Before I begin, I’d like to introduce a new series on No Greater Love!!  In the coming months, I will be launching the #INSPIREME Series.  As Christians, we all strive to develops ourselves as people in three ways.  We strive for strong faith, physical strength, and good mental capacity.  And that is a lot of aspects to cover.  In this new series, I will be covering different topics of inspiration and motivation.  I will cover anything from goal setting (i.e. this post), my reviews of different motivational books, podcasts, or TED talks, and much more.  I’m so excited to branch out a bit for this new category and can’t wait to take you all along for the ride!!

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Goals seem to be one of those things that people either obsess over or absolutely HATE. For me, I have always had a love hate relationship with my ever active imagination and all of the things that ‘it’ wants to accomplish.  It wants to become fluent in a second language, or upload decent Instagram posts every day (I’m working on it guys), or spend extra time on important things like spiritual reading instead of binge pinning on Pinterest. My silly little mind has a tendency to want to do it all, until my stubborn whims decide they have better ideas.  And that, my friends, is where the Pinterest binge comes in.  Sooo, goal setting is super fun and encouraging… until it gets down to the brass tacks of actually getting something done.

When it comes to setting goals, nothing is mutually exclusive.  Let me explain.  The goals that we set to improve our spiritual lives are not only there to help our faith, but will also help us mentally and physically.  Goals that are geared towards greater mental strength give way for stronger health and spiritual stamina as well.  All human improvement has the ability to help us grow in all aspects of life, no matter what it was originally directed towards.

 

The point, though, is that we are improving something.  Unless we make the effort to quit sitting on our hands, we will continue to have little improvement.

While there are always plenty of reasons not to seek our change, our ability to look for the good in healthy changes is pivotal to our success in goal setting.  For every reason not to change something, there are usually dozens of other reasons to push on.

Here are some questions to get you started on your goal setting journey.  No matter what goal you are setting out to accomplish, always make sure that you can see good coming out of it in multiple ways.

1.  What needs to change in my life?

This is the ultimate goal starting question.  What do I need to change in order to become a better version of myself?  Is my faith life failing?  Do I need to spend more time in prayer or at church?  What about my mental health?  What can I strive to learn more about or be encouraged by?  And physically?  Is my physical health getting between me and my dreams?  Or are my relationships dying?

That’s just the start.  Once you know something has to change, you are on your way towards doing something about it.

2. Why do I want to achieve this goal?

What good can you see in seeking out this change?  All of us are constantly striving for good.  No matter what we are doing, we always wish for the best to come out of it.  By reaching this goal, what good do you want to see?  Maybe you want to see an improvement in your relationship with God, or with a friend.  Or maybe you just want to see your grades pick up.  It all works.  No matter what, you must have something specific you hope to work towards.

If you don’t know what you want to see change during the process and why it’s important, you probably won’t get far.  Direction is KEY!!

3. What has driven me to this desire?

What has clicked in your mind and let you know that you needed to change something? When it comes to my faith, my wake up call usually looks something like, “Okay, so when was the last time I prayed, Jesus?”.  If I have to think about it for more than, say, 4 seconds, I usually know something has to change.  Mental and physical improvements are similar.  If you have to think about when you last ate a healthy meal or did something good for your body, DO SOMETHING!!  If you have to think about the last time you enriched your mind or found encouragement in something, DO SOMETHING!!  It’s that easy.

Just find your reason.

4. How do I plan to obtain this goal?

This one can get a little tricky.  What are some concrete ways that you can seek improvement in this particular area of your life?  Just like with making New Year’s resolutions, our goals can’t be this vague ideal that you just hope will magically happen. Just because we hope for a better prayer life or wish for greater athletic abilities doesn’t mean anything will happen.  It takes a lot more than just hoping and wishing to make a goal happen.  Goal accomplishments take determination and effort.

So instead of saying “I hope this will happen”, set a concrete expectation.  For example, “I will read the bible for 15 minutes a day”, or “I will go out to lunch with a good friend once a month”, or “I will learn this skill by this time“.  You see the difference??

Once we set a decisive plan for how we can achieve our goals, a process for success will quickly fall into place.

5. Who will be effected by an accomplished goal?

As you set out to accomplish these goals, it is good to understand the consequences.  As you improve mind, will, or soul, you are helping more than just yourself.  Truly, all that you do to help yourself grow also helps those around you.  This is due to the new ways that you can minister to them through the strength you have achieved.

Now, how will these new changes help those around you?  Who will they effect?  Will they help them in good ways or bad ways?  If we can’t see how they will effect those you love in some positive way, maybe we should reevaluate our plan of action in some way.

6. What is one thing I can do RIGHT NOW to take a step in the right direction?

You ability to accomplish any goal is not limited to the big picture.  No, you can do little things all the time to get you closer to the finish line.  So what can you do RIGHT NOW to bring you a little nearer to your goal?  It doesn’t have to be anything big.  It just has to be something

I hope you enjoyed this post and are now inspired to set some amazing goals for yourself. Stay tuned for more installments in the #INSPIREME Series!!!