Making Goals Stick

Article by Joan Esherick...edited by me.

Try these six steps for setting goals more effectively:

1) Be specific. In my work as a teacher coordinator, I meet
with Bible study teachers to help them set personal and
ministry goals. At one such meeting, a teacher mentioned her
personal goal for the year was to “grow in Bible knowledge.”
While her desire was admirable, I had to ask a number of
questions: “How will you know when you’ve grown?” “What
does growth in Bible knowledge look like?” “What steps will
you take to foster this growth?” Her goal needed to be more
specific.

As I worked with this teacher, we were able to revise her
goal from the vague—“I’ll grow in Bible knowledge”—to the
specific—“I’ll spend 30 minutes a day in personal Bible study,
5 days a week.” Her goal now expressed not only her desire,
but the means to accomplish it.

2) Be realistic. During my college years I wanted to pray
more. So I decided to rise every morning at 5 A.M. and pray
for an hour before breakfast. But I also worked as the closing
cook for Pizza Hut at that time, and rarely made it back to my
dorm room before 2 A.M. How long did my prayer endeavor
last? About two days. And in those two days I spent more
time sleeping than praying.

In a recent interview, I spoke with Christian counselor
Leslie Vernick who said, “If our goals begin to overwhelm us
perhaps that is a sign we are not living within the limits
and boundaries. God has created for us. We are human beings.
We all need to eat, sleep, and relax. Yet, at times we push
ourselves in [ways] that [ignore] these realities at least
temporarily. Then, when we can’t do it anymore we give up.
Instead, we should reassess our goal. Perhaps it was totally
unrealistic.”

My goal of early morning prayer was unrealistic in light of
my work schedule, my class schedule, and my need for sleep.
When I realized that, I replaced my original goal with a plan
more suited to my schedule: I’d pray during my 15-minute
breaks between afternoon classes 3 days a week. During my
afternoon break I sat on a park bench near my classrooms
and prayed. Unlike my first attempt, this three-afternoons-aweek
prayer endeavor lasted the entire semester. My prayer
life grew because my goal was realistic.

3) Include a way to measure your success. A good goal
will answer the questions of what, how, and when; it’s
measurable. Jean, a working wife and mother, decided to simplify her
life by getting rid of the excess clutter she and her family
had accumulated over the years. In January, she set the goal
to clean out one drawer, cupboard, or closet each week. It
was a specific, realistic, measurable goal; at the end of each
week either she’d cleaned out something or she hadn’t. She
had a means to track her progress.

By April, Jean was still going strong on her “decluttering”
routine. She explains, “The sense of accomplishment I
felt as I measured my weekly progress kept me motivated
to start the next week’s clean-up. Today, my house feels
less cluttered, and my life seems simpler because I tackle
overwhelming tasks by breaking them into smaller jobs and
keeping track of my progress.”

4) Think short-term and long-term. Short-term goals
(cleaning one closet a week) allow us to experience success
at smaller intervals while working toward long-term goals
(decluttering an entire house).

Sally was overwhelmed by the accumulating debt she and
her husband were facing, so they met with a financial
advisor who counseled them to develop both short-term and
long-term financial objectives by using weekly, monthly,
and yearly goals. “I never thought I’d like being on a
budget,” Sally recalls. “But it was freeing. When I looked
at our debt as a whole, it was too big to deal with, but by
working on it in smaller bites, it seemed okay.” After three
years of sticking to their short- and long-term goals, Sally
and her husband are now debt free.

Finances and organizing things aren’t the only areas in
which to set short- and long-term goals. You can use them
in virtually any area of life: education, child-rearing, family
life, athletics, community service, church service, personal
and spiritual growth, marriage.

When our three children were small, my husband, Don,
and I discovered how easily parenting could cause us to
grow apart. We decided to guard the health of our marriage
by setting the following goals: We’ll go out on a date once
a month; we’ll go away together without the kids for one
overnight per year; every five years we’ll attend a marriage
seminar. Over the years, Don and I stuck to our goals, and
today, as parents of three teens, we’re still best friends.
The short-term and long-term worked together to build and
maintain a healthy marriage.

5) Be flexible. Linda, who’s self-employed,
recently faced this challenge: “I’m trying to expand my home
business, so I set some fairly aggressive goals. Little did
I know my family would become victims of the flu. Now, healthy
once again, I’m struggling to make up for lost time. I hope to
get back on track, but I never considered that life might get
in the way.”

Life can, indeed, get in the way. Two years ago, I planned
to jog 500 miles over the course of a year. That worked out
to be 2 miles a day, 5 days per week, 50 weeks out of the
year. It was a specific, realistic, measurable, short-term
and long-term goal. I was well on my way to achieving that
goal when I hurt my knee. Did I quit? No. I wanted to stay in
shape, so I learned to be content walking. I had to become
flexible, which allowed me to stay on course, and ultimately
contributed to my healing; walking gave my injured knee a
chance to recover. After my knee healed, I started running
again.

6) Review periodically. Regular review allows
us to stay on course, track our progress, and adjust course as
necessary. Each year I record my goals in my datebook/planner so
they’re accessible wherever I go. In a section marked
“goals,” I list specific objectives by category: personal/
spiritual; marriage/family; professional; ministry; house/
projects. Then I set aside one Sunday every three months for
reviewing my goals. On those “review dates,” I check off the
items I’ve accomplished. (What satisfaction!) Next, I look at
what remains, and prayerfully ask the following questions:

• How am I doing? Am I still on course?
• Which goals am I encouraged about?
• Which are frustrating me? Can I be more flexible?
• Have circumstances changed since I set this goal?
• Is my goal realistic? Specific? Measurable?
• If not, what could I change to make it more so?
• Is this the right season of life to work on this?
• Have I prayed about this goal?

Based on my answers, I make any necessary changes,
sometimes crossing off objectives that are too ambitious
or impossible to fulfill because of changing circumstances.
I finish my review time by prayerfully committing my
remaining goals to God. Regular review helps me not only
to stay on track, but to guard against over-commitment and
burnout.

Goal setting helps you realize objectives are simply tools,
not promises or laws, and tools are something we can implement
anytime. As counselor Leslie Vernick says, “Don’t let falling
off track keep you from your goals. Dust yourself off and get
right back on track.” Leave yesterday’s failures behind, and
treat today as a brand-new beginning. You’ll be glad you did.


Prepare

Create a rough draft of one of your spiritual growth goals.
Make sure your goal is specific, realistic, and measurable.
If you want to share it with everyone, post it in the comment section!