It often feels convenient to take stock of our lives at the end of the year, but this is a ritual, not a requirement. The right time to truly think about our direction is when we feel a subconscious resistance, a sense that we lack the resources for the path ahead, or even a premonition that we might fall ill. This is the moment to pause and ask whether our aims are justified. It’s time to talk about goals.

First, let's distinguish a goal from a dream. A dream is a beautiful, often fuzzy image of a desired future. A goal, however, is a dream with a blueprint. It has a plan for its achievement and clear criteria for what success looks like.

The SMART Framework: A Tool, Not a Magic Wand

To give structure to our ambitions, the SMART principle is an excellent starting point. It's an acronym for five key ideas:

• Specific: The goal must be precisely defined. Vague notions have no power; clarity is essential so there is no room for misinterpretation.
• Measurable: The outcome must be quantifiable. As the saying goes, you cannot manage what you cannot measure. This allows you to track progress and know when you’ve arrived.
• Achievable: The goal must be realistic. Crucially, achieving it should increase your degrees of freedom. We must be cautious with any step that reduces one of our three core freedoms: freedom of communication, freedom of movement, and freedom of information. If a step expands these, it is a step forward. If it constricts them, we must think very carefully.
• Relevant: The goal must be genuinely meaningful to you. It should bring a real, tangible benefit to your life and align with your deeper values.
• Time-bound: There must be a deadline. Whether it’s a week, three months, or a year, a timeframe creates urgency and focus. You must know how much time you are willing to invest.

The Critical Question: Is This Goal Truly Yours?

Here lies the main problem for most people: they adopt goals that are not their own. Sigmund Freud introduced the concept of introjection, which describes this process perfectly. It’s when we internalize attitudes and ambitions from the outside world—from society or authority figures—without a deep, personal sense of needing them. We start repeating what is fashionable, what society praises, or what seems logical—useful, profitable, promising. But this doesn't mean our inner self, our unconscious, actually desires it.

The unconscious will only support a goal that satisfies a genuine inner need. When it does, it becomes a powerful ally, unlocking all of its resources: health, creativity, passion, memory, attention, and will. We cannot command these things consciously. Trying to force yourself to calm down or be motivated rarely works. True drive comes from a place we can't directly control.

Knowing Your Resources: An Honest Self-Audit

Before committing to a goal, we must ask: What resources do I possess? This requires looking into our past to understand our achievements. What personal traits led to those successes? Those traits are still with us. It's also vital to recognize their flip side. All our shortcomings are the other side of our strengths. A person who is wonderfully spontaneous may also be disorganized. One cannot exist without the other.

Next, we must examine our failures, losses, and mistakes. What traits led to those outcomes? Why do these traits persist in us? Because they are the duals of our strengths, which we desperately need. We tolerate a dog tearing up our slippers because the joy of its selfless love and companionship is the other side of that same coin. We accept the flaw because we value the virtue it's attached to.

The Danger of Unrealistic Ambitions

To write down a goal is to first understand how well-equipped we are to achieve it. Setting a goal for which we lack the internal resources is a dangerous path. If I promise my friends I will climb Mount Everest with them, but my subconscious remembers I was breathless at 3,000 meters, do not be surprised if a severe illness strikes me a week before the trip. My unconscious will not let me go. If you decide to leap over a six-meter chasm you know you cannot cross, you may find yourself breaking a leg during the run-up. The unconscious will protect you from certain failure, even if the method is painful.

This is why we procrastinate. We think about it, we say we have to do it, but we can’t start. It's often because our subconscious feels we are not ready.

A Blueprint for a Balanced Life: The Six Life Projects

A useful exercise is to analyze your past year across six fundamental life projects. This provides a framework for setting balanced goals for the future.

1. Health: What steps did you take for prevention and well-being? Immunity isn't built with pills, but through a system of healthy habits, positive thinking, and proper nutrition.
2. Home and Family: How did you nurture your relationships with your inner circle—your partner, parents, children, and closest friends? Is your home a place of safety and support?
3. Activity: What did you achieve in your work or profession? How did you grow, and how did you develop your professional communication and thinking?
4. Society: How have you managed your social connections and reputation? Have you built a network that supports you?
5. Personal Development: What have you done to grow as a person, to learn, to expand your horizons?
6. An Interesting Life: Our parents often postponed living for "later." We must choose to live now, today. What did you do last year simply for the joy of it?

Analyzing these areas reveals where to focus your energy next year. It forms part of a life concept: an understanding of who you are, what resources you have, where you are going, and a strategy for how to get there. Too many people are moving from something—a job they hate, loneliness—without a clear vision of what they are moving to. It is impossible to help someone who doesn't know their destination.

From Money to Meaning: The Power of Imagery

Finally, under no circumstances should a person set a goal purely in terms of money. A company can aim for a profit target, but for an individual, a number is meaningless to the unconscious. Five million is just a figure.

Instead, that number must be translated into a vivid image. Don't dream of money; dream of the house by the sea where your family will gather. Picture your children laughing as they swim in the ocean. Imagine the happiness of hosting your parents and friends, living in health and prosperity. When an image this powerful is formed, your unconscious will pour all its energy into making it a reality.

I wish for you to dream, to see those dreams in detail, and to reach an agreement with your own unconscious. It will give you the health, talent, and energy to achieve what you truly desire.

References

• Doran, G. T. (1981). There's a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management's goals and objectives. Management Review, 70(11), 35–36.

  This is the original article that introduced the SMART acronym. It outlines the foundational principles of setting Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals, providing the intellectual backbone for the structured approach to goal-setting discussed in the text.

• Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (1990). A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance. Prentice-Hall.

  This seminal book in organizational psychology provides extensive research supporting the idea that specific and challenging goals lead to higher performance than vague or easy ones. It validates the article's emphasis on moving beyond simple dreams to clearly defined objectives and demonstrates how properly set goals are a primary driver of motivation and action.

• Buckingham, M., & Clifton, D. O. (2001). Now, Discover Your Strengths. The Free Press.

  This work directly supports the article's section on self-auditing resources. The authors argue for focusing on developing innate talents rather than fixing weaknesses. Their research reinforces the idea that our greatest potential for growth lies in understanding and leveraging our strengths, and that our perceived flaws are often the inseparable "flip side" of these very strengths.