As someone young, full of energy and wonders about the world, you definitely have so many goals you can’t even count. Some of these are to graduate from college, find a satisfying and high-paying job, travel from one country to another, have someone to be with for the rest of your life and build a family. While all these are bit by bit achieved, the desire for happiness, appreciation and financial stability come alongside.
To some young people, they want to constantly explore and just live with no responsibilities. Be a backpacker and just travel across Europe and let life lead the way. It is sort of having a happy life and living it to the fullest.
Growing older, however, brings a lot of change. The once goals should be realities when you become an older adult. That means you’ve already built a career, owned a house and is happily living with a family.
On one hand, you might observe that the moment you achieved all these, the level of happiness isn’t as intense as it once was. It is like you have what you wanted but you know there’s still more. This is because you have stopped hitting goals and just end up asking yourself, “What’s next?”
This means that regardless of how old you may be at the time, it is still necessary to make new goals. For what reason? A sense of purpose. Your goals keep you going and hitting them brings you a greater level of happiness every time.
Even when they’re not as great as the ones you had before and pursuing them with the same zeal a young person has, you still need goals. Having them makes you feel younger emotionally and mentally. They keep you active.
Some older people have simpler goals like spending more time with their grandkids and exercising. With exercising, you can start small by focusing on a pound or two a week. Be part of a group so that you’ll have motivation and social interaction.
Also, others opt for goals that are based on things they feel they missed in life like going to places they never have been because of the situations they encountered.
If you’ve desired to write a novel and dreamt about that but haven’t started yet, it’s never too late. Begin by connecting to a local group of writers and learn the skill. You can also set goals such as a certain word count or page count a day.
You have to identify what your goals are before doing anything about them. Ask yourself what moves you, what you’re passionate about, what else you can achieve and what things you regret for not having done. By answering these questions, goals will be bared and you’ll find another set of dreams waiting to be fulfilled.
The bottom line is, you don’t want to recollect on your life and feel miserable about what you didn’t do and what you feel you missed out. Instead, treat your today as a blank page waiting to be inked, another chance you can work on.
You can start right now and have the advantage over younger people. Compared to them, you’re far more mature, now stable in life and have more means that you can turn to so as to meet your goals. However, keep in mind that on top of all these, one more thing and definitely the most important you are left to work on is the will to know, pursue and hit your goals.