Category:Goals

Setting goals can also help prevent other people and things from taking those goals away. By having your goals solidified, it gives a person the ability to discern what will help him or her achieve those goals and what is a distraction from those goals. It gives a person the desire to pursue the necessary steps toward achieving the goals, and gives the courage to refrain from getting involved in activities that would hinder him or her from completing them.

Defining your lifetime and "big picture" goals helps you set your priorities in life, and enables you to determine what you need to make yourself succeed and what is a distraction from your success. In addition to the larger goals, you may also have smaller goals, which may be small projects you wish to accomplish in addition to your larger goals, or they may be intermediate goals that help to gauge your progress toward your larger goals.

Many of our life goals take years of preparation to achieve. It is important to set your life goals and intermediate goals early. Moreover, if one of your life goals is a good career, good careers typically require years of study or experience, so if you plan early you can select the proper initial courses or experiences, rather than going through school or life aimlessly and then having to take additional courses or gain additional experience which would otherwise not have been necessary.

Accomplishing a goal, no matter how small, gives a person the taste of success and victory. A person will then believe in their ability to succeed and accomplish the larger goals that lie ahead. If a person does not set intermediate goals, a person may look at a goal that is far in the future and either feel overwhelmed by the challenge or lose interest in the goal itself due to the extended time frame for its completion.