Goal of goals

What is the goal of having goals?

If you don't know where you are going, any road will do.

Different people have different purposes. Different purposes find different ways to use goals

If you don't know your goal,
you won't know when you've won.

For some people, the purpose of goals is to build motivation and self-confidence. Goals to suit that purpose need to be challenging, achievable, and short-term. A goal like this doesn’t have to be in writing. It doesn’t even have to be spoken aloud. But if a goal is going to do you any good, you will have to understand it. You will need it to guide your actions while you are after it. And to trigger your satisfaction when you reach it.

If you don't know where you are going,
you won't know when you get there.

If you watch what people do, you will see what their short-term goals are. If you watch yourself, you will see what your short term goals are. If your language channel is not happy with what you see, you need to have a conversation with yourself. But don’t assume that your language channel will have its way with the rest of your brain.

A journey of a thousand miles
starts with knowing where you are going.

Everybody uses short term goals. Spoken or unspoken. Some people also use long term goals. An education, a business, or a career is a long term goal. People use long term goals to lay out a series of small, achievable sub-goals. The sub-goals may be in writing or on a calendar to make tracking easier. But they must fit together like a road map to get from here to there.

Luke Skywalker: "I don't believe it."

Yoda: "That is why you fail."

Here in this time, in this galaxy, we do not use the Force to levitate Y-wing fighters. We use it to follow a roadmap of sub-goals to a long term goal. The sub-goals have to be credible. At least to you. That connects what you have to do now to where you are going.

Credibility, like the devil, is in the details.

People make sub-goals more credible by thinking through the details. Some people call this imagining, imaging, visualizing, or daydreaming. It is certainly more than talking to yourself.

The secret to getting there is to know where you are going.

Now watch the original "Rocky." It is about putting sub-goals together into a road map that takes you where you want to go.

The mystery of the third way. Not either-or. Both.