INTENTIONS
Ideally we all have goals, but how often are we paying attention to our INTENTIONS, which is to say our IMMEDIATE goal? Every single choice we make at any given time is based on an intention that we either are or are not conscious of. The goal in any scenario should be to bring consciousness to, or to illuminate your unconscious intentions. Which is to say, "to find the source of the fragmentation of your desire" so that it can be reintegrated.
These fragmentations are the actual source of what everyone calls the ego. Anyone who has ever tried to identify the ego would always find that it does not exist but what is actually occurring is the exhibition of repressed desires that have become segmented from the rest and by their very nature reflect incompleteness which often results in conflicting experiences.
So lets say you've gotten pretty good at paying attention to your intentions and you are mosying along somewhere and meet someone interesting and they strike up a conversation with you. Let's say, in this scenario, you are a spiritual person and they are atheist. you've got a firm grip on your attitude so far and the subject comes up; Mr. Atheist wants to know why you would think there could be any other source but yourself.
You feel good, you're not gonna mess this up, you think to yourself, "it's so obvious! a child can see it!" so you say to him, "everything comes from something else!"
"But how could god come from nothing?"
Now your attitude was solid and yet you feel a little frustrated. You might even want to strangle him for his blindness but now if that's true, then you just fell for the trap. You're not the only one with split desires or "alter egos". This person who has likely used that question many times before has one goal in mind, whether he is aware or not, and it has no real cause save for the incompleteness of the desires that have been repressed in that person. All of it being his own personal issues and are not your fault or concern.
The way to avoid these traps are to be sure that their intentions are communicated if necessary or simply go back to your own. When someone comes to you without making their intentions known, the act of naivete can cost you everything. With free will we all have the option to keep our intentions a secret or not and no one is obligated to reveal theirs lest they prefer honesty.
The only intentions you should ever be concerned with are your own. When you are acting purely in your intentions, with the right attitude, your desires and the answers you seek become manifest at the very rate of speed that you are willing to act.