I never used to set goals. I’m not exactly sure why. Could have been partly due to the thinking: if you don’t set goals you don’t fail.
Throughout life, despite not actively setting goals, I think I’ve always had goals, even if those goals are subconscious. I think we all have goals.
It’s interesting to look back on my life and see how my goals have changed.
High school – graduate
College – have as much fun as possible and meet as many people as possible
After college – have a job to provide for myself
Over time my goals changed in drastic ways. I went from wanting to have fun to thinking about a family. At some point, I went from only thinking about myself to thinking about others.
I’ve never been one to put a whole bunch of stock in goal setting. I always heard the logic: “You can’t accomplish it until you write it down.” I can see how that makes sense, but I just never subscribed to it. That includes New Year’s Resolutions. What’s the point of a whole population of people setting goals due to an arbitrary date? A goal they will stop putting any effort toward after week 3.
My Dropbox account has a whole lot of random and miscellaneous items in it. Random word documents, thoughts, quotes, letters, theories, links, notes, etc. When I had been back at church a couple years, I stumbled across something interesting, something I had almost no recollection of writing. I’ll post some of it here. It was a Word document called “2016 Goals.”
Here is what I wrote in 2016. Through context clues, I can determine it was written either very early in 2016 or even *gasp as New Year’s Resolutions.
Life
- Stop swearing
- Every time I swear out loud, take note of it. At the end of the year, donate $1 for every swear word I said through 2016.
- Drink less
- Try to limit drinking to twice per month.
- Go back to church
- In January go at least once.
- February-December go to church at least 2 times per month. If I go less than 2 times in any given month, make up for it in a future month.
- Go out of my way to do one nice thing for someone else at least once per week.
- Buy a property.
High aspirations, right? Try to limit drinking to twice per month, wow… aim for the stars.
Other than the “Life” category I also had poker, work, and exercise. For the purpose of this post, I’ll focus on the above – Life.
First of all, I immediately didn’t keep pretty much any of these goals. I never donated $1 for every swear word, though I do remember trying to keep track of my swearing. Drink less – out the window almost instantly. I don’t think I went to church at all January or February, so that’s pretty funny.
But here’s the extraordinary part. The year 2016 was the year I accomplished EVERY SINGLE ONE of those goals, with only buying a property bleeding into 2017.
I stopped swearing in 2016, completely.
I stopped drinking in 2016, completely.
I started thinking about others. I don’t know if I did a nice thing for someone every week, but I know I tried.
I bought my condo in 2017.
In my opinion, without a doubt, the most important one and the one that enabled me to accomplish all the other goals I set – March 2016 was the month I started going back to church. I laugh at the fact I didn’t go in January or February, but is there any chance I would have gone in March if not for writing down these goals? Probably not.
Remember, I don’t even remember writing these down. I know that seems strange, but I don’t. That’s how little thought I put into it. Within 2 months I’d completely forgotten about these goals. But, I think, something inside of me didn’t forget about these goals. Call it my subconscious, I’ll call it my soul, somehow, some way, writing these down gave me the power and strength to do things I thought impossible. Note again the goals, swear LESS, drink LESS. I went back to church and that became I don’t want to swear, I don’t want to drink.
I’d be remiss if I gave all credit to myself for writing these goals down and accomplishing them. These goals that were written down and forgotten, my soul remembered them. I also think they were written and acknowledged somewhere much more important. I believe someone took note of my goals and sent help. That’s the only logical conclusion after all these forgotten goals somehow fell into place in the year 2016.
After all this, I still don’t set concrete goals. Shame on me after the evidence I’ve seen. When I stumbled upon that “2016 Goals” Word document, I became a believer. Writing down goals is powerful. God sees our goals. Maybe our subconscious kicks in. Maybe good goals cause your spirit to cry out with joy that you’ve set some standards for yourself to try to accomplish.
What I do know, is that goals are powerful. Writing them down is powerful. I should really try to be better at setting and WRITING DOWN concrete, solid goals. I’ve seen extraordinary things come from that. I think we all can accomplish extraordinary things when we set ourselves on a path.
I have to conclude by thanking them. God. How could that all have happened without His support? My goals were so lame, and yet He made them something. Jesus Christ. How could I accomplish anything without Him forgiving me for all my wasted time, bad actions, and mistakes? I could only move forward by Him letting me look past my past. The Holy Ghost. There were countless difficult situations, countless times I ALMOST gave in and started drinking again, countless times, countless times. I know he was always there begging me to listen to him. Finally, the countless angels God undoubtedly sent, seen and unseen, to lift me up, help me along, protect, and encourage me. I owe it all to them. I am grateful.
