Setting Goals

shinning-1155886-1280x960 Setting goals – it’s one of those things that we all think we understand, and of course it’s especially popular at the beginning of every new year. We set these goals with all sorts of good intentions, but it normally doesn’t take us long to abandon them altogether.

Why is that?

One reason, I think, is that while we are generally determined to do better, we are often less enthusiastic about being better. Of course we want to achieve that level of success, finish that book, lose that weight, etc. We just aren’t as thrilled about having to do the work it takes to get there.

The other reason, I think, involves a simple lack of clarity. It amazes me how often people set goals that are either outrageously unattainable (I’m going to write a book a month for the next 12 months!) or so vague that they can’t be measured (I’m going to save money this year!)

So how do we fix these problems? How do we change our patterns so that the goals that we make become achievable as opposed to forgettable? How do we help ensure that we’re setting ourselves up for success instead of failure? What can we do differently today that will change our outcome tomorrow?

Well, everyone’s different – what works for me might not work for you. But here are a few general guidelines that have helped me along the way:

1. Get Specific. This is one of the simplest things that you can do to help make your goal achievable. If you’re serious about a goal, then you should be able to specifically define what qualifies as success in your mind. Do you want to save money? Great – how much? Do you want to get healthier? Do you want to write more? Well, that’s wonderful, but what does that ACTUALLY mean in your mind? If you can’t tell me that, then you don’t have a goal, you have an idea. Ideas are nice and all, but you can’t achieve ideas. You can’t work toward ideas.

2. Try setting goals that you can meet all on your own. In other words, don’t put your success into someone else’s hands. This can be a hard one to face up to, because so many of our goals involve approval or acceptance by other people. But when our goals involve decisions that we aren’t empowered to make, we can end up feeling like failures just because of other people’s choices. So if you want a better job – don’t make “getting hired” your goal. That’s not in your hands. But set goals that will make you a stronger candidate for the job you want, and set goals for how and when you will go out there and apply. Do you want to sign with an agent? Well that’s not a great goal, because at the end of the day it’s not up to you. But you can start SUBMITTING to agents – and that’s the type of thing that you can control and plan.

3. Set goals for habitual change, not end results. This isn’t an absolute must, but if you’re the type of person who forgets about your goals 60 or 30 (or let’s be real, 10) days in, it will help to keep you on track. Instead of setting the goal of loosing 20 pounds, try setting goals to change what you eat or increase you exercise. Instead of saying you’re going to finish your book by the end of the year, why not set a daily writing goal – one that’s manageable – and try sticking with it for a month or two? You’ll be surprised how those small daily successes will keep you motivated, and at how quickly they will lead you to real results

4. Build gradual increases into your goals. I love those people who decide every January that they’re going to run 5 miles every day and stick to a strict raw-vegan diet from now on. I love them, but I don’t believe them, because most of the time those types of extreme changes aren’t sustainable. What is sustainable, however, is change that comes in gradual increases. So rather than deciding that you’re going to write 5,000 words a day every day, why not go for gradual change? Set a low goal for January, one that’s easy to achieve – maybe you’ll decide to write 200 words a day or 1000 words a week. And then decide that on February 1st you’ll change it to something more challenging. And then do it again in March. These kind of gradual changes give you time to adjust your life to fit the goals that are important to you.

5. Only set goals that you want to meet. There is no bigger setup for failure than the goal that you don’t actually want to achieve. We set these goals out of a sense of obligation or guilt, but deep down inside we don’t care if they never happen. News flash – those goals are not only pointless (because let’s face it, you’ll never actually do them) but they’re also incredibly harmful to the goals that you actually want to reach. They clutter your plate, so to speak. They weigh you down unnecessarily. They stifle your momentum and steal your focus. None of those things will help you to reach the goals that are important to you. So this year why not do something radical and get rid of the goals that you don’t actually care about.

6. Keep track of your progress. This is so important for anyone who has a goal that’s going to take a while to reach. If you don’t have a plan to reach your goal, you won’t meet it. But just as importantly, if you don’t STICK to your plan, you’ll fall short in the long run. So revisit your goal on a regular basis. Look at how you’re progressing, and celebrate your incremental victories. It’ll keep you focused and motivated throughout the year.

7. Make adjustments. Listen, life is going to throw you curveballs this year, the same way it does every year. That’s just how it works. Some of the goals you set now will happen more quickly and easily than you expect. Others might suddenly become impossible as a result of unforeseen circumstances. That’s all fine. Don’t throw in the towel when things don’t work out. Don’t stop pushing just because you’ve already done better than you’d expected. Make adjustments to your goals throughout the year if you need to. It’s ok to redefine success as you move ahead. That’s part of life, part of growth. If we all stuck to our original goals the world would be full of princesses, ballerinas, fire fighters, and doctors. That wouldn’t be such a bad world, but you get the idea …

I hope these tips helped! Comment below and let me know what you thought. What kind of goals are you setting for 2015? What tips or tricks have worked for you? What important piece of advice did I leave off of my list? Let me know!

Stretch Yourself

A few months ago I was spending time with one of my very best friends, when she suddenly announced that “we” were going to get in shape together, and among her many plans for diet and exercise was one little nugget that made me cringe. “That’s it!” she said with enthusiasm, “We’re going to do 50 crunches a day every day from now on!”

I have to admit I laughed. I told her there was no way on God’s green earth that I was capable of 50 crunches. “That’s no problem!” she said, “You can work up to it! Come on, Paula – we can do this!”

I groaned a little inside, but since I’ve never been good at saying no to my friends, I finally agreed to do the crunches – and I did. I didn’t do them every day – it was 3 times a week, and it took me a week or two to build up to 50, but eventually I got there. And once I did, I have to admit I was kind of proud of myself.

And then one night I woke up in excruciating pain. Every muscle in my abdomen was cramping at the same time, and I couldn’t relax them enough to uncurl myself out of the fetal position. The problem, of course, was that I had spent so much time focusing on working those muscles, but I’d never bothered to take the time to stretch them. For a while I got away with it. They even got stronger. But eventually it all caught up with me, and the result was a night of serious pain and very little sleep as I tried to undo the damage, release the tension, and relax the muscles.

Now that’s a relatively simple anecdote – but it illustrates an important and relevant point.

You see, the crunches were a good thing. They took work and effort, and I took them seriously. They made me stronger and I found a moderate level of success in doing them. But that only took me so far before it all backfired. Because all of that effort and work was pointed in only one direction, the muscles in my body eventually rebelled. There was only so much work they could handle before they “broke” under the tension.

They needed to stretch. They needed to be pulled in unfamiliar directions, forced to move in a new way. Without that key component, all of the time and effort I’d put into working those muscles proved pointless. I hit a brick wall (or more, it hit me – in the stomach – at three in the morning).

I think that this is a truth that we can apply to our lives on a much broader level. Have you been working hard in an area of your life and just not seeing the results that you want? Have you ever found a moderate degree of success, and wondered how you could ever manage to achieve more? I want to let you in on a little secret that’s not much of a secret – you probably need to stretch. Your life will never really be able to grow and expand until you are willing to push yourself beyond your limits and move in a new direction.

How often have you talked yourself out of doing something new just because it wasn’t familiar? How often have you decided that it was better to stay where you were comfortable than to venture into the unknown? We do it all the time, and I think it’s because we’d rather remain firmly planted in what we know than try something that might fail; and – GET THIS – we do it even when what we know isn’t working all that well either!

The problems with this kind of thinking is that it always sets us up to fail.

Remember that the familiar things in life can only get you so far. If whatever you’re doing right now isn’t producing the results that you want in your life at the level that you want, then it’s probably time for you to venture out into some new territory. It’s time to try something different.

This isn’t to say that you need to toss aside the things that are working for you. But you can’t allow yourself to get boxed in by the familiar either. By all means, do what works – but make a point to go out and do something new at the same time!

Even the Bible encourages us to go out and to try new things:

As you do not know what is the way of the wind, or how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child, so you do not know the works of God who makes everything. In the morning sow your seed, And in the evening do not withhold your hand; For you do not know which will prosper, Either this or that, Or whether both alike will be good (Ecclesiastes 11:5-6 NKJV).

Isn’t that such an encouraging word? This verse is telling us that we can’t know what God plans to use in order to bless our lives, we can’t always see which of our options will produce the best results. That’s why we always need to be willing to try a little of everything. We have to be willing to stretch ourselves a little bit!

Dream Chasers is Finished!

There’s been a lot of good stuff going on in my personal and professional life over the last six weeks. That’s an awesome thing, of course, but it means that I’ve had to put off sharing some especially awesome news until now. But the wait is over, and now I’m super excited to announce that my newest book, Dream Chasers: Living in Pursuit of a God-Sized Dream is finally done and will be available for purchase this upcoming Saturday, November 15th!

Isn’t it pretty? I have to give a huge thank you to my BFF/SNOO (that’s “Best Friend Forever/Support Network of One” in case you don’t know) Rashada Nunez, who put this beautiful cover together for me. She also served as a sounding board, personal cheerleader, sympathetic ear, and accountability partner through this whole process. What can I say? She’s awesome. Go check out her blog if you have the time. It’s at www.designsbyrashada.com

If you want to check out the book, the kindle edition is available for pre-orders on Amazon now. You can have a look by clicking here!

If you’re curious about the content of the book and you want to catch a sneak peek of the content, you can head over to my twitter page and respond to my latest tweet with the hashtag #amazoncart. Amazon will apparently send you a free sample, which I think is pretty cool.

Ok, that’s all. I’m done with the shameless self promotion. Thanks for stopping by 🙂

Expand Your Limits

a-hill-1311057 Have you ever talked yourself out of doing something, because you were already convinced that you would fail? I do it all the time – I mean ALL the time. When I’m faced with a task that I think will be difficult, unpleasant, or even just outside of my comfort zone, I have this tendency to psych myself out before I even get started. And if I let myself do that for more than a few minutes, I know that I won’t bother starting it at all. After all, what’s the point of trying if you don’t think you’ll succeed?

But here’s the thing – every once in a while I decide that I’m just going to go ahead and do the thing I don’t want to do. Even though I’m dreading it, even though I’m SURE it’s going to be a disaster, I will occasionally find the backbone to face my fears and do it anyway.

Do you know what happens when I do? Normally the thing that I was dreading ends up not being nearly so bad as I’d imagined. I don’t always succeed, but I certainly succeed WAY more often than I would if I didn’t try. And sometimes I surprise myself with how easily I take to the the things that I’d once imagined impossible. Sometimes, moving outside of my comfort zone, I unexpectedly thrive.

That got me thinking recently about the limitations that we put onto our dreams. I realized that there are probably a lot of dreams out there that are abandoned before they’re even attempted, because they require the dreamer to take a step or two out into the unknown – to try something risky, to venture outside of their normal experiences, or to do something that they don’t think they can do. When people are faced with those kind of obstacles, those limitations, they can be quick to run for cover, and to give up before they’ve even begun.

But what we don’t realize about these limitations, is that we’re the ones imposing them on ourselves. We’re the ones who are guaranteeing our own failure, simply by refusing to try. After all, it’s not like God’s put limits on us. He said that we can do ALL THINGS when He is our strength (Philippians 4:19).

So what does “ALL THINGS” mean to us in this context? It certainly has some restrictions – if Jesus is our source of strength, then we can’t expect to do things that are contrary to His character or against His nature. But beyond that, where is the boundary? Where is the limit in a promise like that?

I don’t think that there is a limit – or if there is, it exist much further out than most of us dare to venture. In other words – we can accomplish so much MORE than we give ourselves credit for. The reason we don’t accomplish those things is because we don’t bother to try, or if we do try, we cringe back at the first sign of failure.

For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity. Proverbs 24:16

Here’s the crazy thing about our failures – the Bible says that they aren’t permanent. Presuming that we’re working in righteousness instead of wickedness (presuming that we are leaning on Jesus, listening to His voice, and doing our best to follow after His will) we can fall down all the time, and get back up like nothing happened. We can keep moving forward, keep pushing our limits, keep venturing into the unknown. We don’t have to be afraid!

So is there anything in your life that you’ve talked yourself out of doing? Is there something that you want to achieve that you’ve been unwilling to push for? Have you convinced yourself that you’re a failure just because you fell down a couple of times? Well don’t stand for that lie any longer! Pick yourself up, put aside your fear, and move out into the unknown. If you’re willing to expand the limits that you’ve put on your life, who knows how far God can take you!

Move Forward

or, What To Do When You Get Stuck

In the process of chasing after our dreams, goals, or aspirations, we will inevitably come to a point where we feel stuck. Even if we’re doing our best to follow God’s lead and to obey His voice, we may still encounter moments where things are looking grim and we don’t see a way out.

Ever feel like that? Ever feel like you’ve hit a dead end or backed yourself into a corner? Ever look for a way out and realize that all of your options look terrible?

I’ve been there – and so have countless men and women before us. So what are we supposed to do when we’re trying to get ahead only to find that we have nowhere left to go?

Well let’s look at a group of people who found themselves in this very scenario, in the most literal way ever! When the Israelites first escaped from Egypt, they left with singing and dancing and rejoicing. After 400 years of bondage, they had suddenly and miraculously been set free. The dream that had once seemed so impossible had instantly become very real. They were literally walking their way into their freedom. They had every reason to rejoice. And then just as suddenly, everything went terribly wrong. Their journey brought them to the shores of the Red Sea, and the Egyptian army was in hot pursuit behind them, chasing them down to punish them and drag them back into captivity.

Stuck between a sea and an army, the Isralites started to panic. They had nowhere to go, no way out of the problem that they’d suddenly encountered. They were stuck, and it was scary. So Moses spoke to the people in order to calm their fears:

And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever.The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.”

And the Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward (Exodus 14:13-15).

Moses told the people not to be afraid. He promised them that God was going to fight their battles for them. He explained that their enemies would be defeated. He got all of that right. But he messed up on one important detail.

You see, Moses told the people to stand still and watch what God would do on their behalf. But in the very next verse God corrected him. He said, “Why are you praying? Why are you asking for help? You need to be MOVING FORWARD!” God didn’t want the people to stand still. He wanted them to take a step of faith. Even though there was an ocean in front of them, even though the way was impassible, God told the people not to stop!

That is a frankly extraordinary commandment! I wonder what the people thought when they heard it. It’s not like they knew that the sea was going to split before them. Nothing like that had ever happened before! Nevertheless, they had the faith to march right up to the water’s edge. They obeyed God, and moved forward, despite the dangers of the situation, and God suddenly performed a miracle greater than anything the world had ever seen!

You might be facing a situation that feels a little like the one the Israelites faced all those years ago. Things might be looking helpless. There may not be any “good” options. But if you’ll keep following after God, if you’ll keep pressing forward, and if you’ll put your trust in Him, He will perform miracles that will shock and amaze you.

So don’t get stuck. Don’t stop moving. Don’t allow fear to paralyze you! God is ready to move on your behalf, but He’s waiting for you to move first!

Improvement is Impressive

As a natural part of my latest book writing effort (Dream Chasers: Living in Pursuit of a God-Sized Dream) I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about what stops people from running after their dreams. One of the biggest obstacles that I’ve noticed is how intimidating it can be to look at the sheer amount of work, effort, or time that would be required. We look at where we are, compare it to where we want to go, and throw our hands up in despair before we even start. Or even worse, we start along the journey to our dreams, but get discouraged and give up when we see other people advancing faster than we are.

But the thing is that the road to attaining our dreams is just that – it’s a road, a journey. And like any journey, the farther you want to go, the longer it can take to get there. That’s easy to say, and harder to remember – especially in this instant-gratification culture that we live in. So to help myself stay motivated and moving forward, I’ve developed a new motto: Improvement is Impressive.

Let me give an example of what I mean. I have always been the least athletic person in a very athletic family. My family is full of triathletes, marathon runners, martial artists, and general jocks. Christmas get-togethers, as you can imagine, involves a lot of chitchat about training regimes, upcoming events, and sports injuries – none of which applies to my life. They talk about doing things that I just can’t imagine enduring. I have one cousin who runs 10 or 12 miles at a clip in order to train for her next marathon.

But when I recently decided to get myself back into some semblance of fitness, I started by walking. Walking is a very effective way to ease yourself into exercise, but it’s not exactly glamourous. It’s slow, low impact, and time consuming. It’s just not an impressive achievement – especially not compared to the incredible things my family does on a regular basis.

So how do I keep myself motivated? By reminding myself that my improvement is what’s most impressive. That’s something that I can push for – something that’s quickly and repeatedly attainable. I can’t get myself out of the house with thoughts of the marathon I’m nowhere near running – not on a regular basis. I can’t push myself to run 10 miles when I’m still getting used to walking 5. But what I can do, what will keep me dedicated, is the idea that I can do better today than I did yesterday. I can improve my time, my speed, or my distance. I can take advantage of the day and use it to get a little bit better. If I commit to doing that every day, it will eventually take me where I want to go.

This idea is something that we can apply to any area where we want to see change. We may not be able to do it all at once. We may not even be sure that we can ever get it all done. We may be so far behind our peers that we can’t imagine catching up, let alone soaring on to new heights. But if we take our eyes off of the impossible distance that we still have to travel, and focus instead on the steps that lay right in front of us, we will find it much easier to take that first step.

So no matter what your dream looks like, find a way to move forward today. You don’t have to take great strides. Baby steps will do. But make it a point to improve yourself today, and then do it again tomorrow. Improvement is an impressive thing.