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20 Small goals recommended by a life coach

January 13, 2023

Small goals that allow you to live a better life. What would a life coach recommend?

As a life coach certification trainer, people ask me all the time what goals do I set? In this stage of my life, I set goals differently than I used to. Previously, I would set goals around the different areas of my life (a tool used by life coaches called the life wheel):

1. Physical environment

2. Fun and recreation

3. Family and friends

4. Significant other

5. Physical and mental health

6. Personal development and spirituality

7. Finance

8. Career

Science: well-being

Since the creation of the life wheel, science has moved along. The scientific definition of happiness or well-being has been created:

P: Positive emotion
E: Engagement and flow
R: Relationships
M: Meaning and purpose
A: Achievement and accomplishment

As a life coach, this became a game-changer for me personally, and I started to set goals primarily based on PERMA, sometimes in combination with the life wheel.

Smaller goals

Often setting smaller goals allows you to achieve more in the long run, especially when it comes to PERMA.

20 small goals recommended by a life coach

As a life coach certification trainer, I can make the following recommendations:

1. One random act of kindness a day (for a stranger).

2. Connect once a day in kindness to a stranger; truly see them and strike a brief conversation. Smile.

3. Experience flow once a day, even if it is for 15 minutes. If you already experience flow each day (where your ability meets a challenge), intentionally try to find flow in something different.

4. Write a letter once a month to someone you are grateful for.

5. Experience a sense of awe at least once a month by visiting something “majestic” in nature, and if that is not possible then art, or architecture.

6. Each day, think of three things you are grateful for and why. This is an excellent exercise for a life coach to tell their clients to do; it has a scientific base.

7. Daily meditation (I can’t take a life coach seriously who doesn’t meditate)

8. Make sure that you take 10,0000 steps a day. Five thousand is the bare minimum a person should take to not be considered sedentary.

9. During one conversation a day imagine there is no one more important than this person in the world. Treat them accordingly based on the relationship you have with them.

10. During one conversation each day, increase the amount of listening you do and decrease the amount of talking you do intentionally (unless you are already well-balanced). Avoid talking about yourself other than the occasional “me too” or something simple as that. Acknowledge that you are listening by smiling, nodding, or some other way.

11. Read 50 pages a day (a book, Wikipedia, online articles).

12. Spend 5 minutes a day intentionally savoring and thinking about moments in your life that have you a positive emotion. Imagine looking through your own eyes at the time. What did you see, hear, and feel?

13. A social media hiatus for one month. Spend this time doing any of the goals in this article. For me, as a life coach certification trainer, social media is essential. However, there is a sure way that I can separate being on social media professionally from being curious about everything else on social media.

14. Intentionally plan to do something once a month that serves the greater good, which takes more than 2 hours to do. Volunteer in a soup kitchen for instance, have coffee with the elderly, or clean up trash thrown away in nature, etc.

15. Buy, or better yet make, a pie and leave it on the doorstep of someone who you think may need it. Write a nice card or do it anonymously.

16. Next time you go on a flight, bring chocolates or candy and give it to the flight attendants, thanking them for the trip beforehand.

17. Sleep 7-8 hours a day and go to bed at approximately the same time every night.

18. Complete the first step of a goal you have been procrastinating on as its own goal.

19. Spend 5 minutes a day future pacing (imagining what you would see, hear and feel) the moment you become who you wish you could become.

20. Take a friend who you haven’t seen in a while for an outing to experience a new thing. You can adjust the time frames.

If you are a life coach, what ideas for small goals can you come up with?