Are you confusing dreams with goals?

Every so often you should ask yourself:

Am I confusing my dreams with my goals?

To answer this important question lets consider some simplified definitions:

A dream is an imagined vision you have of yourself at some point in the future. "I dream of owning a house" or "I dream of graduating University" or "I dream of walking on the Great Wall of China one day."

But to reach those broad dreams, you need to take actions - each individual goal is a single step, that can be measured, taking your closer to your dream.

So when you reflect on your goals you'll want to make sure they are:

  • actionable, not vague
  • achievable in a reasonable time frame
  • measurable - how close are you to finishing one goal?

Once you have a better sense of this distinction you can continue dreaming, but ensure you have specific goals to make those dreams come true.
Asked by: an unknown sage

All questions with these tags: Honesty - Assumptions - Priorities

Discuss this question on: small Instagram logo    small Bluesky logo    small Twitter logo

(Image from Ludlow Well face :: seemsArtless )

Other important questions to consider

April 24, 2024

How long did your most consequential decisions take?

Baba Shiv on the if/then Stanford business podcast asks: How long did it take you to make some of the most consequential decisions of your life? Assuming they ended up good decisions, you might find a lot the consequential...

April 06, 2024

Does working in binary lead to binary thinking?

We've all heard Marshal McLuhan's wisdom: The medium is the message which applies in many ways, but Mushon Zer-Aviv in conversation with Douglas Rushkoff on episode 285 of the Team Human podcast wonders: Does working in binary...

? > !! - QQ38839

Recent articles

September 20, 2015 - filed under Ponderances

Who can you 'uplift'?

Elizabeth Nyamayaro reminds us how important it is to help other

May 02, 2014 - filed under Ponderances

On finding new, uncertain games

Are you only playing the games you know you can win? Roger Martin on the fear of failure.