Discover how effectively managing your personal life helps with reaching your goals. Learn strategies for balancing life and ambition in this insightful guide.

How Can Managing Your Personal Life Help With Reaching Your Goals?

Jul 13, 2024

By Will Moore

Have you ever wondered how much your personal life impacts your professional success? When I quit my job at Florida Land Partners to focus on my startup, Doorstep Delivery, everyone thought I was crazy. Even my best friend and future business partner needed some convincing before he joined me on this adventure. Little did I know that my journey to entrepreneurial success would teach me far more than just how to run a business.

As I navigated the ups and downs of startup life, from blowing through ten times our anticipated cash in the first year to dealing with a business plan stolen by a potential partner, I quickly realized that managing my personal life effectively was crucial to reaching my goals. In fact, I've come to understand that:

Managing your personal life effectively frees up mental energy and time for pursuing goals. It creates a stable foundation, reducing stress and distractions. Good personal management also builds habits and skills that transfer to achieving larger objectives.

These insights became clear as I discovered that the lessons I was learning from books like 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins and 'The 4-Hour Work Week' by Tim Ferriss extended far beyond the business world.

Through trial and error, I found that nurturing and balancing five core areas of my life - mindset, career, relationships, physical health, and emotional intelligence - was essential not only for my personal well-being but also for the success of my company. As I worked on developing a growth mindset, building strong relationships, prioritizing my health, and honing my emotional intelligence, I noticed that I was better equipped to handle the demands of entrepreneurship and reach my ambitious goals.

In this blog post, I'll share some of the most valuable lessons I learned about how managing your personal life can help with reaching your goals, drawing from my own experiences as an entrepreneur. Whether you're starting your own business or simply looking to achieve personal success, these insights will provide a roadmap for aligning your life and your ambitions.

What Can Keep You From Reaching Your Goals?

While setting SMART goals is crucial, it's equally important to recognize the potential obstacles to achieving goals. Common obstacles include:

Poor time management
Lack of focus and procrastination
Negative relationships or lack of support
Neglecting physical and mental health
Fixed mindset and fear of failure

By identifying these potential roadblocks, you can proactively address them through effective personal life management. This involves:

Developing strong time management skills
Cultivating focus and discipline
Building positive relationships and support networks
Prioritizing your physical and mental well-being
Adopting a growth mindset

9 Tips to Manage Your Life Better

1. Set SMART Goals

The question I ask myself almost every day is, ‘Am I doing the most important thing I could be doing?’ -Mark Zuckerberg

Your life revolves around what you want. So, you need to understand yourself, think outside the box, and clearly envision your dream goal. Once you have realized what you are dreaming of, you are ready to embark on this journey of accomplishing your goals.

But wait, how will you design your goals, and how will you achieve them? For this to happen, put your goals in the light of the SMART approach.

Specific: Set clear and specific goals; ambiguous goals will leave you exasperated, making you give up on your dreams.

Measurable: Now, make sure that your specific goals are measurable so that you can track your progress and act accordingly.

Attainable: Set long-term and attainable goals, and divide your goals into smaller milestones so that you can easily attain them and achieve personal success.

Realistic/Relevant: Here, you need to do some thinking about the goals you have set. Are they realistic, or are you living in fantasy? Unrealistic goals are impossible to achieve, and when it happens, you become highly discouraged from moving ahead.

Time-bound: Set realistic deadlines. It will make you aware that you have a particular time to put your best foot forward.

Now that the goals are set, you may ask yourself: What will help me reach my goals? Hang on!

2. Balance Work and Rest

Goals are not going to be achieved automatically; you have to become proactive.

The real question is how you can survive burnout while achieving your goals. The answer is simple: by taking small steps. Start smaller to achieve bigger. Don't stress yourself out. Here, the realistic deadline comes into play.

Besides the deadline, if you set strategic breaks and get some fresh air, a fun family time, or YOU time, you will find yourself recharged and more productive toward reaching your goal.

Read More About How to Find Balance in Life

So, plan your day according to long-term goals and divide your goals into manageable-sized chunks. This way, you can focus deeply on your work and won’t feel overwhelmed about reaching your goals.

The best technique for this is the famous Pomodoro Technique, where you work deeply for 25 minutes and take 5-minute breaks. Repeat this at least four times. Whether you’re a student or an entrepreneur, you will work more efficiently this way.

3. Make Your Relationships Your Assets

Do you forget that you have a family, commitments, and responsibilities to fulfill? While struggling towards reaching our goals, sometimes, we forget that some people are our responsibility.

Our daily interaction with our loved ones and the people in our schools and workplaces makes us who we are. Our day-to-day routine and end goals are highly influenced by the behaviors we have adopted toward our relationships.

Love is when the other person’s happiness is more important than your own -H. Jackson Brown, Jr

Your relationships with your family, friends, and subordinates can give you a sense of fulfillment, which will motivate you. Their love and support will become a helping hand in your journey towards your goal.

Read More About Emotionally Healthy Relationships

Sometimes, you might think you are using every other strategy to reach your goal but couldn’t do so. So, you start to feel frustration. Little do you know that your success depends on the deep connections you make.

Choose your relationships wisely. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company.

4. Prioritize Self Care

Suppose you’re about to reach your milestone, but suddenly, one day, you feel a chronic headache; you go to the hospital, and they admit you. Now, you are left with your thoughts. What about your deadline, planning, and timetable? So much time will be wasted, etc.

The doctor now told you that your body was in constant functioning, which caused you the disease. Now you need to rest for three months.

Such a dreadful scenario! Isn’t it? Well, the good news is, you can escape this only if you take care of yourself.

So what you need to do is make your physical and mental health necessary also because you have a relationship with yourself too.

Now, let's give a detox treatment to your daily planning. Recall when I told you the five core areas of your life: if each is neglected, you will lose the balance and fall. So, to stay poised and to keep harmony among them, you can’t ignore your physical and mental health.

A healthy diet means a healthy life and a healthy life means productivity. That, of course, plays a huge role in helping you reach your goals. Remember, you are what you eat, what you do, what you read, and the people you meet.

5. Make Your Emotions Your Power

“We cannot tell what may happen to us in the strange medley of life. But we can decide what happens in us — -how we can take it, what we do with it —- and that is what really counts in the end.” —- Joseph Fort Newton

Reaching your goals while managing your personal and professional life is pertinent to your success. You need to become the captain of your emotional ship and steer through emotional waves with bravery. The motto of ‘‘Embrace Calm within Chaos” comes into play here.

Remember when Tony Stark said to Hulk in Avengers, “I'm a huge fan of how you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.” It was because Hulk was not emotionally intelligent, but Iron Man was.

When you can’t manage your emotions like anger, sadness, happiness, and aggression, you will lose yourself and become someone else. Like Bruce Banner, whenever he becomes aggressive, he becomes a Hulk.

So if any hurdle comes your way, stress starts to show up, and you continuously make mistakes, you feel frustrated and become someone who you are not, who did not have the vision upon which you set your goals then, let alone reach them.

So, making emotions your power instead of weakness will lead you straight towards your dream life.

6. Develop a Growth Mindset

Suppose you consider yourself a good designer, and you make designs for your clients. Your client really liked a logo using typography you created for him; now he is asking you to illustrate a girl sketching a galaxy in her journal, sitting beside a pond.

You will now be struck with lightning because you have never done that. So what do you do? You politely refuse that this is not included in your services. And oops you just lost a client. And another client, too. Soon, you’ll be out of the people requiring logo designs.

The 'Equation of Life' suggests that your belief in your abilities, combined with your actions and the time you invest, shapes who you become. If you cling to what you know, refusing new challenges, your growth is limited. However, embracing these opportunities, despite the risk of making mistakes, aligns with a growth mindset.

So, when you learn to cope with the stress and develop your skills, you become ready to embrace challenges. Are you getting what I want to say? You grow here. You grow out of your comfort zone. This mindset is what we call a Growth Mindset. When you explore new things in your life without any fear, you become closer to your goals.

7. Time is Money, Spend It Wisely

To follow your deadlines, you need to set up a system that allows you to follow your path. So, make a proper morning, evening, and night routine that aligns with your goals. Set priorities and complete essential tasks first. Don’t forget to add exercise, your hobbies, and specific time for your loved ones to your management skills.

Why not reward yourself with a treat upon reaching a milestone? It will help you stick to your schedule and motivate you intrinsically to achieve your goals. That’s how time management skills for personal development are essential.

Imagine when you are completely wired in your work, and you get an unnecessary email. Or you could get a call from any advertising agency. This is the time when we get distracted. So what should you do now? You need to closely identify what distracts or entices you to leave your work and do that instead.

Sometimes, to satisfy your feel-good hormones, you really get attracted by the dopamine providers. So fixing a time for this fun in your timetable is equally important. Why not enjoy life while working on your dreams? Also, don’t forget to make your timetable flexible enough to adapt to your life conditions, as life is ever-changing.

8. Make Communication Your Knight In Shining Armor

Now, you are in a meeting representing your start-up with a beautiful idea or sitting in a Viva trying to convince your architecture professor why you turned a painting into a 3D structure.

Now, a lot of information and knowledge pops up in your head, but words suddenly start to play hide-and-seek. Look at you now, sitting with a bewildered face, uttering words that are not making sense. Oops, it's a big hurdle in the way of your goals. Even in remote work, you need some persuasive words to impress your client.

Don’t worry; communication skills are your savior. You need to learn which words to use and when to use them.

Communication is a skill that you can grasp with practice and consistency. You talk not only through your mouth but you throw non-verbal cues also to your listener. Body language is a thing to consider here.

Recall when I said relationships are your assets. You can benefit from your connections by talking to them and asking for help in this regard. Believe me! You'll get immense support.

9. Form Productive Habits

“Good habits make time your ally, bad habits make time your enemy.”- James Clear

When do you get up? What do you eat? How do you plan your day? How do you interact with others? Have you ever thought that whatever you do is so monotonous? But the real question is if this monotonous life is producing any results. If not, then you need to contemplate, reflect on your habits, and see if they align with your dreams.

To develop good habits, you must identify Success Habits and Failure Habits. If you plan to stay focused, use your time wisely, always be ready to learn, extract positivity from challenges, take care of your mind and body, and get enough sleep, congratulations, you have adopted Success habits.

Read About Daily Habits of Ridiculously Happy People

But if you’re using your phones, scrolling through social media most of the time, procrastinating on important tasks, eating junk, or not having enough sleep, then you need to work on yourself.

Your habits are the actions that you do repeatedly for a long time. To change the habits, you need to be disciplined enough and be accountable to yourself. Good habits can make your life, and bad habits can break your life because habits are what you do daily. Recall what I said earlier: start smaller. If you adopt good habits, see how you will reach your goals effortlessly.

How Can Managing Your Personal Life Help with Reaching Your Goals? - Final Verdict

As I reflect on my entrepreneurial journey and the success of Doorstep Delivery, I can say with certainty that managing my personal life played a crucial role in reaching my goals. By focusing on developing a growth mindset, nurturing strong relationships, prioritizing my physical health, and cultivating emotional intelligence, I was able to navigate the challenges of startup life and build a thriving business. The lessons I learned along the way have become an integral part of my life's philosophy. I now understand that true success comes from aligning and balancing the five core areas of life: mindset, career, relationships, physical health, and emotional well-being. When we take a holistic approach to life management, we create a strong foundation for achieving our goals and finding fulfillment in both our personal and professional lives.

My advice to anyone seeking to reach their goals, whether in business or in life, is to start by taking a close look at how you're managing your personal life. Identify areas where you can grow, develop positive habits, and cultivate a supportive network. Remember that the journey to success is not just about what you achieve but also about who you become along the way. By sharing my story and the lessons I've learned, I hope to inspire others to take control of their personal lives and unlock their full potential. With dedication, self-awareness, and a commitment to personal growth, you too can achieve your goals and create a life that is both successful and fulfilling.

Ready to take charge of your personal life and reach your goals?

Managing your personal life is not easy, but it is essential for your success and happiness. You have the power to create a balance between your work, health, relationships, hobbies, and spirituality.

But don’t just take our word for it. Take action now and see for yourself.

Take our two-minute Happiness Quiz, which will show you where you are standing right now in your five core areas of life: Mindset, Health, Career, Relationships, and Emotional well-being.

Not only this but to develop habits that will help you unify all your five core areas of life, you can use our best Habit Tracker.

What are you waiting for? Start managing your personal life and reaching your goals today!

FAQs

1. What are the ways to achieve your personal goals in life?

To achieve personal goals in life, one can follow these steps:

Identify and clearly define your goals.
Make a plan or strategy to achieve them.
Stay committed and motivated.
Regularly review your progress and adjust your plans if necessary.
Seek support or guidance when needed.

2. How do you manage your life goals?

Managing life goals can be done through the following:

Prioritizing your goals based on their importance and urgency.
Breaking down larger goals into smaller, manageable tasks.
Setting a timeline for each goal.
Regularly review and adjust your goals as circumstances change.
Celebrating small victories along the way to keep yourself motivated.

3. How important is it to have personal goals in life?

Having personal goals in life is very important as they:

Provide direction and purpose.
Help in decision-making.
Keep you focused and motivated.
Enable personal growth and development.
Lead to a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction when achieved.

4. How can using the goal-setting steps help you reach your own goals?

Using goal-setting steps can help you reach your personal goals by:

Providing a clear direction and roadmap.
Helping you focus your efforts and resources efficiently.
Enabling you to measure your progress.
Motivating you to stay committed.
Allowing you to see potential obstacles and plan ways to overcome them.