How can you get the best out of life? How can you get what you want and feel good about it? The first step is to identify what you want and set your mind on achieving it. Simply put, have a goal.
Are you concerned about where your life is heading, or are you disappointed with where you are now? Can you remember having dreams, ambitions, plans, or have they been forgotten, lost, or evaporated?
Without a direction, how do we know we are heading the right way? We don’t. We can wander through different roles in life and various jobs and then wonder where the years have disappeared. So many people fall into this trap and find themselves at a point, thinking, how did I get here? Where did the last year, five, ten years ago? So many questions that have a straightforward answer: have goals.
Why?
Goals Motivate Us
Into action, into the effort, into decisions, and results. Someone once said, “when you don’t set goals, you can spend your whole life running up and down and not achieve anything.” However, when you think about what you want and where you want to be, you start to take conscious action, become proactive, and almost immediately start to feel better about yourself just by being proactive. These positive thoughts become a motivating driver that spurs us to take charge of ourselves and responsibility for our future.
Goals Enable Achievement
When you set goals, you have something to aim for, work towards, measure yourself against, and something to achieve. If you cannot measure it, how can you achieve it? For example, if your goal is to save money, have a specific figure in mind. Then have a target for the money you save: a car, a credit card debt, new clothes, or a deposit for a house. Have a clear image of how you will feel when you achieve the required savings to achieve your goal. You may fall short, but at least you tried and can keep on trying. Simply having a specific goal will motivate you to take more action and, therefore, control your life.
Goals Give You Focus
Setting goals trigger new behaviors and help sustain that momentum in different life aspects. With a change in our behavior comes a sense of control and self-mastery. We get to choose how we spend our time and energy. Only we are accountable for our goals, and this sense of being accountable will create a feeling of focus and obligation to achieve goals.
Goals Drive Us
When you set goals, you instigate change. You can change something about yourself you feel is needed. Maybe you are not in a good place in your mind due to work, relationships, or life in general. We all have ups and downs in life, and setting goals can turn negatives into something positive, something to strive for, something better. Setting goals can remind us of who and where we want to be, in work, relationships, or life in general.
Goals Help Us Grow
If we do not have something to aim for, we stay in the same place, in a comfort zone, without being stretched or tested or challenged. We will never know how good we could be or realize our full potential. This is possibly the single most important factor that inhibits our development and growth. We need to identify how to grow, in what capacity, and in which direction. Thinking through our goals provides this clarity and allows the freedom to instigate change in our lives for the better and be the best we can be. Having an end target motivates us to achieve something and not settling for less. This can be for many aspects of our life: learning a new skill, losing weight, exercising three times per week for one hour each time, completing two assignments over the weekend.
Goals Improve Your Life:
Goals motivate us to change:
- If you are stuck in a rut, you need to make a change.
- If your life is not as you want it to be, you need to make a change.
- If you are unhappy, you need to make a change.
- If you want something you either do not have or feel you are not worthy of, you need to change.
Change starts on a small scale and then builds up into something more substantial. So, start your desired change with a simple, achievable goal. Once completed, you will have that sense of accomplishment for the next goal at a higher level. Feel good about yourself for deciding to take positive action and build up the momentum as you become familiar with the process set more ambitious targets for the next month, next year, and then three years or five years. Remember, small steps lead to a long journey.