Don’t be intimidated, it’s not as daunting an exercise as you’d think to set your goals for 2020 and beyond. It comes down to asking yourself the right questions, ones that spur goal setting to not only maximize achievement and success, but to create deeper meaning. The goal-setting questions must go beyond the usual, like “Are my goals time bound and specific?”

Here are 11 powerful questions to guide goal-setting, informed by a review of existing research and many interviews I conducted for my books Make It Matter and Find the Fire on what constitutes a fulfilling work life (and life in general). As you set your goals for the next year and 10 years, consider what follows.

Life is dotted with many tempting parking spaces. Safe places to pull into and put it into park. For years. What are the patterns you keep getting caught in? What are the traps that could derail you from what you really want to accomplish?

For some it’s coasting through another span of years in corporate. For others it might be sticking around in an industry that bores you, but pays well. Whatever it might be, get out of neutral, put it in drive, and set your goals accordingly.

2. “How can I live a life true to myself and my values, and not the life others expect of me?”

This is the top regret of the dying according to palliative nurse turned author Bronnie Ware. You don’t want to look back 10 years (or even one year) from now feeling like you lived someone else’s story. Might a big goal be for you to live your own?

3. “How can I work on my life, not just in it?”

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