The biggest level of confusion most people face in setting goals is confusing them with methods of achievement.
As Albert Einstein once remarked, "Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem in my opinion to characterize our age."
A goal is what you desire. A method is how you go about getting it.
A goal is singular and fixed, while a method can be multiple and it can vary.
If you want to be an actor or actress, that is a goal. The acting classes you take and the auditions you go to are your methods.
While the difference between a goal and a method is clear and obvious when explained in this way, much confusion arises between the two in practice.
When some people are asked why they are not achieving their goals; they say that they don't have enough money, or knowledge, or support. They believe that their lack of resources stops them. Yet these resources are only methods. They can be substituted with other methods.
If you already had all the methods in place before you started out, it would not be a goal; it would merely be fulfilling a task.
A goal asks you to stretch beyond your current means. It asks you to explore new methods, uncover new resources, develop new strategies.
Doing what you have never done before is working on achieving a goal. Merely doing what you know how to do is just working with your existing methods.
The result of mistaking methods for goals is that people tend to shuffle existing methods around while claiming to be doing something new. They do what they've always done and yet are surprised to find that they get what they have always gotten.
When Joseph Campbell advised people to follow their bliss, he meant that they should do what they heart desired, not make do with what they already had before them.
Thus a goal is an end, and a method is a means to that end.
Confusing one with the other results in no growth at all.
Robert Fritz explained it in the following way:
"The way you activate the seeds of your creation is by making choices about the results you want to create. When you make a choice, you mobilize vast human energies and resources which otherwise go untapped. All too often people fail to focus their choices upon results and therefore their choices are ineffective. If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise."
