Long-term goals and short-term goals are both things that everyone has, and comparing them can be difficult in this day and age.
Growing up there is the constant expectation that you grow up, go to college, get a good job, and then buy a house. That isn’t necessarily everyone’s goal though as they get older, and it’s important to be able to differentiate between that and what your goals are.
The idea of having a new goal is extremely important to everyone. Even if it might not necessarily be a big goal there are still many goals that people try to achieve in order to allow themselves to grow as people. This can honestly be very overwhelming for someone when they feel like they need to do all of these events that are happening in their life right now, at such a young age.
This is when the understanding of being able to determine your short-term and long-term goals is extremely important. For me, personally, being able to finish the semester with a certain GPA is a short-term goal of mine because it is something I am going to be able to do within a few months. While two long-term goals of mine are moving from the state I grew up in after I graduate college and buying a condo in a city.
Being able to differentiate between the two is extremely important. Especially because in today’s era in technology it constantly feels like people are racing to achievements when everyone should be going at their own pace while having an understanding of what is important to them. Having an understanding of what is achievable and realistic for you within a certain time span is extremely important. This does not mean that you shouldn’t aim to push yourself to a certain time frame. You should always try to encourage yourself to be the best you can be and become the best version of yourself for the future. It just means you should be mindful that there are certain challenges that you have to overcome that other people do not.
The best way to be able to determine your current short-term goal is to analyze what you think should be prioritized immediately, and what you think you can make a goal for the future. Something that can be initiated over a time period, where you can do little things in order to help that long-term goal allows you to be able to still work towards the goal, but not make it your prime focus at the moment.
Having the understanding that we’re not all moving at the same pace can be difficult. Especially with the pressure of feeling like you should have accomplished a million things right out of high school. It is something that a lot of people feel as if they are wired to do at this point. A lot of this has to do with older generations still creating this stereotype where we should be progressing at the pace they did. This is not realistic as the time period has changed drastically, from the economy, media, and expectations of what people want to do with their lives.
Remembering that you have different goals than everyone else allows you to be able to grow within the time frame you set. It really allows you to analyze what you can do better when you are trying to reach your goals, while also allowing you to have the mindset of figuring out how you can grow even more.