Goals

Marcus T. Cicero
Before beginning, plan carefully.”
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Author Unknown
“A target, to be hit, must be seen.”
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Benjamin Franklin
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
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Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Plans are nothing; planning is everything”
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Author Unknown
“An unwritten goal is merely a wish.”
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Norman Vincent Peale
“Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan.”
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Author Unknown
“No aim leads to no end”
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Eleanor Roosevelt
“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”
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John A. Widstoe
“There never was a revelation without a question first.”
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Albert Schweitzer
"The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives."
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Author Unknown
"If we fail to plan, we plan to fail."
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Richard C. Cushing
“Always plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.”
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Author Unknown
“If you chase two rabbits both will escape.”
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James 1:22
"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."
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James Russell Lowell
"No man is every born into the world whose work is not born with him."
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Author Unknown
“A goal is an end that one strives to attain.”
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Author Unknown
"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there."
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Chuck Knox
“Always have a plan, and believe in it. Nothing happens by accident.”
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Author Unknown
"Obstacles are things we see when we take our eyes off the goal."
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Richard L. Evans
"We must not let the things we can't do keep us from doing the things we can do."
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Spencer W. Kimball
“To be sure your life will be full and abundant, you must plan your life.”
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Author Unknown
“If you really understood you were a child of God everything else would fall into place.”
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Philippians 4:13
“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
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Acts 9:6
“And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”
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Author Unknown
“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.”
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Harvey Mackay
A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.
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Spencer W. Kimball
“Do not make small goals because they do not have the magic to stir men’s souls.”
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Ezra Taft Benson
“If you turn your life over to the Lord he can do so much more with it than we can.”
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Author Unknown
“Too much time is spent watching others live out their dreams while missing our own”
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Alan Lakein
“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”
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Earl Nightingale
“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.”
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Spencer W. Kimball
"Reach and strain... .Growth comes from setting your goals high and reaching for the stars."
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Thomas S. Monson
“Study with purpose, both in church and in school. Write down your goals and what you plan to do to achieve them. Aim high, for you are capable…”
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Author Unknown
"All the world stands aside for the man who knows where he is going and how he is going to get there."
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Joseph F. Smith
“Every son and every daughter of God has received some talent, and  each will be held to strict account for the use or misuse to which it is put."
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Chuck Coonradt
“In the absence of clearly defined goals, we are forced to concentrate on activity and ultimately become enslaved by it."
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W.E. Ziege
"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude."
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Ben Stein
“The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.”
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Henry David Thoreau
“In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high.”
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Lou Holtz
"If you are bored with life, if you don't get up every morning with a burning desire to do things—you don't have enough goals."
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Author Unknown
"The man who thinks out what he wants to do, and then works and works hard, will win, and no others do, or ever have, or can--God will not have it so."
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Author Unknown
“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your whole life running up and down the field and never scoring.”
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Spencer W. Kimball
"Failure to plan brings barrenness and sterility. Fate brushes man with its wings, but we make our own fate largely."
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Spencer W. Kimball
"Goals are good.  Laboring with a distant aim sets the mind in a higher key and puts us at our best."
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Ezra Taft Benson
”We cannot do everything at once, but we can do a great deal if we choose our goals well and work diligently to attain them.”
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Randal Wright
“If you spend too much time watching and fantasizing others while they achieve their dreams you may well miss your own.”
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Sterling W. Sill
“There is a blueprint for every accomplishment--all we need to do is to know how to follow it. Trial and error is ridiculous after the truth has once been established.”
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Sterling W. Sill
“Planning is the mother of almost every other ability. Make your plan and set a timetable for its accomplishment in writing.”
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Ronald Reagan
“My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose - somehow we win out.”
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Steve Garvey
“You have to set goals that are almost out of reach. If you set a goal that is attainable without much work or thought, you are stuck with something below your true talent and potential.”
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Ezra Taft Benson
“When we set goals we are in command. If we know where we are going, we can judge more accurately where we are now and make effective plans to reach our destination.

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Neal A. Maxwell
“Our goals should stretch us bit by bit. So often when we think we have encountered a ceiling, it is really a psychological or experiential barrier that we have built ourselves. We built it and we can remove it.”
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Richard G. Scott
"Establish specific objectives, and move steadily toward them. A rudder won't control a drifting boat; it must be underway. Similarly, you need to be moving forward to gain control of your life."
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Neal A. Maxwell
“Without making a fetish of goal setting, and without letting "lists" of tasks we desire to do dominate us, some recording of goals is wise not only for the self-reminder these constitute, but also for the satisfaction of crossing things off."
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M. Russell Ballard
“Set...goals that you can reach. Set goals that are well balanced--not too many not too few, and not too high not too low. Write down your attainable goals and work on them according to their importance. Pray for divine guidance in your goal setting.”
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Joseph B. Wirthlin
"You should look ahead now and decide what you want to do with your lives. Fix clearly in your mind what you want to be one year from now, five years, ten years, and beyond. Write your goals and review them regularly. Keep them before you constantly, record your progress, and revise them as circumstances dictate.".
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Ezra Taft Benson
Clearly understood goals bring our lives into focus just as a magnifying glass focuses a beam of light into one burning point. Without goals our efforts may be scattered and unproductive. Without knowing it, we may be torn by conflicting impulses or desires.”
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Franklin D. Richards
“It is not unusual to hear a religious leader, a philosopher, or a poet refer to man as having a divine spark within him. Such characterizations infer that man possesses great abilities and potentials. We are frequently admonished to develop our capabilities, reach out, and set high goals for ourselves.”
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Robert L. Simpson
“Often we hear folks say, "I can't see the forest for the trees." How important it is for us to ascend a vantage point from time to time, above the fog that my friend referred to; there to check direction and relative position, there to decide on things of most importance; there to re-evaluate our goals.”
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Neal A. Maxwell
“Without gospel truths, man's efforts to reach his goals are like the northbound explorer who drove his dog sled feverishly northward on an ice pack that was flowing southward -- only to find himself farther from his destination at the end of a hard day's journey than he had been at dawn!”
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Ezra Taft Benson
If we keep a goal firmly in mind, we will know when we have reached it. This gives us a sense of accomplishment and the challenge of establishing fresh, new goals -- always keeping the long-range objective in mind. If we can state our goals clearly, we will gain a purpose and meaning in all our actions.

Neal A. Maxwell
“Progress is measured by milestones. What many good people lack are markers that might tell them how they are actually doing. Goals can become a ritual or a fetish, but in the right measure they can give us some much needed reference points. No wonder some seem discouraged! Minus such milestones, we often feel minus in our lives
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Ezra Taft Benson
“If we are to achieve long-range goals, we must learn to set up and accomplish short-range goals that will move us along the way. If we do not consciously select our goals, we may be controlled by goals not of our own choosing -- goals imposed by outside pressures (such as the expectations of others) or by our habits (such as procrastination) or by our desire for the approval of the world.”
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Neal A. Maxwell
“I find that goal setting, when done this way, leads to goal achieving. The chronic failure to achieve goals lowers self-esteem. Show me a failure to achieve a goal, and usually I can show you the violation of one or more of the above criteria. Imposed goals, vague goals, and unrealistic goals tend to produce only partial successes and outright failures.”
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Neal A. Maxwell
“Although goal setting can clearly be overdone, only a few people are overly involved with goals and goal setting; most people do far too little goal setting, including the reflecting that precedes the setting of such goals. Too many marriages have financial goals but not other explicit goals. Yet the gospel is certainly goal-oriented.”
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Sterling W. Sill
“The best sculptor is the one who can most accurately reproduce in marble the image that he sees before him. The good cook follows the recipe. The pharmacist can utilize the many years of training of the most famous doctors from the best medical schools, if he just knows how to follow a prescription. Someone has said that science is just a collection of successful formulas.”
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Sterling W. Sill
“Someone has said that planning is the place where man shows himself most like God. Nothing is more godlike than the planner, the thinker, the organizer. He is the one who draws the blueprint for success. He is the one who builds the roadway on which accomplishment will travel. It is likely that our greatest opportunity is to have a good set of definitely worked-out objectives that are fully believed in and about which firm determinations have been made.
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Neal A. Maxwell
“ Goals, to be most helpful, need to be or include (1) personal or individual goals, (2) specific goals (a vague goal is no goal at all), and (3) a specific timetable for accomplishment. Then there are these added elements often neglected: the goal should be (4) written (it is less apt to be forgotten and can vex us properly); (5) "registered" (if appropriate, with certain others who can urge us on to its accomplishment); and (6) do-able or attainable.”
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M. Russell Ballard
“Maybe some of you get weary of listening to the principle of setting goals. But let me tell you something about goal setting. I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the technique of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principle of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.”
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Howard W. Hunter
"To dig a straight furrow, the plowman needs to keep his eyes on a fixed point ahead of him. That keeps him on a true course. If, however, he happens to look back to see where he has been, his chances of straying are increased. The results are crooked and irregular furrows...Fix your attention on your...goals and never look back on your earlier problems....If our energies are focused not behind us but ahead of us---on eternal life and the joy of salvation---we assuredly will obtain it."
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Spencer W. Kimball
“As well as establishing worthy goals, charting the course presents one from living an unplanned, haphazard life a tumbleweed existence. Over the…plains, upon the hillsides and along the fence-lines of the valleys, grows the tumbleweed. When mature and dry, the plant breaks from its roots and, as a rounded tangle of light stiff branches, rolls about like a ball. If the wind blows west, the weed rolls against the western fences. With each direction change in the wind, the rounded weed rolls with it, following lines of least resistance until stopped by fences or walls or ditch banks. As the wind blows down the road, the tumbleweeds go rolling like mammoth marbles thrown from a giant hand.”
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Neal A. Maxwell
A. Alone or in a group write down in two minutes five major lifetime goals you have.
B. Next, write down in two minutes five major goals for the next year of your life.
C. Next, write down in two minutes five major goals you'd pursue if you knew you only had six months to live.
D. Finally, write down in two minutes specific ways in which you have spent time during the last week of your life that relate to the goals listed in A, B, and C.
This exercise in pondering (under pressure of time) tends to make explicit much that is often unarticulated. The exercise also tends to produce family -- centered and gospel centered goals -- strategic things tend to emerge and mundane tactical things to shrink in their psychological size. The last two minutes are usually the most uncomfortable for participants, because we see how unconnected our expenditures of time are to some of our real goals.
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