Achieving Our Goals God’s Way (Part 2)

Goals are as unique as we are. They should reflect our unique personality and passions. And we arrive at them via different avenues. Whatever our goals may be, let's first examine their purpose. If we will consult the Lord before and in the midst of our goal planning, seeking His guidance, and submit to His will, we'll be amazed not only at the destination of our goals, but, also by the journey.

A goal is: something that you hope to achieve in the future.

1) Start with Prayer
Prayer is the best way to jump-start our process of goal setting. If you set goals in the context of prayer, there is a much higher likelihood that your goals will glorify God, and if they don’t glorify God, then they aren’t worth setting in the first place. So start with prayer.

2) Check Your Motives
If you set selfish goals, you would be better off spiritually if you didn’t accomplish them. That’s why we need to check our motives. Take a long, honest look in the mirror and make sure you’re going after your goals for the right reasons.

3) Think in Categories
Life goals, family goals, relationship goals, business goals, long-term and short-term goals.

4) Be Specific
Just like our prayers, our goals need to be specific. If a goal isn’t measurable, we have no way of knowing whether we’ve accomplished it. And it’s ok to make revisions to our visions.

5) Write It Down
“The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.” If you haven’t written down your goals, you haven’t really set them. Something powerful happens when you verbalize a goal, whether in a conversation or in a journal. And it’s more than a good idea; it’s a God idea: “Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets.”
At some point in the process of goal setting, you need to muster the courage to verbalize it. That act of verbalization is an act of faith. When you write down a goal, it holds you accountable.

6) Include Others
Shared goals; nothing cements a relationship like a shared goal. Goals are relational glue.

7) Celebrate Along the Way
When you accomplish a goal, celebrate it. When God answers a prayer, throw a party. We should celebrate with the same intensity with which we pray.

8) Dream Big
Our life goal list will include goals that are big and small. It will include goals that are short-term and long-term. But I have one piece of advice: Make sure you have a few BAGs (Big Audacious Goals) on the list. We need some God-sized goals that qualify as crazy. Here’s why: big goals turn us into big people.

9) Think Long
Most of us overestimate what we can accomplish in two years, but we underestimate what we can accomplish in ten years. If we want to dream big, we need to think long. Big dreams often translate into long goals.

10) Pray Some More
Goal setting begins and ends with prayer. God-ordained goals are conceived in the context of prayer, and prayer is what brings them to full term.