Goals vs. Dreams
When you hear these two words, they conjure up very different images, but in reality, these two words aren’t that far apart. The only difference between goals and dreams is that goals are defined while dreams are not. Read over this article from MSN Money and you’ll see a perfect example of dreaming:
Just How Rich is Rich, Really?
Notice the terminology used in this article when people are asked to define “rich”. They say things like “I want a nice house”, “I want a nice car”, “I want stability”, “To just be comfortable”. If that is how you define rich, then you will never become rich. How do you define a “nice house”? Maybe to you right now, a nice house would be $100,000. Then a couple years down the road, a nice house would be $500,000. Then $1 Million. Then $10 Million. You see, “nice” can’t be clearly defined, that’s why owning a “nice” house is just a dream.
If you want to be rich, then you need to set goals for yourself. If you simply say “I want to make more money” then you will never achieve anything, because how would you know when you’ve reached your goal? Now if you said, “I want to be making $100,000 a year by 2010″, then that’s a much more defined goal; now you have something to work with. With that goal laid out, you can construct a plan to achieve your goal. My goal for this year was to acquire 10 rental units. Honestly I wasn’t fully convinced that I could do it, but I always had the goal in my mind and as of today I have acquired 9 units within the first half of the year. My goal is just about reached and I recognize that because I clearly defined a goal. So set some goals for yourself. They don’t have to be crazy, just some modest goals to start with, then work your way up to bigger and better things. If you so you can enjoy the satisfaction of reaching your goals, or if you come up short think about what you can do to achieve those goals in the future.