I recently heard a story about a guy named John Goddard. One rainy afternoon an inspired 15-year old boy named John Goddard sat down at his kitchen table in Los Angeles and wrote three words at the top of a yellow pad, "My Life List." Under that heading he wrote down 127 goals. These were not simple or easy goals. They included climbing the world's major mountains, exploring from source to mouth the longest rivers of the world, piloting the world's fastest aircraft, running a mile in five minutes and reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. Now, a generation later, he has accomplished 109 of these quests, and has logged an impressive list of records in achieving them. Click here to view the list of goals and achievements.
Let me make a simple observation: if John Goddard hadn’t set those goals he would have never achieved those goals. I doubt he would have done half of what he did if he hadn’t set a goal in the first place. Goals help you know where you want to end up at the end of life’s journey. This week, we discussed 10 Steps to Setting Life Goals. Here they are:
- Start with prayer. There is no limit to what dreams and prayer can achieve.
- Check your motives. Is it necessary? What’s your motivation? Goal setting is making the most of your time, talent, and resources.
- Get ideas from others. Don’t just copy them, but let them inspire you.
- Think in categories. It may be hard to pull life goals out of thin air. Starting with categories may make things easier.
- Be specific. Getting in shape is not a goal. It’s a wish. Make it measurable.
- Write down your goals. Do you remember your grocery list three weeks ago? If you want to remember it, you need to write it down.
- Include others. A lot of my goals include my family. It’s all about shared experiences and creating memories.
- Celebrate along the way. If your goal is to save $1,000 emergency fund, celebrate when you hit $500. That small victory will help carry you to the end.
- Think big. Michelangelo once said, “the greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it’s too low and we reach it.”
- Keep dreaming. It’s never too late to be who you might have been.
Where are you going in life and how are you going to get there?
I recently heard a great story about a guy named Garry Kasparov. Kasparov won his first world-championship chess match in 1985 and he dominated the chess world for several decades. Through that experience, there were some lessons he learned. Here is one of them: “A Grandmaster makes the best moves because they are based on what he wants the board to look like ten or twenty moves into the future.” That’s a great picture of what goal-setting is all about. It is making moves now based on what you want your life to look like 10 or 20 years from now.
As we cross into a New Year, what do you want your life to look like at the end of the year? By knowing what the goal is, you can plan better the journey you must take in order to get there. The goals you set will help establish a track in your life; a roadmap to follow.
In youth this week, we talked through five qualities of a SMART goal. Here they are:
- Spirit Given – God must give our goals to us. It is His roadmap for our lives that we must follow.
- Measurable – It must be quantitative and objective in nature.
- Adjustable – Like a rudder on a ship or a steering wheel on a car, goals need to be adjustable with time.
- Realistic – A sumo wrestler probably won’t set a world record for the 100m dash or open a successful clinic to help anorexics.
- Timeframe – Understand a goal may be accomplished a lot sooner or may take more time than originally anticipated.
Read Philippians 3:12-14.
- How does this passage of Scripture challenge you in the area of goal setting?
- What are some goals have you set and already accomplished in life?
- What actions or behaviors did you have to take in order to meet those goals?
- What are some goals that you've set and not yet accomplished?
- What do you need to do in order to accomplish those goals?
