The difference between long term and short-term life goals (Essay Sample)

The difference between long term and short-term life goals
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Life goals are the things a person desires to achieve during his or her lifetime. For an individual to set life goals, he or she requires focus in their lives and a sense of direction. Setting goals in life helps one to have a sense of worth in their life since they have a laid out future. It also gives an individual a reason to do what they do. Life goals vary widely and may be in different fields such as social, economical and emotional. When setting these goals, an individual should first focus on their lifetime goal, which brings about the long-term goals followed by the short-term goals, (Brown, 2002, p.78).
Long-term goals are the lifetime objectives an individual desires to attain. They mainly involve substantial aspects of one’s life such as their career, education and financial sector. For the achievement of long-term goals, extensive planning is required. This can be done by doing little things that will eventually affect the achievement of the long-term life goals. In order to achieve long-term goals, an individual should also set short-term goals. These goals can be based on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly routine. This mainly depends on the long-term goal put into consideration. Setting short-term life goals enables an individual not to lose track of their long-term goal, (Brown, 2002, p.54).
Despite their close relation, long term and short term life goals have a remarkable difference. The main difference between the two is time. Long-term life goals are set over a long time ranging to a lifetime of an individual. On the other hand, short-term life goals range for a period of one day to a number of weeks months or years depending on the goal that has been set. This difference in the length of the goals is the reason behind their names; long term and short-term goals, respectively. The length of time is determined by how much effort is required to achieve the goals. Short-term life goals require little effort to be achieved while long-term life goals require a lot of effort to be achieved, (Miller, 2009, p.47).
In addition to that, short-term goals are direct, and their results are easily seen while long-term goals keep an individual on their toes since their outcome is unknown. For a short-term goal to be achieved, an individual does not need to go through various processes to achieve it hence the reason behind their directness. Achievement of long-term goals requires an individual to have other objectives set in line with the goal in order to achiev...