The most sensible reason that I can see for setting goals is that you want to make your life happier and more satisfying. But if you don't set your values before you set your goals then pursuing and achieving your goals may lead to you being less happy. Let's look at how that works?

A common mistake that many fathers make is that they focus their energies on building a career and earning money at the expense of their relationship with their children. Then, when the children have grown, the father realizes that he has missed out on what could have potentially been a very rewarding part of life.

If that father had taken time to establish a clear hierarchy of values before he set his career and income goals he would probably have been able to find a way to have a successful and financially rewarding career and also have a rewarding relationship with his children.

There are five broad classes than should be considered when setting your relative values for your life. These classes are; relationships, career & finance, health & fitness, personal fulfillment & spiritual development, and valuable use of time. How you choose to rank these five classes in relative importance to your life will determine how your life unfolds and whether or not you achieve an overall happiness with life.

There are also ranks within each class. For example, not all relationships are ranked equally. Whether you choose your friends or your family or your spouse as your most important relationship will greatly effect the decisions you make and the goals you set.

The relative importance of your values often needs to change over the course of your life and it is important to realize when this change is necessary. For example, it is common for a mother to place the relationship with her children as the highest importance while those children are young and growing but if that mother continues with this same order of value when her children are adults she is heading for a life of loneliness. At that stage in life she is usually better served by placing the relationships with herself and her spouse above the relationship with her children.

But let's get back to goal setting. If you decide which value order to rank the five basic classes you can then set goals that respect those values. You will also find ways to achieve those goals while remaining true to your values. Let's look at another example.

If you rank career & money higher than health & fitness then you may end up sacrificing your health in the pursuit of your career. This is extremely common particularly in regard to stress, excessive drinking and poor eating habits that develop while a person is blindly focused on chasing career or money.

If on the other hand you place health & fitness above career & money then you will always weigh up the health factors when deciding how to pursue your career and increase your wealth. You can still become just as successful as the person in the above example but you will not sacrifice your health in the process.

I strongly suggest that you take some time to consider your own values and how they rank in importance to you. Then reassess your goals and the way that you are pursuing those goals to make sure that they are in line with those values. If necessary do some reorganizing of your goals and strategies to bring them into line. You have nothing to lose and a lot of happiness to gain.