by Dr. Richard Blackaby
New Year’s resolutions have become something of a joke. In fact, they are synonymous with broken promises. As a result, most people don’t make them and those who do, don’t generally keep them. Some people have failed to achieve their personal goals so often that they adamantly refuse to set new ones. This is unfortunate. The reality is that goal setting, done properly, can provide direction and focus to life and can enable you to greatly increase your productivity. Let me share four basic truths related to setting goals that could dramatically affect your life and leadership.
1. The Motivating Power of Goals
Goals provide at least three important motivational functions. First, they give a sense of direction. As you enter each New Year, they provide a road-map for where you are going. In a memorable encounter between Alice and the Cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Alice asks, “’Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat. ‘I don’t much care where—–‘ said Alice. ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.”
As I work with leaders, I have been surprised at how many have no specific goals for which they are striving. These people are often busy, even swamped, but they lack focus. Without clear goals we can be drawn into secondary activities and ineffective busyness. Bureaucrats tend to focus on keeping the machinery going without any sense of reason for their activity. In the challenging days in which we live and work, we can’t afford to go to work in the morning without a clear sense of why we are going and what we need to accomplish before we leave at the end of the day.
Second, goals provide a benchmark for success. Simply being busy all year does not mean you were effective! Working hard, doing more than last year, and staying under budget do not guarantee success. The truth may in fact, be far different. Leadership guru Warren Bennis once commented that he saw many executives doing the wrong things well. Goals provide clear benchmarks at year- end for measuring your effectiveness. It is hard to be motivated when you have no idea where you are going or if you are getting close.
When I was in the seventh grade, I had one role in the school play. I was to pull the curtain closed after the last act! But, wanting to be helpful, I scurried around backstage helping move props and encouraging the actors as they exited stage left. In my zeal to be busy, I inadvertently forgot to close the curtain at the end of the performance! I had been busy, but I had failed in my assignment. It was easy to measure my effectiveness. Just check my goal-accomplishment. PULL CURTAIN AT END OF PLAY: Not done.
I know people who had a goal of planting a church. They met lots of people throughout the year, helped serve in a local soup kitchen, attended the meetings of the ministerial, and performed several acts of kindness, yet at year’s end? No church. There are others who set a goal of losing twenty pounds. At year’s end they had eaten plenty of salads and gone to the gym several times. They had even purchased an elliptical trainer. Yet on December 31 they weighed the same as January 1. Goals provide a clear measuring stick for our effectiveness.
Third, properly set goals can provide motivation. Simply declaring, “I’d like to lose some weight” is powerless. It provides no focus. No measuring stick. Saying “I want to lose twenty pounds this year. Ten pounds by July 1 and twenty by December 31” is a plan that can propel you forward. Goals can focus your efforts and provide the motivational spark-plug to reach milestones you would never have accomplished through normal living.
2. The Compelling Source of Goals
One of the main reasons we fail to achieve our goals is because they originate from the wrong source. At times we set goals merely by adding a little to last year’s results. We add 5% to last year’s sales or attendance, or donations and then announce our goals for the New Year. As long as we achieve a little more than we did last year, we assume we are successful. At other times we exuberantly set extravagant goals, assuming that their sheer magnitude will energize us to strive for them. I have especially noticed this among pastors and church leaders. We assume that we are “honoring” God by setting high goals. Yet we neglect the truth that our ways are not God’s ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). We will never come up with a plan big enough that it impresses God (Ephesians 3:20).
There are at least two ways to set goals that are achievable. First, do the obvious. For example, if you are 50 pounds overweight, you don’t need to go off to a mountaintop retreat to pray for a week about whether God wants you to lose some weight (although fasting during that time might not be a bad idea). There are some things that are obvious. If we neglected our family last year because of our work commitments or we neglected spending time with God each day, then we can immediately set some goals to rectify those shortcomings.
More importantly, we must allow God to guide us to know what our goals should be. The book of James warns that it is futile to confidently make your own plans for tomorrow when only God knows the future (James 4:13-17). The writer of Proverbs declared: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end s the way of death” (Proverbs 16:25). Furthermore, when we make our plans apart from God’s guidance, He can thwart them so we are reminded of our absolute dependence upon Him. The psalmist declared: “The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations” (Psalms 33:10-11). The key is to let God set our goals. Only then is He committed to their success.
I found that as a leader, the goals I achieved were the ones in sync with God’s heart. That was when I experienced His blessing and guidance throughout the year as I sought to achieve them. Furthermore, as a leader, I would seek to mobilize my people to accomplish our organizational objectives. When I looked into the eyes of my staff, donors, and volunteers, I had to be certain that I was not merely using these people to accomplish my own goals. If I was calling on people to give themselves to the accomplishment of certain objectives, I had to be convinced that they originated from God.
One of my favorite stories of personal goal setting is that of John Hyde, missionary to India. One year he felt God leading him to set a goal of leading one person to faith in Christ, every day. God enabled him, and, at the end of the year, Hyde had personally led over 365 people to faith in Christ. Next year he set a goal of two people each day. He achieved it. The next year he set a goal of four people each day. Amazingly, he reached that goal too. When God leads you to adopt great goals, be prepared to see God do amazing things in your life!
The key is to take time with God. Let Him take an inventory of your life and work. Physically, what is God leading you to do? Lose 25 pounds? Exercise four times each week? Take a Sabbath and get much needed rest? Ride your bike to work instead of driving your car? What about spiritually? Is God leading you to memorize 52 new scripture verses this year? Rise thirty minutes earlier before work to spend additional time with Him? Strive to share your faith with at least one person each week? What about your work? Are there specific goals He is leading you to embrace? It is exhilarating to know that almighty God intends to accomplish certain things in your life.
3. The Practicality of Goals
Another goal-killer for many people is that, after they set their goals, they fail to acquire the necessary tools and support to achieve them. They set high-sounding goals but then never take the necessary actions to accomplish them. For example, it is fine to say “I need to stay current in my field.” But what will that look like? Do you need to identify 12 books you will read in your field this year, and then put them on your wish list on Amazon? Do you need to purchase a Kindle so you can download them and read them in your spare moments? Do you need to identify two professional seminars you will attend this year? Perhaps you need to find a colleague who will accompany you so you are more inclined to follow through. If you have a goal of losing weight, what practical steps are you going to take? Will you purchase new tennis shoes and buy a membership at the local gym? Will you absolutely swear off dessert of any kind until your reach your goal? What specific, reasonable, attainable actions will you commit to so your goals are realistic? If we do not acquire the proper tools, we are simply setting ourselves up for frustration.
The apostle Paul declared: “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:24-27). Paul understood that great goals required sacrifice. But the prize of achieving the goal makes the effort worthwhile. The reason some people never reach their goals is that they are fundamentally unwilling to do what it takes. Are you prepared to take the necessary steps so you achieve the goals God has for you?
4. The accountability of Goals.
The final principle that is crucial for goal-achievement is accountability. If you don’t build in accountability to your goal setting, you are merely making empty promises. That has been the key to such groups as Weight Watchers. Everyone weighs in each week!
In major companies, missing quarterly projections can be grounds for dismissal. Goals are set and leaders are accountable for reaching those benchmarks. Yet too often in church leadership or in our personal lives, we do not hold ourselves accountable for the goals we set. I have known pastors who constantly declared that they had “turned a corner” in their church but there was no noticeable improvement. People complain about their diets or their exercise regimes but they never lose weight. People bemoan how hard they are working but they never experience significant progress. The reality is that if God has given us a goal, we ought to take it seriously. If God has told us what is best, anything less ought to be totally unacceptable.
Task oriented, driven people are generally more comfortable with goal setting than are other personality types. But the truth is that if God has spoken, we must focus our life on the achievement of what He said. And, if God spoke, we can be assured that His Holy Spirit will be empowering and encouraging us along the way to accomplish what He said.
Having goals you are striving for gives your life purpose, direction, motivation, and accountability. Over the long run, achieving your God-given goals will enable you to accomplish far more than those who merely work hard. Take time with God and ask Him to show you what areas of your life and work He wants to improve. Let God show you some practical steps you can take so you begin making real progress toward your objectives. May this year be your most profitable and rewarding year yet!