Budgeting

“All successful people have a goal. No one can get anywhere unless he knows where he wants to go and what he wants to be or do.”

Norman Vincent Peale Becoming an expert at goal setting and goal achieving is something that you absolutely must do if you wish to fulfill your potential as a human being. Goals enable you to do the work you want to do, to live where you want to live, to be with the people you enjoy, and to become the kind of person you want to be.

(According to the best research, less than 3 percent of Americans have written goals, and less than 1 percent review and rewrite their goals on a regular basis.)

Why do so few people set goals? I think there are five basic reasons. 1. They are simply not serious. Whenever I speak with a man or woman who has achieved something remarkable, I learn that the achievement occurred after that person decided to “get serious.” In other words, until you become completely determined about your goals, nothing really happens. 2. They don’t understand the importance of goals. Young men and women who begin setting goals very early in life invariably come from families in which the importance of goals is emphasized. 3. They don’t know how to do it. One of the greatest tragedies of our educational system is that you can receive 15 to 18 years of education and never once receive a single hour of instruction on how to set goals. 4. Fear of rejection. The fear of rejection is caused by destructive criticism in early childhood and is manifested, in adulthood, in the fear of being criticized by others. Many people hold back on setting worthwhile goals because they have found that every time they do set a goal, somebody steps up and tells them that they can’t achieve it, or that they will lose their money or waste their time. 5. Fear of failure — and this may be the most important reason of all. People don’t set goals because they are afraid they might fail. In fact, the fear of failure is probably the greatest single obstacle...