By Paul Abraham of www.headingonwards.com
People who cannot attain their goals become consumed with disappointment. You must let your goals evolve with your life circumstances. Plan your goals and refine them over time as you consider your changing priorities and resources.
The following story is a case in point of setting a goal which proved too much and brought more unhappiness than the joy it was supposed to bring.
A friend proposed to his girlfriend when he was only eighteen. She accepted, and they were married a year later.Â
At the time, he promised that he would buy them a house before he turned twenty-four, he started the first of a series of jobs. None of them paid very well. He and his bride lived in a modest but comfortable flat.Â
As time went by he saved as much as he could and with help from his parents, scraped enough money for a deposit on a house and moved in and celebrated.
The monthly payments were more than he could afford though. He soon took on a second job but that wasn’t enough, so he took on another part-time job, his third. He worked himself to illness and stress and over time began to resent both the house and the wife that he had promised it to.
Instead of continuing a life he found satisfying, and continuing to save for a house someday, he rushed the process to meet his declared goal. He let a rigid goal change his life, which was the same as letting a rigid goal harm his life.
Setting goals are a brilliant motivational tool, but use them wisely by setting short term, medium term and long-term goals.