21 Great Benefits of Setting Goals

Douglas Lurtan said “when you determine what you want, you have made the most important decision in your life”. You have to know what you want in order to attain it.  

Highly successful people set worthwhile goals and work on them every day. Goal setting is the first step in achieving your dreams and life purpose.

Here are the 21 solid benefits of setting goals:  

1.       Goal setting forces you to define your target. You cannot hit a target that you do not see and you cannot reach a destination that you do not know. Everyone that had impact in life has a goal.  Dreams are worthless if you only dream and don’t take any action to reach a goal. A research carried out in the United States many years ago showed that only 13 per cent of the respondents had goals. The remaining 87 per cent were drifting aimlessly through life, waiting for some favourable break that would never come. Of the 13 per cent that had goals, only 3 per cent had goals that were written. Over a period of 25 years, the 3 per cent with written goals had accomplished 50-100 times more goals than the 10 per cent of people with unwritten goals. Goals are powerful and they are life changing.

2.       Goals give you the power of concentration which will increase your impact. The power from a welder’s fire comes from concentration of the fire and that is why it can cut through steel. Laser beam, which can easily cut through any steel, also derives its power from the concentration of its fire. Many people fail in life because they scatter their energies. To succeed one  must focus his energy and this can easily be achieved  through goal setting

3.       Setting goals will enhance your ability. Once you set goals that matter to you, you are no longer the same person. Your goals will affect everything that you do. Your goals will affect everything that you do. When you set a goal, as you are stretching to reach the goal, your ability for success will be enhanced.

4.       It helps you to create the mental equivalent of what you want in real life. Everything is created twice- in the mind and in the physical. Everything you see around you first existed in the mind, before it can achieve expression in the physical. It is what you carry in your mind all the time that will manifest in your future. Albert Einstein says “Imagination is everything.

5.       Goal setting gives you a sense of control which is crucial to peak performance. People are easily overwhelmed by the pressures of the 21^st century and they easily feel that they are not in control of their lives. Successful people do not worry about what they cannot control. But they do all they can in the areas they can control. The major way to have a sense of control over life is goal setting.

6.       Having a goal will prolong your life.  Dormancy sucks life. Something happened in the United States that initially baffled social scientists. In a particular Old’s People’s Home, at a particular time of the year, the old people would be dying in large numbers. But at other seasons, they would not die. When social scientist investigated cause, they made a surprising discovery: Whenever festive seasons were approaching, old people would set goals to enjoy the seasons with their children and grandchildren. But when these festive seasons were over, they would be ready to die since they had fulfilled their goals of playing with their children. Having a goal gives impetus and activities that prolong life.

7.       Having a Goal will let you know when you have derailed. Goals are important in recognizing when one has derailed in the course of achieving a dream.  You must have long-range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short-range failure. Goals serve as a compass to the journey of destiny.

8.       Without Goals, Compromise is Easy. If you do not have goals, It will be easy for you to settle for mediocrity. If you compromise your standards, you have compromised your future.

9.       Goals help to Ignore Criticism. Criticism comes from everywhere when one dares to do the impossible. A step into the unusual terrain draws criticism from others. If you do not know where you are going, you will be easily distracted by criticism or praise.

10.   Without a Goal, Every place is a destination. One way to know if one has achieved his dreams is to have a goal.

11.   A goal makes success easier because it quickens the time needed for achievement.  There is a principle that states that if you allow a year for a project, it will take a year. If you allow six months, it will take that length of time. Most time we delay our progress through inability to set a goal for assignment needed to accomplish it.    

12.   A goal makes you to be creative and not give up. What goal gives is an impetus to accomplish an assignment. And if there is a goal, all resources including being creative will be channeled towards it. Desire to achieve a goal can bring ingenuity which is a product of creativity.

13.   Having a Goal enables you to enjoy the benefits of deadlines which do three things for you.

a)      Deadlines mount positive pressure on you.

b)      It increases one’s sense of urgency

c)       Deadlines reinforce your determination to succeed

d)      It also helps concentrates your energy.

14.   A goal enables you to get your priorities right. Many things are calling for attention daily. And one major way to separate the important from the unimportant is to have daily, weekly and monthly priority of list of what to be done. The difference between the successful and the unsuccessful is not a difference of intelligence, but of priorities.

15.   Goal Setting makes every day to be a day of achievement, and just a day of activities. It makes every day to be a day of increase, not  just a day of motion without movement. Increase is about results, not activities.  A man can be hard working throughout his life and still end up a failure. One must concentrates on activities that bring huge investments.

16.   Goal setting makes you to be a finisher and not just a starter. One good thing that will help you to finish your project is goal setting. Many people are good in starting a project but very few complete it. Goal is the bridge between starting and ending a project.

17.   It makes it possible for you to make incredible sacrifices for a better future. People can live with a tough today if they  believed a terrific tomorrow is awaiting them. Your goals in life give you hope.

18.   If you do not have goals, you help other people to achieve their goals and dreams. At the end of the day, they will be known for something while you will not be remembered for anything. Don’t be an easy tool in helping others to achieve their goals at the expense of your own future and dreams.

19.   Goal setting boosts your confidence. When you set a big goal, break it into bits as the size may overwhelm and frighten you. When you finish one bit, you will have confidence to do the next, until you finish. Mark Twain said  “ The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on the first one”

20.   Goal setting enable you to live out of your vision and not out of your fears. People perish for lack of vision. If you have no vision, another word for goals, it is your fears that will be directing your life. The more someone is pursuing his vision, the more fears will disappear.

21.   It allows for better management of time. Time is Life. Management of time is the management of life. What you spend most of your time on will determine what result you will get in life.