Day 13 - Now is the Time: Setting Personal Goals

Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty. Proverbs 21:5 (NLT)

I can’t believe we’re already on day 13 of 31 Days to a Victorious 2019! Thank you so much for reading and following my blog. I am overwhelmed by the feedback and encouragement. We have 18 days to go, and then I’ll be announcing some new moves come February 1. Thank you again for your support! Now on to today’s topic…

Just an FYI, I’m not a life coach, and I don’t have any fancy formulas for goal setting. I don’t do vision boards (but applaud anyone who does), and I don’t subscribe to planning workshops. BUT I do know the importance of goals and the role they play in advancing our lives. And God clearly saw the importance of organization, clarity, and instruction, because He said, “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. (Habbakuk 2:2, ESV) And He continues in verse 3 to tell us to plan for the future, even if the goals seem overly-ambitions: “For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.”

Today will be short and sweet. I’m not going to talk about how to set goals, how to achieve them, or best practices. If you want that, you can start here for a quick read. I just want to briefly talk about goals in general.

I used to be a skeptic, and thought I could get by without setting concrete goals for myself. The result was me floating through life, sort of knowing what I wanted, but also not willing to put forth the effort needed to set and follow through on any goals.  I used to roll my eyes when my husband asked me on birthdays and new years eves what I wanted and my vision for the next year, but now I look forward to it. The honest truth is, the more my relationship with God grows, the more I see how important planning my steps out is. How can God use me if I’m freestyling life with no objectives? How can He trust me with His assignments with no organization and nothing to hold me accountable? How can I fulfill my purpose if I’ve given no thought to where I should be and when? If you want God to be able to use you, you must prove you can hold yourself accountable, manage your expectations and time, and think bigger than your present.

Food for Thought: If you haven’t yet set goals for 2019, I encourage you to start thinking about doing so. God has goals for you, so you should have goals for yourself. These entire 31 days are a snippet of the goals I have for myself, and yes, one of my goals is to keep my goals. And always remember to pray about your goals: which ones to set, how to achieve them, and for His blessing and guidance along the way. Tomorrow we will be talking about how and why to involve Him in your process.