What is the first thing you imagine when you hear the word ‘goal?’ Maybe you think of its literal meaning, picturing a muddy soccer ball slipping past a goalie frantically trying to determine the proximity of the ball’s landing.

If this ball makes it past the goalie, we understand a victory has been conquered. In our personal lives, this meaning relates to the same idea.

Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist, said, “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”

While people are important, they might differ in the sense of being ‘goals’ themselves.

Even our tiny goals have significance. For instance, when we first plop those used textbooks on the Lakeland bookstore’s counter, anticipating their return at the end of the semester. The achievement in this eventual exchange is that we completed a semester and used our resources enough to squeeze by.

The beauty of having constant goals, big or small, is that they can be incognito. Often our underlying goals have always existed, but have not always been recognized. Discovering our goals can help us understand not only what they are, but why we have them.

Knowing these established and ongoing goals allows us to challenge what we want out of our experiences. As we are always looking toward our goals, our happiness continually renews in the processes of grasping them.

In this way, our goals can surpass ordinary ambitions and produce positive results.