Goals & Progress
Give each focus area one peak to aim at
A Summit Goal is the highest outcome you can name for one focus area, written as one dated sentence. The Goals & Progress Life Goals App asks for one in each focus area you picked. Everything you plan under that goal traces back to the same sentence.
Where you are in the journey
You have two or three focus areas and one active vision. A focus area is one of the ten life areas you marked for this year. That was the guide before this one, Write three futures and make one active. After this one the app turns each Summit Goal into a goal for this year, in Plan your annual goals from your Summit Goals.
What you will learn
- How to open Summit Goals, and what you write there.
- Three ways to write the sentence.
- How to set a target date five to ten years out in three presses.
- How many Summit Goals to set, and what the app makes from them.
What a Summit Goal is in this app
One focus area gets one sentence. The sentence needs a date and a measure another person could check. The example plan that fills the demo belongs to Maya Chen, a bank branch manager.
Her focus areas are Career, Relationships and Physical Health, so she has three Summit Goals, all dated 2035. Her career one: “By 2035 I will be a regional director who got there without giving up a single family Friday.”
Her health goal: “By 2035 I will have run a half marathon in my 40s, built up from 20-minute runs.”
Put the date five to ten years out, far enough that one year of work cannot reach it. A Summit Goal is also not a habit. If you can do it again tomorrow, it is a habit, and habits get their own step later.
Open the step and pick a focus area
- Open Summit Goals from the row of steps. On the phone, tap Home, then Summit Goals.
- Open the Set your goals tab.
- Open Your groundwork to see your five values and your focus areas.
- Press one focus area in the LIFE AREA row.
All ten life areas are in that row, and a tick marks each one you picked for this year.
The panel under that row shows Summit Goal and the area you picked. Everything you write there belongs to that one area.
Write the sentence in one of three ways
You can start from any of three places, and you can move between them.
- Press one of the three starters under A few starting points.
- Fill Verb, Measure and Target date under Compose your own from three pieces.
- Type straight into the goal card at the foot of the panel.
The starters sit at the head of the panel. Each one is dated ten years from today, so one you pick in 2026 begins “By 2036”.
Press a starter and its words go into the goal card, where you can change any of them.
The three pieces sit under the starters, and the app writes the sentence from what you type in them.
Leave one piece empty and the sentence keeps a word in square brackets, such as [measure]. The app does not count that as a finished goal, and the step stays open. Fill the empty piece, or press a starter instead.
The third way is the goal card itself. On the phone you scroll the whole step on one screen, and the card is at the foot of it.
Your wording saves as you type, and there is no Save button.
Edit the card by hand and the three pieces grey out, under the note “Your goal was edited directly. Clear it to rebuild from pieces.” Press Clear selection to empty the card and the three pieces, then start again.
Set the target date
Press Target date and the picker opens on a grid of twelve years, not on this month.
The arrows beside the year range move twelve years at a time, and Back to days takes you to the calendar.
The day you pick changes how the written sentence looks. Pick 1 January and you get the year alone, as in “By 2035”. Pick any other day and you get the month with the year, as in “By June 2035”.
Repeat for each focus area
Under the goal card you find the button Add Summit Goal for, with an area after it. Press it to move to the next area with no goal yet. The two chevrons beside it walk you through the areas one at a time, so you can reread a goal you wrote ten minutes ago.
Watch that button once every focus area has a goal. It then moves on to the areas you did not pick, and those need no Summit Goal.
How many Summit Goals should you set?
One for each focus area, so two or three in all. On the phone, the Summit Goals row on Home counts them for you. It shows “3 areas” and marks the step Done. The site’s life goals worksheet sets the same rule, and the goal cascade shows every level that hangs under one.
What the app builds from your Summit Goals
Open the Where it shows up tab. Four cards show where this goal turns up again:
- your annual goals for this year
- your quarter check-in
- your month, week and day
- the Friction Map on each of your annual goals
The site’s page on the levels from your values to this week sets out the same chain on paper.
At the foot of that tab you find the switch Draft annual goals from my Summit Goals, and it starts on. With the switch on, the app writes a first annual goal from each Summit Goal. The app also adds a checkpoint at the end of every remaining quarter with 60 days or more left in it.
Start late in the year and you get no checkpoints, so you write your own. Turn the switch off and every annual goal starts on a blank page. You find the same switch in Settings, under Planning.
Try these tips and tricks
- Check the time at the top of the step before you start. It counts your focus areas, and three areas come to about 20 minutes.
- Write the wording last. Pick a starter, fix the date, then rewrite the words on a second pass.
- Check each Summit Goal against your active vision. If the goal points away from the vision, one of the two is wrong.
- Rewrite a Summit Goal in May and the annual goal already drafted from it keeps the old wording. Edit that goal in the year plan yourself, as the app’s change a Summit Goal mid year page shows.
- Press Clear selection only when you mean it. There is no confirm step, and the app keeps no copy of the old sentence.
- Open Goal Check from your quarter, month, week or day to reread a Summit Goal without leaving your plan.
Key takeaways
- Set one Summit Goal for each focus area, so two or three in all.
- Write it as one dated sentence with a measure another person could check.
- The Target date picker opens on the years, so a far date takes three presses.
- A word in square brackets, such as [measure], means your sentence is unfinished.
- With drafting on, each Summit Goal becomes a first annual goal with checkpoints.
Open the Summit Goals step today and pick your first focus area. Press one of the three starters, then set Target date to a year this one cannot reach. The wording can wait until tomorrow. The app’s own recipe, set a Summit Goal for each focus area, walks the same steps with pictures.
