"What's my goal?"

An important first step in the therapeutic process of counseling is to determine the individual's (or couple's, or family's) goal for therapy.   Even though the goal will often change over the course of treatment, keeping the goal in the foreground even as it evolves serves to help the client stay focused.  Determining one's goals in life is invaluable even if one is not sitting in a counselors office.  Whether it's a career, or finances, or Friday night, setting a goal is the surest way of having control over the results.  Just as in therapy, the goal may be tweaked over time as life takes its course.  But, having a target to aim for  provides direction and focus.  I believe it's never too soon to begin thinking about goals.  Talking with children about their goals helps them begin to see their road ahead as a means to an end.  Rather than coursing willy nilly through life, they begin to understand early on the value of  setting goals.  So, whether you're 5 or 85, you're never too young or too old to begin asking yourself the question, "what's my goal?"

"If you don't know where you're going you'll probably end up somewhere else."  Lewis Carroll