A few years back I conversation with one of my trainees. She has been wandering from one training course to another - this had been her fifth this year but still not satisfied with the way her life is going. Here reply to my question was "I don't know what to do."

I asked her about her casually about her goals. Her response was a big fat nothing! Just a half glare, half smile type of look. I asked her what she would really like to be doing in a few years time. She was very quick in her response "to start her own business." We discussed this a bit more and in the end I gave her my Time Management and Goal Setting training programme to take home that night.

Next Day, after training she came up to me with a few questions I explained what she wanted to know. This went on for the rest of the week and the following Monday she came into class all smiles. She handed me her plan and asked me if I would look at it.

I did that evening. It was very good. The next day I told her to make an appointment with an accountant and bank manager. She already had and had also made some with a few trades' people.

Now she has a wholesale business in Glasgow.

That is the power of goals. What are your goals? There are seven reasons why you need to have goals.

• To give direction to life
• To make sure we are the one choosing the direction of our life -- not others, not fate, not the media, etc.
• To motivate
• To make sure we get what we want from life
• To save time
• To reduce stress
• To give a sense of accomplishment

While it can be fun to live without direction in the short-term, in the long-term human beings are wired to need a purpose and direction. Goals give a sense of direction and purpose to life.