If you want to make some big changes in your life, start by setting monthly goals.

According to motivational speaker Tony Robbins, success and failure aren’t giant events..they are all the little things you do or don’t do.

The key to achieving your goals is to make progress every day.

“All the results in your life come from rituals.” - Tony Robbins

Robbins also assures us that once you discipline yourself in one area of your life, you’ll want to create more rituals in other areas of your life.

Why not start by setting monthly goals?

YouTuber, Matt D’Avella was on to something when he tried a new 30-day challenge every month over the past year.

His experiments allowed him to try different things for a month to discover how they would change his life. He documented each one and video-ed his progress throughout each month.

Some of the monthly goals D’Avella set included quitting caffeine, meditating for an hour a day, journaling daily, taking cold showers, cutting out sugar, waking up at 5 am, quitting social media, and intermittent fasting. You can watch all of his 30-day experiments here.

D’Avella also shared why he chose those challenges, what worked, what didn’t, and which ones he’ll adopt permanently in his life.

Watching his videos got me thinking, what monthly goals can I set to change my life for the better?

And furthermore, how should I go about setting goals each month for success?

Related Post: how to set goals

I also wanted to make a bucket list of monthly goal ideas for work, fitness, and other areas of my life so that I have a wide variety to choose from.

The first part of this article covers how to set monthly goals while the second part is a list of monthly goal ideas you can try. There’s even a FREE printable at the end for you to download.

How to Set Monthly Goals

Set Clear Goals

Do you know that less than 10% of New Year’s Resolutions are actually achieved? The problem with resolutions is that they aren’t specific and they don’t create habits to work towards the goal.

Here’s how to make those resolutions into goals that you can actually achieve.

Most people set a resolution of something like “I want to lose weight.”

The problem with this phrase is that it’s vague and un-actionable.

Instead, try setting a realistic monthly goal for how much weight you want to lose.

Tips for Monthly Goal Success

Only choose one goal per month.
Goal does not have to be big..just one you can work on every day.

Take Action

Once you decide on a monthly goal, it’s time to take action.

Break down the goal into small, actionable steps you can do every day.

Remove all obstacles that will keep you from your goal.

For example, if your goal is to work out every day. Set your gym clothes and sneakers next to your bed at night. Then when you wake up in the morning, you can put them off and head to the gym without giving it a second thought.

What if your goal is to quit drinking soda? Remove all soda from your home and replace it with other drink options.

I decided to quit soda five years ago. I committed to going without soda for 30 days.

So, I removed all the soda (Coke was my go-to) from my home. Then I replaced it with sparkling water.

I’m not going to lie, for the first ten days, I really craved Coke and even had dreams about it!

But after that, it got easier.

At the end of 30 days, I decided to just keep going.

About six months later, I was out to lunch with my family and my daughter ordered a Coke.

I took a sip and I couldn’t believe how sweet and syrupy it was. I had absolutely no interest in drinking it any more!

That was five years ago and I haven’t had any soda since then!

What I was most important to me, though, more than giving up Coke, was the fact that I could actually accomplish that goal.

That knowledge has helped me set lots of other goals in all aspects of my life and know that I can see them through.

Hold Yourself Accountable

Do whatever it takes to keep your monthly goal and daily task to achieve it at top of mind.

Set reminders on your phone.
Add task to your daily to do list.
Put sticky note reminders on your fridge, bathroom mirror, and computer.
Create a tracker in your planner or bullet journal.
Tell a friend about your goal and ask them to help keep you motivated all month.