And what are you doing to accomplish them? What are your plans?

Without goals in our life, how can we know what we want to accomplish? How can we make plans for what we want to do with this life we’ve been given?

Without goals we just go through life, jumping from one thing to another. We don’t get ahead financially, or in our career, or in our personal life. There are so many times we complain about not liking our job, but don’t do anything about that either. We complain we’re stuck here, or stuck there. We’re not happy, but instead of doing something about it, we just continue to complain and worry. And we stay where we are.

Continuing to do that means you’re not using the talents you were given. You’re wasting them; letting then whither and eventually die. You’re not saving them up for later; you’re hiding them, ignoring them. They were given to you for a specific purpose, to be used for that specific purpose.

We say we want to do certain things we’ve always dreamed about. Opening our own business. Going back to school. Maybe running for a political office. Starting a blog or writing a book. Traveling the world. But we never start. We put it off with one excuse after another.

Why? Because it’s easier. We keep thinking we’ll wait for tomorrow. And tomorrow becomes today, and tomorrow never comes….

Believe it or not, setting goals is the easy part. We all have a dream…something we want to accomplish in our life. Even those of us who say we don’t have a goal actually do; we just don’t want to admit what it is, sometimes even to ourselves, because we don’t think we can ever accomplish it.

I’m not talking about those goals we all joke about, like winning the lottery, or retiring at 35 and becoming a beach bum. I’m talking about real goals; goals that are attainable.

Goals that we set; goals that we plan to accomplish. And goals that we make plans to accomplish.

But those dreams…those things that are really important to us…they won’t ever be accomplished unless we set those goals, AND make our game plan on how to accomplish them. We have to make a road map for where we want to go.

If we don’t know where we want to go, how can we ever get there? Without a goal all we do is run in circles and keep starting back at the beginning. And wonder why we aren’t going anywhere.

So pull out your GPS or your map book and make that road map, and then start following that map. The road may take you through detours at times, because after all, roads do need to be repaired from time to time. But the important part to remember is to stay on that road. Or else you’ll never get there.

And when you do get there, what a feeling of accomplishment you’ll have! You did it!

But then what? Are you going to be content meeting just that one goal? Or are you going to look at that map and see where else that road takes you? Because the road itself hasn’t ended. It’s continuing on into the future, waiting to take you on to the next goal in your life.

You have to continue to look ahead, because if you’re content to go no further, once again you’re wasting more of those talents you were given, because they’re not all used up with just meeting that one goal. In fact, they’ve been replenished, and made stronger, so you can continue on.

You should have set goals throughout your entire life. From the beginning of your adulthood, if not before, and even past retirement age. Because retirement shouldn’t mean the end of your goals. It just means setting new types of goals.

We’ve all heard the saying “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

It is. So don’t keep waiting for tomorrow. Today is yesterday’s tomorrow, you know.

Make today your new beginning…the rest of your life is waiting.

What is your first goal going to be? And how are you going to get there?