Goal Setting: Align Your Goals, Align Your Life

Goal setting isn’t just about ticking boxes—it’s about creating a life you truly love.

(Think goal setting is just another chore on your to-do list? It doesn’t have to be!)

For me, goal setting is all about alignment—linking my personal and professional aspirations to create a balanced, fulfilling life. I’ve learned that when my personal life feels in harmony, it builds the foundation for my professional growth.

If I’m not taking care of my health, relationships, and mental well-being, how can I possibly show up as my best self in my business?

That’s why my approach is rooted in alignment and to ensure this, I've used 3 methods:

• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs—a framework that prioritises what we need most as humans—to bring clarity and structure to my goals.
• The Wheel of Life—an exercise that helps me assess and balance key areas of my life, such as health, relationships, career, and personal growth.
• My core values—identifying my core values helps guide my decisions and actions, ensuring they align with what truly matters to me.
• AI (Artificial Intelligence)—yes, you read that right! I use AI tools to streamline and prioritise my goals effectively.

This approach keeps me focused and intentional, ensuring my goals don’t just look good on paper but actually sustain my well-being and success. By intertwining personal and business goals, I’ve been able to build a life and career that feel meaningful at every level.

Whether it’s addressing basic needs like health and financial stability or focusing on self-actualisation through growth and adventure, this method ensures I’m building my life and career from a solid base.

In this post I will cover:

• The interconnection of life and work
• The 'how' and 'why' behind my goal setting technique with step-by-step guide
• The importance of reflection, adaption and flexibility when setting your goals

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

The Interconnection of Life and Work

For many of us, personal and professional lives aren't separate chapters—they form a single, interconnected story.

This synergy rings particularly true for me.

I’ve discovered that if my personal life isn’t in order, it’s nearly impossible to tackle my business goals effectively. Whether it’s maintaining my physical health, fostering relationships, or addressing financial stability, each piece of my personal life forms a foundation for my career success.

Think about it this way:

When you’re stressed about your finances or burned out from lack of rest, how likely are you to bring your best ideas to the table at work?

On the flip side, when you’re physically energised, emotionally balanced, and grounded, you can unlock a level of clarity and focus that enhances your professional achievements.

To approach these intertwined goals in a structured way, I first turned to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. This framework dissects human motivation into five key layers—beginning with our most fundamental survival needs and ascending to self-actualisation, where growth and fulfilment thrive.

By grouping my goals under these 'levels', I’m able to ensure that my basic needs are met first, creating a stable platform for higher-level aspirations like professional creativity, personal mastery, and contributing in meaningful ways.

This alignment doesn’t just make goal setting logical—it makes it sustainable. By balancing the areas of my life that matter most to me, I’m paving the way for long-term fulfilment both personally and professionally.

Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

Step-by-Step Goal-Setting Process

Setting meaningful goals requires more than writing a to-do list. A structured, thoughtful approach can make the difference between goals that inspire real change and ones that feel unattainable.

Here’s a step-by-step process I’ve used to bring clarity and intention to my planning.

1. Aligning with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Using Maslow’s framework to align goals helps ensure that you’re covering the essentials first while working toward your highest aspirations. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is divided into five levels, representing what drives human motivation:

• Physiological Needs (Air, Food, Water, Rest, Shelter): These are the foundation of well-being. For goals, this translates to maintaining your health and environment, like planning meals, getting enough sleep, or cleaning your living space.
• Safety Needs (Security, Financial Stability, Health): Goals here might include cutting unnecessary expenses, building a budget, or stabilising your career.
• Belongingness and Love Needs (Relationships, Friendships, Intimacy): Nurturing connections is what makes life meaningful. Setting goals to spend time with friends and family enhances your emotional support system.
• Esteem Needs (Accomplishment, Respect, Self-Confidence): These are moments that elevate your self-worth, such as pursuing learning or advancing in your career.
• Self-Actualisation (Personal Growth, Creativity, Adventure): At the peak is realising your unique potential through pursuits like travel or mastering a skill.

By grouping your goals under these levels, you can address each layer systematically, building from foundational needs to purposeful growth. This approach provides clarity and ensures your priorities align with genuine personal fulfillment.

2. Organising Goals with AI

AI tools like Jasper.ai can streamline the goal-setting process. I used Jasper to categorise my goals into the different levels of Maslow’s hierarchy. The great thing about AI is its efficiency—it offers a starting point that saves you time on organisation.

But here's the catch.

You will need to review and tweak the results. For instance, I noticed that some goals related to rest and environment had been categorised under “self-actualisation,” but I shifted them to “physiological needs,” as they directly impact my health and energy. AI tools are helpful, but since goals are personal, refining the classifications ensures they reflect your specific needs.

3. Utilising the Wheel of Life

The Wheel of Life is another powerful tool for gaining perspective on where you are in life and identifying which areas need attention. Traditionally, this tool examines categories like Career, Health, Relationships, and Fun. You rate yourself on a scale of 1-10 for each area, shading segments to create a visual representation of balance—or imbalance.

To match my unique situation, I customised the categories to include areas such as “Business,” “Employment,” and “Physical Health.” This personal adjustment helped me align the tool with my actual priorities and see how my goals could support those areas. Doing this allowed me to pinpoint where I needed the most focus while also keeping a holistic view of my life.

4. Aligning Goals with Core Values

Goals are most effective when they align with your core values. To do this, I started by listing all of my personal and professional values, which came to about 26. I then grouped these into four core values that resonate most deeply with me—Equanimity, Integrity, Mastery, and Discovery.

These are different from my business goals.

The reason for this is that my business goals are aligned with the values of Growth, Commitment, Sharing Knowledge, Creative Leadership, Ethical Practices, Inclusivity and Purpose-Driven Design, Wellness-Centered Collaboration, which represent what's important to me in my work. By identifying and aligning my personal values with my goals, I can ensure that I am working towards something meaningful and fulfilling.

5. Continually Evolving Goals

Rather than tackling everything at once, I divided my goals into quarterly segments. This approach helps prevent overwhelm and creates flexibility. By focusing on a specific set of goals for each quarter, I stay realistic about what I can achieve in the short term while keeping long-term progress in sight.

For instance, my Q1 goals include setting up a consistent sleep schedule, budgeting finances, and creating content for my business. Meanwhile, goals like visiting Iceland or taking advanced courses have shifted to later quarters. What’s key is the ability to reassess at the end of each quarter. Life is unpredictable, and priorities can shift, so this method allows me to adapt while continuing to make steady progress.

To Sum Up...

By following this step-by-step process, I’ve found that setting and pursuing goals feels less overwhelming and more intentional. From addressing basic needs to aligning with personal values, every step builds toward a balanced and fulfilling path forward. Whether you choose to adopt this process fully or tailor it to suit your preferences, the goal is the same—to craft a life that supports your growth and happiness, both personally and professionally.

Reflection and Adaptation

Stepping into this approach of goal-setting process has felt so much more aligned with how my brain and life function.

What once felt like an overwhelming storm of aspirations and responsibilities has transformed into a clear, manageable path. Breaking down my goals, ensuring they align with my needs, values, and priorities, has provided me with sharper focus and direction.

I no longer feel burdened by the sheer volume of what I want to achieve—instead, I feel both energised by the clarity and relaxed by the flexibility of how to approach each step.

One of the biggest insights I’ve gained is how much personal well-being influences professional success. When I started with basic needs—like ensuring I’m eating well, getting enough rest, and managing my finances—everything else began to fall into place.

With those foundations secured, I’ve found it’s easier to tackle higher-level goals, whether they stem from my personal growth or my business ambitions. This process truly reinforced for me how intertwined personal and professional goals are; you cannot nourish one without nurturing the other.

When I prioritised my goals quarterly, I felt like I was able to really breathe. Dividing the year into smaller blocks gives me the flexibility to adapt when life throws curveballs (which it inevitably always does).

It allowed me to chase progress without the pressure to perfect everything all at once. Feeling stuck halfway through a year? No problem—you can start fresh with the next quarter. This mindset switch made even the loftiest of goals feel achievable.

My advice to you (aka your next steps)

This style of goal setting isn't for everyone, nor should it be. While these steps brought me clarity and confidence, they may not suit you—and that’s okay. Goal setting is deeply personal, and the beauty lies in finding what resonates with you.

Whether you draw inspiration from my method or pull from other frameworks out there, the key is to stay open to adaptation. What worked once may need adjusting over time, and that flexibility is what keeps the process effective.

If you’re ready to reframe your goals, start small. Focus on what feels most urgent for your well-being and build from there. Explore different approaches, experiment with tools like AI, and above all, listen to what feels right for you. At the end of the day, the best goal-setting process is the one that helps you move forward with purpose and balance.

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