Achieve Your Dreams With a Goal Journal Planner

Whether you’re a person who is trying to reach their big dreams or you just want to take logistical control of your day, a goal journal planner helps prioritize your time to meet your goals. It’s so exciting to start a new task or hobby, but it’s easy to lose steam half-way through. A planner keeps you accountable to execute goals to completion.

Goal setting allows you to take a desire and break it out into actionable chunks so it actually gets done. But setting the goal is only the first step in the process. To reinforce how good it feels to work on goals, try journaling and reflecting as well. 

We understand the temptation to give up when a goal becomes difficult, which is why journaling is so important. It reminds you why you had the goal in the first place, and breathes life back into it so that your dreams and aspirations are exciting again.

Let’s break down what a goal journal planner looks like, and how you can use one to make the most of every day!

What to Expect From a Goal Journal Planner

A goal journal planner offers a creative way to set milestones and make your dreams come true (or at least make doing everyday tasks a bit more exciting!) If you don’t have much experience with a planner, then the best place to start is with our Guided Goals Journal.

This planner has everything you need to set your goals. At the beginning of each month, there’s a place to write down the big end-goal that you want to achieve. That’s usually a more abstract idea, such as “I want to get better at drawing.” Then, you break that down into three, smaller related goals. In our drawing scenario, that could be to practice with watercolors, sign up for a class, and check out a library book on drawing. 

Underneath each of those, write down the even smaller steps you need to complete to make that happen. For practice with watercolors, that would be to buy a watercolor set and practice painting for one hour, three days a week.

With the Guided Goals Journal, there are also helpful tools like habit trackers where you can write down the habit and fill in each day you completed it. Check out the daily reflection prompts where you can write down your main goal, tasks related to it, something good that happened while pursuing the goal, and lessons learned along the way.

To boost your creativity, try goal-setting stickers as well to add pops of color and words of encouragement to motivate you to stick to your goals.

Goal Setting: SMART Goals

Another popular method for goal setting is to use SMART goals. You can create these goals in any planner using your favorite filler paper.

When setting your goal, consider these five strategies:

• Specific: Make the goal as detailed as possible to achieve maximum success.
• Measurable: Set benchmarks for how you’ll track your progress.

• Relevant: Think about how this goal aligns with your long-term vision for your life.
• Time-based: Create a reasonable deadline with small tasks to reach your goal.

Creating a SMART strategy ensures that you know exactly what you need to do to reach your goals!

Journaling: Techniques for Success

By journaling on a regular basis, you can keep yourself motivated to achieve your goals. The amount of journaling depends on the person, but try to take at least a little bit of time every week to write down your thoughts about your goals! This reminds you how satisfying it can be to accomplish them, preventing you from giving up.

It can also be helpful to write about progress updates, as well as any lessons you learned that you’d want to remember for later. 

If you’re new to journaling or you’re feeling the need to switch it up, here are a few great ways to reflect in your goal journal planner.

Gratitude Journaling

Be as creative as you want, but the end goal is to fill yourself up with gratitude. Write down a couple of items that you’re thankful for, stories that fill you with hope, or a list of people you love. A great way to jumpstart this practice is to use the Gratitude Classic Accessory Pack, which contains filler paper for daily affirmations.

Visualization Exercises 

Energize your goals by visualizing the results. For example, if you want to become the best version of yourself, then this is what the exercise would look like:

1. Think about the best version of yourself professionally and personally. Take two minutes to write that down on a piece of paper.
2. For the next week or so, spend five minutes thinking about that person. Imagine yourself in different settings and experiences.
3. In your goal setting, consider strategies you can implement to work toward becoming that “best self.”

Self-Reflection Prompts

A goal journal planner can be a great way to explore the true, inner you, r through self-reflection prompts. Ask yourself self-reflection questions such as, “Am I spending my time wisely? What brings me the most happiness in this world?” Answer honestly and without judgment, and you’ll discover new desires within your heart that you can set goals to achieve.

Do you have a goal journal planner? Be sure to follow us on Instagram @the_happy_planner so we can be inspired by all your amazing progress!