Nothing could be more critical to success in life and ministry then setting and achieving goals that honor Jesus and help accomplish what you believe he’s leading you to do.
Here are some steps you can take that will greatly increase the chances of seeing your goals achieved:
Many times these goals are a result of prayer, and time in Scripture.
1. Decide specifically what you want to achieve.
It’s hard to hit a moving target or, worse yet, a target you can’t see. Make your goals specific, measurable and calendar-able.
2. Build a team.
When I set a pretty good-sized goal, the first thought I have is who can I recruit to help me in reaching this goal. What kind of people do I need around me who are different than me and can complement who God made me. Have the members of the team keep each other accountable and on task.
3. Write your goals down
where you will regularly see them. I have a saying that I use with myself which is: If it’s not in writing it doesn’t exist–at least not in my mind and in my plans. Habakkuk 2:2 (ESV): “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, so that he may run who reads it.” There is something about committing your goals, dreams, and plans in writing that gives motivation to act on them. I suggest you write goals in terms of what you intend to do rather than outcomes; behavior rather than results. By His grace you can control your actions, but you are not in control of results; how others may or may not respond. Understand the differences between behavior and results has been a God-send for me personally.
4. Give yourself a deadline
by which you will accomplish a specific action and written goal. “Whenever” or “When I get to it” is not a deadline. Work expands to fill the time allotted for it. Procrastination will set in if you don’t decide when you need to reach your goal. It will generally take you much longer without a deadline
You will find yourself much more fruitful if you set a challenging but doable deadline to accomplish things. When someone asks me for something, or asks me to do something, my first question is: when, at the latest, do you need or want this? This helps me to determine the order in which to do things and when I have time to work on it.
5. Make a list of all the “action steps”
that will need to be done to reach your goal. Write down everything you can possibly think of. Ask a few others to help you with some steps you might otherwise overlook or forget
6. Prioritize your action steps.
List them in order of importance. Do the most important thing first, and then the second most important thing, and so on.
7. Begin immediately.
Don’t procrastinate; start immediately with #1 on your “action steps.”
8. Do something every day
to hammer away at your goals. Eighty percent of your time should be invested in doing things that will move you toward your stated goals.
9. Pray.
Ask the Lord to give you wisdom, energy and persistence to keep focused on your goals and not allow yourself to be diverted to things of lessor importance.
I believe that if you follow these nine steps of goal achievement your success ratio will go up exponentially.
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