How to create your own wellbeing goals that actually work
How to Create Effective Wellbeing Goals
According to Dr. Denise Quinlan, director of the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience, setting goals helps you articulate what’s truly important to you. In an interview with Jessica-Belle Greer, Dr. Quinlan discusses how wellbeing goals can lead us on a journey of self-discovery and connect us to a greater purpose.
The Types of Wellbeing Goals
- Relationship Goals: These goals build connections, from communities to individuals.
- Generative Goals: These involve creating something new, such as a painting or a new fence.
- Spiritual Goals: These connect you to something bigger, like faith or nature.
Finding Your Motive
Goals are about finding your motivation and staying connected to it. Ask yourself:
- What’s the best thing about this goal?
- Why are you pursuing it?
- What will this goal give you that’s important?
Denise emphasizes, “This is about knowing yourself and what works for you.”
Sidestep Status
If you or someone you know has climbed the career ladder only to wish they could jump off, you understand that performance goals centered around status and power aren’t likely to improve your wellbeing.
Denise notes, “There are fewer positive emotions generated on the way to achieving status goals, and when you achieve them, you’re less likely to feel happy.” If you’re still drawn to status goals, tie them to the wellbeing ideas mentioned above. For example, if your goal is to become a CEO, ask yourself: Is this to transform people’s lives through what your business creates or how you lead your staff?
Stay Open
While some people have a clear vision and know exactly what they want, being open with your wellbeing goals can create new opportunities. Instead of aiming to be an HR manager, your goal could be to work with a team of like-minded people doing meaningful work. Like a mission statement, this approach encourages clear values over time. You can break down big-picture goals into smaller time frames, such as six-month intervals, to stay motivated. If you’re interested in goals in different areas of your life, ask: Will pursuing another goal support and reinforce progress towards the one that’s most important?
What is Progress?
For Denise, true progress is reminding yourself of your motivations and recognizing how you are getting closer to your goal. She says, “It’s a much more intuitively driven goal, getting in touch with what it is that you really want. The big success is the final piece of the picture. But if we don’t notice our progress, we’re missing out on a lot of how things work.” Looking for day-to-day wins helps maintain focus on complex long-term goals, such as living more sustainably. Denise adds, “It’s really important that we understand the value of our effort and the value of our miniature successes along the way.”
Remember Your Strengths
It helps to note your strengths, including the things and people that support you, to remind yourself of everything you bring to your goal process. Denise says, “Sometimes our goals feel much bigger than us, but actually, our goals are only part of our life. At the end of the day, we’re all bigger than a goal.”
Changing Goalposts
If what matters to you changes, or the assumptions that created your goal change, it’s time for a new tactic. Reflect on the process, identify your learnings and strengths to help you decide where to pivot next. Denise asks, “In this past year of huge upheaval, what goal is right for you? What goal is going to support you?”
For more information, visit the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience.
