Man Plans, God Laughs

Yiddish Proverb




Having goals is a pain in the neck.


If you don't have a goal (a corporate goal, a market share goal, a personal career goal, an athletic goal...) then you can just do your best. You can take what comes. You can reprioritize on a regular basis. If you don't have a goal, you never have to worry about missing it. If you don't have a goal you don't need nearly as many excuses, either.


Not having a goal lets you make a ruckus, or have more fun, or spend time doing what matters right now, which is, after all, the moment in which you are living.


The thing about goals is that living without them is a lot more fun, in the short run.


It seems to me, though, that the people who get things done, who lead, who grow and who make an impact... those people have goals.


Read more at Seth Godin

Setting Goals


The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or by a time at least, say, 10 years in the future) as setting Lifetime Goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.To give a broad, balanced coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in some of these categories (or in categories of your own, where these are important to you):


Artistic: Do you want to achieve any artistic goals? If so, what?


Attitude: Is any part of your mindset holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.


Career: What level do you want to reach in your career?


Education: Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to achieve other goals?


Family: Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family?


Financial: How much do you want to earn by what stage?


Physical: Are there any athletic goals you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?


Pleasure: How do you want to enjoy yourself? - you should ensure that some of your life is for you!


Public Service: Do you want to make the world a better place? If so, how?


Spend some time brainstorming these, and then select one goal in each category that best reflects what you want to do. Then consider trimming again so that you have a small number of really significant goals on which you can focus. As you do this, make sure that the goals that you have set are ones that you genuinely want to achieve, not ones that your parents, family, or employers might want (if you have a partner, you probably want to consider what he or she wants, however make sure you also remain true to yourself!)


See more at Mindtools



To help you, answer these 4 questions.


What are you good at? That’s your mind.


What do you love doing? That’s your heart.


What need can you serve? That’s the body.


And finally, what is life asking of you? What gives your life meaning and purpose? What do you feel like you should be doing? In short, what is your conscience directing you to do? That is your spirit.


Covey Blog

In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it


Robert Heinlein, American Novelist