Sometimes it is easy to get lost along the road to becoming the person we want to be. This is why goals are important; they can serve as landmarks along the way. When we get lost we can find the nearest hill, get to some high ground and try to spot a new route towards our goal.
I should be clear here the type of goal I am talking about is not the short-term things I need to do today kind of goals but the big goals the over arching things we are trying to achieve. These big picture goals are important not just to keep us on track but because they define the path we are taking. Without big picture goals we tend to move from one idea to another staggering drunkenly across the plains of our life.
So what are the important aspects of a large-scale goal?
It has to be relevant to our lives and the places we want to go in our lives: in other words if it is not our goal and does not connect with our values and dreams it will not be something that can lead us.
It has to be realistic: The goal must be one we can conceivably hope of accomplishing in our lifetime. This is not to say we cannot dream big but a goal that we cannot see a clear path to achieving is not a goal worth working towards. Also it does not matter if the path is clear to others, as long as we can see it and commit to making the dream a reality it is a worthy goal.
It has to be progressable: In other words progress on the goal must be visible; there should be smaller goals that make up the bigger goal. Large projects that have no resolution until some point in the future and no way of showing progress can be discouraging.
It has to be exiting: if our large goals are not exiting, if they do not make us want to work on them then we will not. Large gaols should be light houses to guide us back to where we want to be, and the fire that burns in them is our excitement for the results.
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