Goals are something I have recently grown to love. I use to think that goals were a little overrated. I thought, if you wanted to do something, you would get it done. Although, I still think that is true. I also notice the amount of help that goals can have when achieving things in your life.

I have known what I wanted to do for the “rest of my life” career wise by the time I was about 16. I also knew where I wanted to go to school to achieve this. You could say that that in itself was a goal. I use to think that goals were question marks, something that may or may not happen. To me, going to school and then starting my career were not a question mark. It was something that I knew was going to happen. Now, my definition of goal has changed. I realize that a goal is a future tangible event that requires work and time management. A goal is not something that may or may not happen.

Fast forward to today, in my fourth year of undergrad graduating a little more than a year from this point. The “real world” is quickly approaching. I thought the world would look a little different at this point in my life. I thought I would have more direction than I currently feel I have. So in order to change this, I have begun putting small goals in place for the week or better known as short term goals. These short term goals are things that I thought in the past would magically happen but never did, for example, being more active and seeking help to better understand concepts. Although these seem small, these are what I think are the variables that have an overall effect on the journey my life will take. It is hard to make progress on a task that you never set in motion, especially when you wish you had.

Some tangible factors that have turned me into being a goal oriented person are what I call a “goal board” and my Passion Planner. The goal board is post-it notes that I label with categories that I want to work on. Right now I have: Health/ Faith, School/ Professional, and Social. These categories have two or three post-its under it that have what I want to do in these categories and the amount of times I want to do it for that week. It is a tangible event that requires work to do it and time management to complete it. I am rewarded by knowing I completed it and marking it off of the post-it note. My Passion Planner is something that I recently started using. It is all around a goal oriented, put into it what you want, planner. It has a quote for each week, monthly goals that you can track at the end of each month, a daily focus, and weekly focus. It is broken down by 30-minute time groups from 6am to 10pm. It is a great time management aid to make my goals a reality.

Not everyone works the same. Not everyone is motivated by lists and planners and that is okay. Find what works for you. I think no matter who you are or your personality type it is always good to have a vision and a plan for that vision. I see goals as the plan for my vision. It took me until the last year of undergrad and the real world staring me in the face to start planning out my vision, but better late than never, right?