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Finding Your Life Goals
This is an exercise that may help in planning one’s future
and prioritizing life goals.
Step 1:
Pick a time frame for the exercise. Usually
I suggest that clients focus on their life in five years, but in different
circumstances other time periods (shorter or longer) would be more appropriate.
Step 2:
Make a list of all the things that, if
they were true about your life in 5 years (or whatever your time frame is), you
would be pleased that they were true. This list is kind of a
“brainstorming” exercise - list as many things as you can - at least 50, and
100 is ok - and include both practical type things (I’d have paid off my
credit card debt, I’d be a homeowner) to fanciful or long-shot
statements (I’d be living on a South Pacific Island, or I’d be a famous and
successful artist ). The statements should cover all aspects
of your life, if possible (e.g., financial, relationship, career, hobbies and
interests, spiritual/psychological, etc) and it’s fine if they are
contradictory (That is, one item might be, “I’m living in Paris”, and
another might be “I’m living on a farm in Tennessee”.) Come up
with at least 50, though, even if it takes a few days.
Put the completed list aside for a day or two.
Step 3:
Take your list of “things that, if they were true about my
life, I would be pleased that they were true”, and put a star next to the five
most important.
In doing this, you are free to restate/condense statements
from the first list. (Thus, for example, if your original list had a
number of statements like “I’d have visited Peru”, “I d have gone to
Egypt”, “I’d spend a summer in France”, you could condense this into one
statement like “I’d travel internationally often” ).
These five Most Important statements cannot, however,
contradict each other. (Thus, you can’t have both , “I’d be a
hermit” and “I’d live with a lot of people in a city” in your top five).
The five starred goals you end up represent, for this
exercise, your most important goals for the future. Sit with
this list for a few days and see if it feels true. If you are satisfied with the
goals you’ve chosen, write up your final list and put it someplace where
you can refer to it from time to time. Begin working on a list of
the steps you’ll need to take to achieve these goals.
Michael Abrahams LCSW-C
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