{"id":9641,"date":"2012-08-06T08:54:40","date_gmt":"2012-08-06T14:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=9641"},"modified":"2022-02-07T14:15:48","modified_gmt":"2022-02-07T19:15:48","slug":"monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Goals Should Be Ambitious but Realistic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When writing about your career, strive to inspire your reader by showing that your goals are ambitious, but not so ambitious that they are implausible. You should work to find a middle ground between goals that are easily achievable and those that are na\u00efve or entirely fantastic. For example, stating that in the short term, you want to return to your existing position at your firm would be an example of an unambitious goal and thus an unwise approach; on the other hand, declaring that in the short term, you want to become CEO of the New York Yankees would be shooting unreasonably high, and the goal would therefore be viewed as unrealistic.<\/p>\n<p>Generally, with respect to short-term goals, you should be able to identify a reasonably precise position that you would expect to take upon graduating from your MBA program. (If you intend to start your own firm, you should have a clear understanding of what the firm will be, the direction you will take and how you will steward the business to achieve its short-term goals.) As for the long term, we suggest that candidates pick a goal that derives from an existing career path\u2014or could be considered a logical transition from it\u2014and that represents an ideal of sorts. Essentially, we recommend that you consider writing about goals that would be within your grasp if everything were to go according to plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When writing about your career, strive to inspire your reader by showing that your goals are ambitious, but not so ambitious that they are implausible. You should work to find a middle ground between goals that are easily achievable and those that are na\u00efve or entirely fantastic. For example, stating that in the short term, &hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/\">Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;<i class=\"fal fa-sm fa-angle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-application-tips"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Monday Morning Essay Tip: Goals Should Be Ambitious but Realistic | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Goals Should Be Ambitious but Realistic | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When writing about your career, strive to inspire your reader by showing that your goals are ambitious, but not so ambitious that they are implausible. You should work to find a middle ground between goals that are easily achievable and those that are na\u00efve or entirely fantastic. For example, stating that in the short term, &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-06T14:54:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-02-07T19:15:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-fallback-image.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeremy Shinewald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jeremy Shinewald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Goals Should Be Ambitious but Realistic | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Goals Should Be Ambitious but Realistic | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","og_description":"When writing about your career, strive to inspire your reader by showing that your goals are ambitious, but not so ambitious that they are implausible. You should work to find a middle ground between goals that are easily achievable and those that are na\u00efve or entirely fantastic. For example, stating that in the short term, &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/","og_site_name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","article_published_time":"2012-08-06T14:54:40+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-02-07T19:15:48+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-fallback-image.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Jeremy Shinewald","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jeremy Shinewald","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["Article","BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/"},"author":{"name":"Jeremy Shinewald","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f"},"headline":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Goals Should Be Ambitious but Realistic","datePublished":"2012-08-06T14:54:40+00:00","dateModified":"2022-02-07T19:15:48+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/"},"wordCount":247,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Application Tips"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/","name":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Goals Should Be Ambitious but Realistic | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-08-06T14:54:40+00:00","dateModified":"2022-02-07T19:15:48+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/monday-morning-essay-tip-goals-should-be-ambitious-but-realistic\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Monday Morning Essay Tip: Goals Should Be Ambitious but Realistic"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/","name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","description":"World&#039;s Leading MBA Admissions Consulting Firm","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"mbaMission","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-organization-logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-organization-logo.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"mbaMission"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f","name":"Jeremy Shinewald","description":"In addition to being Founder and President of mbaMission, Jeremy Shinewald is a Darden MBA, published author, and the recipient of Poets&amp;Quants\u2019 Lifetime Achievement Award in MBA Admissions Consulting. With more than 20 years of experience and a background as a professional speechwriter, he combines deep industry insight and exceptional storytelling skills to help applicants create powerful, distinctive MBA applications.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/who-we-are\/team\/jeremy-shinewald\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jeremyshinewald\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/author\/jeremy\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}