Whether it is the start of a new year, or the middle of one, it’s always good to set goals. I’m not talking about New Year’s Resolutions that most people don’t stick to after a few months – I’m talking about realistic, achievable goals. A great way to keep track of your progress towards these goals is using your bullet journal.

Why goals pages are important

Did you know that writing down your goal makes you way more likely to reach it? If you have a bunch of things you’re working towards, write them in your journal and read over them every single day.

Goals pages can hold you accountable by reminding you of your goals every day. You can set a specific time limit to encourage you to work towards your goals by a certain date.

Another great thing about tracking goals is you can monitor your progress. Each day, you are assessing what you’ve done to work towards each goal. This will give you more information on areas you need to improve or change to stay on track.

Setting up a goals page

Your goals can be weekly, monthly, or yearly. To create a goals page spread, you first need your bullet journal and art supplies. Next you need to identify what your goals are. Identify what you want to achieve in the next few months to a year.

The next step is to brainstorm some ideas for your layout. Here are some amazing bullet journal goals page ideas.

List format

Starting off super simple with a list format. Simply list your goals in a list on one or two pages. Make it colourful and aesthetic by using your favourite colours and fonts, or add in some doodles iif you want to make it more creative. A simple list makes it easy to follow it you have several goals and want to keep track of them all.

See this example below. It’s clear, yet artistic and easy to read.

Categories

The next way you can organise your goals pages is by splitting your goals into categories. These categories depend on your individual goals. Here are some of the categories you could use:

• Health and fitness
• Personal
• Financial
• Social
• Relationships
• Studying or school
• Hobbies
• Creativity

Here are a few great examples:

To track each category, you could create ‘level 10’ box table. Fill in the boxes for each category depending on how well each one is going. This is a simple and visual layout that makes it clear which goals you’re well on the way to achieving.

Vision Boards

Vision boards are great for long-term projections. They are popular in the Law of Attraction world. If you have a bunch of goals to achieve within the next year, create a double page spread incorporating all of them. You could print out pictures and stick them into your journal. If you love drawing, you could create your own doodles and graphics to represent all of your yearly goals.

Daily Trackers

Tracking your daily habits is key to reaching any goal. Break down your long-term goals into smaller things that can do each day. This spread below has space for the long-term goals on the left, and a calendar on the right to tick off daily habits. Hold yourself accountable using a spread like this one!

Wheel of Goals

If you prefer to be more creative, try a wheel of goals. This requires more artistic abilities than most of the simpler spreads, but it can look amazing once it’s done. Draw a large circle across a double page spread and split it into categories. Write your goals on the outside, and colour in each respective part of the circle to indicate how close you are to reaching the goals.

Tracking Goals

A great way to track goals in your bullet journal is to create a table. In one column, write your goals. In the next, write the purpose of these goals. Then write any obstacles you might encounter on the way to your goals.

Split your larger goals into smaller goals. This way, you can breakdown your yearlong goal into more achievable milestones and create an action plan. Remember to give each milestone a timeframe so you stay on track. If you have lots o goals, try splitting them into professional and personal like the example below. Or you could split them into several categories and make a separate table for each one.

Below bullet journal shows a perfect example of this.

Any of these goal tracker ideas can be tweaked. Be sure to add your own unique spin on each one. Add in your favourite colours, fonts, and doodles to inspire you to reach your goals. 

To reach your goals, it’s handy to have a place to keep track of them. Bullet journals are perfect to get creative whilst monitoring your progress and reminder yourself of your goals.

Your goals need to be realistic and specific to you. Whatever kind of goal you have, they need to have a purpose. Otherwise, you probably won’t stay motivated to achieve them.

Be careful not to spend too much time creating beautiful goals pages in your journal instead of taking action towards them! Use your goals pages as motivation. Hopefully some of the spreads above have giving you some ideas for your own bullet journal. If you can’t choose your favourite, try a different one each month until you find one that works best for you. Most importantly, have fun with it!