COMMENTARY: Goals: Where are you going?

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. John Peak
  • 67th Special Operations Squadron commander
RAF MILDENHALL, England --  Picture a young high school student who has a goal to be an officer and a pilot in the U.S. Air Force. He doesn't have the resources for college upon graduation, so he enlists in the Air Force.

He becomes a radio operator and makes technical sergeant during his time in the Air Force. Did he give up on his goal? Let's come back to this story a bit later and find out.

Now, take a minute and try this little exercise; sit down and write out all of your goals including personal, professional, family and others.

How did you do? Was it easy or was it difficult? If it was difficult, or you couldn't come up with any at all, then you are wrong.

Life is a precious gift, and without goals you could end up just aimlessly wandering through life, without any direction or objective. How do you know where you're going in life if you haven't set any goals for yourself?

Everyone's goals are different and that's what makes them cool; they're your goals! A goal could be as simple as doing 50 pushups every morning before you brush your teeth, to making technical sergeant on your first attempt.

You should have goals in numerous aspects of your life, whether job-related, personal, family-related, fitness-related or economic-related. Great people set goals.

Do you think the members of the Seattle Seahawks and San Francisco 49ers just stumbled into the Super Bowl? No. They set personal goals for themselves starting in high school, college or whenever it was in life they realized they wanted to be great, and they set team goals. Now the Seahawks achieved those goals with their team's first ever Super Bowl win.

Share your goals. Share them with your family, your coworkers, your supervisors and your friends. These people will help you achieve your goals and can help push your or motivate you when times are tough. You may find others with the same goals and you can work together to achieve them.

Once you have come up with your goals, write them down. Tape them to your bathroom mirror, put them on your desk cubicle; make them visible to yourself. Life can be very hectic, but if you keep a list of goals and continually strive to achieve them, they can act as your home base or get-well point. If you ever feel like you are bit lost in life, you can always "come back to your goals." They will keep you on the right vector.

Make the most out of life and control where life takes you; don't let life take you for a ride.
Oh, by the way -- that young radio operator who made technical sergeant also earned his bachelor's degree, and I just signed his paperwork to attend officer training school and then undergraduate pilot training!

Did he have goals? You better believe he did.

He never lost sight of his goals - he dictated his life, and not the other way around.