¶ … Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality" (Personal goal-setting, 2011, Mind Tools). Many people have said that they key to achieving long-term goals is to achieve a series of short-term goals. After all, there is only one way to scale a mountaintop -- step-by-step! "When you have determined where you want your life to be in one year -- or five -- or even 20, it will have an impact on what you do TODAY. A person who dreams of being a lawyer will not have much success obtaining that goal if they don't first make the time to fit studying and school into their schedule today" (Setting goals: Long-term and short-term goals, 2005, Time Management), However, to ensure you are moving forward in the direction of meeting critical short-term goals, you need to first identify these goals and then understand their relative importance. For example, if your short-term goal is to run a half-marathon in three months, a critical short-term goal might be to complete a certain amount of mileage on a per...

Less important goals might include buying new running clothes, shoes, and a fancy stopwatch. The goals should be ranked, and then the most important goals should be highlighted and targeted in your life priorities.
Short-term goals lead to long-term goals. However, to identify the most critical long-term goals and fulfill our heart's desire, we must engage in intense self-searching. Identifying important long-term goals requires an inventory of personal talents and interests. For example, most of us as a long-term goal might have the goal of getting a good job. To refine and highlight what are the most important goals regarding one's vocation, aspects of the personality like 'enjoys working with people' and 'wants to make a difference' must be acknowledged. Only then can someone strong in the sciences make a good choice in setting long-term goals between being an engineer vs. A nurse. But long-term goals must be supported by short-term goals, and the dreamer must not lose sight of the need to carefully proceed in a sequential…