Aim High: How to Set and Achieve Life-Changing Goals

Some people choose to take life as it comes. Others have a strong urge to pursue goals. But to achieve goals, you must first define and prioritize them. That can be quite a task. In addition, disappointment can be great if you don’t achieve your chosen goals. Not being able to cope with this setback can lead to depression or the loss of self-esteem or self-confidence.

The four different types of goals you can set

To avoid disappointment, it is useful to distinguish between four types of goals, each of which plays a role in your life at a different level. The four types of goals are:

• Money, property, and career
• Experiences and knowledge
• Behavior and appearance
• Social contacts, happiness, and health

The pursuit of money, possession, and career

Having money, a good job, possession, or being able to use materials such as a house or rented property can be gratifying. Previously impossible things are suddenly possible, and you can experience an enormous feeling of freedom. Yet this is only of short duration.

Research shows that the happiness impulse created by money, property, and career is addictive. As with drug addiction, you need to have more and more of a sense of happiness to continue to experience that feeling of happiness.

Entire relationships can break down because one of the partners forgets himself or the partner by focusing solely on more money, property, or his career. While one partner wants to be together, the other doesn’t have the time due to making a career. Because then there is money that can be used to acquire property again.

Setting goals in terms of money, possession, or career can be dangerous. They can have a substantial negative impact on achieving your other goals in life. There is nothing wrong with having money, property, or a good job. But if you get health problems or lose friends as a result, it has often not been worth it afterward.

Pursuing experiences and knowledge

Setting goals in the area of experience and knowledge is more sustainable goals. Experiences stay with you for a lifetime and can provide knowledge as well. The knowledge you can’t lose and always use. It also contributes to the opportunities you have within the business world and also determines your career.

When it comes to experiences, you can think of all kinds of things that give you happiness. For example, it can be about:

• Activities such as: sports, bungee jumping or flying, sexual activities, etc.
• Travel destinations
• Meeting interesting people

When it comes to acquiring knowledge, you can make a distinction between knowledge that takes you further in business and knowledge that enriches your private life. For example, it could be about:

Business knowledge in the area of:

• Learning leadership qualities
• Management training, courses or diplomas
• Marketing or commercial training, courses or diplomas
• Learning a new language
• Learn to do programming, present, or communicate better
• Learning a new profession such as carpenter or lawyer

Knowledge that enriches your private life like:

• Starting with a hobby like knitting or learning to paint
• Learn how to raise your children better
• Learning about nutrition or healthy cooking

The pursuit of goals in the field of behavior and appearance

Objectives in the area of behavior and appearance are externally oriented and more temporary in nature. We all know that we are getting older. But our behavior also changes under the influence of our knowledge and experiences.

Objectives in terms of appearance are usually even shorter than those in terms of behavior. You can learn to dress better or become an expert on which makeup suits you best, but this is time-bound. What is fashionable today can be old-fashioned tomorrow.

You can also decide to go to the gym every day and look like a bodybuilder, but this is never long-lasting. Your body changes. Also that of a bodybuilder.

Behavioral goals can have a significant impact on your environment, and on the goals, you set in terms of money, property, and career.

Examples of goals in the area of your behavior are:

• Learning to stand up for yourself
• Become more proactive and assertive
• Learn to show more discipline
• Learn to deal with authority
• Learning to deal with setbacks
• learning social skills

These are all behaviors that can contribute to the achievement of your goals, both privately and professionally.

The pursuit of social contacts, happiness, and health

In the article “how to get old, healthy and happy”, it appears that having good social contacts is the elixir to achieve this. People with good social contacts care less about pursuing money, property, or the ideal career and automatically live healthier lives.

Goals in the field of social contacts, happiness, and health are the most valuable and sustainable goals you can set in life. Real friendships make you happy and are difficult to lose.

Achieving health goals gives you the energy to meet your other goals. And achieving goals in the area of happiness gives you the joy of life to make a proper distinction between pursuing goals that provide you with energy and goals that cost you energy.

People who set goals in the areas of social contact, happiness, and health appear, contrary to what you might think, to live much richer than those who do not have goals in these areas. Their social contacts and their favorite factor seem to create opportunities that are difficult for others to achieve.

There is an expression that says: It’s not about who you are, but who you know. Because happy and healthy people are once again experienced as more accessible, it seems as if they get whatever they want.

How do you set the best goals in your life?

If you want to set goals at all, it is wise to start with goals in the field of social contacts, happiness, and health. Keep the goals simple, and realistic, and make sure they give energy instead of costing energy. That will keep you motivated to achieve your goals.

Once you have achieved your goals in the area of social contacts, happiness, and health, you can pursue sustainable goals in the field of knowledge and experience with a clearer mind. Once you have achieved this, your goals in terms of money, property, and career, and your goals in terms of appearance and behavior will have been achieved by themselves without you realizing it.