ShareThis"I wrote myself a cheque for ten million dollars for acting services rendered and dated it Thanksgiving 1995 ( at the time he was earning around $20,000). I put it in my wallet and it deteriorated. And then, just before Thanksgiving 1995, I found out I was going to make ten million dollars for Dumb & Dumber. I put that cheque in the casket with my father because it was our dream together"
Jim Carrey, Oprah Winfrey Show, 1997
This is a great example of setting future career goals, and it is something I have taken to heart. I recently realized that I have been in education for so long with my path preordained; that I began to think less and less about what I would do once I was actually finished. I had become so accustomed to there always being goals for me to focus on in the short term (a test or a college project) that I never focused my attention on any long term goals. This is ironic seen as education is a means to give an advantage in the “real world”, and not an end in itself. I can honestly say that, this has changed significantly in recent weeks. I have gone from being passive about my future, to almost obsessive. I recently got 3 pages of a4 paper and wrote out life goals for where I wanted to be in 1, 5 and 10 years time. Let me tell you, for someone who has never looked past his next test or night out, this was a daunting task. It was daunting, but refreshing; I realized that with 10 years and a college education, there is very little you can't do....
Some of my goals
- 1 Year Achieve a second class honours degree, grade 1, have a blog, be able to play guitar
- 5 Year Own a car, speak another language fluently
- 10 Year Own a house, pub and a yacht (minimum 30ft). Married?
There is a famous study conducted at Harvard in 1979. In that year, the students were asked, "Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?" Only three percent of the graduates had written goals and plans; 13 percent had goals, but they were not in writing; and a whopping 84 percent had no specific goals at all.
Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings, while somewhat predictable, were nonetheless astonishing. The 13 percent of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all. And what about the three percent who had clear, written goals? They were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97 percent put together.
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