Author: David Carpenter / Source: Lifehack
Have you ever wondered what you life is going to be like in 5 or 10 years? Will you be doing the same things you are today? Will you have the same job, the same apartment, the same car? There are only three possibilities for your life in the future.
- It will be the same.
- It will be worse.
- It will be better.
There really is no other choice, so realizing this, which option will you choose?
If you choose #1 or #2, then you can stop reading now, there is no need to set any long term goals for your life. You are, in effect Alice at the fork in the road.
“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
It really doesn’t matter which path you choose. If you don’t have a destination in mind, choosing a path is not important.
But if you choose option #3, then being able to set long term goals is the best way to ensure that you’ll get to where you want to go.
The importance of setting long term goals
Where do you want to be in five years?
Everyone has a plan for their life. We all imagine what our future will look like, what we will be doing, how we will be living and even who we will be living with.
While things rarely workout exactly as planned, it is nonetheless important to set long term goals and work toward them. Without long term goals, we are just wondering aimlessly through life.
And even if we have goals for our lives, unless we take concrete steps to realize them, we are relying on dumb luck to get us there.
The most successful people know the power of goal setting and how to break down big long term goals into a series of smaller short term goals that will keep you focused and motivated.
Reach your goals in 7 easy steps
Do you suffer from paralysis by analysis? It’s a common condition that happens when people are faced with a lot of options or a seemingly overwhelming tasks.
When faced with too many options, they become obsessed with choosing the “right” one, and never being sure what the “right” one is, they never make a decision.
Likewise, when faced with a seemingly overwhelming task, they may never even start because they “Just don’t know where to begin”.
By following these 7 easy steps, you can set and achieve almost any long term goal no matter how big or small it is.
1. Make goals, not wishes
Who hasn’t thought about winning the lottery or inheriting a lot of money from a rich relative? While there is nothing wrong with daydreaming about these things, they are not goals.
A goal should be something that you can work towards. Not something that falls into your lap through luck.
A goal is “I want to have a business that makes one million dollars a year within five years” not ” I want to win the mega millions within five years”.
2. Be specific
Remember when you were young and a grown up would ask “What do you want to be when you grow up?”.
No one ever said I want to work in the medical field or in government or I want to help people. NO! You said I want to be a Doctor, the President, a Policeman. These were specific goals that we had as kids, and while most of us didn’t end up Astronauts or Presidents, we still pictured ourselves in these very specific roles.
When you are setting long term goals for your life and career, it’s important to be as specific as possible. Get into detail about what you want, and think about it in very concrete terms.
So instead of saying “In five years I want to be rich.” Think about what that really means to you and what it would look like. Having a more specific goal would be “In five years I want to own a Ferrari, live in an upscale neighborhood and be making enough money to take a two week vacation to Europe every year.”
Having specific goals makes measuring your progress easier. You know you reached you goal to have a Ferrari if you look in the garage and see one. It’s much harder to gauge if you are “rich” as rich is always a moving target.
3. Write down your goals
A goal that’s not written down is just a wish. Please do not neglect this step!
As humans, we are prone to daydreaming and wishful thinking. We need to take concrete steps to realize our goals.
So when you set long term goals, you need to write them down. This single act will take your goal out of the realm of the mind and into the physical (real) world.
Just by taking this…
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