How Setting Goals Doesn't Have to Be as Bad as You Think

The first 3 months of 2016 have already come and gone. The year is again progressing quicker than seems possible. This quickness is the reason it is so important that you set goals for what you want to carry out.

What follows will be three simple tips that I follow when I set goals:

Start with the end in mind.
I think it is important to start with your end picture of what you want and where you are going. Once you have the end picture, then start just 5 years out. Then move your picture to 3 years out, then 1 year out, and lastly 3 months out.

Be realistic.
Be ambitious, because it is a goal after all, but still be realistic. If you run a ministry of 30 kids or youth and you set your goal to grow to 300 in a year, that is not realistic. Being realistic helps you during the journey to stay encouraged and fight off that discouragement that happens so easily during life and ministry.

Re-evaluate and revisit.
Just because you set your goals in January doesn’t mean that 5-6 months down the road you won’t be swamped with life and ministry. Knowing this, I put a date in the calendar 5-6 months down the road to alert me to re-evaluate how I am doing with the goals that I wanted to carry out. I will revisit each goal to see whether it is still as important to me as it was once before when I first set it as a goal.

With these three simple steps, setting goals won't be as bad as you think. Allow me to recommend a book titled Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I recommend this book as you prepare to set your goals, because too often people set way too many goals and never fully reach any of them, but instead have a ton of half-started goals.

But really, setting goals can be as easy as 1, 2, 3. Start with the end in mind, be realistic, and re-evaluate as needed to accomplish your goals this year.