The Importance of Goals

I know I've talked about Goals before, but the topic has been on my mind a lot lately. I guess it's just that time of year, isn't it? Most people call them "resolutions", but basically that's the same thing as a goal. In the end, it's all about change. Changing something we do or say in order to obtain or reach something we want most in life. But how many times have we set the same new year's resolutions year after year? How many times have we set the same goals only to look back a year or so later and still have so far to go?

I, for one, have set the goal to lose weight every year for the past five or so. Am I so fat that it should take me five years to lose all the weight? No way. If I really worked on it everyday and made the right decisions, I could easily lose all the weight I needed in six months. A goal that can be obtained in six months following a set diet and exercise plan is an easy goal, too, comparatively.

What about the goal of publishing a novel? That's where things get tricky. Why? Because it isn't completely up to me. Sure, I can self-publish, but that will only count for me if I can reach a large audience of people. Being a successful author is difficult because it depends on a lot of people gaining access to my work and loving it for one reason or another. I can write the stories of my heart, but there's no guarantee it will speak to someone else's. And if this goal is a more difficult goal to accomplish, that means I have to work twice as hard to make it come true.

Think about your goals and resolutions. What do you want to change in your life? It can be something seemingly small like having more patience or spending more time with friends, or it can be a total life changing goal like reinventing yourself. Whatever your goals this year, let this new decade be a new beginning. A new chance to set goals and actually work hard to achieve. Let's not look back a year from now and wish we did. Let's actually do it this time. Think of how different your life could be if you took your own destiny by the reins and gained control of your own life. I think about it everyday.

This is a year for changes. For courage. For action.