Why long term and short term goals?

Every motivational speaker, video or podcast, will invariably have some variation of this particular sentiment. It is only fair that I do my part and talk to you about why setting goals is so important. However, I am yet to find people who tell me how I should go about setting these goals. But, I've thought about it and I've looked to some incredible dead people from the histories of multiple cutures and this is what I found.

Goals are of two kinds: short term and long term. Pretty simple, yeah?

But there is a huge difference between how you should plan your short term goals and how you should think about your long term ones.

I want you to take a minute and think about any incredible personality, maybe in your own life or just in the history of the world. Now try to put yourself in their shoes and see if you can set long term and short term goals for your self. If you had to accomplish what they had to accomplish, how would you budget your time? What would you want to do in the next year? Next five years? Next ten years? In life? Just take a minute and think about it.

Alright so now I'm going to try and drive home the point I am trying to make about goal setting.

The reason people are always asked to set long term and short terms goals in life is because the two serve very different purposes.

Long term goals are meant to give your life direction. Short term goals are meant to make sure that you keep making consistent progress towards your long term goal.

So, how do you do this?

The thing is, any personality that has become anything in life started with a large goal. Something so massive that it seems almost unattainable initially. But there is another thing about these large goals: they are always focused on the world outside. Lets take some examples to help us see this better.

Steve Jobs and Apple. Wanted to revolutionize the mobile world and put the power of personal computing in the palm of peoples hands.

Jack Ma and Alibaba. Wanted to bring the fascination of the internet to China and then spread it to the world.

Mother Theresa. Wanted to bring kindness and compasion to a global level.

Nelson Mandela. Wanted to bring a radical change in the social structure of South Africa.

I think you guys get the point. You see many of these goals, look towards the future and aim to change something very drastically. They are vague. Some of them even seem impossible. And there is no sure fire way of quantifying these goals either. But that is precisely the point. These are the goals that are supposed to keep you up at night. The vision of greatness that push you harder and harder. These are the source of your grit and your motivation.

Now let is see what short term goals do. In contrast to long term goals, short term goals are focussed. They revolve around you and they are quantifiable and realistic. The ideal of short term goals is to make sure that you do something, everyday or every week or every month, to make sure that you keep moving towards your long term goal.

So the more planning and thought you put into your short term goals, the most successful your life is going to be in terms of quantifiable assets. But the more thought you put into your long term goals and planning your life around them, the more fulfiled your life will be.

Long term goals are focused on the world outside. They are vague, powerful and the source of your motivation.

Short term goals are focused on you. They are realistic, quantifiable and they are stepping stones to you success in life.

So now that we know what the purpose of long term and short term goals are, how do we go about setting them?

Take a piece of paper and write down the one thing you wanna change about the world that you live in. It doesn't have to be anything drastic like "I want to make space exploration possible," or "I want to be able to give free education to all the underprivileged kids in the world." But what is does have to do is focus on the world around you. This is your long term goal. It should always be on your mind and drive all your decisions.

Now under it write up all the little things you want to do to get closer to that goal. These goals have to do with you. How do you make yourself better in order to make sure that you are ready to give the world what you want. Divide these goals into what you can do in a day, in a week, in a month and so on. And these are the things that you work on everyday.

Setting up goals and executing them isn't an easy thing to do. It is going to take a lot of time and practice and you will keep revising your goals. But that is okay. Life is about progress, not perfection.

Remember that and keep on moving.