Goals are measurable, specific outcomes that serve as markers of your progress in your purpose. Goals provide daily direction, a measure of progress, and a source of motivation.
Your purpose will absorb any effort you invest into it, so decomposing your purpose into goals is essential to providing you with a sense of progress in your purpose. Goals provide a measurable surrogate for progress in your purpose, which itself can never be finished. As you accomplish goals, you provide evidence that your purpose, qualities, and values are being lived up to.
Goals transform what you want from a short-lived and ill-defined wish to a prioritized plan whose daily execution assures that you will accomplish exactly what you set out to do. Goals provide greater detail than higher layers of the life plan, moving further into the realm of daily action. Goals answer the question of what you will accomplish with the tasks you spend your time on, while tasks answer the question of how you will accomplish your goals.
Goals are an essential source of motivation beyond tasks alone, providing reasons to increase intensity, persevere against opposition, and endure delays in order to achieve them.