Personal wellness goals aren’t hard to set. They are hard to stick to. And the conventional approach might limit these goals to your body. However, it’s not only important but necessary to approach your wellness from a holistic perspective.
Good personal wellness goals shall not stay limited to the usual weight loss goals. They should include the different components of your wellness. When you consider becoming your best version, it should happen in all areas of your life, not collectively but one aspect of self-improvement at a time.
When life interferes, it seems like an easy option to throw off your goals. The level of your productivity might suffer too. Thus, it is important to set smart goals and review them. You don’t have to be hard while reviewing your goals. As much as you worry about not completing them, don’t forget to celebrate the ones you accomplish.
25 good personal wellness goals you can aim to achieve a better life balance
Setting personal wellness goals impacts every area of your life. And you can control this impact by sticking to your goal and fulfilling them. Building a preventive lifestyle will help you to live a more intentional life and avoid being at the mercy of medicines or remedies in the future.
So, let’s see some examples of personal wellness goals that will help to achieve a better life balance and develop a preventive lifestyle in all aspects of your wellness:
1. Become mindful
Being mindful is an easy way to start with setting and accomplishing some good personal wellness goals. Becoming mindful makes you calmer and improves your mental well-being. Mindfulness is about becoming fully aware of your present situation and circumstances. It’s about knowing where you are and what you are doing without getting overwhelmed by your surroundings.
2. Stay active
Moving your body doesn’t mean you have to become a gym or fitness freak. The goal is to include mobility in your daily routine. You can start with simple stretching and slowly move towards intensive workouts depending on your ability to sustain them. If you have busy working hours, you can also start by including mobility activities like a long walk, a dance class, or playing your favorite outdoor sports.
3. Track your daily step count
Usually, people aim for a 10,000 daily step count which seems like an ideal option for many. You can achieve it by choosing to walk during your lunch break or taking a quick walk in or around the office. But if you are a remote worker who spends most of your time indoors like me, it is wise to include morning or evening walks or jogging in your routine. You can either invest in a pedometer or download a step-counting app to help you with this.
4. Read more books
Including a reading habit in your lifestyle is something that you will thank yourself for as you grow old. There are immense benefits of reading other than the usual “ocean of knowledge” thing. Other than improving your vocabulary and language, it improves your focus and concentration too. Reading before bed prepares the mind to sleep. According to a 2013 study by Mayo Clinic, reading also strengthens the brain by increasing brain connectivity.
5. Listen to podcasts
If you are not a reader or you find it hard to include reading in your schedule, listening to podcasts is another great example of setting good personal wellness goals for yourself. You can listen to your favorite creator or influential personality while doing simple everyday tasks that don’t include concentration. I listen to my favorite creator’s podcast during my evening walks. It helps me to do both at a time without making time for it specially.
6. Volunteer
Your social life plays a very significant role in your wellness. You cannot exclude it from your list of good personal wellness goals. As a volunteer, you not positively affect other people’s lives but also improve your health. Volunteering reduces stress because it promotes feeling relaxed by releasing dopamine. Being of unconditional service to others develops a sense of meaning and appreciation which improves your overall mental wellbeing.
7. Track your sleep
Sleeping regenerates the body and boosts your memory. It strengthens your immune system to protect you against illnesses. Thus, you must go to bed on time. If you’re struggling with a disruptive sleep schedule, limit your screen time and read a book before bed. You can also practice deep breathing. Also, prepare a dark room for your sleeping time. Darkness releases the sleep hormone melatonin, making it easier for you to fall asleep.
8. Practice journaling or scripting
Journalling and scripting are two different forms of writing your thoughts. While journaling is about what happened to you, scripting is about writing in the present tense about things you want to happen to you. It all comes down to free your mind by expressing yourself. You can stick to a journaling routine of writing throughout the week. This is also a great way to keep a track of your intentions in achieving your goals.
9. Eat good food
Eating healthy and nutritious food doesn’t mean you have to stuff your plate with things you don’t like. The key is to eat in moderation and move towards better changes by making small improvements every day. Eating right is more important than eating anything to make yourself feel full. Also, practice mindful eating, i.e. makes sure you aren’t distracted during your meals. Lastly, as they say, eat the rainbow; include different fruits and veggies in your meals.
10. Cut out eating junk
Eating on the go might seem like an easy and fast option to have your meals. But along with digging a hole in your pocket, this also impacts your health. Junk food is filled with sodium, fat, and excessive calories. It might soothe your taste buds for a while but it impacts your health drastically. Home-cooked food is more healthy in all senses as compared to eating from restaurants or food outlets.
11. Spend time in nature
Your sedentary lifestyle makes it difficult to enjoy the real essence of life: nature. Your natural surroundings are a great healer. I know work is important but so is your health. Thus, it is significant that you include spending time in nature in your list of “good personal wellness goals”. You must carve out some days during the month to spend time in the wild. Working in the garden, planning a beach day, or visiting a lake for family panic are great ideas too.
12. Keep your creative juices flowing
You have a stable job, which is great. But, don’t let your creativity die beneath the burden of responsibilities. If you are someone who loves different forms of art, spend some time doing it once in a while. Just like journaling, art therapy is a form of expression too. It reduces stress and anxiety. It is even used as a coping mechanism for people suffering from chronic illnesses. However, you can enjoy its therapeutic benefits without any health concerns.
13. Weekly digital detox
Technology and social media have become a huge part of our lives. While there are so many benefits, you cannot deny the drawbacks it brings. The feelings of comparison sprouting after looking at the “perfect” lifestyle of others severely impacts your mental health. It gives space to negative thoughts that don’t make you feel enough. Weekly digital detox is important because they reconnect you with real-life people.
14. Live the moment
If you are one of those people who either live in the past or the future. It’s time that you leave both of them and start living in the present. Holding onto the bitter past won’t improve what’s coming, and neither will constantly worry about it. It is your present actions that will determine your future. Thus, you must choose to be mindful of your present life. Make use of the moments you have now.
15. Stay away from substance abuse
What seems like an escape is a road to depths of loneliness and darkness. Life gets tough for everyone at some or the other point. But, turning to alcohol, smoking or other substance abuse is the easiest way to take yourself down the road of destruction. Along with you, the consequences are severe for your loved ones too. Instead of choosing them, you should choose yourself and seek professional help, as and when needed.
16. Practice self-care
The running livelihood and hunger to achieve more will barely leave you with any time for self-care. But, you cannot leave yourself behind while you work so religiously to make things perfect for the people you love. Thus, practice self-care. It will help you to unwind, take some time away from stress and become more resilient when life throws challenges. Along with everything else, you should set boundaries with yourself too.
17. Don’t miss it twice in a row
As you set your personal wellness goals, you need to be intentional about them. In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear mentions that when you are trying to build a habit, you must not miss it twice in a row because that breaks the momentum of the habit-building pace. Yes, life may interfere and things might not go according to you all the time. But sometimes you have to choose your wellness goals over other things.
18. Maintain an income report
Whether you are a self-employed person like me or you have a job, it is significant that you maintain a person’s income report. This will help you understand the flow of your money. When you track your income, it makes it easy to analyze your earnings, spending, savings, investments, and profits. Financial wellness is an important aspect of your wellness goals and you cannot afford to ignore it.
19. Build a strong money mindset
Now that I mentioned, tracking your income, let’s talk about a money mindset too. Developing a money mindset is crucial in developing a growth mindset. Mindset is not limited to earning more and spending more. It is also about being intentional with your money. It includes disrupting your years-old beliefs that portray the money as negative and the root of all evil. Money is never evil. It is all about what use you put it to.
20. Reward yourself wisely
Setting rewards for yourself is a great way to motivate yourself toward working on your goals. You can include this in your personal wellness goals. But, make sure these rewards don’t cancel the efforts you have made to accomplish your goals. For example, a reasonable reward for sticking to a workout routine and eating healthy every week can be a meal of your favorite and not overeating for the entire day.
21. Take care of your mental health
Your mental health is as important as your physical health. As much as you want to look good from the outside, you must be good from the inside. Thus, make sure your personal wellness goals list includes taking care of your mental well-being and emotional wellness too. A smart way to do this is by investing in therapy. If you think the everyday stress and anxiety are overpowering you, then it’s time to seek professional help.
22. Practice skincare
You can include skincare in your self-care day. Practicing skincare is not limited to following a skincare regimen solely. There are other things that you can do occasionally to take care of your skin. For example, steaming your face, face massages, face spa, etc. It is your choice if you’d like to DIY these skincare options or if you’d want to go for high-end, luxurious treatments. What’s more important is to give your skin the love it deserves.
23. Develop morning and night routines
Developing morning and night routines make you more self-disciplined. It is completely your choice on how you want your mornings to start and nights to end. Some of the things that you can add as per convenience are exercising, journaling, reading, listening to podcasts while you get ready, a nighttime skincare routine, spending some time with your partner or children before bed, etc. It’s all about what suits and works best for you.
24. Organize your home and workspace
This may not seem like a viable option to go into your personal wellness goals list but it is. Whether it’s home or office, it’s important to keep it clean because it affects your productivity. Cluttered surrounding decreases the feel-good emotions and decreases your general sense of contentment. Hence, you can keep small goals of organizing and building neat and clean spaces both at home and at work.
25. Dress up more often
I kept this for the last because it may seem like a silly goal but it is very realistic. If you are a remote worker like me, chances are you are just in your loungewear most of the time. Dressing up more often, say twice a week, instills a sense of self-confidence. They call it “enclothed cognition” in psychology. This explains how your clothes influence your psychological process. According to experts, wearing what you love improves your focus and energy.
Conclusion
I hope this list will give you an idea about what you can include in your personal wellness goals. No matter what goals makes it to your final list, you must understand that all of them are interconnected. Making improvements in one segment of life will have a positive impact on the other areas too.
Some goals might feel easier than others. Some might feel like a big mountain to climb. In such a situation, try following the time management technique by Stephen Covey. It will teach you how to perceive your goals based on urgency and importance. Hopefully, this will make it easier for you to choose and start working on your goals.
If you’re a visual person, I’d highly suggest you use vision boards for keeping yourself accountable. Sharing your goals with someone can help you with the accountability factor too.
Lastly, if you enjoyed reading this compilation of good personal wellness goals, let me know what you’d like to read next in the comments below.
I’ll see you soon!!!
