If you look back at your grade school

yearbook, you’d probably laugh at the

goals you had written for yourself. Some

goals are too ambitious (be the first

Filipina in space), too unrealistic (become

a fairy princess), or too vague (become rich

and live in a big house) for 10 year olds to

achieve. Admittedly, even a decade later,

some goals are still far-off.

Still, it’s not a bad idea to start setting

goals when you’re young. ''It is a fallacy

that youth is a time when one can gamble

on investments,'' financial planner Charles

Obsusin was quoted saying in The New

York Times article “The Art of Successful

Goal Setting.” It’s true that a lot of people,

especially in this country, think that your

teenage years and early twenties are a

time to have fun and not think about what

you really want to do in life. It’s this blasé,

bahala na attitude that can unfortunately

bite you in the back later on.

As a young person, you might feel a sense

of embarrassment about setting up goals—

Is this goal really for me? Maybe this isn’t

a good fit. If I say it out loud, people might

make fun of me—and that’s where one of

the best benefits of goal-setting comes in.

FEATURE

“

”

Goal-Setting is a

Young Person

Thing, too

It’s never too young to start thinking

about your future

Mapping out your plans doesn’t only help

you buckle up, it also helps you “fake it till

you make it.”

While you’re young, be ambitious and

don’t be afraid to know what you want.

When you’re older, you might regret not

taking what could’ve been a career-

defining opportunity. And as the pop diva

Cher already taught us in 1989, you can’t

turn back time, no matter how much you

want to.

Wonder, passion, and rigor are the three

core things you need in life. Wonder and

passion are obvious: If you don’t have either

wonder and passion for what you do, then

why do it? But rigor is the more nebulous

one. There will be hard times when your

wonder and passion will escape you. Your

sheer rigor is what’s going to keep you

going. Rigor is the ability to clock in your

work even under great duress, to do all

your tasks at hand. It’s the less glamorous

side of achieving your dreams, sure, but it’s

also the one that helps hone your talent

and skills. Goal-setting is inherently part of

this. It may not sound as fun, but it helps

keep you in line and prepared for what you

have to do.

You’re not

just trudging

on with a

fuzzy dream

of a future;

you have a

concrete

reality that

you know

how to reach.

SM SHOPMAG JULY ISSUE