Month: January 2009

Today we come to our final question.

Here it is …

10. "How Can I Make Sure I Achieve My Top Ten Goals?"

One of the challenges in life is not so much knowing what to do but actually doing it. We often experience a knowing-doing gap. One simple key to achieving your top ten goals is to keep them visible. Type or write them up on a single piece of paper and keep them in plain sight so you see them every day. Awareness matters. Reading them every day will grab your attention and stimulate you to action. 

Plan some small steps each week towards one or more of your goals. Start to gather the resources you need. Get whatever support you need. Who could hold you accountable?

Most of all, enjoy the journey. Make it an adventure. Regularly ask yourself, "What is the next step?" Measure your progress. Have a weekly or monthly review. Set up a system to ensure that you do what you want to do.

I pray and hope that you will have your best year yet!

P.S. For some further thoughts on planning and starting the New Year well, see last year's series of posts on Life Planning.

Have a look through the goals you listed under each role yesterday. Reflect on them for a while.

Then move on to our next question …

9. "What Are My Top Ten Goals for This Year?"

With too many goals you will lose focus. Create a game plan that you can accomplish. That way you won't be discouraged by good goals that you don't get around to completing, even though you had good intentions to do so.

You don't have to eliminate any of the goals you wrote down. Just select ten that are the most important to you. You can still work on the rest of your goals and achieve them. But by selecting your top ten you are able to  focus in a laser-like way on what is most important. This list of top ten goals will be like a map for your journey. You'll be far more likely to reach your destination this way.

Before selecting your top ten goals, review your answers to the first seven question we've looked at. Remember what you have learned and what is most important to you. Think about what you'd really like to accomplish this year.

Look at your complete list of goals. Start to prioritise them. What will bring you the greatest return for your investment of time and energy? Maybe give them a rating, A, B, or C. Create your own categories. Whatever takes to think through what is most important.

Start writing out a fresh list now – your top ten goals for this year.

Part 10

Let's move forward now and build on the questions we've already asked ourselves and answered over the previous week.

Here is the next question …

8. "What are My Goals for Each Role?"

People who have goals achieve more result in life. That's a fact. People who know where they're going have a better change of getting there. If you don't know your direction, you risk just going in circles, living a life in which you exist but don't really grow or make progress.

Education and intelligence are good things but goals are just as important. A goal is simply a specific and measurable result you want to achieve within a specific time frame. It directs you to a destination.

Have a look over each role. Re-read your values. Then ask yourself what you would like to achieve in each one of your roles this year. The more specific your goals are the more powerful they will be.

Write out a few goals for each role. Set goals that you are passionate about and that you will be committed to making happen.

P.S. For some more tips on goal setting, click here.

Part 9

Yesterday's question was about listing our various roles so that we get a full perspective on our lives.

Let's move on to our next question …

7. "Which Role is My Major Focus for this Year?"

Could you create a potential breakthrough in your life by selecting one of your roles as your major focus of attention for this year? Other roles will have goals as well, but where would you like to see the most improvement or the biggest change right now?

Are there things that need adjustment? What is missing in your life? Is something getting too much attention? Or too little?

Take out your list of major roles and give them a rating from 1 to 10, 1 being 'not doing very well at all', 10 being 'I should write a book on this!' [No negative numbers, please!] Usually, the areas that receive our greatest time and energy are the ones we do the best in. Have a look at your low scores. What do they tell you? How do you want to respond to them? What would you like to be different at this time next year?

Focus is very powerful. If you can give some extra time and energy to one area, there will most likely be a positive overflow into other areas of your life as well.

Choose an area of major focus then write it down. Then think about what progress in this role would look like. What specific and measurable differences do you want to see? Paint a picture in your mind. What would improve? What would be different? How would you feel? Consider the benefits.

Your major focus is not the only thing you'll do this year, just the most important to you.

Part 8

Find another piece of paper and a pen to write with (or open up a document in your computer word processor).

Here is is our sixth question …

6. "What Roles Do I Play in My Life?"

Answering this question helps you to get an overview of the various aspects and responsibilities of your life. It helps provide perspective and a holistic view of your life. Roles change over time and in different seasons of our life. Think about this year. Who are you? What are you responsible for? What are you accountable for?

Merge some of your roles so that your list is no more than 6 or 7 major roles. Then think about each role. What do you want to accomplish in each? What kind of a person do you want to be? What does God expect from you? What do you want to change? What do you want to be better at and how?

Think about the balance of your life. After all, succeeding in one area of life, such as work, but failing in or neglecting another, such as family, is not success at all. What will it take for you to do well in each of your roles this year?

Look at your list of values from question five and see where your values merge with your roles.

P.S. For more on 'roles', see this previous post.

Part 7

Let's continue with our series of ten questions, as we take some time to reflect on our lives together at the start of another year.

Our fifth question is …

5. "What Are My Values?"

What drives you? Why do you do what you do? What's important? What matters most? What effect do you want to have on other people? What do you want to be remembered for? Who are you? Who do you want to be?

Take a piece of paper and make a list of your personal values. By writing them you strengthen your awareness of them. You can also evaluate whether your life matches what you say you value. After all, we want to ensure that our preferred values become our actual values. After all, behaviour is the best indicator of actual values.

P.S. For further thoughts on 'values' see this previous post.

Part 6

I hope you are taking time to think about and answer each question as we move through this process. This investment of time will pay some good dividends in your life for your future. Personal reflection is a valuable exercise.

A wise man named Socrates once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

Let's move on to our fourth question …

4. "How Do I Limit Myself and How Can I Stop?"

Ultimately, our life is shaped by our own thoughts and actions, not by other people or the circumstances we encounter. Life is lived inside out. We are not victims. We are responsible human beings who have been given a free will by God that enables us to make choices as to what we will do with our life and how we will respond to what comes our way.

Take a piece of paper and prayerfully ask yourself, "How do I limit myself?" Write down whatever comes to mind. Examine yourself honestly and openly. Be as truthful as possible. There is power in owning up to hidden thoughts and attitudes. Expose your personal doubts and fears.

Then think about what these limitations have cost you. What impact have they had in your life?

Are you willing to change? Do you want to stop these limiting beliefs?

What areas of thinking do you need to change? What different stories do you need to tell yourself? What lies have you been believing – about yourself, others, and/or God? What truths do you need to embrace and live out from? What beliefs do you need to embrace if you want your life to head in a different direction?

Paul tells us that the key to personal transformation is the renewing of our minds or the reprogramming our thinking patterns (see Romans 12:1-2) and that we need to take captive every thought, making it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

Part 5

So far you've given a bit of time to reflect on your successes and your failures, joys and disappointments, victories, and defeats.

Let's move on to the third question now …

3. "What Did I Learn?"

Look back over your answers to the first two questions. Look at your accomplishments. What can you learn from them? What possible lessons do you see? What were some of the keys to your success? What worked for you? Why were you able to accomplish these things?

Now look over your answers to the second question – your disappointments. Any lessons there for you? What could have worked but didn't? Why? Is there anything you need to do differently this year based on your reflections? What advice do you have for yourself?

By taking time to examine your own life and your own journey you can gain wisdom for the future. After all, life is like your classroom. Be a good learner. Don't repeat the same lessons over and over unnecessarily. Live and learn. Turn your lessons into some personal guidelines for your future.

Part 4