New Month New Goals: 5 Tips for Setting Achievable Goals

The start of every month is exciting because of this one thing: New month new goals.

There are endless opportunities for growth and hitting new goals, and the first couple of days are the perfect time to initiate these plans.

I also think that setting monthly goals is a lot more feasible for most individuals, and will help keep you on track significantly better than New Year’s resolutions ever could.

In today’s article, we’re covering 30 new month new goal ideas, five tips for planning attainable goals, and more.

Anyways, let’s get straight into it!

Goals for a New Month

Here are 30 ideas you could use for your new month new goals.

Learn a new skill
Deep clean your home and donate unused items
Save for an emergency fund
Quit eating out for a month
Save for a holiday
Get 7 – 9 hours of sleep every night
Read one book a week/month
Make your bed every morning
Learn a new topic every day
30-day push-up challenge
30-day workout challenge
Try a new exercise routine
Walk 10,000 steps every day
Go on outings by yourself
Do one good deed daily
Meal prep five days a week to avoid buying lunch
Reduce social media use by one hour daily
Spend an hour each day free from technology
Participate in zero online shopping for a month
Wake up an hour earlier than usual
Take an online course to learn something new
Stretch for ten minutes daily
Make one person smile/laugh every day
Organise your closet and donate clothes
Get outside as much as possible
Push yourself outside of your comfort zone
Start tracking your spending/budget
Learn the two-minute rule
Effectively communicate with family or friends
Make an effort to visit or call your grandparents weekly

New Month New Goals: 5 Tips for Planning Attainable Goals

Now that you’ve got some goal ideas for this new month, I’ll walk you through planning achievable goals.

You have to remember that as opposed to New Year’s resolutions, you have a twelfth of the time time to achieve these goals, so don’t set goals that will take months to achieve.

Tip 1: Be realistic

First things first, you have to be realistic with your goal setting.

Remember, you only have 30 or 31 days to achieve these goals, so don’t go setting anything that will take longer than that.

Setting a goal like “I want to run a 10K by the end of this month” is highly unachievable if you haven’t run in five years.

Or, setting a goal like “I want to read 10 books this month” is highly unreasonable if you haven’t picked up a book since high school.

You have to be realistic with your goal setting, otherwise, you won’t stick to these goals for the month, and you’ll feel bad about yourself if you don’t complete them.

It’s a good practice to assess your current situation in comparison to the goals you’ve set, and adjust them if necessary.

Example 1: Instead of, “I want to run a 10K by the end of this month,” I’d rather go for a run and document my skill level. In this first run, I only ran 1KM before I had to stop. Now we have a skill level to base off. Now, my new goal for this month is “to run 2KM by the end of this month.” It’s an attainable goal, that isn’t too far out of reach, but is still a challenge for me.

Example 2: Instead of “I want to read 10 books this month,” I’d set a goal of “reading for 20 minutes a day.” This is much less of a challenge, and 20 minutes a day seems like barely any time, but it’s enough to get the habit of reading daily started.

Tip 2: Create the stepping stones

Now that we’ve set realistic plans for our “new month new goals,” you next want to create the stepping stones for success.

This calls for you to break down your goals into manageable steps or actions to follow, as it’ll make the whole process a lot easier.

If one of your goals for the new month is to lose five pounds, instead of saying “I want to lose five pounds,” I’d rather say, “I want to work out four times a week” as this action will help you lose the weight.

If another goal for the new month is to deep clean your entire home, I’d break your home into four sections, and spend a week tackling each section. For section one, I’d say it’s the kitchen and living room, section two is the main bathroom and study, and so on.

Another example is if you wanted to stop spending money eating out, actionable steps to follow would be making lunch daily to bring into work and preparing dinners in advance.

The entire point of creating these stepping stones is to have a pathway towards reaching your goals. Without this pathway, you might be a little lost or confused about where to begin, therefore halting your journey.

Tip 3: Set SMART Goals

SMART goals are an excellent method for your new month new goals.

SMART stands for:

Specific: What precisely are you trying to achieve? And what steps need to be taken?
Measurable: How will you track the progression or know when you’ve completed this goal?
Attainable: Is it actually possible for you to achieve in your current circumstances?
Relevant: Does it make sense for you to be striving for this goal?
Time-Bound: When will this goal be completed by?

The entire point of setting SMART goals is to clarify with yourself that these goals set, are actually worth striving towards.

There’s zero point in setting and achieving goals that don’t benefit or progress you in the long run, and that’s what SMART goals help weed out.

Let’s say that one of your goals is to walk 10,000 steps daily, now let’s turn this into a SMART goal.

Specific: I want to walk 10,000 steps every day by increasing my time spent outside and not sitting for longer than 30 minutes at a time.
Measurable: Hit 10,000 steps daily, I can track this number with my Fitbit watch.
Attainable: I currently walk 7,000 steps daily, so increasing my time spent outside will help me reach this goal.
Relevant: By increasing daily steps, I’ll become more active, and be able to play with my kids for longer.
Time-Bound: End of this month.
SMART Goal: At the end of this month, I’ll be walking 10,000 steps daily, by increasing my time spent outside and not sitting for extended periods.

Tip 4: Visualise the result

When setting goals, I love to visualise myself hitting the result and feeling the same emotions I’d feel if reaching the expressed goal.

This is kind of like the law of attraction, and how what we focus on will manifest in our lives.

So, if I was setting a goal of running a 10K, I’d visualise myself running across the finish line and the happiness that embodies finishing that run.

If I was setting a goal for a pay rise, I’d visualise my bank account with more money in it, and picture what I could buy with it.

Or, if I set a goal to do one good deed daily, I’d visualise myself making others happy, and how much more satisfied I’d feel every day.

There’s no wrong or right way of doing this, but imagine it as if it’s currently happening, and this will only push you into trying to achieve this goal as quickly as possible.

While I’m not a huge manifester, I have always had this figure flash through my mind of a monthly income that I’m going to accomplish (over $50,000), and I’ll let you know if I hit it in the future.

Tip 5: Reward yourself

Life is too short to not reward yourself after hitting monthly goals or milestones, and I think it’s the perfect motivator for many people, including myself.

During, or at the end of every month, reward yourself for finishing goals in whatever way feels right to you.

It could be celebrating with a treat, making yourself a nice drink, buying a small gift for yourself, or having a movie night.

No matter how big or small, reward yourself for hitting a goal you set at the start of the month, and it’ll make you more excited for next month’s goals, and so on.

I recently started doing this by rewarding myself after hitting subscriber milestones on YouTube, and it’s motivated me more than ever to reach new goals.

When I hit 400 subscribers, I bought myself a new lavalier microphone which improved my videos.

When I eventually hit 1000 subscribers, I’m rewarding myself by buying an RGB light for the background of my videos.

Rewarding yourself is a great way to reinforce positive habits, and can help you stick to your goals a lot longer.

Monthly Recap

At the end of every month, it’s essential to do a monthly summary to see what’s working or not and to make changes whenever necessary.

This step will take you less than five minutes, but it’s vital to help you reach your goals in the coming months.

Reflect on what’s working or not

I first like to reflect on my goals and ask myself a few questions to understand what went right and wrong for this month.

Ask yourself questions like:

Did I reach all my goals set for this month?
What went well?
What did I struggle with?
How can I improve this for next month’s goals?

Be 100% honest, there’s no point in lying (you’re just lying to yourself after all). It might’ve been an excellent month, or it could’ve been horrible.

However it turned out, answer the questions with 100% honesty, and figure out how you can make next month better.

Reflecting on your “new month new goals” will help you understand last month’s mindset, and what to keep or get rid of this next month.

Make necessary changes

After you’ve reflected on what’s working or not, you can now make necessary changes coming into this next month.

It might be making changes like:

Creating more attainable goals: Sometimes we aim far too high with goal setting, and I like to strip it back into a much more manageable goal to reach.
Create fewer goals: I once set 10 goals at once and was swarmed with all these new expectations I had for myself. Don’t create more than five goals at once.
Not being so hard on myself: Not every day do I wake up productive or energized, so you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself if you don’t reach your expected goals.

While these are just a few examples, it’s good to reflect and make changes every month, depending on your current situation.

Also, goals change all the time, and I wouldn’t expect your summer goals to be anywhere near your winter goals.

Wrapping Up

I’m really excited that you’re taking the leap for your “new month new goals.”

It’s always so exciting creating and sticking to new goals and habits, and I hope this article has helped out.

Also, don’t be so hard on yourself. I understand we all have expectations to be this “best version” of ourselves, but we’re not going to hit that every month, and that’s okay.

Trying your best is 100x better than not trying at all, but I guarantee you’re going to crush it this month, good luck!