The dawn of a new year is also the time we start setting new resolutions. These apps will help you discover what your goals should be, keep you on track, and help you achieve them.
Research on why goals fail shows it’s mainly because of two common errors. People tend to set a popular goal that others are choosing, rather than an objective that you want intrinsically. Once the goal is set, people don’t make a plan or actionable steps to achieve it, nor do they track their progress.
These apps will help you set a goal that is meaningful for you, and break it down into achievable and measurable steps.
1. Angstrom’s Life Goals (Web): Discover What You Really Want
The paid Angstrom web app is an excellent goal tracker. But before tracking goals and tasks, you need to figure out what they are. The developer, Kevin Angstrom, has made a free app to discover your life goals.
It starts by making you write your obituary in the future. Imagine what your best friend says about you when you die, as the app takes you through each part of the eulogy. You have to choose qualities that you wish your friend says about you in the future. That’s how you figure out who you want to be by the end of your life.
The app then questions you about each goal, making you introspect and think about why you actually want to achieve it. Next, you will visualize what would happen if you failed to achieve it, which is a great motivator as well as a good way to figure out how important a goal really is for you.
Finally, you have to set one milestone for your goal, one year away. That’s how you know that you’re on the right track to achieving those life goals, and have something short-term to work towards.
2. Exploratory Hero (Web): Break Annual Goals Into Smaller Steps
If your new year’s resolution starts from January 1 and ends on December 31, then you need some planning. Exploratory Hero helps you break down annual goals into smaller tasks so that you can achieve them step by step.
The app first makes you write what you want to be, in the long-term. Through a series of questions, it helps you set realistic things to achieve in one year, six months, three months, one month, and the current week. As with most task lists, you’d do well to write these starting with an actionable verb.
At the end of the exercise, you’ll have a dashboard of your goal and its actionable periodic actionable steps. Take a screenshot and use it as a motivational guide. It’ll also fit perfectly as a phone screen wallpaper.
3. Timebug (Android, iOS): 3 Phases, 30 Steps, 13 Minutes Each
Entrepreneur and thought leader Arman Rousta’s 20/20 Life Vision Challenge aims to help you figure out your life’s purpose and aim. Timebug is a digital version of that path, breaking down your introspection into three phases and 30 steps.
The phases are discovery, self-assessment, and vision creation. The app guides you through the Rocking Chair meditation, where you imagine yourself to be 90 years old and looking back on your life. Based on the meditation’s visualization, the app will then ask you a series of questions to set your goals and plan.
The steps involve answering questions like who are your role models, what are the goals of others around you, who would be your 10 “board of advisors” in life, etc. Your answers will set goals for different categories like energy and time, achievements, health, material outcomes, and relationship qualities. All goals are tracked within the app, and you can break them into major steps with estimated deadlines.
The idea of Timebug is to go back to the app periodically to reflect upon these goals, which will keep you on track to achieve your higher purpose.
Download: Timebug for Android | iOS (Free)
4. Purpose Finder (Web): Guided Questionnaires to Find Your Path
Purpose Finder hosts step-by-step personality quizzes to help you figure out who you are, and where you should be going. Each quiz called a “track”, gives you more data on yourself, all of which is collated and stored in your profile’s Insights dashboard.
The free account gives you five tracks, including personality traits, your values, and the RAISEC Holland Career Code, which is one of the best free quizzes to find your perfect career or profession. Before you start any quiz, a quick description tells you what you will get from it and how long it’s likely to take.
You should take all five free tests, but focus on the Inner Gold Projection track. This track helps you identify positive qualities that you find admirable in others. Once you know what they are, you can set goals and new year’s resolutions to imbibe those qualities.
5. Purpose Goals (Web): Free Goal Setting Worksheet
If you prefer to work offline with pen and paper instead of a keyboard, then the Purpose Goals course is for you. After a quick primer about what goals are and how to achieve them, you can download the free goal-setting worksheet as a PDF, and print it out.
The worksheet divides your life into seven areas: career and financial, physical, mental, social, spiritual, love and relationships, and general. For each aspect, you have to fill out what would you like to be, to do, and to have. There are blank spaces in each aspect, so fill them out as freely as you can, without restrictions. This is a private worksheet only for your eyes.
Through this exercise, you will figure out where your life is and where you want it to go. The worksheet will guide you to pick the top goals based on your responses. It then tells you how to set steps to achieve them, including the costs you might incur.
Fulfill Your New Year’s Resolutions
Now that you’ve figured out what you want to achieve, it’s time to get off your butt and go for it. The beginning of a new year provides a natural push to make you start afresh, so don’t waste the opportunity. With your goal in mind, use these five apps to stay on track and fulfill your resolution.
Read the full article: 5 Apps to Figure Out New Year’s Resolutions and Long-Term Goals
