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.

WHY THIS BLOG?

As you can gather from the name of the blog, I will be talking about success principles such as leadership, teamwork, wealth, and relationships.

I use to think that the only measure of success was the money you had in your pocket. The more money you had the more successful you are. I didn't realize that there was more to the picture. Partly because today, society seems to hold that vision of success. It is reinforced in the school system and in the media. Television in particular has been a mind conditioning tool.

People are spending more time on entertainment that pursuing worthwhile ideals. We now have the most educated society within the history of mankind, but we are further from the truth than ever before. Our kids have less discipline, less respect, and less morals because they are not being taught. You might be thinking right now, "what does this have to do with success anyway?". Answer, "Everything!"

Your level of success will be directly determined by the knowledge and skills you develop. It is a learned behavior. You will need financial skills, time management skills, and people skills in order to be prepared for success. Not only do you need to learn them, but you need to put the principles into action. It is also important to have success as a balance of five areas in your life.

I break the areas up into these parts, Faith, Family, Friends, Fitness and Finance. For the sake of convenience you could group Family and Friends into one category, (Relationships).

I want to express here that I am not a know it all. I am not talking down to anyone here. I am talking with you all. I was lucky to finally meet people who showed me the way. I was reintroduced to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I was taught these principle that are timeless. These principles are part of the natural law. They are the same today as they were thousands of years ago. They have not changed, they are constant.

Example, the law of gravity is always constant, it does not change. We can fight it or we can use it to our advantage. Just like the principles of thought and abundance, in Earl Nightingale's "Strangest Secret". They are constant and they can work for you or against you. The key is to be aware of the principles and they will work for you.

Take for instance, the most simple concept of a smile. If you are aware that a smile creates new friends then you can use that smile to attract new friends to you. The person that is not aware of this may be asking themselves, "Why can't I make friends? Why is everybody so unhappy?" Maybe it is not that people are unhappy, maybe it is you not being aware of this simple principle. Why not smile more!!!!

I have much more to say as time goes on in this blog. My goal is to make a difference in people's lives. To help people who have autism in their family. To change the way people think in this country and recapture what we are loosing. To be a good steward of this planet. To show the fruits of the spirit and spread the knowledge of the Gospel to all who have ears to hear.

Well I hope you will enjoy this blog and that I can help you improve your life in a positive way.

Smile, God loves you!

Fran Burns