Mapping the future

CEBU, Philippines - Youth is a time commonly associated with aimlessness. Young delinquents are always at odds with the law. The news headlines continually scream out stories of gang wars and other forms of juvenile misdemeanors.

Even kids of decent families are indulging in vices and risky experimentations. Some believe that this adventurism of young people is due to the strong burst of various energies in their fast developing bodies. Others attribute it to their lack of maturity and better experience.

But the reason for the lack of direction and recklessness among young people is not as important as what can be done to help them from wasting away this fertile phase of their life.

If you're a young person, it will surely help to learn to set goals for your own life. Goals, when properly set and scheduled, can positively fill up your time and put some sense of purpose in your life. It will certainly relieve the feelings of vagueness and aimlessness that are most prevalent at your age, and provide you with some kind of direction.

  The first step is to make a wish-list, to list down all the things that you want to happen or accomplish in your life. It may take a little soul-searching to determine what you really want to attain in your lifetime. Take it seriously like it's a major undertaking because, really, it is.

Write down as many goals as you feel you want to accomplish. Many of your goals may be general or broad. That's okay. The objective, at this point, is mainly to draw a general direction for your life. It is difficult to plan an entire lifetime in specific details.

As soon as your goals list is drawn, review each one. Ask yourself why you want to achieve this one goal. If you succeed, what will it do for you? How much difference will it make in your life experience?

What price will you have to pay to achieve the goal, and are you willing to pay it? Assess your chances of achieving the goal. What will happen if you fail?

It is to be expected that some goals will fall off your list as you check each one. Many times a person wants something from the top of his head. Normally, he would not really check himself thoroughly about his plans.

Work on the goals that remain in your list after scrutiny. Number them according to the timeframe within which you intend to do them; put immediately attainable goals up ahead in the order. Then divide them into three time categories: long-term goals, medium-term goals, and immediate goals.

Long-term goals are the ones that you wish to accomplish or the things you want to experience within the whole stretch of your lifetime. Hence, these are your lifetime goals. Usually, although not necessarily, these goals take a longer time to accomplish, say, more than a year. Some lifetime goals take even a much longer timeframe. Medium-term goals may also be called intermediate goals, ones that you want to accomplish in less than a year. Immediate goals are daily goals, the things you can do everyday to help get your intermediate goals accomplished.

Achieving your intermediate goals will move you closer to your lifetime goals. When a goal is a major one, as is often the case of a lifetime or intermediate goal, it helps to break it down to manageable chunks and put deadlines on them.

Putting a deadline for accomplishing each goal is an important factor in goal setting. It is a good way for increasing your motivation and commitment. As you meet the target dates of smaller goals, you will feel the satisfaction, the self-pride and the confidence that come with it. You will feel that you are making meaningful progress, and that you are in control.

This, furthermore, will create greater momentum towards achieving your major goals. But target dates, like the goals themselves, should be realistic. Be honest with yourself when setting deadlines.

Also, in setting target dates, consider each goal from a relative time perspective. Your goals must be considered in connection with each other. This means that the daily goals should move you towards your intermediate goals and, likewise, your intermediate goals should contribute to your lifetime goals.

The objective is to always use your time and energy for optimum effectiveness. This concept of scheduling and coordinating a hierarchy of goals is for harmony. When you fail to relate your present undertakings to those of the future, you'll find yourself simply starting from scratch each day, no progress is attained. You may get truly busy but you're not getting anywhere.

As you review your goals periodically, it is okay to sometimes modify, add, or discard some goals in order to keep yourself in the general direction of your lifetime goals. In fact, goals - especially lifetime goals - may be updated every now and then. Life planning should not be rigid; life itself is flexible. As you eventually mature, it's natural for some things to become less important to you or to be overtaken by newer realizations.

A lifetime is made a day at a time, even a minute at a time. Your lifetime goals may seem astounding, but there is always a little part of each that you can do today or at this very moment.

Just do what you can right now, and keep your sight on the big picture. In time, before you know it, you're there. A full life is simply a series of small steps - towards the big direction! (FREEMAN)