Goal: The object of a person’s ambitions or effort; a destination.

The wisdom and benefits of setting goals is widely known and accepted.  Studies have repeatedly shown how much more a person is likely to accomplish if they have established goals, especially if those goals have been written down. We have been encouraged by parents, teachers and coaches to have goals and in some cases forced to state them.  As a result of all this a billion dollar industry has evolved to help people implement and perfect the whole process of goal setting/goal achievement.

With all this knowledge, awareness and support why then are so few people successfully using goals to help them in the pursuit of their ambitions?  One would think that most everyone would have adopted a system and practice of setting goals and then working on them.  But that’s not the case.  Upon investigation few people actually formalize any kind of goals and fewer still write them down.  At best many people daydream about what they want or more likely what they don’t want and then say they have goals.  (Talk about how people are much more familiar with what they don’t want.)

Identifying clear goals will flush up to the surface any negative thoughts or feelings that could get in the way of you achieving your goal.  This is one of the benefits of creating goals.  It will show you the places you have issues to resolve or barriers to work through in the fulfillment of them. By addressing these thoughts and feelings directly, you can move through them toward the fulfillment of your goals, while expanding beyond your own self-imposed limitations.

When goals are used to clarify what you want and what is important to you and help you to feel positive in some way, then they will truly be useful.  Without the feelings to go along with the clarity, it will be unlikely that goals will be of much help.  This is not because goals don’t work.  In fact, our minds are goal-producing machines!  However, the “new goals” you ideally want to achieve may not have nearly the emotion and feelings that your “old, unconscious goals” have.  THE MIND IS NEVER WITHOUT A GOAL.  We just don’t pay attention, or remember, or we aren’t aware of the goals we have given ourselves.  So, we need to become aware of the unconscious goals, and replace them with new ones that are infused with feeling; feelings that are stronger than those associated with the original, now undesirable goals.