Take a minute to think back to middle school when every year your teacher asked you to write down five goals you had for the future, and every time you probably rolled your eyes like "Oh, not this again!" just like most other students. You might have thought that it was dumb or a waste of time, and everyone usually wrote down the same things so it seemed kind of pointless. At that age, the goals you had didn't seem all that important, but you did it anyway to satisfy the teacher. Now fast forward to today. What if I asked you to write down five goals, short or long-term, right now? Could you do it without much thought or would it take a little bit to conjure them up? When you don't think much about it, you probably say you have a lot of goals for life, but when someone asks you what they are, it seems a little bit harder to identify them, and that's where the problems lie.
When you don't truly lay out your goals in front of you, it is sometimes difficult to know the things that you want to be focusing on and driving towards. Setting goals is like creating a road map for your life. They give you direction for where you want to go, what you want to do, or things you hope to see. If you don’t set goals on things you want to achieve, it would be like getting in your car and driving around aimlessly on the highway with no set destination to reach. You aren’t sure where you’re going, so you have no purpose to driving around and wasting the time and gas. It’s the same way when you don’t have goals set for yourself. It often is as if there is no purpose to the actions you are taking and the resources you are using because you do not have a destination in mind to strive to get to.
This is the reason that having goals is so important. You need to set goals to identify the things that you hope to do in life so that you can focus your actions and behaviors to reach that goal. Goals are something for you to drive towards. They provide you with determination, perseverance, tenacity, and the willingness to work hard no matter what so you can reach something that is meaningful and significant to you. They also teach you discipline, what it is like to fail, and how to bounce back from it. Sometimes there will be construction zones, road blocks, and detours that you’ll have to deal with while getting to your goal, but you’ll keep driving and pushing to get there. Other people might think your goals are completely outrageous or unattainable, but that only gives you more motivation to prove them wrong and show everyone what you can do.
Once you set your mind on a goal, nothing can stop you from getting there besides your own thoughts. Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise about what you want to do. You are the only person who can talk yourself out of reaching to a goal, so don’t let that happen. Strive, push, fight, and never give up on any goal that you want to achieve. The immense feeling of joy and confidence that you feel in yourself the moment you finally reach a goal is what makes all the struggles to get there worthwhile and gives you the momentum to go get the next one.
Goals are extremely important, and setting them is what gives you the direction you need in all aspects of your life. You might have a goal that you want to get to for the day, the month, the year, or the next five years. It does not matter how big or small it might be, or the time in which you hope to achieve it in, just set it and take action to get there.
So, can you write down five goals you have for yourself? If not, start thinking, and get to it.
