Following religious teachings, we were meant to understand that everyone had a purpose to which he or she was created. Sometimes we identify this purpose early in life, sometimes later in life, and other times, people help us discover this purpose. Unfortunately, a larger group of people never gets to discover this purpose of theirs and end up settling for anything.
Our goals in life sometimes have a correlation with our purpose of creation. A purpose can have a wider scope compared to a goal, but then our purpose helps us understand which goal to pursue. For example, one's purpose in life is passion to teach children, his goal might be to first go to school that teaches people to communicate with children, then find an organisation where he can practice that which he learned, or one's purpose is becoming a tailor where he touches life with his different styles of design, to achieve this, he or she would first go to a school that teaches design, setting objectives along the way, then keep achieving several milestones until the point where he gain mastery. So to Identify a goal to achieve, you first need to understand your purpose- a long time achievement. It's the purpose that sets the pace for goals.
Secondly, Our needs prompt the need for a goal. Sometimes our needs may not be about our passion or something in line with our purpose, but the desire to solve daily demands from family, and personal needs. Each year people set resolutions, sometimes monthly, quarterly, or yearly depending on what they want to achieve. This act of making resolutions prompts the need to draft our goals and detailed objectives on how to achieve the goal. Some resolutions may be personal development, some financial investments, while others the idea of diversification, it all depends on one's need at the moment. Two things make us set goals; need and purpose.
But where one is confused about life, especially his purpose which is a long term achievement, he is vulnerable to people's opinions and the implications of it is that; he may never truly find satisfaction and joy in what he does. Some wise men will always advise - Follow your dream.