Serena Williams, former tennis champion and widely-regarded GOAT once said,
She began working toward it when she was three years old. By the time she reached that goal, she was in her 20s.
Achieving a long-term goal like becoming world no. 1, or launching a business, or becoming a master in some skill isn’t a simple, linear journey. It is made up of hundreds of short-term goals that add up over time.
To stay on track with your long-term goals, you need short and medium-term goals that stack up. Whether you have a big dream or just want to live your best possible life today, here are some short-term goals that will lead your way.
How to Set and Achieve Short Term Goals (+Examples)
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Are Short-Term Goals?
Definition of short-term goals
Short-term goals are objectives you want to achieve in a shorter period of time, typically in a day, week, month, or the near future. They are:
- Simple: Typically, short-term goals are small and can be completed quickly
- Inclusive: Often, short-term goals contribute to long-term goal accomplishment
- Focused: Immediate priorities or smaller milestones in the journey toward your long-term ambitions
- Limited: Are close-ended with minimal scope
Difference between short-term and long-term goals
Let’s take a simple example. If your long-term goal is to launch a coaching business, your medium term goals would be to:
- Get certified
- Launch a personal brand/website
- Build a network on LinkedIn
- Create frameworks and templates
From there, your short-term goals would be to:
- Study for the certification exam for 2 hours every day
- Get coaching practice of 20 one-hour sessions
- Post twice a week on LinkedIn
As you see, short-term goals help break down your long-term goals into achievable, manageable, bite-sized components. So, the primary difference between short-term vs. long-term goals is the timeframe and scope. But there’s more.
| Parameter | Short-term goals | Long-term goals |
|---|---|---|
| Timeline | Typically, day, week, or month | Usually 1-5 years |
| Focus | Immediate tasks | Complex and ambitious endeavors |
| Effort | Minimal and instant | Maximum and consistent |
| Outcomes | Small and incremental | Large and transformational |
| Scope | Typically involves an individual or small teams | Typically involves larger teams |
Summarize this article for me pleaseImportance of Setting Short-Term Goals
If you feel like there is already a lot to do without having to worry about yet another set of goals, we understand. Between work, hobbies, relationships, social life, workouts, mental health, and community engagement, there is already a lot to do for every individual.
Rather than being another source of pressure, short-term goals can be a great way to organize and prioritize what you want in life. Here’s how.
Manageability
Short-term goals help you manage your long-term life plans. Need a retirement fund? Invest small amounts every month. Dream of becoming a standup comic? Perform at one open mic every week. Want to lose weight? Walk a mile every day.
Short-term goals make your distant long-term ambitions manageable and controllable. They prevent overwhelm, decision paralysis, and other psychological barriers.
Building momentum
Short-term goals help you compound the fruits of your efforts. If you achieve your short-term goals consistently, you build confidence and motivation to do more. This creates momentum.
If your goal for the year is to write your first novel, your short-term goal would be to write two pages or one chapter every day. As you make this a habit, you’ll be able to write more, perhaps even completing your goal sooner.
Staying focused
Short-term goals prevent you from getting distracted while executing the task. By breaking down a larger goal into smaller chunks, you can stay on top of the tasks without worrying about the bigger picture (for the moment).
Let’s say you’re a developer building a product. By breaking it down into small features, you can set short-term goals and focus on coding instead of being distracted by user feedback or designer requests.
Tracking progress
Short-term goals are the milestones on your roadmap to long-term goals. They help evaluate progress, celebrate wins, identify problems, and make adjustments if necessary.
Hope that’s convinced you to try your hand at setting short-term goals. Here’s a comprehensive set of inspirational examples for you.
Summarize this article for me pleaseExamples of Short-Term Goals
You can set short-term goals for just about anything you want to achieve across any dimension of your life. In this section, we break down the goals you can set into various categories for ease of reading.
Career-related short-term goals
Whether you’re a freelancer, an early career employee, or a leader, short-term goals can clear up the steps to the position you aspire to be in. Try the following to guide your way.
1. Develop a new skill
In the world of technology and AI, everyone needs to upskill constantly. Use a short-term goal to help you learn new professional skills, practice using a new tool, or update your existing skills.
Goal: Learn to code a machine learning application with Python in four weeks.
2. Create a personal website
A lot of career growth today happens through networking. As you move up the ladder, you’ll need to be searchable to be found by potential employers, headhunters, or collaborators. A personal website is a good starting point.
Goal: Create a simple personal website on Notion or Squarespace with a basic profile and contact information in two weeks.
3. Expand professional network
The next step in personal branding is to have a wide and engaged professional network. You can treat this as both a short and medium-term goal, depending on how deep you want to go. However, some short-term goals you can set are:
- Update your LinkedIn profile with the latest information by the end of the week
- Post twice a week on LinkedIn
- Show up for two offline networking events every month
4. Seek regular feedback
Professional growth needs regular and constructive feedback from those we work with. Make it a habit to collect feedback by setting short-term goals around it.
Goal: Schedule monthly 1-on-1 meetings with the reporting manager and skip-level manager to collect feedback.
5. Be productive
More than 50% of employees said they don’t feel productive at work, finds McKinsey. This is primarily because modern work is mired in distractions. Too many meetings, Slack messages, emails, and other tools take away time to do what employees are supposed to do.
To overcome this challenge, set yourself short-term productivity goals, such as:
- Restrict meetings to less than 90 minutes a day
- Spend at least four hours a day doing core work, like coding, writing, etc.
- Set and complete day-start and day-end routines
6. Get mentorship
At some point in your career, you’re likely to be stuck. A good mentor can clear up the roadblocks and smoothen your journey.
Goal: Find a mentor, discuss goals, and get support. Schedule bi-monthly meetings with him/her.
7. Get better at public speaking
When we say public speaking, people often think of addressing large gatherings or making a speech. It doesn’t have to be. Good public speaking is useful in motivating your team or handling a family crisis.
Goal:
- Learn presentation skills through an online course or a communication coach
- Volunteer and speak at three company events
- Sign up for conferences and present to small groups
Personal development short-term goals
Yi Tay, the ex-CEO of Reka AI, recently published a blog post explaining why he’s returning to Google. In it, he says something that most of us experience but don’t articulate.
Our personal and professional life is so closely intertwined that one intricately impacts the other. So, setting personal goals helps maintain a healthy work-life balance.
8. Build healthy habits
A lot of things in your personal life can be chunked into this short-term goal category. So, choose what’s right for you.
Goals:
- Do strength training for 30 minutes, five times a week
- Reduce carbs in your meals and replace it with protein
- Drink eight glasses of water every day
- Take a walk in the nearby park for 20 minutes every day
- Get seven hours of sleep
9. Create routines
Humans are creatures of habit. What we do regularly shapes the way we think and who we become. Whether you actively nurture them or not, you form certain habits and keep at them until something changes.
So, you might as well be thoughtful and intentional about your habits by setting short-term goals.
- Make your bed as soon as you wake up
- Journal for 20 minutes every day
- Do the prayer, meditation, reading, or mindfulness practice
- Wind down the day by eliminating screens at least 60 minutes before bedtime
10. Nurture social life
It may be uncommon to set goals for your social life. It’s supposed to happen spontaneously, right? However, have you ever felt like it’s been days since you had a heart-to-heart with a friend? Avoid this by setting short-term goals around social life.
- Meet friends every Friday after work
- Playa game or watch a movie with a friend every month
- Send a text or call a friend every weekend
- Visit extended family every month
11. Minimize social media
It’s often easier to scroll through Instagram and ‘like’ a post than actually pick up the phone and call someone. However, social networking isn’t enough to create meaningful connections.
Set short-term goals to minimize your social media usage, which can then compound into healthy digital habits over the long term.
- Restrict Instagram usage to 20 minutes a day
- Do not use social media until two hours after waking up
- Go on a digital detox for 30 days
12. Declutter your life
However organized you are, clutter piles up unnoticed. So, it helps to set goals to declutter your life often. This could include:
- Getting rid of things (clothes, stationery, etc.) that you haven’t used in three months
- Putting all things back in their boxes
- Clearing out the desktop, downloads, and other common folders on your computer
- Sorting and archiving documents, bills, etc.
- Unsubscribing from unnecessary email
13. Get reading
A recent survey found that 23% of American adults haven’t read a book in a year! Those who do read are reading less. So, if you’ve been falling back on your reading, don’t sweat. Start again.
Goal: Read five pages a day every day before going to bed (Don’t worry if it’s a physical book, ebook, or an audio book. Reading is reading.)
14. Practice cooking
An important part of being healthy is to cook meals at home and eat as a family. It also helps to know exactly what you’re putting into your body and how you feel at the end of it. So, why not set short-term goals around cooking?
Goal: Cook at least one meal a day at home for five days each week. (Depending on how soon you get this rhythm, you can increase the goal).
15. Volunteer
If life’s going too fast, volunteering is a great way to slow down and explore activities that give you more meaning and purpose.
Goal: Volunteer two hours every Sunday with the neighborhood cat shelter.
16. Run a marathon
Well, technically, running a marathon is a long-term goal. But to get there, you can set up a number of short-term goals around:
- Jogging for 30 minutes every day
- Adding five minutes to the jogging time each week/fortnight
- Finding the right gear to support marathon running
17. Get out of your comfort zone
Is there anything you’ve been meaning to do but never found the courage? Now is as good a time as any.
Set goals like lifting heavier weights, walking a mile longer than usual, or finally taking that bungee jump.
Financial short-term goals
The best way to have more money is to manage what you have well. Financial short-term goals can help build backup, increase wealth, and enable you to manage your money right.
18. Start a rainy day fund
The first step in financial planning is having a good emergency fund. This will not only help you during emergencies but also give you the confidence to make riskier investments with the rest of the money.
Goal: Allocate $200 a month toward an emergency fund until you read $3000.
19. Create a monthly budget
Know where your money is going, minimize wasteful spending, and spend where it matters with a clear and useful budget.
Goal: Create a comprehensive monthly budget on the first day of every month. Monitor deviations from the budget and adjust the next month’s plan accordingly.
20. Manage your personal finance
It’s easy to spend money these days. One-click shopping, tap and pay, buy now pay later, etc. make impulse shopping easier and more attractive. The only way to spend mindfully is to manage your personal finances well.
Goals:
- Research accounting software
- Sign up for a tool that manages personal finance in the way you want to
- Set up rules for spending, like limiting online shopping to under $100
- Set up reports and notifications to ensure you don’t break your own rules
21. Begin investing
It’s never too early or too late to start investing. Within financial short-term goals, investment plans are perhaps the most important because the compounding value of the right investments can be exponential.
Goals:
- Set aside 10% of your monthly income for investments
- Diversify investment portfolio by allocating 40% to debt funds, 30% to equity, etc.
- Increase the invested amount by 10% every year
- Create additional investments for short-term plans like travel or buying a new car
22. Pre-pay your debts
Loans like a home mortgage or a student loan offer options for prepayment. Leverage that and pay off your debts as soon as you can.
Goal: Pay an additional $150 each month toward credit card debt.
23. Eliminate wasteful spending
Do you have a magazine subscription you never use? Do you continue to pay insurance on a device you no longer own? Eliminating such wasteful spending needs a financial decluttering goal.
Goal: Identify and eliminate wasteful expenses every quarter. Move the money saved into a separate savings account for later use.
24. Improve credit score
A good credit score can offer long-term financial gain in the form of lower interest rates, easy access to loans, etc. Every individual must set short-term goals to improve their credit score by:
- Make on-time payments for all bills
- Stay well within the credit limit on any card
- Check your credit report every six months and ensure you dispute inaccurate transactions or charges
Short-term goals for students
While the above goals are common and widely applicable, they don’t cover specific life stages, like university. Here are some short-term goals for students.
25. Complete all assignments ahead of time
If you’re the type to burn the midnight oil on the day the assignment is due, this goal is helpful.
Goal: Finish and submit the weekly assignment two days before the due date.
26. Improve grades
To improve long-term academic achievement, you need to improve your grades in the short term. To do this, try the following:
- Study all lessons on the day they were taught (and not postpone it to the day before the exam)
- Give yourself mock tests to evaluate your learning outcomes
- Complete all assignments on time
- Get good sleep before the day of the test
27. Gain all-round excellence
Education isn’t just about the grades but also the experience of schooling. So, don’t miss out on extracurricular activities.
Set goals to participate in a club or a sports activity for an hour every weekend.
28. Volunteer
Another aspect of all-round development is to have volunteering experience. Set goals to spend weekends helping a local charity.
This needn’t be on-ground. Volunteering can also be remote or from home, like teaching a skill in an online class, helping people update their website, or responding to emails with career advice.
29. Prepare for a career
College is also the time to get yourself ready to walk into the professional world. So, get started with short-term goals, such as:
- Create a resume outlining your professional pedigree
- Build a portfolio of personal projects to demonstrate your skills
- Join professional networking groups to build connections
- Gain leadership experience by managing projects or college events
- Get internship experience
30. Build behavioral skills
College education often does not directly teach the behavioral skills necessary in the workplace, such as communication, problem-solving, collaboration, resilience, conflict resolution, giving/taking feedback, etc.
Goal: Approach a mentor to understand the behavioral skills needed to excel at work. Create a step-by-step approach to developing them.
Bonus: Check out other SMART goals for college students to help you stay motivated.
Short-term goals for young professionals
Millions of jobs were added in 2024 in the US alone, creating opportunities for young professionals to kickstart their careers. To thrive in your new roles and grow in your careers, these short-term goals will help.
31. Plan your workday
Create a routine to ensure that you plan your workday to be effective. For a knowledge worker, a typical day includes checking emails, responding to instant messages, joining meetings, and collaborating with colleagues in addition to completing their individual tasks.
Goal: Plan the day to ensure the important tasks are completed in alignment with your team goals. You might even use techniques like calendar blocking or Pomodoro to get things done.
32. Improve professional communication
Most of today’s work is in communicating with one another, be it through emails, presentations, meetings, memos, or brainstorming sessions. So, seek to improve your communication with goals such as:
- Write shorter, clearer emails
- Write comprehensive briefs/requirement documents for colleagues
- Practice writing minutes of meeting to better manage action items
33. Develop decision-making skills
Early career professionals, especially in startups and small businesses, will need to make a number of important decisions.
To get them right, set short-term goals to create decision-making frameworks. Understand risk assessment, best practices, unknown unknowns etc.
Keep resources like Clickup’s Decision-Making Framework Document handy.
34. Create a personal development plan
Shape your career the way you want it with a comprehensive yet flexible plan. Create personal development goals to:
- Identify five key areas of growth
- List and take actionable steps to make progress in each area
- Discuss progress with the manager and get feedback
- Understand what it takes to get a promotion and gain those skills
- Advocate for promotion
35. Create work-life balance
Set short and medium-term goals to ensure work-life balance. Set goals like:
- Design your workday in a way that’s best suited to your life situation
- Don’t check e-mails or office chat after 6 pm
- Keep weekends entirely for personal nourishment
- Take the 3-week leave you’re entitled to
36. Learn to say no
Early career professionals are especially reluctant to say no for fear of missing out or even reprimand. But learning to say no professionally is a critical part of being productive.
Learn to decline all tasks or requests that fall outside your priorities or responsibilities.
37. Negotiate a benefit or raise
Good professional development also needs negotiation skills. The ability to present your case confidently and negotiate your compensation or benefits is a key skill to have.
Goal: Build your case for a raise before the next appraisal. Learn to negotiate the raise you desire.
Bonus: Check out other professional goals for work.
Short-term goals for managers
Management is not an innate skill. It’s learned slowly and painstakingly. To be a better manager, you need to invest time and energy in learning how to be one.
38. Learn to be a manager
Begin by reading management books to understand what leadership is and what is expected of you. Incorporate lessons and frameworks from these books into your everyday tasks. Evaluate and optimize as you go along.
Goal: Read 10 management books in one quarter.
39. Seek feedback
Feedback is typically top-down, which means that managers often give feedback to their team members. To be a better manager, you need to hear from your team.
Goal: Conduct monthly retrospectives to collect feedback on your performance as a manager.
40. Introspect
Managers often feel like they’re just babysitters. A major reason for this could be the way they manage their teams. To make changes to the manager you are now and become the manager you want to be, set short-term goals toward behavioral changes.
Goal: Conduct 1-on-1s with yourself every month to identify gaps in your own performance.
Short-term goals for entrepreneurs
In the US, 5.5 million new business applications were filed last year. Add freelancers, solopreneurs, and side gig-ers to it; we have a booming world of entrepreneurship. Success in this field needs thoughtful short-term goals.
41. Validate your business idea
As an entrepreneur, you need to know that your idea is valid and potentially profitable before you can spend time developing it. Do that first. Set goals to validate your business idea through secondary research, surveys, interviews, etc.
Goal: Confirm product-market fit within six months.
42. Identify target audience
Once you validate your idea, think about who will find the most value from your product, i.e., who is your ideal customer avatar.
Goal: Define your ideal customer profile in a month
43. Create a product roadmap
In theory, your idea works. Now, it’s time to put it into practice. Set short-term goals that will contribute to your long-term plan of creating a successful product.
- Launch an MVP by the end of this month
- Identify and prioritize features to add in each sprint
- Create a plan to incrementally build the product
- Set deadlines
44. Create a go-to-market plan
Goals:
- Craft a one-minute pitch that communicates your business’ value, in a week
- Outline a strategy for promoting your business through online channels by this quarter
- Build a website with landing pages for lead capture by the end of the quarter
- Set up profiles on LinkedIn, Instagram, and X in a week
45. Set up a CRM
Every business—B2B or B2C across industries—needs a robust system to track all customer interactions in one place. Set that up first.
Goal: Research CRM tools and subscribe to one within a week.
46. Secure funding
As an entrepreneur, you can’t stop at just driving the business; you also need to bring in the fuel.
Goal: Approach two investors a month to get seed funding
47. Increase customer base
Goal: Raise your customer base by 20% in three months to demonstrate potential growth to investors.
48. Generate revenue
The best validation for your business idea is a paying customer.
Goal: Sign up the first customer to generate $100,000 in revenue
49. Hire your first employee
Whether it’s an executive assistant to manage your calendar, a customer support person to handle queries, or an intern to manage your social media marketing, confidently make that first hire.
Goal: Hire a social media intern within two weeks.
50. Invest in yourself
Entrepreneurship is hard. It’s full of big highs and deep lows. It involves making complex decisions and singularly facing the consequences. To be a good entrepreneur, you need to invest in yourself.
Goal: Get a leadership coach to support your entrepreneurship journey.
If you’re looking at goals like drinking water or getting a coach and wondering if they’re really effective, you’ve got a point. Setting an effective goal needs a little more than that.
Summarize this article for me pleaseHow to Set Effective Short Term Goals
Goal-setting is about enabling you to achieve what you want. That needs specific and actionable goal-setting strategies and project management tools like ClickUp. Let’s see how you can use them together to accomplish your goals.
1. Start with the big goals
Look at your long-term objectives, dreams, and ambitions and derive your short-term goals from them. For example, if your long-term goal is to lose weight, your short-term goals can be around workouts, eating habits, and other mental health practices you need to do every day.
2. Break down your goals into manageable chunks
Breaking down a yearly goal into smaller chunks of short-term weekly goals can help you make good progress.
For instance, “write 100 words a day” can lead you to the larger goal of “publish a book in 2025,” if you can keep at it.
3. Use the SMART goals framework
If you’ve had goals, wishes, and resolutions over the years, you’re probably wondering how to write a goal statement well. Try the SMART goals framework.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. Setting goals that check all these boxes helps you achieve them faster. Instead of setting a goal to “write more”, make it “Write 400 words a day everyday for a month.” which is SMART.
When in doubt, use goal-setting templates. Try the ClickUp SMART Goals Template to guide your goal-setting process This structured approach helps save time in planning and gets you doing more.
If you still need more, here are some goal examples for 1, 5, 10 years. That should set you a strong foundation. Here are some more tips to keep in mind.
Summarize this article for me pleaseTips for Staying on Track with Short-Term Goals
Setting your goals right is the first, albeit important, step. To ensure that you achieve your goals, you need to create ways to track your progress. Here are some tips to do exactly that.
Prioritize your goals
Not all goals are equally important. For each period, day, week, month, or quarter, prioritize the ones that are most important to you. It helps to limit this to three to avoid the risk of being overwhelmed.
Stay flexible
Sometimes, you might face circumstances that need you to adjust your goals. Be ready for it. This doesn’t mean you’ve failed. In fact, this kind of flexibility helps you become agile, resilient, and ahead of time.
Track and review progress regularly
You can’t set and forget your goals. You need to regularly track progress to stay accountable. Regular reviews allow you to assess what’s working, identify challenges, and refine your approach.
Get an accountability partner
Don’t force yourself to do it all alone. Get a friend, colleague, or manager to keep you accountable. If you’re setting goals around reading, you might join a book club. If you’re looking to lose weight, you might work with a trainer.
Use productivity tools
Goal accomplishment can be hard as it is without being overwhelmed by the tracking and reporting. Automate that with tools like ClickUp.
Make your goals visible
Out of sight is out of mind. So, use a tool like ClickUp Goals to keep them visible and accessible. At your workplace, visualize the entire team’s goals in one place, accurately tracking who is doing what.
Manage priorities
Prioritize tasks and goals as “Urgent,” “Normal,” or “Low” on ClickUp. This helps maintain focus and clarity, ensuring meaningful progress without unnecessary distractions.
Create an action plan
Outline how you’re going to achieve your goals. If you need to buy supplies, tools, accessories, etc., include that in your plan. Share it with your accountability partner too.
Try the ClickUp SMART Goal Action Plan Template to document and manage your journey in one place.
Track your progress
Choose from any of the dozen wonderful goal-tracking apps available today. Use ClickUp Dashboards to set customized reporting for KPIs that matter to you. Don’t just design a report. Make it actionable with timely reminders when you’re veering off-track.
Don’t reinvent the wheel. Enter your personal, everyday goals into ClickUp’s Daily Goal Template to help you stay on top of things. Create custom statuses and track what matters.
You might also use milestone templates to consolidate your short-term goals into groups.
Brainstorm with AI
Not sure how to create your goals? No worries. Ask ClickUp Brain for ideas. Try asking, “Generate five short-term goals” or “what short-term goals can I set based on my long-term goals.” Iterate with ClickUp Brain, develop an action plan, and execute your goals.
Despite your best efforts, setting and achieving your goals isn’t easy. Here are some challenges you’re likely to face and how to overcome them.
Summarize this article for me pleaseCommon Challenges When Setting Short-Term Goals
Overloading yourself with too many goals
When you’re setting goals, especially if it’s at the beginning of the year, you’d be tempted to ‘transform’ your life by setting too many goals. This will overwhelm you and stretch your resources thin, leading to burnout.
To avoid this, prioritize a manageable number of goals and allocate adequate time and energy to each.
Lack of accountability
A goal that you don’t take action on is just a wish. To keep you accountable to take action on your goals, set up a goal-tracker or sign up with an accountability partner.
Procrastination
Procrastination is a universal problem. From snoozing your alarm clock to skipping the gym after a long day of work, procrastination is omnipresent. Often, it stems not from laziness but from feeling overwhelmed.
Avoid procrastination by:
- Setting small achievable goals
- Creating systems that nudge you toward completing the goals you’ve set
- Tracking progress in a visible way
- Celebrating the small wins
Summarize this article for me pleaseSet Effective Short-Term Goals with ClickUp
We all have dreams and ambitions. Whether it’s excelling on the world stage or becoming your own boss or losing that stubborn fat, everyone aspires for things. Where people fail is in creating consistent habits that achieve the big fat goals.
Short-term personal goals are exactly that. They offer a roadmap toward long-term goals. Draw that map with a comprehensive and robust tool like ClickUp. Generate ideas, convert them to tasks, monitor workflows, integrate with multiple platforms, keep track in real time, check off your goals! Try ClickUp today for free!
Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
