We all have dreams and goals, things we want to do or have in life. Whether these goals are big or small, we can achieve them when we have aligned and organized our plans and actions.

A goal isn’t achieved just because a person has decided it would. For example, someone watching a basketball game might think it would be wonderful to be a basketball player, but this isn’t going to happen all by itself. To reach any goal, a person has to take specific actions, like practicing each skill needed over and over or working to get on the school team and then going to basketball practice every day. These and similar actions will make the needed changes and improvements to finally reach the goal.

You could be working toward reaching a goal but then find that the actions you are doing aren’t helping you get closer to it. This could be because the plans and actions are not aligned to reach the goal. For example, a person wanting to be a basketball player is having a hard time improving his game. He has been spending a lot of time playing basketball with friends after school because it’s fun, but there is not enough practice of each separate skill. So those after-school games don’t align with reaching the goal.

Several subjects have to be coordinated to succeed in reaching a goal. In Scientology, these have been organized into a scale. For any goal you have, you take the items on this scale and figure out what they would be in order to fit with that goal. Then you review and rework all the items until each one aligns with the remaining items and with the goal.

Using this scale with all the items aligned will result in achieving your goal.

Goals

A goal is something that a person wants to do or have, so he directs his actions toward achieving it. A goal often covers a long period of time.

Purposes

A purpose is a goal that is smaller in importance or in the area it covers. A purpose applies to specific activities within the overall goal.

For example, if you have the goal to be a professional basketball player, the purposes could be to achieve fame and earn a lot of money.

Policy

Policy consists of rules or guidelines that one decides on. Policies are long-range and are not likely to change.

Plans

A plan is a method of how to achieve something. It consists of the basic actions that have to be carried out to improve something or to solve a problem. A plan is usually based on the available resources (money, employees, equipment, facilities, supplies, etc.) and includes smart ideas of how to use them.

Programs

A program is a series of steps in sequence to carry out a plan.

Projects

A project is a series of steps in sequence to carry out one step of a program.

Orders

An order is a direction to someone to do a step of a program or project.

Ideal Scenes

The ideal scene says what a scene or area ought to be. It is something that can be achieved. Any activity also has an existing scene, which is the way something is right now. When you compare an ideal scene with an existing scene, you can see what needs to be changed in order to bring the area closer to the ideal.

Statistics

A statistic is a number or an amount compared to an earlier number or amount of the same thing. Statistics measure production and show how much is being accomplished.

Valuable Final Products

A valuable final product is something that can be exchanged with other activities. Exchange means to give something valuable in return for something valuable. A valuable final product can be exchanged for support, such as food, clothing, money or cooperation.

To achieve success, all the items in this scale must agree with all other items in the scale on the same subject.

For example, if a person had a goal of improving conditions in her community, she might have a plan for turning an empty lot (an unused piece of land) into a park where people in the community can enjoy various sports activities.

A program that fits in with this could include steps of finding out how to get permission from the city to use a nearby piece of land that isn’t being used. Other steps would be to talk to church groups or community clubs about having a park and working out how they could be involved. And further steps of the program could involve finding sports equipment for the park.

Statistics that would increase production of this could be numbers of groups contacted and numbers of groups that agree to help build the park.

The valuable final product would be a park that is open and in use, that is attractive and where people want to sit or walk or do sports activities. This park is something that can be exchanged with the people who live in this community. And the friendlier, safer neighborhood that results is the exchange for having put the park there.

When an item in the scale is not aligned with the other items, the project will be blocked or possibly fail. In the above example, a statistic of the numbers of cars traveling on the streets around the park could be destructive if it resulted in too much traffic where people are walking and children are playing.

The skill with which all these items in any activity are aligned and put into action is called “management.” And any activity can be improved by aligning the items on this scale so that they work together to achieve the goal.

This scale and its parts and the ability to line them up are one of the most valuable tools of organization.