Goal Setting Tips : Differentiating the end and means goal
Goal setting is a very vital practice. Do not underestimate the importance and impact of goal setting. When you have a goal, it gets you focus on important things, take action and helps you save time and energy by preventing unnecessary actions.
When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
To ensure that you set goals correctly, you must be able to differentiate between end goals and mean goals. End goals are the actual final goal that you want to achieve. Mean goals are goals that are used to attain the end goal. It is a medium used to achieve the end goal. During goal setting, make sure that you set end goals and not mean goals.
For example, let’s take the common goal of wanting to be rich. This is an example of a mean goal and not end goal. Think about it, what you ultimately want is not more green paper or higher numbers in your bank account balance. What you are seeking for is actually happiness, security, freedom etc which you think money can give you.
It’s sad to say that unfortunately many people end up mistaking mean goals as end goals. They end up solely focusing on accumulating more wealth, so much so that even though they eventually have a lot of money, they still end up unsatisfied.
Here’s a familiar story: A young man works in a large corporation, aiming to be the CEO so that he can have the money to live a life of security, freedom and happiness. Works hard for 20 years, finally becomes the CEO. But in doing so, for 20 years he spent most of the time working (no freedom, no time for loved ones), the stress is killing him (unhappy), and it affected his relationship with family members and friends.
So he may have achieved his target, but he sure didn’t get his ultimate goal. You definitely do not want to walk down that path.
For someone to set a goal, give their all, sacrifice and finally achieve it - then finding out later that it did not give them what they had wanted is a very sad thing to happen.
Take your time when setting goals. Don’t be anxious to get it over with. If you get it wrong, all your time and effort will eventually go down the drain. Think it through thoroughly first because you want to get it right the first time.