The importance of goals in life

Much like you, It’s always been my goal to reach a certain level of success. The one thing I couldn’t have anticipated early on in my journey is that, my desired level of success would just keeps rising with each accomplishment. It can be exhausting to always be searching and reaching for a goal, isn’t it?

One of my recent goals was to give pordcasting a try. Being that this new APP, Anchor, has come out – making it much easier to do micro podcasting, I thought – why not? So, you can read this blog post here, and you can now also listen to it expanded on my new podcast Station below.

Listen to the Podcast:

So, Why Is It Important To Have a Goals In Life?

As George Elliot would say: “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”

Why set goals in life when you can live life without one?

Isn’t in in those unguarded moments and spontaneous decisions we get most of our excitement from life?

These are the questions that play in my mind when asked about my plans for the future. My husband would say I am far to planned. I know I’ve gotten better over the years, but spontaneity is not my forte.

For some reason I can’t deny that sometimes, along the way of living that kind of life, I might get lost and I think it might be hard to find my way back. Goals have helped me lose weight, grow my business, create something from nothing, meet new people, change career paths multiple times, travel the world, and quite honestly, goals helped me meet my husband and have children. Sure, I could have stumbled upon all of that without planning my goals and my life, but much of it would have taken a lot longer or may not have happened at all.

If you wait around for life to happen, you could have a very boring life. By setting goals, I ensure life happens around me and to me. But, here is where goal setting plays its part and some important reasons why having goals are just flat out necessary:

Goals in Life Help You Have Control Over Your Life

As absurd as this sounds, having a goal will not actually limit you but will give you more control over your life. Why? Because it directs you and helps you in choosing which road to take and which ones to set aside. With that, you will have a clearer picture of your destination in life, which will give you more time to plan and prepare for what you really need for the future you choose.

Goals in Life Help You Know What To Prioritize

Your goals help you filter the most important things to do now from the ones that are only wasting your time. It will save you from exhausting all your time and energy into something you will eventually find trivial. With clear goals in your mind, you will know which ones deserve your precious time.

Goals in Life Help You Make Better Decisions

When your goals are set, it will most likely help you identify the right choices based on the long-term view of your purpose. You can always go back to your purpose, why you have these goals, and then come up with a decision when put in that kind of situation.

Goals in Life Will Help You to Stop Procrastinating

Because you know what to focus on and you have already organized your priorities, it will absolutely give you no time to daydream and simply procrastinate. You will have to be busy making your dreams happen.

Goals in Life Lead You Closer Down the Path To Success

Goals guide you to where you want to be and help you determine what you really want to achieve. Just imagine that “Goals” are like your path through a thick forest. Imagine having no trail to guide you when walking down the woods you aren’t familiar with. Chances are, you’ll get lost or worse, you will never find your way out. But with a goal to guide you, you know which road to take and that road leads you to where you need to be.

Goals also motivate you to start working on your future now, because Its never too late to start as long as you know where you are going.

Which leads me to my next point about being an online entrepreneur with goals in life…

It seems that order to succeed in today’s fast-paced, content-driven world, you need to be efficient at creating high-quality work, information, and products.  This means that you can’t be taking longer than is necessary to complete tasks, goals, and projects at a high level. Being able to work efficiently all of the time in order to reach your goals can be challenging for many, due to the constant struggle to keep up with life in general.

Related Post: How to start a blog

How can you continue to work in your business more efficiently for long periods of time?

Keep track of the amount of time you are spending on each task of a project and see where you are doing well and where you can improve.  That a minute to see  what tasks are slowing you down to where you are not as efficient and work to improve those areas.  Think about what is causing you to slow down when you do certain tasks – is it just that you’re not that proficient with them and you need to improve your skill to complete them or is your mind wandering while you are doing them, causing you to slow down?  Figure out whether it’s a skill-based issue or a focus-based issue that is causing you to slow down and work to improve that area to improve your overall time in completing projects.

Someone who runs a business must wear many hats. That means you need to be an accountant, you need to be a marketer, you need to be salesperson – all this even if what you actually love is photography!

All these things can detract from the enjoyment of running your own business and for these reasons it’s important to come up with a solution. Luckily, there are a few that you can pick from…

Outsourcing

The first strategy when it comes to not doing the bits you don’t like, is to outsource those aspects to others. This doesn’t mean you have to expand your business necessarily – outsourcing is actually a big deal in my business these days and is pretty common practice for online entrepreneurs. If you find a virtual assistant for instance, then you’ll be able to outsource matters like keyword research or booking appointments to them and it will often only cost a few dollars in comparison to the amount of money it could potentially cost you if you did it! Think about what else you could be doing to generate income and revenue, instead of administrative tasks or replying to simple emails.

Changing Your Service

Another option is to change your service. If for instance you provide web design and you find yourself doing a lot of things you don’t like (like setting up WordPress) you may find that you’re better suited to doing graphic design. This way you can design logos and icons and not worry yourself with the coding or the mobile compatibility. Remember: you created the business to live the lifestyle you want, not the other way around. If it doesn’t quite fit… change it!

Automation

Another option is to automate the parts of the business you don’t like. One of the best ways of doing this if you work online is to write a program that can handle the fiddly bits for you. And if you don’t know how, then that’s something you can outsource too!

Eventually, You can begin to reward yourself when you perform high-quality work in a shorter period of time, especially when you complete a project even faster than you anticipated because of the different techniques you’ve implemented.  You can treat yourself to extra time off, spending time with family and/or friends, doing a leisurely activity, buying an item you’ve been wanting, etc.

This is how you can make efficient work fun- treat it as a challenge to get more high-quality work done in less time.  Keep track of how long it takes you to complete tasks and projects and identify areas where you slow down or outsource.  Reward yourself when you perform as well or better-than-expected and continue to improve the pace that you work so that you can produce more high-quality work in short periods of time for maximum profitability.