Setting Goals

Image: redlandcitygirl

​Beginnings. They’re a good time to set goals. When you bring a child into the world, you think of how you want to raise him or her, how you want to provide the best life possible for the new addition to your family. When you start a new job, you ponder what you want to accomplish there and how you want to make a difference.
 
As a new year approaches, it’s a wonderful time to reflect on successes and mistakes during the past year. But, more importantly, it’s a time to look ahead and contemplate how you want to make the new year better, or what you want to do differently.
 
I don’t like New Year’s resolutions, but I am a big proponent of setting goals. Back in my junior high school days, in a P.E. class of all things, a guest speaker told us the importance of making goals. I remember writing a list of them then, some short-term, some long. And I’m happy to report I’ve reached some of them, including running a marathon and writing a book. Some I haven’t accomplished yet, such as visiting the Holy Lands, but I still intend to.
 
The thing that made those goals stick, as writer Joe Pulizzi reported, was writing them down. Something about that act makes them more real. The ink on the paper (or type on the computer) makes them authentic, and they take on a life of their own.
 
With that in mind, I wrote down some goals for 2018, in different categories. Some are more personal than others, so this is not an exhaustive list. But something about sharing them makes them carry more weight. It makes me accountable. Here are some things I’d like to accomplish in 2018, in no particular order:

• Read a minimum of 10–12 books.
• Blog every week.
• Organize my home office.
• Finish recording the audio version of my book.
• Clean up my email and computer files.
• Be more intentional.

 
Working in the corporate world, I know the importance of associating some sort of metric with each goal, to indicate if I’ve truly achieved it or not. So it’s good to have deadlines when applicable. For example, how will I know if I’ve reached my goal of being more intentional? What does that look like? I believe that one will be measured by accomplishments at the end of each day, week, and month. I’ll know I was more intentional if I procrastinated less and achieved more.
 
How about you? What do you want to accomplish in 2018?

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