The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up and down the field and never score. -- Bill Copeland
The story is told of a relatively unknown Japanese athlete named Yamada Motochi, who unexpectedly won a 1984 marathon in Tokyo. When reporters asked him for the secret to his success, Yamada answered, “Use wisdom, defeat opponent.” People couldn’t understand—marathon running is a sport that requires physical strength and endurance. What role could wisdom play?
Yamada won another marathon in Italy two years later, and again reporters asked for the secret to his success. Again Yamada answered, “Use wisdom, defeat opponent.” Still, no one understood.
Ten years later, Yamada wrote an autobiography that dispelled the mystery. He wrote how, before each race, he would “travel the whole route and check it carefully. I will mark some important signs along the road, such as the first mark is a bank, the second mark is a tree, and the third mark is a red house, thus mark to the end. When the race begins, I run as fast as I can towards the first goal, the bank. When I arrive at the bank, I will strive for the second goal, the tree. I break the whole marathon route into many small goals and finish them one by one easily.”
The entire race route was too daunting for Yamada because he could see no immediate end in sight. By breaking up the route into several smaller, manageable goals, Yamada was able to push himself to victory.
A similar lesson could be gleaned from Florence Chadwick.
Already the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions (doing so in record time), she now aimed to become the first woman to swim the 26 miles from Catalina Island to Palos Verde, California.
On the morning of July 4, 1952, the sea was like an ice bath and the fog was so dense Florence could hardly see her support boats. Driven away only by rifle shots, sharks cruised all around her. Yet Florence struggled on, hour after hour, while millions watched on television.
Ahead of her, Florence Chadwick saw nothing but a solid wall of fog. Her body was numb. She had been swimming for nearly sixteen hours. Alongside her in a boat, her mother and her trainer offered encouragement. They told her there was not much farther to go. But all Florence could see was fog. They urged her not to quit. And she never had…until that day.
With a mere half mile to go, Florence Chadwick pulled out.
Still thawing her chilled body several hours later, she told a reporter, “I’m not excusing myself, but if I could have seen land I might have made it.” She was defeated not by fatigue or cold or even the sharks. It was the fog. She simply couldn’t see her goal.
Two months later, she tried again. This time, despite the same dense fog, she swam with her faith intact and her goal clearly in mind. She knew that somewhere beyond the fog was land. And this time she made it. Florence Chadwick became the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel, and went on to do so two more times in her storied swimming career.
These anecdotes, and countless others, teach the importance of setting and pursuing goals.
The order in which the Torah commands the building of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) and its vessels teaches us the same lesson.
Unlike the typical order of one building a home (house first, then furniture), the Torah first describes the specifications for the Aron (Ark), then the Menora, and only then for the Mishkan itself that would house them (Shemos 25:10-26:1). In so doing, the Torah teaches us that one must set defined goals, whether for short-term projects or for life itself. The Mishkan was a most noble undertaking, but the builders needed to understand that the ultimate goal—its purpose—was not to look pretty but to house vessels for the service of G-d.
One of my favorite motivational books is, as it is for countless others, Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People—a must read if you haven’t yet had the pleasure. In habit number two, Covey explains that highly successful people “begin with the end in mind.” He puts it this way: “To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.”
That is precisely what the Torah teaches us. Like the building of the Mishkan, every project—big or small—is best carried out by setting ambitious yet attainable goals—and then pursuing them. On a grander scale, as Jews, our mission statement is embodied in the Torah, with its commandments and directives serving as the blueprint for life itself.
Long before Covey, the Talmud Yerushlami had its own version of “begin with the end in mind”—“R’ Meir would call the end of the rope the beginning” (Yerushalmi, Sota 8:10). Or, as R’ Shlomo Alkabetz wrote in his celebrated Kabbalistic poem Lecha Dodi, “sof ma’aseh b’machshava techila”—“the end of action should be preceded by thought.” The fact that Shabbos was created last demonstrates that it is the goal of all creation, it is the day that gives purpose to everything we do during the week.
“Moshe and the Kohanim and the Levi’im spoke to all of Israel saying, ‘Be attentive and hear, O Israel; this day you have become a people to Hashem, your G-d” (Devarim 27:9). The directive to “be attentive” means something more than simple attention—it entails mental imaging, picturing that which is being expressed. The Admor of Sochazev, R’ Shmuel Bornstein, explains the S’forno’s comments as emphasizing the need to set clearly defined goals to achieve spiritual growth (Shem MiShmuel, Ki Savo 5672). One cannot begin a quest for spiritual advancement without clearly defined goals.
Indeed, perhaps the greatest mussar treatise written, R’ Moshe Chaim Luzzato’s Mesilas Yesharim, demands that, before even beginning a course in self-betterment, one must clarify the goals of life (Mesilas Yesharim, Introduction; see also Chovas HaTalmidim, Chapter 5). And this is the reason that the pious men of yore would wait an hour before beginning to pray (Berachos 30b)—they utilized that time to contemplate what they wanted to accomplish via their prayers and what they wanted to pray for.
The same holds true for Torah study. “R’ Yishmael says: One who studies [Torah] in order to teach is granted the ability to study and to teach; one who studies [Torah] in order to do is granted the ability to study, to teach, to observe, and to do” (Avos 4:6). So while one can debate the proper motive for Torah study, one thing is clear: one must have at least some purpose in mind when studying Torah. Judaism does not value study out of a detached curiosity. On the contrary, “great is study for it leads to action” (Kiddushin 40b), and “the purpose of wisdom is penitence and good deeds” (Berachos 17a). With no end goal—without purpose or aim—it may be an exercise in futility.
Someone once commented to the Ponovezher Rav, who built many Torah institutions, how fortunate he was to have accomplished so much compared to the average person who accomplishes only about ten percent of what they set out to do. His response was, “I too have accomplished only ten percent of what I set out to do, but I set out to do a lot more than the average person.”
Focusing on long-term goals safeguards your peace of mind (see e.g. Chochma U’Mussar, Vol. 2, pg. 180; R’ Zelig Pliskin, Gateway to Happiness, pg. 77, 95, 211). Goals propel you forward. Goals transform insurmountable challenges into manageable ones. Goals hold you accountable for failure. Goals help you live life to the fullest.
But most of all, goals tell you what you truly want.
All that’s left is for you to go and get it.