How to set spiritual goals for career success

Marek Struszczyk

Co-Founder ManagerUp

Last modified: June 22nd, 2023

Do you set goals for your business, projects, or personal development? It should not be any different when it comes to your spirituality. Your spiritual energy is an important part of your professional success. Although realizing the connection between spirituality and business can sometimes be a little too abstract. That’s why I put together a few spiritual goals, examples, and action items to help get you on your way.

Before we get started, let’s take on how to effectively set spiritual goals.

Setting spiritual goals

The benefits of setting spiritual goals – and achieving them – go beyond the direct tangible results. By including spirituality in the workplace, you not only increase your own productivity but also business profitability, employee loyalty, customer retention, and brand reputation.

So, if you’re trying to find your purpose and want to lead a more meaningful life. A life rich with spiritual energy that will allow you to achieve business success, you should consider focusing on your own spiritual goals. Regardless of whether you adhere to a religion, spirituality is a part of who you are and not just something you believe in.

By setting appropriate spiritual goals, you allow yourself the possibility of greater efficiency and self-awareness. You give yourself the ability to break bad habits, view things more clearly and from a different perspective and understand your action-reaction cycle while making decisions. All of these things are extremely important in harnessing your own spiritual energy and can lead to greater business success.

When setting spiritual goals, I recommend you follow the same process that you use to set goals for your business and personal development.

How to get started with spiritual goals

Make sure your spiritual objectives at work are reasonable, attainable, time-bound, positive, and shareable with your co-workers. This will get you started on the right foot, and you will be better placed to be successful in achieving your goals. Remember, when setting spiritual goals, make sure they are positive and of course, don’t be too hard on yourself.

The process of setting spiritual goals consists of 6 steps:

1. Analyze your spiritual values and beliefs

To get started, you must first analyze your values and beliefs. It is important to note that spiritual values should not pertain to money or material things. Nor should they be about power or being famous either.

Spiritual values are human and non-material. They are driven by compassion and wisdom.

To help get you started, Larry Cullidord in “Psychology Today” and Dr Saju Skaria on Linkedin listed the following spiritual values:

After looking at this list, you might be asking yourself how these values apply to business. Isn´t business fundamentally concerned with earning money?

Yes, it is, but by doing so in a spiritual way and exercising spiritual values, you earn money in an honest, ethical way. Businesses should serve humanity and not the other way around.

Find a quiet place, close your eyes, and reflect on your own values and those of your company.

Which values are most important for you, for your team, or for your colleagues?

What would you like to have written on your grave?

If your company were a person, which human spiritual values would it have?

2. Define your purpose and who you want to become

Having defined your values, you can now investigate what your motivation is. Your motivation will essentially be your purpose or your driving force. That’s why it is so important to establish at the onset. Without a strong driving force, you are more likely to flail along the way and abandon your goals. Goals that are embedded with strong foundations are more likely to stand the test of time.

With your purpose in mind, you can research the spiritual options that apply to your circumstances. Consider options that serve both your purpose and your overall values.

Think about how you want to benefit from spirituality. Do you want to become a better person or a better leader?

Are you looking to define spiritual objectives for your business or your department?

Do you want to understand the meaning of life? Do you want to become a calmer, more stress-resilient person?

3. Visualize the results

Now, visualize yourself a year from now. By visualizing your goals, you make them more tangible and also more achievable. After all, “you can’t be what you can’t see”.

By visualizing your goals, you better position yourself to be able to achieve them.

Consider what kind of spiritual person you want to be. Be as specific as possible.

Then, choose your strategy.

Do you want to follow the religious path to spirituality? Or maybe you want to connect to the deeper “inner you”?

4. Choose your favorite spiritual practice

There is an unlimited list of potential spiritual practices, and fundamentally which one you choose is a very personal decision. It will also depend on whether your spiritual goals and objectives are related to your personal development, your team or your company.

If you prefer to immerse in spirituality on your own, then maybe a morning prayer or meditation before going to work is the best option for you.

If, on the other hand, you prefer to be with a group of people, then maybe you should consider community religious services, volunteering in a local charity, or mindfulness activities organized by your company.

I personally enjoy the combination of individual and group activities. I pray in the morning before heading for the office, participate in the religious activities of my congregation and enjoy mindfulness classes at work.

5. Develop a plan

To develop an effective plan, you first need to summarize the conclusions of the first four steps. You will list all your values, spiritual goals and objectives and selected spiritual practices.

You now need to set your timeframe and specify how long you expect it will take you to achieve your new spiritual goals.

Annual goals are great, but it might be easier to start with smaller monthly goals and work up to the larger annual goals. For example, this month I would like to practice more empathy at work on a daily basis.

The plan should include a list of actions that you will undertake to reach your spiritual goals.

6. Act

In this last, but perhaps the most important step, you take your plan and turn it into action. After all, it’s one thing to write down what you want, but another to actually start doing.

As Peter Reason said: “Action without reflection is meaningless activity. Reflection without action is mere academia.”

It’s okay to start small: just one action in the first week will get you on your way. Then, slowly build on that. You will become a new spiritual person in no time.

Examples of spiritual goals

Spiritual Goal 1 – Be Grateful

Be more appreciative of your privileges. Be grateful for what you have and be grateful for the things in your life that offer you joy. Grateful people are more likely to experience happy feelings, appreciate pleasant experiences, boost their health, and cope better with adversity.

And gratitude in the workplace can lead to deeper connections amongst co-workers as well as your own relationship with the work you’re doing each and every day.

Example Goal: For ten minutes at the end of each day I will take the time to journal all of the things in the day that I am grateful for.

Spiritual Goal 2 – Be Inclusive

Promote diversity, and equity and cultivate inclusion. In the workplace, diversity and inclusion represent embracing and welcoming people from all backgrounds of life.

In terms of business, having a wide range of viewpoints on a subject can lead to greater problem-solving abilities and improved employee engagement and productivity.

Example Goal: Each week I will talk to my employees on a rotating basis to hear their pain points. I will keep a journal of these conversations to follow up with conversations to address said pain points.

Spiritual Goal 3 – Boost Empathy

Boost your empathy at work. By perceiving what other people may be feeling, you are better placed to make well-thought-out decisions. Empathy generates a new level of understanding and compassion for your co-workers or customers.

Empathy at work generates more proactive support and punitiveness as well as enhanced efficiency.

And empathetic bosses lead to more empathetic employees. After all, employees are unlikely to display empathy if they don’t feel their bosses have empathy for them. Empathy starts at the top.

Example Goal: Each day I will make a conscious effort to practice active listening: make eye contact, listen intently, not interrupt with my own thoughts, and not offer to fix others’ problems. When I have successfully taken part in a conversation where I actively listened, I will add it to my journal. I aim to engage in daily active listening.

Spiritual Goal 4 – Break Bad Habits

Break your bad habits. Identify what triggers them and try to change the patterns. Let go of things you don’t want and become mentally stronger. It’s normal to have habits, and generally, there’s nothing wrong with them. But keep in mind, that some can be helpful and others more destructive.

On the one hand, making a “to-do list” every week or setting the tone for a productive day by performing a routine first thing in the morning like jogging, yoga or meditation, can be extremely beneficial habits. But drinking too much coffee, not finishing your work task in time (procrastinating), showing up late for meetings or drinking alcohol every night, on the other hand, are not.

Distractions from bad habits can disrupt your workflow and can negatively impact your ability to manage your time. If you have a problem with distractions, identify the main cause and rectify it. For example, if you constantly check your mobile phone, turn the phone off.

To change your bad habits, you need to create good habits that will replace them. This may become an overwhelming task if you try to do too much all at once. To make it easier to succeed, break big goals down into smaller goals. Take smaller steps toward your goals instead of a giant leap. For example, if turning your phone off for a couple of hours is difficult, start with at least 5 minutes a day.

Example Goal: I will reduce my reliance on caffeine by first reducing my intake to one a day, then three a week, with the aim of only one a week by the end of the month.

Spiritual Goal 5 – Practice Self-Refection

Personal or self-reflection or even introspection refers to how you think about yourself. Consider your actions and decisions as a spiritual practice every day. Make an impartial assessment of what you could have done better. Keep a clear head and avoid getting caught up in the day’s events or feelings. In other words, self-reflection is the act of taking the time to contemplate, assess, and give serious consideration to your own ideas and actions.

Finding out why you’re doing what you’re doing is an important part of the process of self-exploration. Introspection, or self-reflection, is an essential psychological practice that helps you learn and benefit from your mistakes. People have around 50,000 thoughts daily, more than half of those are negative and over 90% are repetitions from the day before. It’s impossible to grow and develop if you don’t spend time and effort refocusing your thoughts on the good through introspection. Learning more about our own values and understanding our own reasons for our actions allows us to break away from the distractions of our fast-paced daily lives.

Example Goal: At the end of each day, I will use a journal to write down my thoughts on my actions throughout the day. I will identify the actions that I want to change, identify my triggers and develop an action plan to change my response.

Using spiritual goals to become a better business leader

If you want to flourish spiritually, emotionally, and mentally start with the spiritual goals I have covered in this article. Both you and your business will benefit.