Practicing goal setting is very important. It’s significance is usually underrated by most people. When you have a target to achieve, it helps you focus on important things, take action and prevent taking unnecessary actions.

A wise man once said ‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail’.

To ensure that you set goals correctly, you must be able to differentiate between end goals and mean goals. End goals are the actual final goal that you want to achieve. Mean goals are goals that are used to attain the end goal. It is a medium used to achieve the end goal. During goal setting, make sure that you set end goals and not mean goals.

Let’s take the very common I-want-to-be-rich goal. That should not your end goal because I don’t think that what you’re seeking for is more digits in your bank balance. Rather what you are seeking for is the things that money can give you, such as happiness, security, freedom and taking care of your loved ones.

It’s sad to say that unfortunately many people end up mistaking mean goals as end goals. They end up solely focusing on accumulating more wealth, so much so that even though they eventually have a lot of money, they still end up unsatisfied.

How many times have we heard a story similar to this. A young man starts out in his career. He dreams of earning the big bucks so that he and his family can live a life of happiness, freedom and security. He starts out at the bottom of the corporate ladder and spends 20 years working hard to rise up to the top. He finally becomes the Managing Director, and has a big fat salary. But because he has spent most of his time working, he doesn’t enjoy any freedom or happiness.

So he may have achieved his target, but he sure didn’t get his ultimate goal. You definitely do not want to walk down that path.

When you set a goal, give your all to achieve it, finally attain it only but only then discover that it did not give you what you wanted is very discouraging and distressing.

So whenever you set goals, take your time to do it. Do it thoroughly, think it through. You do not want to get it wrong and see all your future efforts go to waste. Make sure you do not mistake mean goals for end goals.