How to Create a Better Relationship Through Intentional Goal Setting

With it being December and the end of the year is coming up. It is time to start thinking of next year. It’s time to contemplate where you wanna be. Decide now what you want to achieve. Start allowing yourself to dream and take action to make next year a better year. 

To have a better year means you have to take intentional actions. To have intentional actions you have to have a plan. To have a plan you have to know where you’re gonna start from.

Many people question whether goals are needed in life. Truthfully, no. You don’t have to have a plan. You can go through life without a direction. And then doing so you will either wind up where you wanna be, which is someplace better than where you are now. You may also wind up in a place you don’t wanna be. But you have very little choice in those results if you’re just going to float through life.

One of the best analogies I ever heard was if your life was a boat, and you tried to go someplace you would have to know where you want to go. If you didn’t, you’re liable to not even get out of the harbor. Because you don’t have a plan you’re going to just float wherever life cares for you and it’s pretty guaranteed that you’re not going to get very far.

Now you may get out of the harbor, but what’s keeping you from landing on the frozen Shores of the North Sea? You have to have some sort of intentionality in your life if you want to have any semblance of fulfillment and success.

Why goals are important

As I mentioned in the intro, goals are the objectives you want to reach. They are the X that marks the spot on the map. You have to first decide you want to change who you are to be able to get to the you who has a fulfilled life. It’s excessively difficult to have a filled life without knowing which direction you’re going.

Even when you’re going to the grocery store, you know where you’re going. You know which store and then you decide how you’re gonna get there. The goal for your objective in life is important for the very same reason.

What do you want to accomplish this coming year? Why do you want to accomplish that goal? How are you going to accomplish that goal? These are the important questions that will get you to start moving in the direction of accomplishing your goal

How do you set a goal?

So now we know why goals are important. Hopefully, you understand that all you want in life can be achieved by chance, or by intention. You’re more likely to hit your target by actually aiming than just doing a 360 with no scope.

So how do you set a goal? First off ask yourself those three questions from earlier.

• What do you want to accomplish in 2025?
• Why do you want to accomplish this goal?
• How are you going to accomplish this goal?

All three of these questions are very important to you in accomplishing your goal.

Now you’ve heard people talk about S. M. A. R. T. Goals these letters stand for 

• specific – I am going to lose 50 lbs by Dec 31, 2025
• measurable – losing 50 lbs
• attainable – it’s not an unreasonable amount of weight
• relevant – I am not 40 lbs underweight
• time-bound – I have till Dec 3, 2025, to lose the weight

This allows you to break this goal up into mini sprints. Every three months you would need to lose 12 1/2 pounds. Doing these mini-sprints allows us to make the goal even more attainable. Because in the three months, we can break that down to 4.16 pounds a month, and a little over one pound a week. Losing a little over 1 pound a week will put you in a position where you will reach your goal by December 31.

So the same goes, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. And in this case, you can make the bites manageable.

How do you set relationship goals?

Now I understand. You are saying right now something to the effect of well that’s good for personal goals, but I want a goal to improve my relationship. How do you set up that type of goal?

First off, you have to decide what you want to improve in your relationship. Because saying I wanna have a better relationship can mean anything. So you have to get specific. What do you want done, that will mean to you a better relationship with your wife?

Now remember, you only can control two things in life. Your thoughts and your actions. That’s all you can control. That doesn’t mean that you are going to be able to control your wife. She’s going to do what she wants to do. So you have to decide What a better relationship means in your mind.

So does that mean once-a-week sex is out of the question? Not entirely if your wife is on board. But it might be better if you set up a goal of where you have a date night every week. Something you have control of. This means you plan the date every week. You don’t ever put the weight of planning on your wife’s shoulders unless she says she wants to make the plans. 

Maybe you have the gold that you and her talk deeply about one topic for an hour every week. That is a measurable attainable time bound. It’s also realistic and very specific. It hits all the marks for a smart goal.

It would probably do you good to let your wife know what you’re planning on doing. So that she knows that you’re trying. Because if you do want to have more sex in your life, you have to have better communication skills. Have the ability to share your day with her. So why not start with what your intentions for the following year are?

What if your wife isn’t on board?

Now there are times our wife can be a bit cynical. This is because she has heard us make declarations before that. We’re going to do something this year and nothing ever happened. I’m guilty of it. I’m sure you are guilty of doing the same thing too. This puts us out of integrity with our wife and so we have to show her that we are making those changes.

So what if your wife is on board? The vague question you wanna ask yourself is what are you making that mean? And it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Yet you will make it mean something personal to you. So you have to change how you’re looking at her resistance. It has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with her perceived faith and that you’re going to do something and stick to it. So this gives you the chance to show off and prove to her that you are serious. That you are putting the relationship higher up on the priority scale. Can you do that?

How to set your goals?

Now we talked about smart goals and the questions you wanna ask yourself. So how do you set your goals?

1. Grab a piece of paper and write down all the things you would like to accomplish. Whether it’s within a month or 10-year period. Write them all down.
2. Now I recommend you choose for goals. One goal is for your mind so mind-oriented. This is for the man’s mind pillar. So maybe you’re going to attend a conference or you’re going to read four books centered around a particular topic it doesn’t matter just that you are going to set a goal to improve your mind.
3. Another goal I recommend you set is for your body. What are you going to achieve this year? Is it joining a gym and going to it at least once a week? Is it that you’re going to be like me and lose 50 pounds? Maybe you’ve got the goal that you’re going to start eating only Whole Foods, not ultra-processed foods. Maybe you are going to run a marathon or you’re going to walk 15 minutes every day all year long. Make some type of goal that improves your body.
4. Now pick a goal that is towards something you’re passionate about. Maybe your goal is to find what you’re passionate about, but whatever it is have one goal where you allow your passion to breathe and expand. You don’t have to turn it into a business it may stay a goal, but it’s just something that you are passionate about.
5. The last recommended goal that you need is how are you improving your community. Are you looking at improving the number of friends that you have? Maybe this is where you work on your relationship with your wife. Choose an aspect of the Man’s Community pillar and work on it.
6. Once you have all four of those goals lined out now it is time to plan. How are you going to achieve your mind goal? How are you going to achieve your body goal? How are you going to achieve your soul goal? How are you going to achieve your community goal? Each of these steps is as detailed as you can break the steps down into the mini sprints of three months take those three months break them down into one month and for those one month break them down into one-week goals.
7. Then choose your start date
8. Find an accountability partner. Specially, with exercise it is good to have a friend suffer with you. As you get up at an earlier time in the morning. It’s good to have the motivation and accountability of a friend who is going to do this with you. Need help? Mastermind the Storm
9. Then the easiest said and the hardest thing to do, is execute your plans.
10. Pay attention to what your mind says. This is why you want to know why you’re doing this goal. Because your mind will try to tuck you out of it and you need your “Why” to be the anchor to you continuing towards your goal.

Be ok with failing

Finally, one of the big things about chasing after a goal is that there’s a good chance you’re going to fail sometime along the way. Can you pull yourself up and try again? Can you keep going even when it gets tough? We’re going to fail and yes, failing hurts. It’s not supposed to feel nice so use that pain as motivation to get better. You don’t have to feel sorry for yourself just the accept that you failed. Learn from that experience make the needed adjustments to fire and then try again. Rinse and repeat until you succeeded.

You can have a better relationship next year. It won’t be right off the bat, but it can happen if you set your goals to accomplish what you’re after. As long as you are being intentional, you will have a better life and a better relationship with your wife.

To do that you have to have a plan you have to execute it. If you fall short, you have to be able to pull yourself up and try again when you make the changes in your life, your wife will see that things are improving and that you can’t be trusted and as you improve your relationship with her, your relationship will also improve.