3 Reasons Why We Need Goals

by Raymund Tamayo

It is commonsensical that to go somewhere, one has to know where he is going.

A traveler has a destination. Otherwise, he is not a traveler. He is just a wanderer.

It’s the same in life. 

In order to be successful, one needs to have goals to make sure he is headed in the right direction.

Isn’t it funny that many people expect to have a dream come true when they don’t even have a dream in the first place?

Create a Dream

Create a dream, a clear vision regarding your future, and then set specific, measurable, actionable, reasonable, and time-bound goals accordingly.

Without clearly defined goals, one can become strangely comfortable at performing trivial things daily. One would seem to aimlessly plod along the way.

People who are not clear about their goals in life usually end up frustrated and confused.

"I Just Want a Simple Life"

Surprisingly, a few justify living goalless by saying, “I just want a simple life.”

While there are various subjective definitions of living a simple life, it should be clear that those who want nothing or nothing more of their lives is different from those who didn’t know what they want out of life. 

Both are not the same.

There are inherent dangers in not knowing what we want from life.

Firstly, if we don’t know where we want to go, it’s hard to figure out which road to take in life’s numerous crossroads.

Secondly, if we don’t know where we want to go, it’s impossible to know how far we are from where we want to be.

It would be hard to motivate ourselves because we will never know how far we have gone and how far more we have to go.

Thirdly, if we don’t know where we want to go, we could end up some place else that we don’t want to be.

There are many benefits to having clearly defined goals. Here are only three:

1. Gives focus. Goals give you a clear path to take and place your attention in. You save yourself from “floating around” every day and you make sure that your life counts. 

You may have a broad idea in your head what your life purpose is, but unless you become specific with goals, you are not channeling your efforts properly.

2. Gives enthusiasm and self-esteem. When you have specific goals, you can easily measure your progress. 

When you can measure your progress, you will realize what you have done and what you are capable of doing. This process gives you a healthy self-esteem and motivates you to move forward.

3. Gives you peace and clarity. It’s good to know where we want to go or what we want to be. 

With clearly defined goals, we can steer our journey towards the right course. Whenever we tend to go off course, these goals will point and show us the way to go back to the right direction.