The Difference Between Goals And Plans And Why They Are Both Important

 

Do you have goals, plans, or both?

 

The premise of this post is sort of a conversation I had with a friend.

They reached out and asked me if I had ever talked about the difference between goals and planning on my YouTube channel.

Before this, we had only discussed what an effective plan was.

They shared their ideas and I shared my thoughts too.

I was sure this post would not take long to come through to you because it’s so important.

This is one of those topics that gets me pretty excited and you are about to experience the excitement too.

 

So…

 

What’s the difference between a plan and a goal?

 

I’ll explain that with an analogy of hiking.

 

The people who seriously hike, especially in new places carry two crucial things with them: a compass and a map.

A compass always points to the true North. So at any point in time, the travelers know where they are at.

The map, on the other hand, gives direction; as in the how-to.

These two work hand in hand.

I stand corrected but I believe your assignment is to keep confirming that you are aligned to the true north at all times.

You will follow the leading of the map so that you are moving but you keep coming back to the compass.

 

This is how goals and plans work.

The goal shows you what you want to achieve and the plan shows you how you are going to achieve it.

The purpose of this article is to shed clarity between these two words since people have often used them interchangeably, whereas they mean two different things.

The danger of this is people have ended up frustrated because they set a plan and call it a goal and never have clear goals and clear plans.

 

I love to work with examples for visuals and effects.

 

Example 1: When you say you want to lose 5kg in two months, that’s a very clear goal.

Now your plan could look like, going to the gym 3 times a week, walking 6km every day.

 

Example 2: If your goal is to buy a car by the end of the year, the plan could look like saving 50k a month (of course depending on the car you want).

That plan can further be broken down to show specific ways you can raise that money.

If you do a lot of eat-outs at work, you could carry food from home to save money, you could cancel some subscriptions for a while, and you can avoid impulse buying if you are that kind of person.

 

 

 

Now these are all ways that get us to the bigger goal.

Actually, when we talked about effective planning, the first thing that you should be sure of before creating the plan is the goal.

You don’t want to make plans that just sit in the air.

Imagine if you said, I want to be doing morning runs every day.

That is so plain and easy to fall off from because there is no goal you are focusing on.

Because what happens if you don’t run one day? That’s it!! You just didn’t run.

But intending to lose 5kg, you know that if you don’t do the daily walks, you will not reach your goal.

People have been so hard on themselves because they made plans and called them goals and when the plan doesn’t work there is frustration.

A question for you: did you make goals for this year? Do you have specific plans to get to those goals?

Evaluate that and go back to the drawing board if you have to.

 

There was a verse that my friend shared: Commit your plans to the Lord and He will establish them. (Proverbs 16:3.)

It was a very interesting touch to our conversation.

 

 

I was so interested and I went to read the different versions of the Bible.

They refer to the plan as works, activities, deeds, whatever you do.

We see from these versions, God is really interested in the actions we take.

He wants to establish and honor the plans we make.

Think of the promise He made to Abraham that he would deliver his people from captivity one day and bring them to the promised land.

He achieved that goal by sending Moses later on and giving him specific instructions on how he would do that.

Of course, He is an all-powerful God, He would have done it in other ways like teleporting, but this is recorded so we can learn from it.

He took action to deliver the Israelites from captivity.

It’s an encouragement to us to take steps forward.

Don’t just write a goal. Take action, as in implementing the plan or the how-to.

The how-to is what you bring to the Lord in prayer so that He can establish it.

Don’t write a goal and stop at that. Create a clear plan to achieve it.

 

Now you know the difference between goals and plans.

 

Another thought that’s coming to my mind about why it’s important to commit our plans to God, is so that He can approve them or give you a different approach.

You might be seeing one way of achieving something and God gives you various ways of achieving the same goal.

 

So…

 

Do you have plans, goals, or both?

**

Xoxo;)

Doreen.