vacation to your favorite getaway, there is something powerful about being out in God’s creation as you write God-glorifying goals in God’s fallen world. Being in a scenic place as you write your goals makes the experience of writing goals more enjoyable. It also sparks creativity.

5. Select your areas.

In his article on New Year’s Resolutions, Tim Challies suggests seven areas: family, devotion, character, vocation, time, relationships, and church.

In his book on goal-setting, Michael Hyatt recommends 10 areas:

Spiritual: Your connection to God.
Intellectual: Your engagement with significant ideas.
Emotional: Your psychological health.
Physical: Your bodily health.
Marital: Your spouse or significant other.
Parental: Your children if you have any.
Social: Your friends and associates.
Vocational: Your profession.
Avocational: Your hobbies and pastimes.
Financial: Your personal or family finances.

Important: a goal is not required for every area. The lists above are suggestive, not exhaustive.

Many people only pick one or two areas, but that might be selling yourself short. Setting 3-5 goals is a sweet spot for most people, but others might choose to do more.

How do you know which areas to select? Consider the things you want to accomplish and the poor habits you want to stop doing. You might want to save $20k for a house, have a quiet time every morning, and run a 5k (things you want to accomplish). Or you might want to cease your social media addiction, stop unnecessary Google searching, and stop going to bed so late (things you want to stop doing). What good habits do you want to cultivate? Which poor ones need to go? Make goals around those things.

6. Write down your goals using the SMARTER framework.

Michael Hyatt writes: “Writing down your goals makes you 42% more likely to achieve them, according to a study from Dr. Gail Matthews at Dominican University.”

Don’t just think about your goals or ponder them. Write them down.

Putting pen to paper is one small step to seeing how your life can change.

Although SMART goals are a popular framework for setting goals, Hyatt adds “er” at the end to make it SMARTER:

S: Specific
M: Measurable
A: Actionable
R: Risky
T: Time-keyed
E: Exciting
R: Relevant

Read below to see examples of goals using the SMARTER framework.

As you write your goals, don’t worry about making them perfect. The next couple of days after writing down your goals, your brain will continue to work, and you might slightly tweak your goals. Perfectly fine. Don’t put pressure on yourself to write perfect goals the first time.

7. Know what well-written goals look like using the SMARTER framework.

Some examples:

Bible Reading

Bad: Read the Bible more.

Good: To read the entire Bible by December 31st.

Prayer

Bad: To pray more.

Good: To spend 30 minutes praying every morning with prepared index cards in my living room.

Fitness

Bad: Run more.

Good: Run 3-5 miles on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 7:00 am.

Hospitality

Bad: Be more intentional about inviting people to our house after church.

Good: Schedule a time to have one family over for lunch after church every month for the first six months of the year.

Writing

Bad: Write more often.

Good: Post one new article on Substack every Tuesday by 9:00 am.

Sermon

Bad: Finish my sermon earlier in the week.

Good: Finish and complete the sermon by Thursday at 4:30 pm.

These examples should spark ideas about what goals you’d like to set for 2025.

8. Write down all the next steps.

To accomplish your goals, you need to know the tasks and habits required to accomplish them. For example, suppose you want to post a new article on your blog each week. In that case, you need to write most mornings (habits), follow through on doing the writing (productivity), put it in on your schedule (calendar), and develop the self-discipline (character) to continue to write even when no one is reading. Habits, goals, productivity, and character are interconnected.

As you think about your goals, write down all the next steps required to accomplish them.

If you want to post a new article every week, you may need to:

• Buy a new laptop.

• Communicate with your wife that you’ll be writing more frequently, and why this is important to you.

• Figure out when you can write, and block out time for writing in your schedule.

• Read voraciously on your desired writing topics, since you won’t have much to write if you don’t read about it.

• Exhibit the self-control and self-discipline to follow through on writing.

• Edit the article.

• Post the article.

And so on. There is more to accomplishing a goal than people realize.

One of the reasons we fail in our goals is that we don’t think through all the steps required to accomplish them. By pausing to create a list of all the next steps required, and to schedule a time to complete those next steps, you’ll empower yourself to accomplish your own goals.

9. Regularly review your goals ― either daily or monthly.

Now that you’ve written your goals, you need a system to regularly review them. This is when you can transfer your goals to your preferred app or print them somewhere and keep them close by. You can either review your goals daily or weekly. But you don’t want to let seven days go by without viewing them.

Regularly reviewing your goals keeps you accountable. It inspires you to get moving. When you review your goals and don’t feel motivated to take action, you probably didn’t write challenging enough goals. Re-write them and make them more difficult. You don’t want to write unrealistic goals, but you also don’t want your goal to be so simple to accomplish that you don’t feel challenged.

I challenge you to write 3-5 goals for 2025. Use the steps above, and by God’s grace, you might find yourself happier and more productive.