How to Make Sure You Reach Your Annual Goals

This morning, my discipleship huddle spent time thinking through personal growth plans, goal-setting, and goal-keeping. I wrote at the top of a Post-it “How to Make Sure You Reach Your Annual Goals.” Here's what the guys in my huddle and I came up with. 

1.      Keep your goals visible!

Make sure that you post your goals in places that will grab your attention. Put them in your journal. Post them in your bathroom. Hang them in your office. We just need to make sure they are not "out of sight; out of mind."

2.      Review your goals regularly.

Build into your schedule the opportunity to look at your goals on a routine basis. You could scan them once a day. You could spend 15 minutes with them on a weekly basis, perhaps on Sunday night before you begin your work week. Once a month, you might want to spend about an hour with your goals.

3.      Re-set your goals to make sure they are attainable.

After reviewing your goals, you might see the need to re-set them. Perhaps the goal was too easy to attain. Or perhaps it was too hard. Perhaps God is leading you to delete the goal altogether. Someone said, "It's the unexamined life that's not worth living." By extension, it's the unexamined, un-re-set goal that's not worth keeping.

4.      Be accountable to people who will help and encourage you.

Go public with your goals. You don’t need to share them with everyone. But you do need to share them with people who will pray for you, encourage you, and inspire you to live up to your potential in Christ. So, who will you share your goals with?

5.      Create small action steps related to each goal.

Get moving. Do something small toward accomplishing the goal. It may not seem like much, but small positive movements forward will make a big difference over the course of the year. "A journey of 1000 miles begins with the first small step."

6.      Seek the Lord’s guidance and enabling.

Make sure that your goal is not just a good idea but a God idea. This is where Proverbs 3:5–6 comes into play. Hopefully, you sought the Lord as you set the goals. Continue to seek the Lord as you review and re-set. And remember, Jesus said, "Apart from Me you can do nothing."

7.      Approach your goals as a Beloved Child.

As you seek to accomplish your goals, you will find yourself falling short over and over again. You can easily become discouraged and can accuse and condemn yourself for not measuring up. But you must never forget that you are a sinner who is saved by grace and, therefore, have become a saint of God. This is when it's good for you to remember that God loves you not because of what you have done for Him but because of what Jesus has done for you. You have great worth apart from your goal-setting and goal-keeping. Christ has given His life for you and imparts great value to you. You are deeply loved, fully pleasing, totally accepted, and complete in Christ. It's God's kindness that leads you to repent of not attaining His goals. Let the knowledge of the grace of God, which is yours in Christ, be the fuel to inspire you to do great things for Him.