So I don’t know about you but the New Year sort of came and went in a haze of bushfire worry, overeating at Christmas time and beach time. Now we are at the end of February and I already feel like I’ve sort of aimlessly wasted a whole month. My sister is a lot better at me than this, it’s New Year’s Eve and we are all eating and chilling on the beach and she’s writing a summary of her year and personal goals for this coming year. People ask me my resolutions and I never have any idea.I kind of focus on goals for our ecclesia (church)- like I come up with long term plans for camps, or open days etc …but I’m bad at taking the time for personal goals, it’s much harder to focus on yourself. So I thought I could use today to set really specific goals for our year and work out ways we can achieve them.
So, What is a goal?
This is one person’s interpretation. But, basically a goal can be any objective that you set for yourself and push yourself to achieve. Sometimes that goal may be small (like waking up an hour earlier than you normally do) and sometimes it may be larger (like learning guitar). Even small things we don’t write out but aim for like ‘I want to read more to my child’ may seem insignificant but you are goal setting. Tonight we are going to do some more meaningful goal setting.
A meaningful goal — one that truly inspires you to change — requires going deeper. A psychologist at Stanford University, Kelly McGonigal (not the professor from Harry Potter) says:
“Give yourself permission and time to think about what it is you want to experience in your life or what’s getting in the way,”
Think about what you want in the coming year, and then ask yourself why you want that — three times in a row. For example, if you want to quit smoking, ask why do you want to quit? Then, if you want to quit for your health, ask why do you want good health? Then, if your answer is to be alive long enough to meet your grandchildren, ask why do you want to meet your grandchildren?
“You get to something that just feels so obviously important to you,”
Says McGonigal. It really drives home why that goal matters, and that motivation can help you as you work toward the goal.
Choose a goal that matters, not an easy win. So I’m going to get a little teachery on you. When I was in England, I taught year 3 and they had a crazy intense system over there where the kids books, your programs and your teaching was watched and critiqued almost everyday. But one good thing they were very focused on was writing Smart Goals. Each lesson had a smart goal, each child had smart goals for subjects and each piece of marking had to address that. I mean, it was overkill, but it was good to have specific goals and to learn this skill.
So to achieve goals you need to:
1. WRITE THEM DOWN & MAKE THEM SMART
What are smart goals? Basically, SMART is an acronym.
‘S’ IS FOR SPECIFIC
Good goals are not ambiguous. You need to have a clear, concise goal that you can set your sights on. For example, rather than saying “I want to have a better body” you could say “I want to lose five kg this summer”.
‘M’ IS FOR MEASURABLE
How will you know how you are going? Tracking the progress of your goal is an important part of keeping you motivated. You should be able to see if you are on track. Obviously we have to be a little careful with this one, that we don’t become like Pharisees with a checkbox of salvation, dividing up mint and cumin and thinking we can ‘earn’ salvation through ticking boxes. But, as I remember Bob Lloyd saying, you don’t earn salvation but it helps you know where you might be going wrong. It is good to keep track of where we are heading, while still understanding that salvation is still all through God’s grace (even if all our boxes are ticked every day.
Psa 119:59 I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your statutes.
Lam 3:40 Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the LORD.
The Bible tells us every week to examine ourselves at church and I guess we can’t do this without tracking our progress and trying to get ourselves back on track.
‘A’ IS FOR attainable
Lots of people fall into the trap of setting impossible goals for themselves. Whilst impossible goals may push you forward for a while, you will almost certainly end up giving up on them at some point in the future. This is why New Year resolutions often fail. Before you set a goal, make sure that you can actually envision yourself achieving it.
‘R’ IS FOR RELEVANT
Not all goals are as worthwhile as others. Make sure your goal is worth your time, make sure that achieving it will provide positive benefits to your life. We’ll be looking at quotes later to base our goals off.
‘T’ IS FOR TIME-BOUND
Effective SMART goals must have a target time attached to them. For example, rather than saying “I want to start reading more books” you could say “I want to read one book every month”.
GODS VIEW
So before we get into our smart goals, lets look at God and how he might view goal setting.
James 4:13-15 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapour that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.
Our goals should line up with His plans for us, and they should be goals that he would approve of. All of these goals are always ‘God Willing’. We may think things will look one way, but God can change our plans to accomplish his will.
Acts 16:7-8 and after they came to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them
Rom 1:13 I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.
Sometimes God might have different ideas, even if our goals seem really godly and what He would want for us. Surely God would want Paul to keep spreading the Gospel and visiting new Christians?
Prov 16:9 In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORDestablishestheir steps.
Ephesians 5:15-17 Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lordis.
Proverbs 21:5 "The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty"
Proverbs 6:6–11 consider the ant and how she prepares bread and gathers harvest
Obviously you can write your own goals for developing new skills, or your career or self care etc but today we are going to set goals for mostly spiritual things or things that I think will help our spirituality.
Rick Warren, the author of ‘A Purpose Driven Life’ (Great book) says:
“Being successful and fulfilling your life’s purpose are not at all the same thing; You can reach all your personal goals, become a raving success by the worlds standard and still miss your purpose in this life.
BIBLICAL GOAL SETTING
Acts 15:36 GOAL= to preach
1 Chron 16:11-12 GOAL= seek gods face always
Acts 6:1-3 GOAL= Make sure widows aren’t overlooked when distributing food
Mark 16:15 GOAL: preach to all creation
Rom 8:28-32 GOAL: all things work together for good, justification and glory
Isa 11:9-10 GOAL: earth full of knowledge of God
When we set goals, it’s easy to fixate on that magical ending when we’ve reached the goal and everything is better. But we can’t control outcomes, and we certainly can’t will them into existence. We have to inch toward them, one choice at a time.
“People often get lost thinking they have to change everything all at once,”says McGonigal. “But small changes can pave the way for bigger changes.”
Ask yourself, what is the smallest thing I can do today that helps me reach my goal? For example, if you’re shy and you want to be more outgoing, you might accept someone’s invitation to lunch or say hi to someone you usually walk past. From there, just make one small choice after another.
LIFESTYLE
Ecc 3:12-13 be happy, do good, eat and drink, find satisfaction in your work.
1 Tim 4:8 Obviously in the bible it says ‘bodily exercise profits a little but it shouldn’t take over our lives. We might need to exercise for mental health or to keep ourselves fit/healthy for being better able to carry out Gods will. Maybe we need to look at getting to sleep earlier or being on social media less or being less busy on non-important things. Maybe it could be simple like one night a week, choose to have a “no television” night. Read a book. Work on a craft project. Play a game. These are all good ‘lifestyle’ choices.
SPIRITUAL
Col 1:10 bear fruit, walk pleasing to god
Eph 4:23-24 We know the things we should be doing, we just need to make sure we are trying to make them happen. Jesus and David talk a lot about meditating on God all day long. Paul talks about reading the scriptures. Other verses talk about singing songs and praying always. We need to choose what goal is going to help us most this year.
ECCLESIA/OUTREACH
Eph 4:28 use your hands for good work and give generously
James 1:27 Pure religion is to look after the widows
Heb 10:24-25 meet together and do love and good works
Most of us have things we would love to improve about our ecclesias. What’s one goal that you could have for your ecclesia that YOU can do something about? How could you personally help to make it happen? Maybe you could get to know people more and host people more regularly. Maybe its making inspirational movies or writing blog posts for your website. Maybe it is being involved with Sunday school or bringing snacks to Bible class or visiting an old/lonely person.
RELATIONSHIP
1 Corinthians 13:4-7love is…
We often treat our husbands/boyfriends worse than anyone or leave the least amount of time for them. When I think about how much time/effort/money etc Simon and me used to spend on our relationship to now, it’s huge. Obviously life can take over but it is still important to make time for each other. It can be simple or it can be big. Plan something nice for your upcoming anniversary. Do something small for your spouse each week that involves their love language. Book in babysitters in advance. Have a date night at home, choose to say sorry in arguments. Talk about positive/negative things from your day over a meal.
FAMILY
Proverbs 22:6train up a child in the way
Deuteronomy 6:7speak of the way
We looked lots at family week at how to meet your child’s love language. It was surprising when we videoed the kids, how readily most had an answer to ‘how do you wish your parents loved you?’ and most said ‘time, gave me more time’. Maybe you could make this apply to your extended family- are you visiting your parents enough, staying in contact with siblings? Should you be meeting up more with a Grandma or sending spiritual texts to an aunty etc. Choose your goal for your family.
FRIENDSHIP
Prov 27:17 Iron sharpens iron so a friend sharpens another
A lot of time with friendships is taken up with gossiping or talking nonsense or about our mundane life. Some of this is important but I feel like when I was younger, my friendships were a lot godlier and we had time to have good chats about the bible, study weeks to spend together and motivate each other as well as energy etc to care. What are some ways we could improve our friendships and make time for each other? Is it having study nights, going to church regularly, starting regular catch ups or is it just writing back to texts?
Before we finish here’s a little video to inspire you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQOcEDD5hR8
CONCLUSION
Moments of failure are inevitable, but most of us abandon the goal completely when minor failures and setbacks happen. We give up on getting fit when we miss the gym, or we forget about losing weight after a night of burgers and milkshakes.
“In that moment when you fail, often the first instinct is to push the goal away,” says McGonigal.“When detours come up, remind yourself why your goal matters to you.“
The Bible is clear that “you” don’t set your goals, God does. God wants us to define our goals for our lives through the Bible, and he wants to work his plans, purposes, and promises into us and sometimes through us. God knows where you’re going. Often, he will press you into a detour, or make you wait on what you want, simply to see whether anger and frustration or patience and goodness come out. We can make goals and ask God specifically for what we want in persistent prayer like the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8).
Remember that God has plans for us; he has goals for us to give us a future and a hope.
