Analyzing Your Goals

In addition to setting long-term and short-term goals, you also need to analyze your goals. Goals do not occur in isolation. We have many different goals in our lives, and we need to figure out how to set priorities and still reach our different goals.

While doing the earlier Activities, you may have discovered that you have no clear plan for reaching some of your goals or you may not be working hard enough to reach them. To help you analyze your goals, it is important to ask yourself two questions:

• Do I have any goals that are in conflict? Will pursuing one goal prevent or make it difficult to reach another one?

  For example:

  If one of your goals is to earn a six-figure income and another one is to get a degree in social work (a wonderful, but low-paying career), you have goal conflict.

• Am I committed to my goals?

  For example:

  You may want to run a marathon, but unless you are willing to invest the time and energy to train and prepare properly, you are not committed to it.

Refer to your paper copies of Activities 6-11. Analyze your personal, academic, social, and occupational/professional goals for both conflict and commitment:

• In cases of goal conflict, you need to keep the goal you really want and delete the other.

• If there is no evidence that you are committed to achieving a goal, you should delete it from your lists. We all have goals that we want, but we are not really willing to work hard to achieve them. We often call these goals wishes or dreams. Goals are not the same as wishes and dreams. We are willing to work toward achieving the goals we set and use. Dreams are fun and may become goals, but as dreams they do not tend to push us to action.

Click to open Activity #12 and follow the directions.