Goals

Timely article by Gary North b/c I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

One of the mental exercises that I recommend that people do is to imagine that they are at their 70^th birthday party. All of their relatives have gathered. They then give a speech – no more than ten minutes – on what they think were their life's greatest successes outside of their family, and why. Half of the speech should be devoted to the what and why, and half to the how.

This exercise is important because it forces people to consider what they have done with their lives so far.

Second, it forces them to assess if they have accomplished what they really want to accomplish.

Third, it forces them to think through the choices they must make in order to bring their dreams to fruition.

Fourth, it forces them to make concrete plans.

People refuse to do this because it is too painful. It reveals to those who have never thought about their goals that they have nothing very specific in mind. With nothing specific in mind, people rarely wind up in the condition that they would have preferred to wind up, had they given it much thought.