Goals for Your Life
Goal Setting for Everyday Use – Part 3
How do we identify goals for our lives? Let’s begin with what do you desire for your life? STOP! Ask yourself that question and answer it now. Answering this question might be tough. In fact, I do not recommend you sit down with a blank sheet of paper and try to write out your lifelong goals or what you want to accomplish in a lifetime. That is, what I would call, too much. You are going to have too many items that come to your mind which can blow this process up for you. By the way, that is normal. It is one of the major reasons why the average person cannot put his or her finger on a list of goals. So let me stop you right here from traveling down the normal path of unsuccessful goal setting.
If you begin with nothing to start with, the process is going to be too broad. In fact, it will become an undesirable process. It will also cause you to go in circles as well as leave things out. If we begin without some type of plan, the act of setting your goals will become one task that you will have no desire to accomplish.
The idea behind what I wish to achieve in all of this is to make goal-setting a task that you, not only enjoy but, look forward to. That in and of itself is uncommon. If you had the opportunity to speak with God and He asked what you would like to see in your life, then one by one as you spoke those desires appeared, would you ever stop? The answer is no, not hardly, this is what goal setting is. It is like you asking God what you desire to see in every aspect of your life. In view of this, defining what you want to see should be enjoyable because it is your very own wish-list. The beauty of this idea is when done seriously, it is not pie in the sky thinking, rather the stuff that is truly on your mind and in heart. This makes it an inspired list of the items you desire to achieve.
Identify the stuff you desire to really do and see.
When you view it with this lens you should get excited. Let’s take for example, setting goals for vacation. What would you like to see as your vacation goals? What places would you like to go if there were no limits? What plans would you like to make? Identifying one’s goals. should be exciting, not cumbersome, not labor intensive. It should get you motivated. You should anticipate taking the journey towards those desires. You should look forward to it. You see, setting goals identifies the stuff you desire to really do and see. That’s the point of setting goals.
Don’t start with a blank sheet of paper.
That’s too, too, too, too, too difficult. You want to start with some kind of prototype or template. To do that you will need to give yourself some ideas about where you can start. I like to use ideas that are observed from the business world or my places of employment. As with most companies, our place of employment has departments. Therefore, I like to think of our life as if it’s our very own business, a business in which we have complete control.
Think of your life as a company with departments.
When beginning to make a list of your desires, allow me to offer this as a suggestion, but feel free to tailor it to suit your needs. Begin with thinking of your life, your home, as a company with departments that you get to run. Everything that we are involved with and do, we set it up in departments. What departments? One example which is the one most familiar is the finance department.
What would I like to see happen in my finances? Write that down. If you want to see yourself being able to pay your bills or eliminating unnecessary expenditures, write that down. That is your goal, your desire. That is what you would like to see.
Here is an example that Pamela and I had as a goal (what we wanted to see). I hated going to the mailbox. So, we had a goal of transforming what it was like to open the mail in our home. Allow me to be more transparent. We no longer wanted to be knocked off our feet when those unexpected bills came to us. Therefore, we wrote down that desire. If we could do something about the unexpected bills that came our way, how much better would our life be?
Let’s drop a pen here for now as you think through what it means to identify the desires in your life. Think of the departments you’ve interacted with at the company you work for. Departments like facilities, finance, marketing, etc. You see you have all these departments in your home. Start by asking the questions: what would I like to see in our facilities needs (auto needs, dwelling needs, etc.), what would I like to see in our finances, and how would I like my family to be viewed (marketing)? Try identifying the desires you have. We will get more into this in our next installment centered around determining the endpoints of setting one goal. In the meanwhile, try to identify as many desires you have as it relates to your life.
Question: what departments can you identify that you have in your home?
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