At times it may seem hard to justify setting goals for yourself. I never follow through on them anyway, you might think. Perhaps setting goals makes you feel like a failure because you never meet them; you tell yourself ‘no sugar for the entire month!’ but cave on day three and eat an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s in one sitting, you decide goals are just setups for disappointment. But here’s the truth: goals are awesome. Setting goals for yourself can enrich your life in ways you’d never expect. Here’s how:

• They provide direction
  You may not realize it, but you set hundreds and hundreds of goals for yourself throughout the day that you achieve easily. Before you’ve even made it to your car, you’ve achieved the goal of waking up, getting dressed, eating breakfast, brushing your teeth, and maybe more! If you didn’t have these small goals in mind, you’d have no idea where to begin each day. You’d wander aimlessly, or perhaps not get out of bed at all. Setting bigger goals gives your life direction on a larger level. For example, if you establish the long term goal of running a marathon, you will have a northern star to guide you forward. Whether or not you reach the goal on your imagined timeline, you will no doubt become closer to the goal than ever before, and that is forward motion. And, forward motion is success. As long as you don’t give up, you’re successfully journeying towards your goals. But you can’t do this if you don’t set them first!
   
• They help you make decisions that you’re happy with
  Have you ever struggled with indecision? Whether your indecision is about small or large matters, it exists as a result of not knowing what you want. When you set goals for yourself, you have a compass to make decisions come very easily to you. For example, If you don’t have goals for yourself and a coworker asks you if you’d like to head to the bar after work, you may feel pulled in two directions: on the one hand it would be nice to have a drink with some friends, but on the other you know you’ll feel better in the morning if you go home now, have a nice dinner, and start winding down. You don’t know which choice to make! They both seem to have equal pros and cons! However, if your goal is to be able to run a marathon by the end of the month, the right choice feels obvious: alcohol will slow you down, and so will staying out late, therefore going home is the right answer. If your goals to be more social and expand your circle of friends, you’ll easily know that it would be wise to take your coworker up on her offer. Presto! End of your paralyzing indecisiveness

These are only two remarkable ways setting goals will enrich your life, though there are many, many more. Of course it feels rewarding to achieve your goals, but you can and will benefit from goal-setting even if you never reach the point you wanted to get to. Author and philanthropist W. Clement Stone is known for his quote, “Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.” While this is a beautiful truth, it might be better stated as, “Aim for the moon. If you miss, you will hit a star.” There are millions of stars in the universe and millions of rewards in life. If you set goals for yourself, you will find yourself in the realm of rewards