Setting goals is very important.
Of more importance is to set monthly goals from your long-term goals.
Monthly goals help you stay focused and let you know which particular checklist you should be marking as completed after the month is over.
What you'll learn
Why the monthly goal planner?
Let’s say you’ve read this comprehensive post on how to set monthly goals properly, and you’ve set those goals, are you acting on those monthly goals?
As I always say, setting goals is quite easy. Everybody does it!
But achieving the goals you set is an entirely new question that society needs to look at and find answers to.
A lot of people set goals, a lot of people set New Year’s Resolutions every year and they mostly abandon these goals for some reason or the other.
If you are familiar with any of my work on goal-setting, it won’t take you long to figure out that I take my posts and materials beyond just setting goals.
I try my best to look for ways to increase the odds of you achieving any goal that you set.
Hence, the monthly goal planner I’m giving you for free.
Here are the reasons why you’ll need a monthly goal planner to accompany your monthly goals:
So as to increase the chances of you achieving your yearly and monthly goals
At the Dominican University, researchers took 267 participants who were all asked to set goals and divided them into 5 groups.
One of these groups were instructed to write their goals down physically with a pen and paper.
Another group were asked to write the goals down, but not stop at that. They were also asked to draw a plan of action to achieve that goal, and also track their progress and send reports to a friend to create accountability.
Overall, the groups that wrote down their goals accomplished significantly more than those who didn’t write down their goals.
Writing down goals is powerful. The act of physically writing down your goals creates neural pathways in the brain for that goal.
Not only that, using pen and paper to take notes and write boosts memory and the ability to retain and understand concepts.
The truth of the matter is this; if you have your goals just floating around in your brain, the goals are nothing but just fussy images in your head.
But the act of putting the goals down on paper makes the goals concrete and solid. It also makes the fussy images very clear.
A clearer picture of what you want to achieve will help your brain to easily map a route to achieve what you want.
And by writing down your goals, you are highly likely to write out the plans to achieve the goals.
This has been shown by experts and researchers to improve the chances of achieving your goals drastically.
With a good planning template for your goals like the one provided in the monthly goal planner, you are guaranteed to have every aspect covered.
This leads us to the next benefit of writing down your goals in the monthly goal planner.
It ensures that nothing falls off your radar, or your brain
Human beings are really really forgetful by nature.
Our forgetfulness can range from forgetting to take out the trash to forgetting important appointments.
Our forgetfulness doesn’t stop there though. We can actually fail to achieve our yearly and monthly goals simply because we completely forgot about them.
This happens to the best of us.
But the intelligent ones write their goals down.
So, writing down your goals in the planner ensures that you actually remember to act on your goals.
Because the monthly planner is also equipped with daily tasks planners, you have the ability to really zoom in on your monthly goals by breaking them into daily tasks.
As you carry around the portable planner around for the day, it serves as a constant reminder of the things you’ve promised yourself that you’ll do for the day and month.
The monthly goal planner makes your entire life more organized
It is easy to get caught up in the wave of life.
Where you just keep going where the wind and water take you. And at the end of the day, you’re left with a giant mess of a day. Where you don’t know which task to do first.
An un-organized day costs you time, effort, and other resources which you could have otherwise productively spent elsewhere.
The monthly goal planner helps you to de-clutter your brain, your mind, your day, and your entire life.
But by utilizing the monthly goal planner, you are able to keep your thoughts organized, your goals organized, your tasks organized, and as a result of these, your life organized.
The monthly planner makes you super-productive
With adequate planning techniques in the monthly planner, you can eliminate procrastination and different time-wasters in your life.
Because the act of goal planning in itself helps to save valuable time when you are actually working on your goals.
At any particular time of the day, any particular day of the week, or any particular week of the month, you know exactly what you’re supposed to be working on.
The time-blocking system in the planner also helps to combat Parkinson’s Law of time and tasks. And this system can make you super-productive when used.
It makes your goals more physical, intimate, and personal
Once you write down your goals in the planner and have taken the time to break them down, you are effectively making those goals yours. You are owning your goals.
It’s now somewhat personal to you!
And Behavioral Economists have pointed out that when we take a form of ownership for our goals, we are more likely to achieve the goals.
This phenomenon is known as the “endowment effect”.
If you have all these things working for you when it comes to your goals, it will be really easy for you to commit and work on the goals.
At this point in the post, it’s time to learn how to use the monthly goal planner to get the best out of it.
How to use the printable monthly goal planner template download
The planner is basically divided into eight sections.
The sections are listed and explained below;
My Goals Page
This is the page where you write out all the goals you have in the different aspects of your life.
On this page, you can write up to three goals for each area of your life you would like to set goals.
The areas of life on this page include:
a) Business/Career
b) Health
c) Family & Friends & Mentors
d) Romantic Relationships or Life Partner
e) Personal Development
f) Finance
g) Spiritual Development
h) Fun things & My relaxation Plans
My Vision Board Page
Images are an effective means of communication with the subconscious mind. This is because the mind thinks in the form of mental images.
Apart from helping to communicate with the subconscious mind, well-curated images of the outcomes and processes involved in achieving your goals will serve as effective motivators for you to work on your goals.
We’ve known how researchers have suggested we create our vision boards and the step-by-step process of creating a vision board that works with MS Word.
The My Vision Board Page consists of two pages where you can attach the pictures of the outcome of achieving the goals you want to work on for the year.
The pages come equipped with detachable gum sticks that make it easy to attach your pictures.
My Three Focus Goals for the year Page
Having too many goals for the year is a highway to procrastination. And at the end of the year, all those goals might end up in the garbage bin.
The best way to approach goal setting and habit change is to take it one or two at a time as. And if you must work on more goals than these, then, three goals for the year at MOST.
Failure to do this can overwhelm your brain, your schedule, and your time.
This is the page where you prioritize your goals for the year.
So, from all the goals that have been listed on the “my goals page”, select the three that are the MOST important for you to work on for the year.
This page is based on the SMART model of goal setting.
It allows you to set the relevance of each goal to your life.
Because the more relevant a goal is to you, the more likely it is that you’ll work on that goal.
The page also helps you to reflect on why those three goals are the most important goals for you right now.
You can write the three IMPORTANT reasons why these goals are the focus goals for the year.
Plans, Habits, and Obstacles Page
A goal without a plan is just wishful thinking.
Until you come up with plans for your yearly focus goals, they are just wishful thinking.
Goal planning is very important for goal setting. And you can learn how to effectively plan for your goals.
When it comes to achieving goals, another important component is your habits. Every goal will have a habit associated with it. And once you’ve developed the habit associated with your goal, you are surely on your way to achieve that goal.
And lastly, any goal you want to achieve will come with its own obstacles that you need to overcome.
It’s been recently shown that thinking beforehand about obstacles and making a plan for it increases the chance of achieving that goal.
The Plans, Habits, and Obstacles Page is based on the obstacle-based model of goal setting.
This page allows you to draw out the plan for executing your goals, identify the habits associated with that goal, think about the obstacles you might face, and write down ways to deal with those obstacles when they arise.
Weekly Outlook Page
This page consists of the breakdown of what your weeks in a given month would look like.
You write out what plans and habits you want to work on for each week in a month.
This gives you a good insight into how your ideal month will play out. With this short exercise, you have a solid picture of the goals, plans, and habits you’ll work on for the week, so as to achieve your focus goals.
Monthly Calendar page
This is an undated visual calendar with all the days in a month.
On this page, you can input your target activities for each day of the month in advance.
This allows you to plan out your month in advance and be ahead of your schedule. This allows you to have a sense of direction for the month.
The calendar page also comes equipped with the focus goals, focus plans, and habit you want to work on for the month.
Daily Time-Management and Scheduling Page
Most people struggle to keep up with their goals because they don’t know how to own their time and manage it effectively.
Hence, the daily prioritizing, scheduling, and time management page.
This page allows you to manage your tasks and daily to-dos in blocks of time. This system of daily scheduling is based on the Time-Blocking technique that most successful entrepreneurs use to achieve their goals day in day out.
The time-blocking technique is used to combat Parkinson’s Law of time and tasks.
On this page, you get to plan out your day using 45 minutes time blocks.
After you’re done utilizing this page for the day, you’ll start noticing an improvement in your time management practices.
Review, Reflection, and Journaling Page
The idea of this page is for you to be able to review and reflect on your goals for the month.
This is based on the SMARTER model of goal setting. This gives you the flexibility of pointing out what’s working and what’s not. This allows you to re-plan or re-adjust your goals and make them stronger.
Also, the journaling part of the page allows you to put your thoughts about your goals down on paper.
Journaling has been linked with helping to reduce depression, increase mindfulness, and facilitate clearer thinking.
Over to you
With this monthly goal planner by your side around the year, you are highly likely to stick with your yearly goals and monthly goals.
Aside from achieving your goals in style, it will help you become more organized and more productive.
So, until the next time we talk, STAY GOAL-ORIENTED, STAY WEALTHY.
If you have any question about the monthly goal planner, use the comment section below!!