50 Quotes About Setting Goals to Get Motivated and Inspired

A collection of 50 quotes about setting goals, covering SMART goals, high goals, and how to achieve them, with thoughts from well-known thinkers.

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At a glance

  • 50 quotes about setting goals: on SMART goals, high goals, and achieving them.
  • Thoughts from well-known people to help you define your goals and stick with them.
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Goals give life meaning. They motivate you to use your talent, skills, creativity, time, resources, and opportunities to achieve tangible results for yourself, your family, your work, and your surroundings. Reading quotes about setting goals helps you put your own thoughts into words and deepen your understanding of goals, giving you access to the thinking of great minds — people who have mastered the art of goal setting and become successful. These quotes will also help you rethink your goals and put them in the right perspective. As you read them, you will find inspiration and motivation to set and achieve your own goals. Below are 50 quotes about setting goals that will give you the clarity and motivation you need to establish and reach your goals.

Quotes About Setting Goals

When defining your goals, it is important to consider several aspects. First, think about what you really want to achieve in both the short and the long term. Set goals that will inspire and motivate you to act. The following quotes offer insight into what you should know about goals and which goals you can set to make your life better.

“It must be remembered that the tragedy of life is not in failing to reach your goal. The tragedy is that there are no goals worth reaching.”

Benjamin E. Mays

“People are not lazy. They simply have goals that do not inspire them.”

Tony Robbins

“Becoming a star may not be your destiny, but becoming the best version of yourself you can be is a goal worth setting.”

Brian Lindsey

“Goals are not only absolutely necessary to motivate us. They are essential to keeping us alive.”

Robert H. Schuller

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

C. S. Lewis

“There is no favorable wind for the person who does not know where he wants to go.”

Seneca

“Half the battle is won by forming the habit of setting goals and achieving them.”

Og Mandino

“The first thing you must do in life is decide what you really want. Weigh the costs against the results. Are the results worth the costs? Then make up your mind and go after your goal with all your strength.”

Alfred A. Montapert

“One step — choosing a goal and sticking to it — changes everything.”

Scott Reid

“Goal setting is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”

Tony Robbins

“A person should set goals as high as he can and devote all his energy and talent to achieving them. With enough effort, he can reach them. Or find something even more meaningful. But in the end, no matter how it turns out, he will know that he has lived a full life.”

Walt Disney

“Goal setting is the secret to an irresistible future.”

Tony Robbins

“In the short term, living without goals may be more fun. But those who truly grow and make an impact always have goals.”

Seth Godin

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”

Albert Einstein

“If life bores you and you do not wake up every morning with a burning desire to do something, then you lack goals.”

Lou Holtz

“Without clearly defined goals, we become surprisingly loyal to carrying out daily trivialities.”

Author unknown

“Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement.”

Brian Tracy

“If life bores you and you do not wake up every morning with a burning desire to do something, then you lack goals.”

Lou Holtz

“Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is going in the wrong direction.”

Kenichi Ohmae

“Goals should never come from your ego, but from the problems that need solving.”

Robert H. Schuller

“We will succeed only when we identify one main goal in life and make all other considerations subordinate to it.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Quotes About SMART Goals

Success in achieving your goals depends largely on how you formulate them. One of the basic rules of goal setting is applying the SMART principle: goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. By following these criteria when setting your goals, you create a framework that will help you succeed. Get inspired by the following quotes to make your goals SMART.

Quotes About Goals and Achievement

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.”

Zig Ziglar

“Goal setting is useless without a concrete plan for achieving it.”

Stephen Covey

“Begin with the end in mind.”

Stephen Covey

“Be practical and idealistic at the same time. Look up at the stars, but don’t forget to keep your feet on the ground.”

Theodore Roosevelt

“Every minute spent planning saves 10 minutes in execution, yielding a 1000% return of energy!”

Brian Tracy

“Our goals can be achieved only through a plan that we deeply believe in and actively pursue. It is the only path to success.”

Pablo Picasso

“Goals are dreams with deadlines.”

Anonymous

Quotes About High Goals

Setting goals can seem like fantasy, especially when you set goals that go beyond your current situation, abilities, or resources. However, experts say that it is high goals that make us grow. When you have big dreams, you should not feel fear or doubt — you simply need to create a plan that will lead you to your goal. Be inspired by the following quotes about how to dream and turn dreams into reality:

“You must set goals that seem out of reach. If your goal can be reached without special effort or thought, you may be settling for something below your true potential.”

Stephen Covey

“One way to stay motivated is to constantly set big goals for yourself.”

Michael Korda

“Set goals worth living for.”

Ted Turner

“If you have a goal and a plan, if you are willing to take risks and make mistakes while working as a team, you can achieve even the hardest goals.”

Scott Kelly

“I urge you to set truly high goals. Set goals that seem impossible to you. But then work on them every day, and everything becomes possible. Keep working hard and follow your dream.”

Katie Ledecky

“My short-term goals are to get better every day and to help my team. But my main goal is to win the NBA championship. That is all that matters. I dream about it. I see what it will look like and how it will feel. It is going to be great.”

LeBron James

“Impossible goals can be achieved by breaking them into small steps, writing them down, counting them, and moving toward them as if it were a normal matter.”

Don Lancaster

“We often don’t believe we can achieve more than we consider ourselves capable of. Why not let our dreams go beyond our real capabilities?”

Simon Sinek

“Don’t manage time, manage priorities. Break your big goals into small tasks, each of which will become a mini-goal on the way to the main one.”

Denis Waitley

“Those who think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

Steve Jobs

“If you have built castles in the air, your work has not been wasted; now build foundations under them.”

Henry David Thoreau

“The impossible is just words that keep us from understanding our potential. The impossible is temporary. There is nothing that cannot be achieved.”

Muhammad Ali

“The only thing limiting your success is your willingness to work on your dreams.” — Michelle Obama

“Set a goal so high that you cannot reach it until you become the person who can.”

Anonymous

“The danger for most of us is not that we set our goals too high and miss them, but that we set our goals too low and achieve them.”

Michelangelo

Quotes About Achieving Your Goals

From the moment you set your goals, obstacles begin to appear that can make them seem out of reach. However, with motivation, determination, and the right skills, you can overcome any difficulties that arise on the way to achieving your goals. Here are some wise quotes about what to expect and how to always find ways to reach your goals despite obstacles:

“When it becomes clear that goals are unattainable, don’t change the goals — change the actions.”

Confucius

“Your ability to communicate is an important tool in achieving your goals, whether with your family, colleagues, or clients.”

Les Brown

“What you get from achieving goals is not as important as what you become in the process of achieving them.”

Zig Ziglar

“Write your goals down in detail and read your list of goals every day. Some goals may include short steps, such as reaching a certain weight, that help you keep your focus on what you want to achieve step by step.”

Jack Canfield

“Every day you put off your goals is not only a loss of that day, but also a loss of the day it will take to recover them.”

Ralph Marston

“If what you are doing is not bringing you closer to your goal, it is moving you away from it.”

Brian Tracy

“Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they start to doubt that goals can be reached.”

Brian Adams

Final Thoughts

When your goals serve as a compass for your life, you will always move in the direction you have chosen yourself. By pursuing your goals with full determination, you will find that no life goal is out of reach. It may take longer than you planned, and they will not always look exactly the way you imagined them, but your progress and success will be far greater than you could have imagined.

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Author

Vasyl Vasyliev

Has been working on AppMaxx since 2019, writing reviews of smartphones, laptops and other gadgets, game and movie roundups, and how-tos on Windows and apps.

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