Personal goals and the importance of personal values – Setting Personal Goals (Senior 4 Entrepreneurship) | Ganzaa

Setting Personal Goals

Lessons

Senior 4 · Entrepreneurship

Setting Personal Goals

4 lessons

Lesson 1 of 4

Personal goals and the importance of personal values

25 min

Case: the contract that came with a condition

Uwineza runs a small catering business in Rubavu. Her goal for the year is clear: grow her monthly sales from Frw 1.2 million to Frw 2 million. One day an officer at a large organisation offers her a contract to feed 200 people a day for a whole year, enough to reach her goal in a month. There is one condition: she must hand him 10% of every payment in cash.

She says no. The contract goes to someone else, and it takes her another eight months to reach her sales goal. Asked why, she answers: "I want a big business, but I want a business I am not ashamed of. If I start by paying for contracts, I will have to keep paying." (Illustrative case: the person and figures are invented.)

Think about it: her goal pointed one way and something else pointed the other way. What was that something else, and why did it win?

Definition

Personal goal: a result that a person decides to achieve by their own effort, within a period of time. Goals may be short-term (days to about a year), medium-term (one to about five years) or long-term (more than about five years).

Example: "Save Frw 300,000 by the end of S6 to buy a sewing machine" is a short-to-medium-term goal.

Definition

Personal value: a deep, lasting belief about what is important and right, which guides a person's choices and behaviour. Values answer the question "what matters to me?", while goals answer "what do I want to achieve?"

Example: Uwineza's value of integrity (being honest and keeping to what is right when no one is watching) decided her answer.

Kinds of personal goals

Area of life	Example of a goal
Education	Pass the S6 national examination with the grades needed for a business course
Career	Run my own registered bakery by the age of 26
Financial	Save Frw 20,000 a month from holiday work
Personal development	Learn to speak confidently in front of a group by the end of the year
Health	Walk or run 3 km three times a week
Family and community	Help my younger brother with mathematics twice a week; take part in community work

Values: the foundation under the goals

Goals change as life changes; values change slowly. The diagram shows why values come first: everything else is built on them.

The American psychologist Milton Rokeach (The Nature of Human Values, 1973) distinguished two kinds of values. Terminal values are end-states a person wants in life, such as family security, freedom or a sense of accomplishment. Instrumental values are ways of behaving that a person thinks right, such as honesty, hard work, courage or responsibility. A goal should serve a terminal value and be pursued by means of instrumental values.

Tip

Test a goal against your values before you start. Ask: "If I reach this goal, will I be proud of how I reached it, and will it give me what I really value?" A goal that conflicts with your values is usually dropped halfway, or reached at a price you regret.

Why personal values matter, especially in business

They guide decisions under pressure. When there is no time to think, people fall back on their values, as Uwineza did.
They build trust and reputation. Customers, suppliers, lenders and employees deal with a business they trust, and trust comes from values shown over time.
They keep motivation alive. A goal connected to something you care about is easier to keep working for when it gets hard.
They help choose between goals. When two goals compete for the same time or money, values decide the priority.
They shape the business culture. An owner's values become the "way we do things here" for every employee.

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Worked example 1: does the goal fit into the week?

Mutesi, in S4, wants to learn hairdressing on Saturdays and practise in the evenings: 6 hours a week. Her week has 168 hours. She sleeps 8 hours a night, spends 6.5 hours a day at school for 5 days, travels 1 hour each school day, studies 2 hours a day for 6 days, and spends 3 hours a day on meals and chores. How many hours are left, and what share of them does the goal need? (Illustrative figures.)

Committed hours:

8 \times 7 + 6.5 \times 5 + 1 \times 5 + 2 \times 6 + 3 \times 7 = 56 + 32.5 + 5 + 12 + 21 = 126.5 \ \text{hours}

Hours left and the goal's share:

168 - 126.5 = 41.5 \ \text{hours}, \qquad \frac{6}{41.5} \times 100 \approx 14.5\%

Interpretation: the goal needs about one-seventh of her free time. It is realistic, but only if she decides which other activities (rest, family, worship, sport, friends) give up those six hours. Her values decide which ones.

Worked example 2: analysing a conflict between a goal and a value

Return to Uwineza. Goal: sales of Frw 2 million a month. Values in play: integrity (instrumental) and business success and a good name (terminal).

Short-term gain from accepting: the goal reached in a month.
Costs of accepting: breaking her own value of integrity; taking part in bribery, which is illegal; risk of losing the contract, her reputation and her business if it is discovered; pressure to keep paying for every future contract.
Cost of refusing: eight extra months to reach the goal.

Evaluation: refusing delays the goal but protects the terminal values (a good name and a lasting business) that the goal was meant to serve. Accepting would reach the goal by destroying what it was for.

Warning

Do not confuse goals with values. "Become rich" is a goal (or a wish); "honesty" is a value. And do not copy other people's goals: a goal chosen to please friends or family, without connection to your own values, is rarely reached.

Gabriel Kwakyi, "How to identify, define, and use your personal values in life". Watch for where values come from and how to turn a value into everyday decisions.

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Practice

Define personal goal and personal value, and explain how they differ.
Classify each goal as short-, medium- or long-term: (a) finish a business plan this term; (b) open a poultry farm within three years; (c) become the leading egg supplier in the district by age 35.
Distinguish between terminal and instrumental values, giving two examples of each.
Give four reasons why personal values matter to an entrepreneur.
A student's committed hours in a week total 132. A goal needs 5 hours a week. Calculate the hours left and the share of them the goal needs.
Write one personal goal for each of three areas of life (education, financial, community) and name the value each serves.
"An entrepreneur who refuses to bend his values will lose to competitors who do." Evaluate this statement.

Show answersHide answers

A goal is a result a person decides to achieve by their own effort in a period of time; a value is a lasting belief about what matters and what is right. Goals are targets that change; values are the guide for choosing and pursuing them.
(a) Short-term; (b) medium-term; (c) long-term.
Terminal: end-states wanted in life, e.g. family security, freedom. Instrumental: ways of behaving thought right, e.g. honesty, hard work.
Any four: they guide decisions under pressure; build trust and reputation; keep motivation; help choose between competing goals; shape the culture of the business.
Hours left $= 168 - 132 = 36$ . Share $= \frac{5}{36} \times 100 \approx 13.9\%$ .
Answers vary, e.g. "pass mathematics with grade B this year" (value: hard work); "save Frw 15,000 a month in the holidays" (value: independence); "help clean the village spring once a month" (value: community service).
Against: values build trust, a reputation that brings repeat customers and lenders, and protection from legal and reputational ruin; dishonest competitors may gain quickly but often fall. For: in the short run, some competitors who cut corners may win contracts. A good answer concludes that values are a long-term advantage, and supports it with an example.

Quick check

Match each statement to what it is.

Tap one on the left, then its partner on the right.

Key points

A personal goal is a result you decide to achieve in a set time; goals can be short-, medium- or long-term, in any area of life.
A personal value is a lasting belief about what matters; terminal values are ends, instrumental values are ways of behaving (Rokeach, 1973).
Values are the foundation: vision, goals and daily actions should fit them.
Check that a goal fits your time and your values before you start.

Sources and credits

Image: Umuganda, Masako Kato, 2017, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Video: How to identify, define, and use your personal values in life, Gabriel Kwakyi: The Musing Mind, embedded from YouTube.

Written by Ganzaa: the Rubavu catering case, the values pyramid, the tables, the worked examples and the practice items. Rokeach's distinction is summarised in Ganzaa's own words. The people and figures are illustrative (2026).

This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.

1Case: the contract that came with a condition

2Kinds of personal goals

3Values: the foundation under the goals

4Why personal values matter, especially in business

Case: the contract that came with a condition

Kinds of personal goals

Values: the foundation under the goals

Why personal values matter, especially in business