Goal

A goal is a desired result an animal or a system envisions, plans and commits to achieve—a personal or organizational desired end-point in some sort of assumed development. Many people endeavor to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines.

It is roughly similar to purpose or aim, the anticipated result which guides reaction, or an end, which is an object, either a physical object or an abstract object, that has intrinsic value.

Read more about Goal:  Goal Setting, Short-term Goals, Personal Goals, Personal Goal Achievement and Happiness, Self-Concordance Model, Goal Management in Organizations

Famous quotes containing the word goal:

    Work, as we usually think of it, is energy expended for a further end in view; play is energy expended for its own sake, as with children’s play, or as manifestation of the end or goal of work, as in “playing” chess or the piano. Play in this sense, then, is the fulfillment of work, the exhibition of what the work has been done for.
    Northrop Frye (1912–1991)

    Postmodern agenda: the peep show is the art form; the voyeur is the protagonist; the goal is excitement from a safe distance; the alibi is that it’s all ironic.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    Too many existing classrooms for young children have this overriding goal: To get the children ready for first grade. This goal is unworthy. It is hurtful. This goal has had the most distorting impact on five-year-olds. It causes kindergartens to be merely the handmaidens of first grade.... Kindergarten teachers cannot look at their own children and plan for their present needs as five-year-olds.
    James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)