70+ Goal Ideas For 2023: Make This New Year The Best Yet

What are your goal ideas for 2023?

Do you want to improve your finances? Focus on your health and fitness? Want to build better relationships with your friends and family? Goal Ideas For 2023

There are so many different yearly goal ideas, and since 2023 is almost here, now is a great time to start thinking about yours.

Whether you want to call it a New Year’s resolution, a New Year’s goal, or simply just a goal, setting personal goals for 2023 is a great way to start the year.

Your goal ideas can give you a fresh start and focus your energy on what you want in the new year.

Setting goals for the new year comes with many benefits, and you’re probably well aware of that.

Your New Year’s goals for 2023 can keep you motivated toward improving your life and trying new things, and goals can also keep you excited about your future.

Goals can help you grow, give you motivation, help you learn new skills, improve yourself, and more. There are so many benefits!

For me, I enjoy setting goals. I may not reach all of my goals, but they give me an idea for how I’d like my life to look in the future.

It’s also an exciting feeling to set new goals for myself!

Setting goals helps me create some sort of plan, and honestly, the planning aspect is something I really enjoy as well.

Now, that doesn’t mean that goals are easy to keep. Good things don’t always come easy! In fact, they usually require some hard work, but that’s what makes it feel so good when you achieve them.

Today, I am going to share some great 2023 goal ideas and tips for making each one attainable. If you’ve been wondering:

What are some ideas for goals?
What are some fun personal goals?
How do I set goals that I can actually reach?

Then this post is for you!

With the New Year’s goal ideas on this list, you will be ready for a motivating and exciting new year.

Goal ideas for 2023: Get ready for a great new year

Read a new book

If you’re looking for a personal growth goal, reading a new book is a common one, and that’s for a good reason!

Your version of this goal could mean reading one new book a month or even one new book a week.

There are many positives to making time in your day to read. It helps you relax, you learn new things, and more.

Whether you want to read about personal development, personal finance, history, romance, travel, or whatever else, there are so many great books out there.

Learn something new

One of my favorite goal ideas is deciding to learn something new. Learning new things can open your mind to the possibilities around you, and you’re never too old to learn.

Here are some goal ideas for things you can learn this year:

Speaking a foreign language
Trying a new hobby, like rock climbing or crocheting
Watercolor painting
Meditation daily
Driving a car
Sewing
Woodworking

Because there’s so much to learn and so many opportunities for learning, this is a very attainable goal.

Become organized

If you are looking for a fresh start to the year, then one of the best goal ideas is finding ways to become more organized.

This may include:

Decluttering your home, wallet, purse, book bag, etc.
Going through your closet and seeing what you don’t need
Selling unused items around your home, like old electronics or appliances
Organizing personal documents
Managing a better calendar
Clean out your garagee
Build a capsule wardrobe
Writing down your to-do lists in a planner
Creating a weekly meal plan
Starting a morning routine

Being organized can reduce your anxiety, save you time because you don’t have to look for things, and more.

Here are some surprising statistics I found from Simply Orderly about being unorganized:

The average person spends 12 days per year looking for things they can’t find.
Every day, the average office worker spends 1.5 hours looking for things.
In a recent survey, 55% of consumers stated that they would save anywhere from 16 to 60 minutes a day if they were more organized.
Making late payments on bills affects 23% of people because they’re unable to find their bills.

Keep a daily journal

If you are looking for goal ideas related to spirituality or personal development, then starting a daily journal may be a goal to consider.

Keeping a journal can help you reflect on your past, and it lets you check in and see how you’re progressing as you learn how to better yourself. I also believe that spilling your heart out every so often is great for the mind and soul. It can also help you to find clarity if you’re facing a difficult situation.

Plus, it could be fun to look back on in the future and be a great tracker.

Start a budget

Budgets help people manage their money better, no matter how much money they make.

This is one of my favorite goal ideas because budgets keep you mindful of your income and expenses. A budget helps you plan for big expenses, not overspend on things, and help you find areas in your budget where you can save money.

No matter what your financial situation is, creating a budget may be a great idea, and you can download a free budget printable here.

Budgets have helped people reach their goals, pay off debt, make more money, retire, and more.

Walk 10,000 steps a day

There are so many different types of health and fitness goal ideas!

A simple one is to challenge yourself to walk at least 10,000 steps a day. That might sound like a lot, but it’s really about getting up and moving around more.

Other health goals that you may want to set include:

Run a 5K or a marathon
Hike a mountain
Cut out soda for a 30-day period
Drink so many ounces of water a day
Making two new healthy recipes each week
Stop smoking
Eat more vegetables
Attend therapy sessions
Have less caffeine
Drink less alcohol
Go to the gym at least two times a week
Perfect your posture
Meditate five times a week
Do yoga every other day
Eat less sugar

Whether you want to find ways to improve your mental or physical health, there are many self-care and personal growth goals you can implement in your life.

Once a month, do something that scares you

Now is the time to get over our fears and take more risks!

Here are some goal ideas if you’re up for a challenge:

Make a new friend
Go skydiving
Sign up for a class
Learn how to dance
Eat at a restaurant alone
Swim with sharks
Further your education
Attend a networking event alone
Forgive yourself
Get a tattoo

It all depends on your comfort level, personality, and you! Everyone is different, and everyone has different things that scare them.

Doing something risky every so often gets your heart beating and your adrenaline rushing. You will be surprised at how alive and in charge of your life you feel when you take a chance on something that scares you.

Find an online job or start a new business

If you’re feeling stuck in your current job, want to make more money, or have a dream of being your own boss, then this could be one of the best goal ideas for you this year.

I love being able to work from home and run my own business. I can create a flexible schedule, I am my own boss, and I am in control of my income. If this is a dream of yours, make 2023 the year you succeed!

Start investing

As far as financial goal ideas, starting to invest is one that will benefit you for years to come. Investing can make your life easier because you are making a plan for your future self.

Investing could mean finally signing up for your company’s 401k, creating your own retirement account, investing in rental real estate, or something else.

Starting to invest for retirement now is incredibly important if you don’t want to work for the rest of your life, and you might even be able to retire early.

Investing is a powerful way to save money because it means you are making your money work for you. If you weren’t investing, your money would just be sitting there and not earning a thing. Plus, the earlier you start investing, the more you’ll end up earning because investing is long-term financial planning.

The problem is that many people don’t know how to invest or don’t think they have enough money to get started. If you’ve never started investing, this is a great year to start, and you can learn more in How To Start Investing For Beginners With Little Money.

Improve your relationships

There are many ways to improve the relationships that you have with your friends and family.

This may include doing things such as:

Going for a walk, hike, bike, etc. with friends or family more regularly
Signing up together for a cooking or art lesson (such as painting or making pottery)
Trying to have a meal, such as dinner, with friends or family once a week
Having regular video calls with friends and family
Sending cards to friends and family for birthdays, holidays, etc.
Attempting to make new friends
Hosting a potluck or a movie night on a regular basis
Assisting and being there for friends and family when they need it
Making an effort to give your loved one meaningful gifts for the holidays, birthdays, big events, and more
Improving your work-life balance so that you have more time to spend with loved ones

And so much more.

Pay off debt

Paying off your debt can be a great goal to set, whether that’s paying off your student loans, getting rid of your credit card debt, or even paying off your mortgage.

Learning how to become debt free can lead to many positives, such as:

Feeling less financial stress
You can stop living paycheck to paycheck
You may be able to use that money towards something you value as more important, like saving for retirement
Paying off your debt may allow you to pursue other goals in life, such as traveling more or looking for a better job

Here are some of my favorite articles on paying off debt:

Be more positive

This one is hard, but finding ways to be more positive is a great goal to set for yourself in the future.

In fact, according to the National Science Foundation, the average person has about 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those, 80% are negative and 95% are repetitive thoughts. (Statistic found on Medium)

That’s a lot of negative thoughts!

Shifting from a negative to positive mindset can be hard to do, but adapting to positivity will really help you in the long run.

Negative thoughts, like regret and guilt, can cause a lot of mental clutter, and that can prevent you from seeing what amazing things are happening in your life.

When you find that you are thinking negative thoughts, take a moment to think of something that makes you happy. Is it your family? Do you love what you do? Did someone do something nice for you today?

A positive outlook can be life changing. It gives you more time to focus on your goals, you’ll feel more confident, and you’ll realize that you can achieve much more than you realized.

Practice gratitude

Practicing gratitude is one of the best personal goal ideas for 2023.

Gratitude can boost your mood, and it simply makes you feel more thankful for the life you live.

One way to work on this goal is by keeping a gratitude journal and writing down what you’re thankful for. You’ll be able to look back from time to time and see what you’ve been grateful for in the past. This is especially helpful if you’re ever feeling down.

Practicing gratitude can be a great and easy way to turn your day around and improve your mood.

Get a raise or a promotion

If you’re interested in setting professional or work goals, then you may want to try to get a raise or a promotion at your job.

This includes finding ways to seek out a leadership role, completing higher-quality work, meeting deadlines with your work tasks, gaining new skills, building better relationships with your colleagues and coworkers, and more.

You may even decide to improve your resume and find a new job altogether in order to improve your salary. It simply depends on what you professional development goal is.

Start a blog

My favorite online business idea is starting a blog, and this is a great 2023 goal!

I was completely new when I started my blog many years ago, and I learned everything I know along the way through trial and error, by reading free online blogging resources, and by networking with other bloggers.

I created Making Sense of Cents in 2011, and since then, I have earned over $5,000,000 from my blog.

Blogging allows me to travel full time, have a flexible schedule, and I earn a great income doing it.

You can learn how to start a blog in my free How To Start a Blog Course.

If starting a blog is a goal of yours for this year, then I highly recommend finding ways to make it happen.

Just as an example of what your smaller monthly goals may look like for starting a blog, I have included some ideas below.

January – Think of a blog idea and a blog name, brainstorm post ideas, start your blog, and create social media accounts for your blog
February – Write blog posts
March – Research ways to monetize your blog, like learning about affiliate marketing
April – Take a blogging course
May – Reach X number of page views
June – Attend a blogging conference
July – Guest post on two other blogs
August – Grow your email list to X subscribers
September – Grow your Instagram account to X followers
October – Earn $X in blogging income
November – Pitch your story to a news publication for a feature
December – Brainstorm blog posts for next year

Travel more

Whether you want to take a short vacation or if you want to start full-time traveling, there are many different travel-related goals to set for yourself.

This may include travel goals such as:

Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro
Saving $1,000 for your next vacation
Take a solo trip
Travel somewhere new
Fly to a new country
Cross the ocean on a sailboat
Go on an RV trip
Go on a staycation and explore where you live
Experience a holiday in another country
Go to the beach for your first time

And more!

Have a no-spend month or year

A no-spend challenge is when you challenge yourself not to spend money for a certain period of time. You can do it for specific budget categories, or you can completely eliminate all of your spending.

You may decide to cut your clothing shopping for a month or even a whole year. Another idea may be to have a 30-day no-spend fast food challenge. You can do a challenge where you don’t buy any new pantry items, such as canned goods, for a month and go through what you have.

No-spend challenges can be done for a weekend, week, month, or a year.

Not spending money may help you to:

Prevent impulse purchases
Lower your expenses
You can use up things you already have at home
It will help you become aware of a spending problem that you may have

There are many positives to challenging yourself to spend less money.

Save for an emergency fund

An emergency fund is something I believe everyone should have, and if you don’t have one, this is an excellent New Year’s goal.

When you set money aside for emergencies, you are preparing yourself for unexpected expenses, job loss, a pay cut, etc. Instead of relying on credit cards or borrowing money, which can cost more in the long run because of interest charges, an emergency fund can protect you from taking on debt.

If you don’t have an emergency fund yet, this may be one of the smartest goals you set for this coming year.

Learn more at Why You Need An Emergency Fund & How To Start One Today.

Make passive income

Passive income is having a source of income that requires very little work to maintain. It’s different from the normal income you earn from your job, which pays you for your time.

Passive income allows you to earn money while you sleep, travel, work another job, and more.

Every passive income source takes some kind of investment to start, and that can be either a time or financial investment. But, your investment gets easier to manage over time, and income continually comes in without much effort from you.

There might be a little maintenance here and there after you set up your passive income source, but overall the passive income stream should continue to operate on its own.

Various passive income ideas include:

Affiliate marketing
High-yield savings accounts
Rental real estate
Rent out a room in your home
Dividends
Blogging
Writing a book
Starting an online store
Creating an online course

You can learn more at 12 Passive Income Ideas That Will Let You Enjoy Life More.

If you’re interested in even more financial goals, here are more ideas:

Volunteer once a month

A great way to give back to your community is to volunteer more.

You may set a personal goal to volunteer once a week, once a month, or whenever you realistically can.

There are so many places where you can volunteer, like your local library, a human and civil rights organization, a food bank, an animal shelter, a homeless shelter, retirement home, an art/cultural organization, and so much more.

Use social media less

Do you feel like you spend too much time on social media? Perhaps one of your goal ideas is about time management?

If so, a good goal for 2023 may be to evaluate the time you spend on social media and spend less time on different social media platforms.

Spending less time on social media can improve your lifestyle and help you better manage your daily schedule.

Because we spend so much time on social media, this can be a difficult goal to achieve, but it can be well worth it.

You may want to stop and think about all of the social media sites you use throughout the day, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Think about when and where you’re checking your phone, like waiting in line, while procrastinating at work, eating lunch, spending time with friends, etc.

Now, I’m not pretending that I am perfect. I spend far too much time on my phone, and using social media less is always one of my most important goals each year.

There are apps that can help you to manage your time on social media, you can create time blocks so that you cannot access your accounts during certain periods of the day, or you can simply delete social media apps from your phone.

Please head to 100+ Things To Do Instead Of Social Media for more ideas.

Watch less TV

Do you know how much time you spend each day watching TV?

The average person actually watches over 30 hours of TV a week.

Now, I’m not saying that you can’t watch your favorite TV shows or movies, but you can try to spend a little less time watching TV.

Eliminating distractions, like TV, can help you change your life and reach your other goals. If you think that you watch too much TV and that it’s a bad habit of yours, then this may be one of the best goal ideas for 2023.

It’s also a very easy-to-measure goal because you can easily keep track of how much TV you are watching and compare it each week.

By cutting out a little TV, you can have more time to spend with your friends and family, work on side hustles, get outside and enjoy the world around you, and more.

Please head to 59 Things To Do Instead of Watching TV So That You Can Take Your Life Back for ideas.

Start waking up a little earlier

Waking up just 15 to 30 minutes earlier is an easy way to improve your life. Giving yourself a few extra minutes in the morning can help you start your day in a positive way.

You can spend that extra time doing a little cleaning around your house, responding to emails, organizing what you’re doing for the rest of the day, etc. Or, you can also spend that time enjoying a cup of coffee, reading a book, sitting in the quiet, and so on.

Waking up a little earlier will help you get in the right headspace to handle the rest of your day.

How to make SMART goals

Now that we have gone over various New Year’s goal ideas for 2023, I also want to talk about how you can set achievable goals.

SMART goals can help you set realistic and actionable goals that you can succeed with.

SMART is an acronym for the following goal setting criteria:

Specific – What is your goal? Is it specific enough or is it too broad? What needs to be done to achieve it? Why do you want to reach it?
Measurable – How can you measure your progress? How will you know if you’re on track? What milestones will help you track your progress? What small steps can you take towards your end goal?
Attainable – Can your 2023 goal actually be achieved? What action steps do you need to reach it?
Realistic/Relevant – Can you achieve your goal? Is your goal worth it? What’s your end goal?
Time – What’s your time frame for reaching your goal?

This is important to remember when setting 2023 goals because a SMART goal is one that you have spent a lot of time thinking about.

Whatever type of goal you have set for yourself, there are ways to make it SMART so that you can make 2023 your best year yet.

What goals should I set for 2023?

As you learned in the list above, there are many different goals to set for 2023.

There are nearly endless possibilities, and there’s no way I could cover them all.

If you want to learn how to set and reach your goals, I recommend reading: Setting Goals For The New Year – How To Set Goals You Can Keep! In this, I cover topics such as:

How to build your goals into your daily routine
How to make your goals more attainable and possible
How to break apart your goals into bite sized pieces
Easy ways to stay motivated with your goal ideas
Progress tracking and how it can help you reach your goals

Please remember that goals and New Year’s resolutions vary from person to person. You’ll want to spend time thinking about the areas of your life you want to focus on before you set a goal.

You can set a big goal, a small goal, something in-between, and so on. There is no right or wrong answer. You can set more than one goal. You can set them with your partner, a family member, friends, and so on. You may be interested in short-term goals or long-term goals.

There are money goals, personal growth goals, creative goals, self-care goals, career and professional goals, fitness goals, spiritual goals, educational goals, and more.

I hope you see lots of success with your goals!

What are your goal ideas for 2023? How did you do with your 2022 goals?