When you start thinking about working for yourself, many of those thoughts begin as dreams. Dreams give you guidance and help you determine how you want your life to look. However, dreams alone won’t give you the life you want.
Dreams Vs Goals
Goals are sometimes called dreams with deadlines. While dreams give you the vision you need to succeed, goals give you the action you need to make that vision come to life.
Dreams seem big (as they should be) and sometimes unrealistic, but goals are the small steps you can take to realistically achieve your dreams over the course of time. The best goals are commonly called SMART goals. A SMART Goal stands for Specific, Measurable, Action-Oriented, Realistic, and Time-Specific. Consider the following example to see a clear difference between dreams and goals.
- Dream: Run a full marathon by the end of 2017
- Goal: Run for 1-hour five days a week until half marathon in July
Goals that are not action-oriented and measurable, with no time deadline, aren’t quite goals yet. SMART goals will create goals that work towards big dreams. Work to create SMART goals to ensure that you are always taking some action towards your dreams.
Dreams are necessary to create the vision and want for a better life for you. Goals are the actionable steps that it takes to achieve that life. Both are needed to achieve the life you’ve always wanted. Dreams will keep you focused on the stars in your world, so you don’t lose track of your mission while accomplishing individual goals to get there. Learn more about the difference between goals and dreams, and how you can accomplish your dreams to work for yourself, from Alan and AdvancingWithUs.
