Examples of answers:
• Learn to play the guitar.
• Visit Cambodia.
• Start my own restaurant business.
• Become a professionally certified engineer.
• Get that promotion.

The problem here is that all of these are just plans. You might argue that getting your dream career of owning your own restaurant is a goal, but it’s not.

There’s a simple test to see if it’s a goal or a plan. Ask yourself if you’ll be happy once it happens. If you have a restaurant, you still won’t be happy just having it. You’ll want it to run well and succeed. Why? To see people enjoy your food? To have the money to support your family? To put your kid through college?

Getting a restaurant is just another plan. And plans are bad when they’re left alone without a proper goal to direct them.

People who have goals

Imagine this. Life is a physical journey. A trip to somewhere. The goals are your destination. Now let’s say that your “goal” is to get to the Eiffel tower. By knowing your destination, you can choose the road you want to travel!

1. The fastest road? It might not be the easiest, but it’s the fastest way to get there. In life it would be the road where you work hard at even if you don’t like the work. Reason being that it will get you that job where you get to travel a lot.

2. The most scenic route? Some roads are very enjoyable even though it might take you a little longer to get to your goal. Maybe this is your choice. Choosing the career path that you enjoy the most.

3. Or simply the one that’s easiest without a lot of twists and turns? There are some roads that are worth taking just because they are so easy. You don’t have to think because you get onto the highway and just drive. No “second left at the 3rd traffic light”. No “when you see the pyramids, you’ve gone too far”. In life, this means the safe route. The one where it’s impossible for you to get lost. No risk, but that also means no risk of failing to get there.

You can now make plans (roads) with the focus of reaching your goals. What roads will you take? What plans will you make? Either way, it’s a lot easier to get there when you know where you want to go in the first place.

Some common questions:

What happens if the plan fails?
That’s fine. Plans fail all the time. Often because of outside forces. Imagine these failures as roadblocks. It doesn’t matter if one road is suddenly blocked off. You can easily make a detour. Change plans and keep heading towards your goal.

Those who don’t have a goal would be in big trouble though. They just want to travel that road. The don’t actually know where they’re going. So the moment the road is blocked, their whole life is over. Don’t be them.

Some people became rich THEN became happy.
That’s not really a question, but I’ll answer it anyway. Yeah. And some just become rich and are never happy because they never reached their life goals. But when you’re rich, you don’t have to take the roads anymore. You can just take a helicopter.

What I mean is that when you’re already rich, or influential, or have lots of friends, then you might not be traveling the normal roads anymore. A helicopter is your way of traveling to your goal. Try it that way if you want. Get rich first then get happy. That’s route number 3 that I mentioned up there. Remember though, even if it is the fastest route, it might still take  long time and you might not be very happy doing it.

Don’t just plan, Make Goals!

So basically what I’m saying is, don’t make plans and think you’re making goals. Make proper goals. Goals that don’t leave you feeling empty once you achieve them. There’s a quote that goes:

A man should have an impossible dream. If he does achieve that dream, he’ll have nothing left to live for.

I don’t believe that one bit. I say that:

A man should achieve his dreams as fast as he can. After all, it’s not worth living if you’re not living your dream.

So choose your dreams, your goals, very well. Give it some deep thought. After all, it IS the rest of your life.