Personal Goals in Life

Personal Goals

Personal goals are essential components of a person’s experience of his or her life. They are meaningful and contribute to the process by which people construct heir lives as being worthwhile. There are various ways to live life. Many flow with life’s current.

In fact that’s what I seem to have done—studied Microbiology, nurtured a love for art and history, made a living working on books, wrote articles to butter my bread when I needed to stay at home and suddenly found a new interest in the field of social development (education).

Not one step was pre-planned—in fact I never seemed to have set personal goals. The other side of the coin is successful people who seem to plan everything—careers, children, the creation of wealth and more. Think about what you would like to do in order to adapt to life’s demands—both have pros and cons. For me flowing with life has worked well.

Personal Goals are SMART

The gurus of the world advocate setting of goals—work, personal, financial, attitudinal and so on. It is said that it helps to create a “big picture” of your dreams or aspirations and fill in the details—create a success map so to speak.

SMART refers to Specific, Measurable, Meaningful, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Goal setters like military strategists look and relook at plans to ensure that they are dead on course. While many have found goal setting useful and a way to climb ladders, for others, the chartered path after a while becomes boring and unhappy.

The brother of a friend was leading a large conglomerate, suddenly he felt this was not what he wanted to do and stepped down to live in a village where he has made the lives of villagers better introducing health, education and livelihood interventions. As a management student he says he would have never dreamt of living in a village.

So often what life has in store is quite different from carefully laid plans. So always keep an open mind.

Follow your Heart

Remember goals are good but need not be rigid. If you find you need to change them, do so. The important thing is to lead a happy life—both personal and at work. It’s about fulfillment and not about leading the “rat race.”

An ambitious man may suddenly want to spend more time with his kids or seek adventure. The challenges that interest him change with time.

Goal setting is just a method by which you can gain clarity on how you could proceed. It is more to help you focus than to lay down borders or targets. There are people in the world who float around endlessly without any anchor and for them, these kinds of goals help give them direction.

This is true for children of well-to-do families who don’t have the need to earn money to sustain life—many float around living off parental or ancestral wealth and do not develop a purpose in life. It is therefore important to teach youngsters responsibilities and that “nothing in life is free.”

When children come of age, parents must ask them to manage their own expenses and shoulder family responsibilities.

A neighbor used to tell my mother to charge me and my sister for our food and lodging expenses every month when we turned twenty-one and graduated from college.

She said it would teach us many values—most important not to take family support for granted. In fact counselors believe that kids are less likely to get into habits like drinking and drugs if they had to manage their own expenses.

Personal Goals – It’s about Bettering

Setting personal goals helps both young and old achieve success and develop on the personal front. It helps people charter career paths, lose weight, find life partners, and plan retirement.

When we were in school a teacher used to constantly say “Good, better, best . . . never let them rest,”–this is what goal setting probably helps people do.

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About the Author

Ahendita is an experienced writer and editor with over 30 years work experience. She has authored books, magazine articles, web content, e-books, and promotional materials.

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