If You Want To Get Ahead, Get SMARTLet’s get started right away with one of the most important mental skills you can ever develop:Goal SettingI remember reading an academic study that evaluated a group of students in college, and then re-evaluated them 20 years later.The study found that the students who had become the most successful in life weren't necessarily the ones who had achieved the highest grades.They were the ones who had written down specific goals, 20 years earlier.Now while your exact definition of "success" may differ from mine or anyone else's, most people would agree that it's about getting what you want out of life.And that's what goal setting does for you. It addresses the most important - and perhaps most difficult - question of them all:What do you actually WANT?There's an old saying: "If you don't know where you want to go, you'll never get there."So many people drift through life feeling frustrated and resentful that their life is going nowhere. Or even worse... it's definitely going somewhere but in thetotally wrong direction - usually driven by somebody else.Your first step has to be working out where you want to go. You need a target... an objective... a destination...A goal.