Desire

"Earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way."1 Corinthians 12:31

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."Matthew 5:6

"Delight yourself in the LORD; and He will give you the desires of your heart."Psalm 37:4

Story #1
A young man visits Socrates in search of wisdom. To the young man’s surprise, Socrates takes him out to a lake and dunks his head under water. As the man’s struggle to come up for air, Socrates holds him under. Later, after recovering, the young man asks Socrates why he nearly drowned him.
Socrates replies, “What is it you most wanted when you were under water?”
“Air,” the young man replies.
Socrates responds, “When your desire for wisdom is as great as your desire to breathe, you will find wisdom.”

Story #2
In a bizarre scientific experiment, a researcher found that a rat preferred a sense of pleasure to food or water, even to the point of self-exhaustion. Adam Keiper provides more detail:
James Olds was a Harvard-trained American neurologist working in Canada when, in 1953, he discovered quite by accident that a rat seemed to enjoy receiving electric shocks in a particular spot in its brain, the septum. He began to investigate, and discovered that the rat “could be directed to almost any spot in the box at the will of the experimenter” just by sending a zap into its implant every time it took a step in the desired direction.
He then found that the rat would rather get shocked in its septum than eat—even when it was very hungry. Eventually, Olds put another rat with a similar implant in a Skinner box wherein the animal could stimulate itself by pushing a lever connected to the electrode in its head; it pressed the lever again and again until exhaustion.

Conclusion
The problem with goal-making is that our desires and pleasures often contrast with each other. What we desire often has no pleasure connected with the activity, and what we find pleasing is often at odds with our desires.
For example, look at exercise. Almost everyone makes goals to exercise more at New Year’s. We may truly desire to exercise, but the activity lacks the pleasure that would see us through. Consequently, we do what is more pleasing — sit around watching movies. But deep down we don’t desire to watch so many movies; it’s just pleasing.
Another example is finances. Many people desire to spend less and save more, but there’s not much pleasure in frugality. Naturally, we do what’s more pleasing to us — make a bunch of unnecessary purchases at the mall. However, while pleasing, few people really desire to spend all their money on unnecessary things and rack up credit card bills.
To make good goals, you have to align your desires with pleasures — either by making the activity you truly desire fun, or by turning pleasurable activities into something you actually desire.

Commitment

Scared already? That bad word ... commitment. What's better ... free love?

See, all of us want intimacy. It means being close to someone. It's giving to and receiving from another person the deepest parts of who we are. As humans, we desire to be known in loving safety, explored with genuine interest, discovered by hopeful wisdom, and touched by the source of spiritual power. An author I know wrote, "You might say that intimacy between a man and a woman is the icing on the cake of a relationship headed towards marriage." If that's intimacy, you can easily see that most of our dating relationships are no more than icing. They usually lack purpose. We date because we want to enjoy the emotional and physical benefits of intimacy without the responsibility of real commitment.

Simply put, pursuing intimacy without commitment awakens natural desires that neither person can justly meet. Therefore we are being frauds. Intimacy without commitment (icing without cake), can be sweet, but it ends up making us sick. The results aren't what we hoped for, and we're left feeling emptier than before. The intimacy is superficial. The sex leaves us dissatisfied and hungry for something real, something true.

The joy of intimacy is the reward of commitment.