“A dream becomes a goal when action is taken toward its achievement.”
Bo Bennett
People say their long term goal is to be a writer, or to run a marathon, or to visit all 7 continents.
But let me ask you this: how do you differentiate between a goal and a daydream?
To me, it comes down to one thing: are you consistently taking action towards it, or not.
A long term goal is something you are working on today, and you know it will take you a while to get there.
For example, if you’re trying to improve your health – you are going to work out today, eat well today, and hopefully sleep well today.
Then you’ll continue your healthy life for weeks, months and years and then finally get to your long term goal
If on the other hand your “long term goal” is to write a book, but years have gone by without you so much as writing a single word on a page…
That’s daydream.
Because you are not taking action on it right now: instead you hope to “get around to it someday.”
Now there are limited exceptions. For true emergencies, you may choose to defer a long term goal, or you may take a break from your long term goals from time to time.
But make no mistake – if someone’s long term goal is to have a healthy body, but for months, every day, they start the day eating poorly, don’t engage in healthy exercise and don’t get enough sleep, then they cannot honestly say they are working towards “a healthy body” as a long term goal.
It’s a daydream: because every day they have a choice whether to take action towards their goal or not, and they are choosing to go in the opposite direction.
So if you do believe some of those daydreams are long term goals, then I urge you: commit to them as actual goals, and not daydreams.
Take action towards them today.