4 Types of Goals
Having variety in the types of goals you set can help promote greater life balance and happiness. Whether you are working to improve your health, your relationships or your financial wellness, consider where your yours tend to fall among these four categories:
- Internal. These have an objective within yourself — they’re about learning, doing, or being. Creating a mindfulness practice, writing habit or increasing self-confidence are both internal goals. Their motivation should always be intrinsic and authentic, and never undertaken for the purpose of changing yourself to please others.
- External. What these have in common is an aim outside of yourself. They have more to do with the things in your life. While only you might know when you’ve achieved an internal goal, others can often see whenever you reach an external goal like getting a promotion or buying a house. Like internal goals, good external goals should also be consistent with your values and not undertaken to impress.
- Getting. These are self-oriented. Accruing wealth, losing weight and quitting smoking are getting goals (although there may be other motivations behind them them as well).
- Giving. These are other-oriented, Raising money for charity is an example. This type of goal can also have self-serving benefits such as improved self-esteem and feelings of contribution. Note that any attempt to change someone else — even with the best of intentions — is not a giving goal.
Are most of your goals about acquiring things rather than developing your abilities? Do you focus too much on trying to do for others perhaps at the expense of taking care of yourself? Or do you find that you mostly set “getting” goals, with little focus on giving to others?
. But creating greater balance and variety in the goals you set can help create greater balance in your life.
