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Every new year brings new hopes and a fresh start towards completing those long list of tasks that we’ve been meaning to get to; lose the weight, pay off that debt, increase our finances, take better care of ourselves; & for some, they hope it won’t be a repeat of the previous year. However, as God has been teaching me – and my pastors have been reaffirming -, if we really want to see a change in our lives we need to do these three things I will be talking about today; Linking up our goals with God’s, using the SMART goals method, and being faithful in seeing your goals all the way through to completion. If you are sick and tired, of being sick and tired, and you’re ready to live life with purpose and to the full as John 10:10 describes, then keep reading. Also, please share this because first, it doesn’t cost you anything but to click this share button, second, I want to help as many people as possible, and third, there are women you know right now that would be blessed by and need to read this article today.

Linking/Connecting our goals with God’s:

What happens when you link up with your creator and unite your goals with His? Then you have a true recipe for success. As stated above, John 10:10 in the New Living Translation talks about God’s desire for our lives to be rich and satisfying. In the Passion Translation, it says, “I have come to give you everything in abundance, more than you expect – life in its fullness until you overflow!” To boil that down in laymen’s terms, it essentially means God doesn’t want to just see us in heaven, living with him for eternity. God enjoys seeing us prosper and be in health, just as our soul prospers. (3 John 1:2AMP) God wants you to be blessed in order to be a blessing and share His love and the gospel with everyone you come in contact with. The Bible never said anything about being successful, it just said when you make money a god and it’s all you strive for, that’s when we’re in sin. So we need to find ways that our goals will ultimately achieve God’s goals, for example; to share the gospel with others all over the world we need to be fit and active and we need to be financially stable. As we seek God, obey His Word, and run after His Will in our lives, He will not only help us achieve the goals we need and want, He will begin blessing us and delivering us from areas where we are in lack.

Be SMART about your goals

I’m sure most of you have heard of the S.M.A.R.T. goal method. I hadn’t heard anything about it until recently, and within the last year or so was unsure what it even meant. S.M.A.R.T. means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Frame for completing. For those of you, like me, who have never heard of it – or you just didn’t know what each letter stood for – I am going to discuss each letter and how we can apply this method to our goals for 2020.

Be Specific in your goals

When setting your goals – either for the month, year, or decade -, you need to be specific. I have goals set up for 2020 to live healthier in various areas of my life, and so for example; some of my physical goals are to be the right weight – 130 to 140 is my ideal weight because of my size and shape. Another goal I have is to be healthy spiritually. Specifically, I want to study the Bible in-depth and spend more time with God on a regular basis. So if I am being specific, I want to read six books of the Bible in-depth and study them, and I want to meet with God on a daily basis – through spending time with him in prayer, worship, journaling, and doing a devotional or studying a topic relatable to what season I am in.  These goals are all specific and describe exactly what I want to achieve. If I just said, “I want to lose weight and grow closer to God,” that would be fine, but I need to know how I want to accomplish this, and I need to write it down so I don’t forget about them. Before we go on I want you to get a piece of paper – go ahead I will be right here when you get back -, okay, now I want you to write down five goals you want to accomplish this year. Once you write them down, write the specifics of each goal. If you want to lose weight and feel better for your family, how does that look for you? Do you want to lose 5 lbs. or 50? In order to feel better does this mean drinking more water and less soda? Or do you need to sign up for a gym and find accountability partners to make sure you follow through each week to go? Once you do this come back and find out what the next letter is in the SMART method and how you can apply it to your goals.

Make your goals Measurable

What does it mean to have a measurable goal? Let’s look at my spiritual goal I discussed above. I want to grow in my relationship with God and spend more time with him regularly; in order to do this I need to be specific – I want to read 6 books of the Bible in-depth and spend time with Him every morning. I then measure my progress by saying my goal is to complete this before the end of the year. Now let’s find out how I can attain these goals below.

Making Attainable goals

How do you make your goals attainable? By creating ones that you can explain the hows, whys, etc. So sticking with the goal I have on growing spiritually, I attain them through saying not only will this be completed by the end of the year; but I will make a habit of reading one book of the Bible every other month and studying it. While doing that, I will also get up early and spend time in prayer, devotion, worship, and journaling for no less than 30 minutes each day. By writing down my goals, making sure I am held accountable and creating goals that are within reach, I am guaranteed success. Let’s move on to the R in our method and what it means to be realistic in our approach to completing our goals.

Are your goals Relevant?

When it comes to goals, we need to make sure they are within our grasp and relatable to us. Going back to my spiritual goal; To say I want to study the Bible and then say I am going to study Genesis to Revelation in six months’ time, and study 4 books a month, and at least 1 book a week is SMART if I thought it was relatable. I have never been one to study the Bible all the way through, I have always been a topical studier – one who studies books on certain topics, verses a lot of books all in one sitting. For example, I am more prone to study devotions – such as the ones you would find on Youversion, than read all of Psalms in a month. However, there are those who do it regularly and they enjoy it and get a lot out of it. Next, we will look at our final letter in our goals model. 

Create a Time-frame for your goals

The last letter in our goal method is T for time-frame, and this is pretty much self-explanatory. I want to lose weight and be healthy, so I write down my goal of losing 50 lbs. by the end of the year through exercise, drinking enough water, and eating the right foods – Specific -; I want to complete it before the end of the year – Measurable -; so I will eat healthier and work out 2 to 4 times a week, drink no less than 48 oz water, and make healthier eating options – Attainable -; and if I do each of these I think I can realistically meet my goal of being healthier – Relatable -; and of course my time frame is to complete this before the end of the year. I hope this makes sense.

Finish what you start

If you set a goal and link it up with what God has planned for you, create your goal using the SMART method, and then become faithful to follow through, then there will be a sense of accomplishment and you will be able to cross that finish line of success. I know I have talked a lot about this, but if you want to be better, and see a better version of yourself this time next year, then doing these practical tips will help you do that.

So, what did you think of today’s article? Are there some goals you have been thinking about lately? What are some goals you can make that matter? Share your thoughts below, and don’t forget to subscribe to the blog so you can get a notification each time I create a new post.

Until we meet again,

Angie