Happy New Year, Done, Now set Goals

Now that everyone is done celebrating the New Year and making New Year's resolutions, we can make another important decision. We can decide to sit down seriously and map out a plan to make real changes. Because let's face it, some of you have already broken your New Years resolutions.

Sit down and plan some realistic goals for you to obtain in 2009 and beyond. It generally a good Idea to plan 5 years ahead. Set short term goals that lead up to long term goals. If you had to swim across a channel, you wouldn't aim for the shore that you couldn't see. You would first shoot for the channel marker in plain site. Put some goals up within reach that are steps in the process of obtaining your long term goals.

How do you set goals? Well, first remember that we talked about the five areas of life, Faith, Family, Friends, Fitness, and Finance. The first being the most important and respectively down the line to Finance being the last of importance. Many people have it backwards.

C.S. Lewis said,”If you shoot for Heaven, you will get both Heaven and Earth, but if you shoot at just for Earth you will wind up with neither.”

So set some goals in your faith, for me that would be a better relationship with my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. It is natural for us humans to search for the truth, and you will find it in the Bible.

Take each area of life and grab some paper and ask yourself; “What would I like to Have? What would I like to do? What would I like to become?” Maybe you would like to have more time to be with your family, or maybe you would like to do more exercise this year to become more fit. If it is to loose weight then set dates with the amount of weight you would like to loose. Say, 20 lbs in 90 days? Maybe you want to be a better Mom or Dad to your children? Maybe you want to set a financial goal and add 500 dollars per month to your income in 60days. Financial Goals are generally goals that support the other areas of life. For Instance, Let's say you want to be a better Dad, so you set a goal to spend more quality time with your daughter. You may need some financial goals to afford to take her to Disney Land. You can see how the areas of life all effect each other and need to be in balance. Maybe you need to develop a greater servant heart in you faith goals? Well that will effect your goal to be a better Dad, don't you think?

I recommend people set some goals to make new friends, learn how to love people, and in turn God will bless you for it. Quite frankly if you stop learning and growing in any of these areas of life, your progress will be hindered. Well, that leads me to the next thought.

You must continue to learn in all areas of life. Why you ask? Because you can never make serious changes with the same knowledge you currently have. If you keep the knowledge the same, the results will definitely not change and you can expect 2009 to be the same year as 2008. Now for some, that may be good if you are satisfied with the results. But if not, then you will need new information as a catalyst to change your results.

In specific, start reading some good books, such as, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, Napoleon Hill's Think and Get Rich, and of course the Bible. Get you hands on the recording by Earl Nightingale, The Strangest Secret. That should help you make some significant change for 2009.


Happy New Year and continued Blessings throughout the year.