Setting and Reaching Life Goals with the Adventure Planner

This post is part 3 of a “Midyear Reset” series. In part 1, we talked about the importance of performing a midyear reassessment / reset and ways to recharge your goals to finish the year strong. In part 2, we recommended 10 top-selling personal development books — essential reading for anyone who’s interested in unleashing their potential. In today’s post, we’re going to show you how you can use Adventure Planner as part of your success toolkit to set and reach your goals & create the life of your dreams.

Define Your Goals with Adventure Planner

At Adventure Planner, our mission is to inspire you to live an adventure-filled life. If you’re reading this page, chances are, you’re someone who loves and prioritizes adventure. When you think of the phrase “living an adventure-filled life”, what images does it conjure? What does “living an adventure-filled life” mean for you personally?

What are your life’s adventures? Is it to climb that mountain on your bucket list? Maybe it’s to experience living in a foreign country? Maybe you want to pursue a new career? Or perhaps the next adventure of your life is to start a family?

What do you really want in life? Are you living the life of your dreams? Are you balancing your life with adventures and work/life responsibilities?

Let’s dive into your aspirations: What are your goals for the next 12 months, the next 3-5 years, and even further ahead, say, 10 years or more?

Adventure Planner can help you clarify your vision and create a roadmap to get there.

Discover Your Vision

In the Discovery section of the planner, you’ll find layouts to help you explore your dreams — including “My Ideal Life,” “Big Bucket List of Ideas,” and “Vision Board.” They are here to guide you on this journey.

Under the “Goals” section of the planner, we’ll help you crystalize your short term goals and break them into smaller milestones that you can track and work towards.

While there’s a tendency to do this kind of big picture planning at the beginning of the year, there’s no reason you have to wait until December / January to start. The beauty of the undated planner is that you can start anew anytime!

We suggest finding a cozy spot where you won’t be disturbed to fill out this section. And for the vision board, gather some color pencils, pens, pictures, images, and stickers to really bring your vision to life.

Organize Your Goals by Timeframe

Adventure Planner makes it easy to transform your high level goals to smaller achievable milestones that seamlessly lead towards your everyday tasks & projects. Follow these steps:

Categorize your bucket list goals by their timeframe:
- – Short term (within the next 6-12 months)
  – Mid term (3-5 years)
  – Long term (5+ years)
Enter your short term goals in the “1 Year Goals” page under “Goals” section
Write down your SMART goals for the next 3 months.
It’s important to be as specific as possible. Include your “why”, deadline & deliverables.
- Find an accountability buddy for each goal.
  Treat each of these goals as projects which you will actively manage until they’re finished in the next 3 months.
Focus on no more than 3 goals at the same time
- If you’re feeling overwhelmed, just pick the #1 most important goal to you. It should be the one goal that, if you’ve accomplished it by the end of the year, you’d feel proud and fulfilled.

Manage Your Projects

The monthly & weekly pages are where you turn your projects into individual tasks.

Plan Your Month

Put your #1 goal as your monthly focus. What are the milestone tasks you need to complete in order to make progress towards this goal? Write them down in the corresponding sections in the Monthly Plan layout. Assign your milestone tasks into each week of the month.

Plan Your Week

Take your weekly milestone tasks and enter them into your Weekly Plan as your “Weekly Focus”. Break them down into even smaller “mini tasks” and assign these “mini tasks” to days of the week.

If you finish your weekly milestone tasks early, flip over to your Monthly Plan and start working on next week’s tasks.

As you complete and check off each task, you’re getting closer to achieving your weekly, monthly & quarterly milestones. Take a moment to appreciate that you’re making progress and allowing the positive momentum to propel you forward.

Check in, Reflect & Adjust

Now that you have your daily, weekly & monthly tasks all planned out, the next step is to tackle your tasks as they come up!

To avoid falling behind on your goals again, make it a habit to check in with yourself often. Don’t wait until the end of the year to perform another reassessment. Instead, do a quick check in with yourself at the end of the day, week, month & quarter.

You may want to create a gratitude journal within your Adventure Planner and take advantage of the built-in sections in the planner (such as the “Monthly Reflections” and “3-Month Goals” pages) to facilitate your mini check-ins.

In addition, schedule recurring meetings with your accountability buddies. It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, even a quick 15-min chat twice a month can have a positive impact and help you stay on track.

Making this a habit will keep you accountable & prevent you from getting stuck again.