10 Dynamic Reasons Why Goal Setting is Important

No matter which way you look at it, you need to have a destination to go or you’ll just wander around and wind up someplace you weren’t expecting. That could be a good thing, but do you really want to roll the dice and take a chance?

Didn’t Yogi Berra say that if you don’t know where you’re going you might end up someplace else? The main reasons why goal setting is important are to guide your planning and give you focus.

Video: 10 Dynamic Reasons Goals Are Important

Related: How to Stay Focused Like Crazy!

Here are the most compelling reasons I know for why setting goals is essential.

1. Striving to Reach a Challenging Goal Builds Your Character.

You become more by working to achieve more. In every journey towards a goal, there are challenges. There are times when problems give you an excuse to quit. Persevering, through all of the hurdles, makes you a more powerful person. 

When you are doing things beyond the edge of your ability, you expand your skills and learn. That makes you become more than you were when you began.

The lesson here is that you should set goals that challenge you. Then, even in failure, you succeed because your skills, knowledge, and character will grow. You become equipped to handle more difficult challenges and have great success.

2. Goals Give You Power

When you decide on your goals, you are in control of your life. Instead of being swept downstream by the currents of life, you steer your life with a direction that you choose. 

Most people never take full advantage of goal setting. They end up where they didn’t plan to finish because they didn’t pursue a plan with meaningful goals. At the least, they didn’t persist. Maybe they quit when things got tough.

Decide on some challenging goals that excite you, don’t quit, and energize your life. 

3. Goals Give You Direction

Without goals, you waste efforts because you don’t consistently work towards anything challenging or worthwhile in the long run. 

With direction, you can put your head down and work on the steps and challenges that come up every day. All while being confident about where you are going. 

With clear goals that you want to achieve, you can organize your time and your resources to make the most of your life.

4. Goals Are Measures of Your Progress

With a goal, you can measure your activity to see if you are making progress towards something you want. Keeping goals and recording your progress can be very rewarding. You get a sense of accomplishment. 

It’s essential to break your goals down into a series of steps that you can work on one by one. Then you can get quick feedback about your positive progress as you finish each step. That can motivate you to keep working towards a goal that may take months to complete.

5. Goals Help You Stay Motivated

It’s easy to put off something until tomorrow when there is no important goal on the line. You can become discouraged when you aren’t making any progress in your life. Meaningful goals that you break down into smaller steps can keep you motivated in two ways.

First, it’s easier to tackle a smaller task than to look at the end goal that might take months or years to accomplish. You can gain momentum as you finish these tasks.

Second, when you have checked off a few tasks, it gives you a sense of accomplishment. You can be motivated by seeing that you are getting things done and moving towards your objective.

Bottom Line: Stay motivated by having a goal that is important to you and break it down small enough that you can see progress daily or weekly.

Research demonstrates that focusing on goals improves motivation.

6. Goals Help You Beat Procrastination

Procrastination is something we all deal with, myself included. However, setting specific goals for big things you want to achieve helps you understand that procrastination is dangerous.

Procrastinating is wasted time you can never recover. It is one more day you aren’t moving closer to that dream.

Consider this quote from Alexander Graham Bell next time you think about putting off the next step towards your goal because your success depends on it: 

“The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action.”

– Alexander Graham Bell

7. You Want to Achieve Even More

When you reach a big goal, you get a sweet taste of victory. You’ll want to taste it again.

You feel the motivation that propels you towards the next level of success challenges you to reach for more and achieve even more.

In the end, goals help you to achieve far more than you thought you were capable of accomplishing.

8. Goals Help You to Decide What You Want in Life

When you decide on goals, it’s essential to sit down and think about what you want.

How successful do you want to be in your career or business? Do you have an income level and lifestyle in mind? How do you imagine your leisure time? What about your dream home? What financial conditions do you need to have all of these things?

Goals force you to explore all of these questions to decide how you want to spend your time and resources. Once you set what you want, you break your desires down into goals that you can measure and achieve.

Your desire for these goals keeps you motivated, helps you avoid procrastination, and creates a laser-focused mindset to realize your dreams. 

So, working persistently towards your goals makes it possible to live your ideal life.

9. Working Towards Worthwhile Goals Boosts Your Self-image.

When you have a big goal and follow through to get it done, you boost your self-esteem. You demonstrate to yourself that you are a capable person. You persist, solve challenges, and push through to get what you set out to do. It’s a great feeling.

10. Having Goals Makes You Responsible for Your Own Life.

When you have a goal, you have decided for yourself what you want to do and when to do it. Most people go through life with an illusion that they have taken responsibility when they haven’t really. People wind up doing things because their social groups have influenced them. They are, in reality, working towards someone else’s goals.

Final Word on Why Goal Setting is Important

It is true that people who set goals and make plans are more successful than those who don’t. It makes sense doesn’t it?

Set goals, break them down into manageable steps, and don’t ever quit. 

DIY Mind Design

Now, you control your destiny.

Good luck in your pursuit of success and happiness!

Loyd

References

Höchli, B., Brügger, A., & Messner, C. (2018). How Focusing on Superordinate Goals Motivates Broad, Long-Term Goal Pursuit: A Theoretical Perspective. Frontiers In Psychology, 9. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01879

New Directions in Goal-Setting Theory – Edwin A. Locke, Gary P. Latham, 2006. (2020). Current Directions In Psychological Science. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8721.2006.00449.x