Goal Setting

I was challenged in a book that I am reading about the importance of setting life goals. I am not just talking New Years resolution type things, but figuring out where you are going and how you are going to get there. I find it fairly easy to make goals for a year, often you already know what you are set out to accomplish and so it goes on the list. It gets a little harder when you start thinking about five and ten years down the road. Some days I do not know what I want tomorrow, let along ten years from now.

Despite not really knowing what this would look like, I sat down and set some goals. I did six different areas, Spiritual, Intellectual, Physical, Relational, Professional, and Financial. Each of these areas pretty much covers my life and where I would like to set goals. Then I broke each down into goals for a year, five years, and ten plus years.

Setting goals for a year was fairly easy. Intellectually, graduating from school, physically, running a half marathon. For five years, it got a little harder, but there is things that both Phil and I have said we wanted to do by the time we are thirty like financially paying off all school debt. Thinking to ten years was really hard. For some areas I was able to be specific, but for the most part I wrote things that were more general, like for professional goals to be working in a place that uses my passions, gifts, talents and values.

My hope is to now do this same thing with Phil and set goals for our marriage and life.

Though I am sure some of the things I said will change as the years go by, it is really cool to have these things written down. I would highly encourage you to do this as well!