Goals are important. They are the destination. Defining your goals is critical to achieving them. It is possible to live life without setting goals, possible to live a great life, even. However, if ever you feel a nagging sense of discontent without knowing why, you may need to set goals. Goals are a direction to head in, but should always be flexible to change in a new direction as needed. Goals help us to work smarter – it’s much more satisfying to work hard when we have a clear idea of what we’re working towards.
Keep the big picture in mind by recording it in a way that is meaningful to you – you could create a poster of photos / drawings / magazine clippings that symbolise what you want your life to look like. You could write your own mission statement and / or a list of objectives. You could write a passage describing your life in five / ten / twenty years. You could record this passage and listen to it every night. You could do all of these things. Do not be afraid to make an imperfect vision. You can change your big picture any time you want. In many ways, the quality of your goals is less important than your having them, and knowing them.
The big picture is not the end of the story though. An understanding of your dreams and desires will go a long way towards helping you to achieve them, but not without effort. You need to break your vision down into smaller goals or objectives. These need to be SMART: specific; measurable; achievable; realistic and time-framed.
There are different areas of life in which goals may be set: career, family, health, financial, spiritual or personal, community, home, friends or social. It is worth taking the time to identify which of these areas are important to you and how much priority each one should be accorded. This helps to quantify how much time and effort to expend on each area and also is more likely to be sustainable and pleasurable in the long-term.
Filed under: Goals
