Practicing goal setting is very important. It’s significance is usually underrated by most people. When you have a goal 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’.

Differentiating between end goals and mean goals when doing goal setting is very important. End goals is what you ultimately want to achieve or get. While mean goals, as it’s name suggests, are used as means to attain end goals. Anytime when we set goals, we must ensure that we are setting end goals 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.

Unfortunately, too many people get caught up in the process of accumulating more money that they end up unhappy and unfulfilled no matter how much dollars they make. It’s no wonder that they’re unhappy. It’s because the goal they focused on is a mean goal, not an end goal.

Here is a common story. A young man starts his career in a large corporation with hopes and dreams of making it big someday. He hopes that by earning big money he will have happiness, freedom and security. So he spends the next 20 years working hard to become CEO. He finally achieves it but in the process of getting there, he had to sacrifice his happiness, freedom and time. And even after he becomes CEO he is still as busy and stressed as ever.

So in the end he achieved his goal, but sadly he found out that it did not give him what he wanted.

To set a goal, sacrifice for it and finally achieve it, only to find out too late that it didn’t give you what you initially wanted. That is a very bitter pill to swallow.

So make sure that you don’t make the mistake of thinking mean and end goals are the same. When setting goals, do it thoroughly and take your time. Make sure you get it right.