by: Ryan McKenzie
In order to achieve something, the first thing you should develop is a goal. Without a short term and a long term goal, the likeliness of you following through with something you want is highly unlikely. Trying to achieve something without setting a goal is like walking blindly through the dessert in search of treasure, but without having a map or any idea what you are really looking for.
The first step is to plan out a short term goal and a long term goal. For example, your short term goal may be to finish 3 classes this semester with a B average. This is a great short term goal as it is something you can achieve within a reasonable time frame without setting your expectations too high. While you should strive for success, you should start your goals at a point you know you can achieve and gradually build up to bigger and more difficult short term goals. The great benefit to short term goals is they give you a feeling of achieving something with each successful goal. This will motivate and drive you to put more effort into achieving your long term goal. Once you've completed your first short term goal you should set a new short term goal that will ultimately continue you on your path to your long term goal.
Second of all, we need to set a long term goal. You can set numerous long term goals to be set over long time frames, but for the sake of this article, we will focus on having one long term goal. To continue with our short term goal I will base this example on an education based goal. A good long term goal would be to graduate from University with a Bachelors in Computer Science with a 3.33 GPA. This is also a reasonable long term goal as it is something that will be achievable after successful completing numerous short term goals.
In the end, without goals, the chances of succeeding at anything, including life are quite slim. Goals aid in deriving a reason to succeed; they give you something to strive for; the reason to keep on pushing. Goals give you a reason to want to continue on, because you know the things you have worked so hard to achieve are just around the corner. Whether it is an education you strive for, saving money to buy that first apartment, or even something as simple as losing that baby fat, you are only a short term goal away.