Welcome back to our monthly series on Goals! Today, we are talking about what it means to create a meaningful goal and why it matters for your success.
As I have been writing this series, I have read numerous articles on setting and achieving goals. One aspect that came up over and over again was the importance of having meaningful goals.
What is a meaningful goal?
A meaningful goal is a goal that matter to you. Your desire to achieve the goal should motivate you into action. You must value the outcome of reaching your goal more than doing things that don’t progress you towards your goal. For example, if you want to lose weight, you have to value that goal more than you value eating foods that are unhealthy and avoiding exercising.
Let’s consider some different aspects of creating meaningful goals:
Know What You Want
To achieve a goal, you must be willing to work for it. It is difficult to achieve a goal when it is based off of someone else’s dreams or plans. It is easy to do when we don’t know what we really want.
I started college as an accounting major. I wanted to be an accountant because my oldest cousin was an accountant. However, I hated it. I was bored out of my mind with classes on economics and business statistics. So, I changed my major to education, because so many people kept telling me it was a good, steady job. I loved creating lesson plans and designing teaching materials, but I did not love being in the classroom, which is kind of important if you want to be a teacher. So, I changed my major again, and then again. The fourth time finally stuck. I became an English major. Of course, everyone wanted to know what I was going to do with my degree. Clearly I didn’t want to teach. I discovered I enjoyed crafting words. I loved using words to help others. That was “my thing.”
Setting a meaningful goal means identifying what you are passionate about and pursuing that thing, the thing that drives you to work harder, to get up earlier or work later, to think and dream and plan.
Know Why You Want It
Discovering what you want is only half of the battle. You must know why you want to do that one thing. If someone asked you about a specific goal, how would you convince them that it is a meaningful goal and that it is valuable to you? I can express my desire for using words to help others. I want to help others learn and grow, hence the tagline of this website: learning and growing. Daily pursuit of personal development is a key goal for myself and is something I also want to share with others.
My Meaningful Goal
Last week, I explained how creating goals in different areas of life can be beneficial. For me, these individual goals I have created in twelve different areas of life are really all leading to my one meaningful goal: becoming better. I created the individual goals to express what becoming better is to me. Depression has really kicked my tail this last year as we’ve dealt with family issues. A major part of moving on for me was improving these different areas of my life so that I can see progress. The feeling of being stuck has been largely related to dealing with depression. This series on goals was largely born out of my need to move on, to make progress, to evaluate the goals I have chosen and know that they are of value to me.
I hope today’s posts helps you evaluate your goals and decide if they are right for you. Is there a meaningful goal you are currently working on?
See you back here on Monday for week two of our online Bible study of Paul’s letter!
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