Check Your Long-Term Goals From Time to Time

It's been a while since you've been working on your goals, but I have one question to ask you by this point:

....

...

Do you know where you are going?

A strange question to ask, but it's worth asking this far into the progression of your goals. When we set goals, it's common for our goals to be small, but connected to an over-arching desire.

Before I knew what I knew about goals, I was setting small goals connected to larger reasons.

I wanted to make more money, therefore, growing my audience on Youtube and my blog made sense at the time.

I wanted to lose weight, therefore, I focused on looking into diets, and exercises.

The thing is though, I didn't really have long-term goals per se.

Sure I wanted to make money and lose weight—just as I am focused on now—but I lacked specifics. I missed some key characteristics of how long-term goals should be structured.

I don't really talk about my previous goal setting tactics, but I do list these qualities in one of my most recent blog posts.

But getting back to checking, that's one of the reasons you want to be checking in the first place. That and a few other reasons.

One of those reasons is to ensure you have the utmost clarity.

Yes, I just touched on it briefly just now, but it's worth exploring it more.

Having clarity is important, and it becomes crucial as we grow and develop ourselves.

People change as we make progress towards our goals and achieve them. From new information, new passions, to better and more appealing actions we can take; we learn and shift our actions and our goals based on our experiences.

When I first set my goals four years ago, there was no direction. I gained a lot of clarity and that steered how I made progress on my goals in the future. This changed how I set my goals, and what type of goals I set.

It's this reason you want to be checking on your overarching goals. Are they still the sound goal you want to go for? Is this goal challenging you to be who you really want to be?

You want a goal to pull you in the right direction, and that means checking to see if you are going in the clearly right direction.

The second reason to check your long-term goals is to generate new ideas and find more inspiration.

Yes, the destination is the same, but who says the journey has to be a straight and simple path? Again, people change and our passions and interests and focuses shift too.

Maybe it's smarter to focus on other aspects while you let other ideas and revelations sit and muddle over in your subconscious? It might not sound like the best idea, but I know I wouldn't be where I'm at right now if I didn't pivot several times.

I was able to do this by looking back at my long-term goals and taking the time to understand them and figure out what the best approach is at this current juncture.

This is ultimately why it pays to check your goals. It's another way to confirm that you are the pilot of your own airplane. The last thing you want is to go in a direction you don't want to go or land in a place you don't want to be. So check and recheck. It's worth it.

To your growth!

Eric S Burdon