How To Set Goals When You’re Exhausted

Like many, I started out last year strong, hopeful and optimistic…and then life became unexpectedly very rocky. I gave up on my 2021 goals a few months in, and even threw my goal planner out mid-year, too weary and discouraged to even look at it. The year knocked me around and I am still exhausted.

2021 looked different for everyone, but if you had a challenging year like I did, you may be feeling a bit (or a lot) exhausted and worn out. 

Don’t lose hope. 

Even from an exhausted or low state of mind, it is still helpful (and maybe even more important!) to set goals for the future. It just may need to look a bit different this year. 

Give yourself some grace, but continue setting goals from your weary state of mind. Goals continue to drive us toward a better future. When set thoughtfully, they may help move us through the valley. Read on for a few tips for goal setting when you’re exhausted.

Pray.

God should always be a part of our goal-setting process. Ask him to reveal to you where you should be heading or what you should reach for. Ask him to align your will with his.

Here is a prayer you can use:

Lord, thank you for this new year. I appreciate a chance for a fresh start, though I know my hope is not found in a new calendar, but in you. Please align my heart and my desires with your will and purpose for my life. I seek you and your guidance as I dream about the year ahead and what it holds for me and my family. As I set goals for this year, please reveal your plans for me. Help me set goals that will strengthen me, my faith, my work and my family. Help me to prioritize what I need to so that I can live my life in accordance to your will. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.  

Determine your priorities. 

If we don’t set our priorities, outside influences will set them for us. 

Sometimes this can’t be helped, such as when there is a life emergency or when work sets a priority that must be done. 

However, if you have clear personal priorities, you can use them as a filter through which you make decisions. You decide with your time and actions if the things that you say are important are actually the most important things to you.

After a difficult season, your priority for this year may be rest, family time, faith or health. Knowing your top 1-3 priorities can eliminate any unrealistic goals that you would like, but aren’t as important right now. Don’t use up valuable time and limited energy on unimportant goals.

Go easy on the productive goals. 

If you do have some productive or stretch goals for the year, evaluate if you need to make them more attainable. If the goal does not fall within your top priorities, don’t add an extra burden that will require additional stress to accomplish. 

If a productive goal must be a priority, ask God for strength and endurance to sustain you, try to get help where you can with the goal, break it down to smaller goals and remember that this is only a season.   

For the past 2-3 years, I had a goal to move my body for at least 5 hours a week. At the end of last year, I decided exercise was still important to me, but 5 hours a week is unrealistic in this season, so I reduced the goal to 3 hours a week, because good health is a priority for me.

Set soul renewing goals.

If you are weary from a stressful season that is still ongoing, consider setting goals that will help renew your spirit, increase your faith and improve your mental health. If we are not intentional to make time for ourself, we can easily overlook our needs to care for others, and become depleted in the process. 

Here are some examples:

Set some fun goals.

Fun goals give us something to look forward to, and this can give us motivation to keep slugging through difficult days. Keep an open mind and set them loosely so that the goal doesn’t become just another thing to mark off your list.

Here are some examples:

Be flexible.

Keep in mind that you can change your goals mid-year. If you begin to have greater energy or a smoother ride, you can re-evaluate and choose to set a few more heavy-hitting goals for the remainder of the year.

Alternatively, when life throws you a curve ball, you can reduce, eliminate or set new goals. 

That’s what I wish I would have done last year, rather than scrapping my goals completely. But I give myself grace–I was doing the best I could and sometimes that looks like having no goals for a period.

Wherever you are in your spirit, I encourage you to take some quiet time to consider setting a few goals for the new year. They will help guide you in the direction you would like to go.

The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail and not drift, nor lie at anchor. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I wish you much perseverance, good health, an ever-growing faith and much joy in the new year!