Long time, no blog... The new year is always an exciting time for me because I love to set goals. I'm not a resolution guy because they are so easy to break and they seem to fade away. Goals are a whole different animal if done correctly. The first step is finding the areas of your life that you want to improve (likely all of them). Suggestions are spiritual, physical, mental, financial and relational, but perhaps there are others to add/swap. After identifying the areas, pick specific, attainable and measurable goals; if you want to be a better parent or spouse, pick some specific areas to improve on that you can measure. I like to use a very old school journal, but there are certainly enough options with smart phones, tablets and laptops to go paper-free. It would be a good idea to share your goals with a friend for some accountability...unless one of your goals is to find better friends, then you may want to accomplish that goal and then share for accountability.
One topic I'd like to follow up with is what we put into our minds. The old adage "you are what you eat" certainly applies to our minds as well. If you are a Christian and want to become more like Christ, I would suggest reading scripture, fellowshipping with other believers, reading appropriate books and listening to podcasts by solid pastors. If you want to be a leader in your profession, read books, listen to podcasts and meet successful people that you can learn from (much of this can be done for free or very cheap). If you want to complete a marathon, watching people run on TV will not get you there, right? Once your goals are written down, start to document how much time you spend working on those goals; if it's June 2012 and you are not getting closer to your goals, perhaps it's because you are not using your time wisely. If we spend our time listening to angry political commentators, too much sports talk radio, entertainment shows talking about celebrities, why would we expect to meet our goals? We have to make our days count because there is not day but today.
Happy New Year and I hope you meet all of your goals!
RDS
