I'm a Work in Progress

I'm not big into new year's resolutions - but I do like to set specific and measurable goals. Instead of just setting goals in the beginning of a new year and then lamenting my lack of achievement at the end of the next year, I have fallen into the habit of reviewing my goals quarterly. It works well to time these reviews according to my children's school terms - at the beginning of every term, I go back to my goals and review my progress in each area. And because I like to share the joy around, I badger my poor family into joining me in setting and reviewing goals quarterly!! Perhaps you would like to join me too??

What I do when I set my goals is that I start by identifying what the different hats are that I wear or would like to add to my life. Whatever you spend your time doing can usually be given a hat, for example partner, parent, spiritual self, me time, physical (exercise, nutrition, health), work/educational, home, financial, etc.Of course, our lives are all very different and so we all have a different collection of hats and they often change, but I like to set goals for each hat to help me to try to think about and set goals in a balanced way (as far as possible).

Anyway, so when I set my goals, I have two key considerations - are my goals specific and are they measurable. It's not enough to say that I want to be healthy. I need to specify what I will DO and how OFTEN I will do it. So, I have to rework my health goal to something specific and measurable. What I did this year was to set a goal to run three times a week for between 15-30 minutes. Of course, there are so many ways that we can become more healthy, this one was what I thought would make the biggest difference in my life. Yours may be to only eat 100g of chocolate per week, or to follow a specific diet plan or to play tennis three times a week - as long as it's important to you and clearly measurable, then your goal is great.
I write my goals up in the front of my planner and I often find myself paging back to remind myself of what I had hoped to achieve for the year.

Three months flies by and before you realise it, it is time to review your goals. What I like to do when I review my goals is that I think about what I have done over the last 3 months to achieve each goal and then give my efforts a score out of 10. A score of 0/10 means that I didn't do anything to achieve the goal (a poor, forgotten goal) - 10/10 means that I actually completed my task and achieved my goal (Yippee). Most of the time I end up with a score somewhere in the middle. This allows me to see where I need to put more effort in for the next 3 months and where I can just continue doing what I was doing.

I have found that since I joined this church that not just my life, but my goals have changed too. Feeling that I have a purpose in life and putting my faith at the center of my life, has changed where I expend my energies, how I spend my time and what is important to me. Rather than set goals to achieve largely worldly ambitions, I try to set goals to achieve my eternal potential, to become a better person every day and to strengthen my relationship with my Father in Heaven. I'm still most definately a work in progress - but my goal setting habits seem to be helping me along the way.

So come on, grab a scrap of paper, or open a new window on your computer and join me in setting yourself some specific and measurable goals for 2011!!