“Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each New Year find you a better man.” – Benjamin Franklin

Leave it to a “Founding Father” to sum up one’s goals for the upcoming year!  2011 makes me a little nervous and excited, it will be my first year without being in ministry, it’s my year of being 40, and it’s also the year that I HAVE/MUST/WANT to drop the weight that’s I’ve been carrying most all my life.

It seems that I must always fight against the “natural man” as Oswald Chambers described.  My angers, my fears, my habits, my prejudices…  And that is the beauty of New Years, it’s a chance to start anew and fresh.

I pray that this year brings you blessings and joy, and the Lord blesses and keeps you and makes His face shine upon you.

Last night was inevitable.  It was destiny…it just HAD to happen.  I started training again for another 5K in June.  It was hard, painful, and afterward, I could really ‘feel’ it.

But then again, whenever we make dramatic changes into our lives, the changes are always difficult and, while we’re going through it, we can feel the effects of our efforts.

You may not be running a 5K, but you may be trying to lose weight, quit smoking, stop cussing, quit gossiping, or just stop being negative, it all involves us having to take that first step, throw the cigarettes away, choose to NOT speak, or in other words, we need to get off the couch.

4 Suggestions to Help You Get Off the Couch

1. Choose to Change – No one can do it for you, you MUST chose to change for yourself.
2. Quit Listening to the Negative Voices – whether in your head or the people you hang out with…STOP listening to the junk.  You CAN change, you CAN be better.
3. Surround Yourself With Support – people, books, podcasts, music…fill your life with the POSITIVE support you need to achieve your goal(s).
4. GET UP / STOP / QUIT / FORGIVE /ETC – get off the couch.  Move.  Do something…immediately.  Don’t wait, don’t put it off any longer.  Whatever your couch is, I know it’s comfortable and safe, but LIVING life is never comfortable or safe.  To truly live, you must take chances and conquer challenges.

Please know that I don’t have it all together, but I am on this journey with you.  Please let me know how I can help you in your journey.  I believe in you and you should believe in yourself.  You can do it, just like I can.  But we BOTH need to just get off the couch!

I’ve come to a place in my life where I believe that I’m really over myself.

I’ve had so many conversations with people, friends, leaders, pastors, counselors, and people on the street about life and living that I’ve come to this conclusion:  I need to pull my head out of my own ass. (Apologies to all my Christian brothers and sisters)

I found this video and thought that I needed to heed it’s invitation.

So, as of today, May 1, I am Fasting from Negativity, in my words, thoughts, and my every day life.

“I am not my own, I am bought with a price, I belong to God. I choose to grow in and put on love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,and self-control.” -Trevor H. Lund

SO…I’m done.  I’m done with the negative thoughts, negative words, negative actions, and the negative self-condemnation.  I’m done with it all.  I know I will stumble, but over the next 40 day, with God’s grace and strength, I will succeed in fasting from negativity.

I am asking for your prayers, your grace, and support.  This is a HUGE undertaking for me.  But I do not walk this path alone…I have the Holy Spirit to guide, Jesus to sustain, God to empower, and people to walk with me.

I WILL do this.  I have to…

Goals and goal setting is not just for the workplace.  We should all have personal, professional, relationship, and even recreational goals.  Goals are benchmarks to work towards.  They are tangible evidence of our hard work and dedication.  We spend our lives achieving, and often failing to achieve, our goals, whether we know it, or not.

Walt Disney said, “A person should set his goals as early as he can and devote all his energy and talent to getting there. With enough effort, he may achieve it. Or he may find something that is even more rewarding. But in the end, no matter what the outcome, he will know he has been alive.”  And he was absolutely correct.

Without setting some measurable point to work towards, we spend our days, and our lives, meandering from one circumstance to another, not knowing whether we are progressing or retreating.

Without proper goal setting:

• Our work weeks would be a chaotic jumble of deadlines, meetings, phone calls, emails, and conversations.
• Our personal lives would be void of exercise, nutrition, proper rest, or habits, and we would be at the very whim of every text, email, or phone call.
• Our relationships would be stagnant, not moving forward in the appropriate steps of progression.
• Our lives would be a complete mess, and our leadership wouldn’t be as effective as it could be.

How do you set goals?

Goal setting isn’t rocket science, it can be as easy as writing a simple list of 5 things to do during your work day.  It can be a list of books to read through out the year.  It can be signing up for a 5K race and having to train to properly prepare.

But let’s look as some simple, practical ways to set some basic goals for our lives.

The night before your work week begins…

• List out all the appointments you have in your calendar for the coming week. This lets you visually see what your week looks like and you can get an idea of where you need to focus your time to work between the appointment.
• Write out the TOP 10 actions you need to take that week.  You have limited amounts of time, you have certain tasks, phone calls, emails, or projects that need to be completed.  Make you list and complete each task as soon as possible.

Each night before you go to sleep…

• Look at your appoints for the day. You need to know what you coming day looks like, and get an idea where your time needs to be allotted.
• List out the TOP 3 THINGS that MUST be done. You can only truly focus on accomplishing 3-4 projects a day (assuming that you are working a normal 8-10 hour day), so you need to figure out the most important projects for that day to complete.
• List out the Phone Calls, Emails, Conversations you need to have. Knowing who you need to connect with helps you focus your time and energy.  If you need to talk to your I.T. Guy before end of day, you can structure your day to connect with him and not forget it.

Use Task Management Tools

There are great online resources like RememberTheMilk.com, Toodledo.com, and tadalist.com you can use, many for free.  These will help you manage your “to do” lists to help you accomplish your daily, weekly, or monthly goals.  Managing these smaller lists will help you attain your overall goals like time management, project achievement, and they can help you sleep better at night.

Write Out Your Goals

Download this PDF and fill it out.  It’s a very simple, yet profound tool to help you list out your goals for the next weeks, months, years.

There are 6 categories, Personal, Health, Professional, Financial, Relationships, and Community.  There are 10 spots to fill in under each heading.  Take 1 minute per spot and fill it out with a specific goal you want to attain.

There are 6 heading, 10 spots per heading, at a minute per spot, this simple exercise should take about an hour.  You can fill this out by yourself or as a couple.  You can use all 10 spots, or only 3 to 5…it’s up to you, but SET SOME GOALS!

Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on goals and goal setting, or if these ideas helped!