When you look at the research on goal setting and older people it is always around the older person having had an illness or injury, perhaps being in hospital or receiving home care services and the “goals” are about what they need to achieve to get back to where they were before. This is great to know and good to work on, because having goals while rehabilitating from something is always a good idea.
However, what happens with older people who are living their best life, having great fun or not, and just doing their thing, day in day out. Do they set goals and if they do what kinds of goals are important?
I recently completed some research with a couple of colleagues in the United States and we wanted to know more about older people than simply their health issues. The study, which is free to access, click here if you would like to read it, was conducted with just over 1,500 older people ranging from 65-99 years of age and included people living in Australia, New Zealand, all countries of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and the United States. We’re getting a great perspective of what people from different parts of the world are thinking and doing.
We asked them straight out, “Do you set goals?” and 60% said yes.
Interestingly, Australians, New Zealanders, Americans and Canadians are more likely to set goals than those in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Unfortunately, we don’t know why this is because the survey didn’t ask why they don’t set goals, but could be something interesting for future research.
For those who did set goals we asked them what kind of goals and we received an amazing mix of different things people are wanting to achieve. In researchee speak, we analysed the data and came up with six overarching themes from the 946 goals provided. These themes included health and well-being, social connection and engagement, activities and experiences, finance and employment, attitude to life, and home and lifestyle. As you can see there are a broad range of areas older people look at to set their goals. Below is an outline of all of the areas within these themes.
Used with permission from the authors and BMC Geriatrics
Some of the more interesting goals I enjoyed reading about were:
- wanting to break world records and to beat personal best times
- create and sell paintings
- write and publish books
- write a family history
- train and breed animals
- participate in and finish education courses
- set boundaries, care less about what people think about you
- declutter or renovate the home
- make peace with the past
- help others and get into volunteering
- remarry.
What is my takeaway from these?
That older people are just like everyone else and don’t set vastly different goals to younger or middle-aged adults. They are still simply trying to achieve things regardless of their age and they also show purpose is important. They are not moving through life aimlessly.
For about the last decade I have been setting goals each year with my partner. We put them in an app. I like the app we use because it allows you to tick them off as you achieve them during the year, which suits my sensibilities! (I completely understand this is not for everyone). One of the things I have enjoyed most about this process is looking back at the end of the year and seeing how our life and what we wanted to achieve has changed from when we started all those years ago to now. Our goals and what is important changes as we change and as our circumstances change. We usually have joint goals and individual goals. When looking back over the years I’ve noticed we go in themes also, such as health, purposeful chill out time, fitness, holidays (very important), financials, giving to charity, the garden (because we don’t like doing it and we find setting it as a goal actually helps us), and this year I even had setting up and writing 11 blog posts!! Tick 😊
So, what do you do?
Perhaps you haven’t set goals previously and are happy cruising along. Maybe you set New Year Resolutions every year that don’t stick and you really wish they did, it might be time to reset and try something different.
I think one of the secrets to setting goals and then achieving them is working out what YOUR hook is, everyone is different. We like ticking things off, so what we do works for us, others might like to write them down and put them on the fridge so they can see them every day.
What do you think will work for you?
One thing I would do is encourage you to write it down and place it somewhere you can read it regularly.
If you set goals already and have a system that works for you, good on you, keep going
If you don’t, that’s totally ok, but if you would like to achieve something in the next year or two or even decade, it could be worth having a go at setting some goals just for you and if they’re up for it, with your family too
Writing the goals down helps to remind you of what you wanted to achieve, but it’s also a brilliant way to look back over time at all of the wonderful things you have done
If something is stressing you out at the moment (e.g. work, money, kids, house), have a think about what you can do to turn that around and perhaps consider turning it into a goal. Small changes made often can build great things and by the end of next year that stress might have gone or at least reduced markedly
Some goals to consider (sorry I can’t resist), if you don’t have a will, power of attorney or power of guardianship there are three goals just ready and waiting to be completed. You know I love being active, if you’re not active currently, consider trying something you’ve never tried before, I am going to try reformer Pilates for the first time next year and it’ll be one of my goals
Last but not least, I have a small favour to ask you all. I have slowly been building the blog in 2024 and am happy to let you all know we are now at over 150 subscribers! Thank you so much for being a fabulous supporter. Now to the favour. Could you ask one person you know if they would like to subscribe to my blog and learn more about living well as they get older? No stress if you don’t want to, I’m simply trying to get evidence-based research out there, in a format that is easy to read, to as many people as I can (better than sitting on a book shelf somewhere!) and I thought you could all help to make independent living the go to as we age.
I wish you all a happy holiday wherever you are in the world and really look forward to chatting with you all in 2025 and achieving goals, big and small together.
Live the good life!
Reference:
Burton, E., Chonody, J., Teater, B., Alford, S. 2024. Goal setting in later life: An international comparison of older adults’ defined goals. BMC Geriatrics, 24;443. DOI: 10.1186/s12877-024-05017-x
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