4 Easy Steps for Goal-Setting

Are you a goal-setter? Or someone whose idea of planning ahead means making sure you have a towel nearby before you get in the shower? Whichever you are, learning to set goals can change your life for the better. These 4 easy steps for goal-setting can make the difference between goal-setting feeling awful or great, being scary or fun, a waste of time or not!

No matter what time of year or season of life you are in, you can always set a new goal. It doesn’t need to be January or a new month or even a Monday. Any day, any week, any month is a great time to start. These 4 easy steps will get you started. These are some great times to set a new goal:

• A new school year.
• A new fiscal year for your business.
• You’ve just moved or started a new job.
• Your last child moved out of the house last month.
• You’re expecting your first child next month.
• You hit a milestone birthday – 30? 40? 50?

If you’ve never been a goal-setter, give it a try. You are always faced with a choice: settle for an ordinary, predictable, and possibly mediocre life or challenge yourself to do what you’ve never done and become who God made you to be. You make big changes only by planning to do so – by setting and working toward goals!

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What are the 4 Easy Steps for Goal-Setting?

The first steps in setting goals actually have more to do with focusing and engaging your heart and mind than setting goals. But I urge you not to skip over this. Remember – the foundation of anything is the most important part!

Step #1: You Pray

As a Christian, everything you do should begin with prayer. Setting goals is no different.

To learn more about why setting goals is biblical, read this article.

As you pray about your goal-setting, some essentials should be included. Confession is where you start every time you pray. It’s no different now. Confession gives you a clean slate and open communication to hear what the Spirit says.

Next, pray about the matters closest to your heart. That would likely include your family, your job, your fears, your hopes, your dreams, and your marriage. You might also want to pray about your church, your finances, your need for guidance, and your dependence on the Lord. Don’t leave anything out, if it’s important to you. Jesus already knows it all, so don’t hold anything back.

Pray for five minutes or two hours – however long it takes to lay your heart open to the Lord, put your dreams in His hands, and submit to His guidance. Then thank Him in advance for the direction He will provide through this process.

Once you have prayed honestly and humbly, you will be ready to move on to the next step. But don’t skip the praying!

Step #2: You Reflect

As you pray, it is normal to move into worship and praise. Your primary goal in life should be to glorify the Lord. Any personal goals you have should be aligned with that ultimate goal. Worship and praise help you to maintain an attitude of dependence on and humility before the Lord. If it helps you, play worship music as you pray, reflect, and work through these 4 easy steps of goal-setting.

Reliance on the Spirit will enable you to see things in ways you may not have considered. It will help to soothe the feelings of failure or shame you may experience as you review the past year. And it will encourage you to consider what you might otherwise deem impossible. Because “nothing [is] impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).

As you begin to reflect as part of the goal-setting process, you will want to record your thoughts. A blank notebook or journal works great.

Ask yourself a variety of questions and write out your answers. Some questions to consider are these:

• What was your most important accomplishment this past year? [Substitute month, week, season of life, or similar time-frame as needed here and in all the following questions].
• What were you hoping to accomplish that didn’t happen? Why didn’t that occur?
• What did you do that brought you the most joy and enjoyment during the past year?
• What are you most grateful for right now?
• What areas of your life are you most satisfied with right now?
• What areas of your life are you most dissatisfied with right now?
• What new skill did you learn this past year – or start learning?
• What are your three favorite memories from the past year?
• What was your biggest challenge during the past year and how did you handle that challenge?
• What bad habits are nagging at you right now?
• Who are the most encouraging people in your life right now? How can you strengthen those relationships?
• Who are the most discouraging people in your life right now? How should you consider changing those relationships?
• What were the three biggest lessons you learned during the past year?

If these questions scare you, that’s OK. You don’t have to answer them all – but remember, these answers are just between you and God. You don’t have to share them with anyone (although I would encourage you to share them with a trusted friend if possible).

Digging deep into what is and is not working in your life right now is the only way to get to the starting point of change. And change is what goal setting is all about.

Step #3: You Evaluate

After you’ve reflected on the past 12 months (or whatever timeframe you’re working with) and your current life situation, it’s time to draw some conclusions that will guide you. You’ve taken time to acknowledge your highs and lows. You’ve probably already recognized some things in your life that you’d like to change right now (magic wand, anyone?) as well as some good parts of your life you’d like to build on.

Your reflection involved looking at details – what happened, when, how you felt, and so on. Now, moving into evaluation, you need to get a bird’s-eye view of your life. You’re probably a bit like me in that I find it so easy to focus on what I need to change that I can get overwhelmed. This list seems impossibly long and I’m tempted to give up.

The best way I’ve found to handle this sense of overwhelm is by taking a “whole of life” assessment. I first read about this in The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. This method focuses on evaluating your life, on a scale of 1-10, in ten key areas of life. I’ve since, narrowed my list of life areas down from ten to a more manageable six. However, since everyone’s life is different, I’m listing the 10 areas he discusses below. At the very least, evaluating how you’re doing in these ten areas will

• Give you a starting point.
• Show you where you may need to focus most of your effort.
• Answer the question, “What areas might be priorities for setting goals?”

The point behind this exercise is that you’ve got to know what’s broken before you can fix it.

Below are the ten areas that are recommended in The Miracle Morning.

1. Marriage or Significant Relationship
   As a believer in Jesus, your marriage should be your top priority after your faith. The term “significant relationship” should probably be reserved for a relationship you think might lead to marriage.
2. Family & Friends
   This category refers more to extended family and personal friendships. One of my problems with Hal’s list is that “Children” didn’t have a separate category. If you’re in the midst of the child-rearing years, then Children might be a category you want to add.
3. Faith
   This category was named “Spirituality” in The Miracle Morning, but for believers in Jesus, growing in faith might be more specific. Use whichever term you prefer.
4. Career
   A job you have, a job you are studying for, or a business you are building fall into this category.
5. Finances
   Control your money or it will control you.
6. Health & Fitness
   You probably know how important this is already!
7. Giving
   God’s people are expected to be giving people – giving our time, abilities, and finances.
8. Fun & Recreation
   All work and no play is a bad combination. Get out there and do something fun.
9. Physical Environment
   This could be your home environment, your work environment, or both.
10. Personal Growth
    How do you want to grow and change? In what areas of your personal life are you dissatisfied?

I’ve referred to these 10 areas of life in future posts. Just remember, you don’t have to use these terms. You can add, subtract, or change any of them. Come up with a list of terms that reflect your life. Maybe you’ll add ministry, relationships with foster children, or time management. Maybe you’ll combine marriage with family and friends. Maybe you’ll change career to homeschooling. Do what works for you. But then evaluate.

Once you’ve made your list of life areas to evaluate – with a maximum of 10 areas – go through and honestly answer this question: “On a scale of 1 to 10, how am I doing in this area of my life?” For any area that is below a 10 (maybe even all of them!), you might also want to answer this question, “What are the weaknesses I see that caused me to score myself that way?”

Again, this isn’t meant to be an “I’m a horrible person” exercise. It is meant to show you where you need to grow. Keep an eternal and humble perspective. And keep praying throughout for wisdom and discernment.

A further step here you might want to take is to list your categories in the order you want to focus on them. For example, if you scored a 7 in marriage but a 5 in parenting and an 8 in health, you would focus on parenting more than either marriage or health.

Step #4: You Dream

This is probably my favorite step of the 4 easy steps for goal-setting! Dreaming falls into the category of, “What would you do if you won the lottery?” or “What would you do if money was not an issue?” or “What would you do if you could do anything?”

What would you do?

When you dream, before you start dealing with the reality that money matters, kids need to be fed, and time is limited, dream BIG.

To find out why BIG goals matter read this article.

What dreams and hopes do you still harbor in your heart? Dreams that you may never have shared with anyone? Now is the time to dust them off and put them down on paper.

And yes, I did say ‘on paper.’ I am a digital person – but nothing beats paper and pen for some tasks. This is one of those tasks. The act of writing helps your brain focus and dream.

So, this is what you do:

1. Get alone by yourself
2. Get a pad of paper and several pens or pencils (in case one breaks or stops working).
3. Say a quick prayer for BIG dreams.
4. Write EVERYTHING that you think of. And I mean everything – no self-editing with thoughts of “That’s impossible.” Write everything that comes to mind.
5. To help you think, you can focus on one area at a time. But if that doesn’t help, don’t worry about it. My “Dream Big” sessions tend to be all over the place – not neatly categorized!
6. Write for at least 30 minutes, but keep going as long as the ideas keep flowing.
7. When done – when the ideas stop or you’re out of time – take your list and set it aside for a day or two. When you come back to it, you’ll be able to look over what you wrote with a fresh perspective. That is when the real work of goal setting begins!

What Now?

Obviously, these 4 easy steps for goal-setting just get you started. What comes next? What do you do with that list of dreams and those life categories where you scored a 4 or 3? This article goes over the next steps to set great goals. If you want to learn more, all of my goal-setting articles are listed below, in the order I would suggest you read them.

• Biblical Principles of Goal-Setting
• The First Step in Goal-Setting
• This article: 4 Easy Steps for Goal-Setting
• Great Steps in the Goal-Setting Process
• Why Challenging Goals Are Best
• 5 Steps to Achieve Your Goals
• Ideas for a Christian Life Goals List

Wherever you are in life, in learning about and setting goals, or even in working to achieve your goals, I pray one or more of these articles will bless and help you.