How to generate life goals
Systems for clarifying what is important
The first step to achieving your long-term life goals is identifying what they are. It sounds stupid, but I think one of the main reasons people don’t achieve their long-term goals is that their goals are simply not that meaningful to them.
I’ve fallen into this trap several times across my life. From time to time I hear about a friend working on a big project or learning a skill and feel a surge of excitement to do the same. I might hear about them learning to speak a second language or training for a fitness challenge. As I hear about their progress, I have the flash of an image of what it would be like to do the same. I imagine myself speaking a second language or climbing a mountain. Fueled by that excitement, I start planning to do the same.
The problem is that to make meaningful progress on these goals requires thousands of hours of focused effort. Meaningful progress requires working on them for years. They require saying no to dozens of social commitments, new project ideas, and downtime. When framed in those terms, it becomes obvious how absurd it is to flippantly commit to a goal like that. In the flash of excitement, we neglect to think about what goes into achieving a goal of that magnitude.
When we do flippantly commit to a goal, the moment things start getting difficult, we gradually spend less and less time focusing on it until we eventually give up. That is, of course, until a few weeks later, we hear another friend discussing another goal that catches our excitement.
To avoid this pattern, it’s worth stepping back and spending more time thinking about what is most important to you before jumping into a project or goal. When a goal is grounded in a deeper analysis of what you value, it is far less likely to be transient. You will actually have a reason for prioritizing it over other opportunities. When other things come up, you will have a reason to say no to them–because you are focused on something you are confident you value more.
That begs the question: how do you clarify what is important to you so that your goals are linked to deeper values?
How to clarify what is important to you
Over the years, I’ve tried different tools to help me clarify and organize my values. Every December, when I am thinking about what I want to achieve in the year ahead, I come back to my notes from these exercises to remind myself of what I value.
I will share a few specific tools that can guide you through this process, but generally, I find it helpful to write detailed answers to three questions:
What does my ideal life look like?
What does my worst possible life look like?
Why is it important to create my best life and avoid my worst life?
Writing detailed answers to these questions lays the foundation for setting goals tied to deeper values. It helps you formulate a more robust positive vision for your life to then set goals on. Critically, it gives you deeper reasons to stay on track. Without those deeper reasons, your own doubts will undo you, let alone other people’s opposition.
Practical tips to clarify what is important to you
I’ve developed these best practices based on my personal experience, trying to determine my core values and what life goals to focus on.
Write it down—writing things down clarifies your thinking. There is a big difference between talking to someone who has taken the time to write down their thoughts on a topic and talking to people who are holding loose ideas in their minds. The act of writing out what is important to you forces clarity. Inconsistencies become more apparent. Patterns become easier to see.
Dedicate a day—I like to dedicate an entire day to this. I clear my calendar and go into the office on a weekend so that I can write uninterrupted. I prepare a few snacks and coffee ahead of time so that I can write in absolute comfort. Having done this a few times, it’s an extremely enjoyable experience that I look forward to weeks in advance.
Listen back to yourself—After I have written a rough draft, I play it back to myself with a text-to-speech tool (I use Speechify). Something about listening to what I have written gives me a new perspective on it. It sparks new ideas that I can go back and add to my life goals document.
Create themes—Reducing your core values into a smaller set of themes can help make them easier to remember and act on. You can do this by categorizing ideas into different areas of your life, like relationships, work, health, and leisure.
Recently, I’ve been experimenting with AI tools like Claude or ChatGPT to extract the themes for me. I copy and paste a block of text and then ask it to categorize it into themes. That gives a basic structure which I can then tinker with. Once I’ve defined the themes, I like to give a one-sentence summary of each theme. For example, my creative ambition is to “build things that people find genuinely valuable.” Once you have three or four themes for your core values, you have a solid foundation for creating specific goals.
Share your rationale—Once I've narrowed down to a core set of values and identified areas for goal-setting, I like to present them to my family and friends. I sit them down and walk through a slide deck that summarizes the key focus areas of my life and the reasoning behind them. While this may sound unusual, the novelty of the approach can be exciting for the people I involve.
Sharing the rationale behind my life goals with loved ones helps increase their commitment and support. This is crucial because significant life changes can impose a cost on those close to me. By including them in the goal-setting process, they become more willing to embrace those sacrifices.
Specific tools for clarifying your values
Over the years, I have discovered a number of guided exercises that help surface what is important to me and why. Each helps you clarify your “core values,” “principles,” or “life ambition.” I aim to go through one of these exercises every year to prompt a new perspective on my values.
Your Quarterly Life Review - Clearer Thinking
What’s involved: This is a guided workflow that prompts you to reflect on your recent experiences and learn from your recent past. It’s designed to help you make the most of your time and better achieve your goals. You can tailor the exercise based on the timeframe you want to focus on and the parts of your life you are interested in reviewing.
Time: 20 minutes
Cost: $0
The Five ‘Whys’ - Coaching Tool
What’s involved: This problem-solving technique was originally developed at Toyota to identify the root cause of manufacturing issues. To apply the Five Whys to goal-setting, ask a friend to probe why a life goal or value is important to you by repeatedly asking, "...and why is that important to you?" This systematic questioning can peel back the layers to reveal the core motivation driving you.
If you don't have a friend available, you can try the Intrinsic Values Test from Clearer Thinking. This tool helps you uncover your most important intrinsic values by answering a series of thoughtfully designed questions.
Time: 20 minutes
Cost: a favor from a friend
What’s involved: You sort a list of 30 values into five categories based on their relative importance to you. Forcing yourself to sort the cards helps you get a clearer picture of what’s important to you.
Time: 10 minutes
Cost: $0
Future Authoring Program - Jordan Peterson
What’s involved: This is a self-paced, online exercise designed to help you plan and work towards your desired future. You write detailed answers to thought-provoking open-ended questions that help you better understand yourself. Armed with this self-knowledge, you craft a detailed vision of your ideal future across different life domains. The next step is to set SMART goals to realize this vision. Finally, you create a step-by-step action plan, breaking your goals into manageable tasks. I found the exercises extremely valuable and well worth the cost. In fact, I think the small cost helped me approach it with greater commitment and seriousness.
Time: 180 minutes
Cost: $15
Deciding What's Important in Life - Mind Tools
What’s involved: This is a six-step guided exercise that uses thoughtfully designed questions to help you determine, prioritize, and reaffirm your most important values. It’s a lighter, free alternative to the future authoring program.
Time: 50-minutes
Cost: $0
The Wheel of Life - Finding Balance in Your Life - Mind Tools
What’s involved: This exercise helps you visualize all the important areas of your life at once. Life coaches and career coaches often use it to give their clients a "bird's-eye" view of their lives. By visualizing all the areas of your life at once, the wheel helps you better understand which ones are flourishing and which ones need the most work.
Time: 10 minutes
Cost: $0