Everyone has goals that they work towards. Some goals are small, like earning one’s daily bread, and some goals are large, like saving up to buy a house. We Americans are steeped in goals of all kinds. Most of us have a goal of making lots of money, although most of us want to get that money in the form of a winning lottery ticket. When you stop to look at the overall habits that most people have, you find that one’s entire life is made up of a series, or concomitant, goals. For example, at any one time a person would engage in several activities at the same time. We go to work each day because we have a goal of, not only getting a week’s pay, but also to maintain this job until we can get twenty years retirement credit, a gold watch, and so on. Sub-goals may include saving some of this money for purchases of one’s goal of buying a car, a house, or paying for school. Other goals may include the desire for the affection of another person. This goal may dovetail into the other goals of money attainment because some people are attracted to successful workers (or, accumulators of money) and the toys that money can buy. Therefore, some goals can support other goals. Still more minor goals can take the form of getting to the lunch counter so that you can get the best seat before another worker beats you to it. And, who wouldn’t want to be first in line to get the freshest food?

On a more intelligent level, a person without significant goals for his or her life is not really living; rather, such a person is just existing, accomplishing nothing until it is time for them to die. One needs goals for stimulation, and having goals leads us to be stimulated. Think of the people who went through the Great Depression. I wonder how many of them were stimulated to pull themselves out of the misery that so many people suffered.

Goals define purpose. When a person adopts a plan to reach a goal they have chosen a life with purpose; there is a reason to get up in the morning. Each day can become a stepping-stone to realize one’s overall plan. Years ago people used to have a large jar into which they would put their loose coins. Every day, whatever coins were in one’s pocket would be placed into the jar so that, over time, the extra money would accumulate to allow the family to buy a needed item, like a radio or a new toaster. Today, of course, the items desired by most people are much larger (flat screen TV, motorcycle, automobile) and the “cookie jar” would have to be stuffed with folding money, but the concept is the same. The goal defined the activity, saving for something. A person, then or now, has a purpose. Lucky is the person who can dream of a better life for themselves, or others, and then realize that goal via good planning and execution of positive, daily activity. So says Sam Post.