One of the most important things to do when you set goals is to define points at which you look back and reflect on your accomplishment of/progress made on the goals. For my New Year’s resolutions, my first such evaluation point was set for one month. (Yes, yes, I’m a couple weeks late). So, how am I doing so far?

Spiritual Goals

• Pray/Read through Morning Prayer service every morning during January.
  Other than one day when I was traveling and had forgotten to print off the service the day before, I accomplished this goal.
• Fasting once/month (through March) plus once for Leadership Retreat.
  So far so good
• Scripture Memorization
  No progress made.
• Reading through Bible with Rachel
  No progress made.
• Reading through New Testament
  Progress is slow but being made.
• Intentionality with accountability partner.
  Trying, but still working on it.

Physical Goals

• Eat Reasonably
  Little Progress
• Run 2x per week
  I’ve been running 3 or 4 times this year.

Intellectual Goals

• Book Reading
  Little progress made, some books changed out for others

Relational Goals

• Rachel
  I have been more intentional about our relationship, and I think it has made a difference.
• Others
  I’ve been busy, and some relationships have been put on the back burner. I need to work on these a lot in the coming months. I wouldn’t say I’ve failed at most of these, just that I need to put some extra effort in to them.

Stop Doing

• Limit TV to 15 hours/week
  While I was failing at this initially, I’ve been so busy in recent weeks that I haven’t had time to watch more than 15 hours of TV per week.

Why did I write all of this? You probably don’t need to read it, but you probably do need to take a look at the goals you’ve set and your progress. If you don’t have any goals, you should probably think about setting some. You accomplish more when you’re working for something.

How do I feel about my progress? Well, pretty good actually. While I certainly haven’t nailed everything, I feel that I’ve made good progress on the goals that are most important to me (the spiritual and marital ones).

What are your goals, and how are you doing?

Of all of my goals for 2009, the devotional ones are some of the most challenging.

For starters, I plan to pray the Morning Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer every day during the month of January. This takes about 30 minutes, and as I mentioned previously, I am not a morning person.

I will be fasting once per month during January, February, and March in preparation for our trip to Ethiopia. (Lest you think I be bragging, this is part of the trip agreement, not my idea.) I also intend to fast once in preparation for the NCC Leadership Retreat that takes place at the end of January. I am considering continuing to fast once per month after March in order to discern God’s will for my life after I am done with the Protege Program at NCC.

I will finish memorizing Proverbs 6:20-7 and John 15:9-17.

I will finish reading through the Bible with Rachel. (We’re currently in Ezekiel.) And I will likely finish reading the New Testament with the NCC Discipleship Team.

I will be more intentional during meetings with my accountability partner and will make an effort to keep up with him more between our weekly meetings.

What are my goals, plans, and resolutions for 2009? Well, I’ll be posting those throughout the day but first, a bit of New Years resolution housekeeping.

NCC (especially Mark Batterson) is big on encouraging people to set goals. So here are some tips that I’ve picked up about goal setting while being at NCC.

From Heather Zempel, goals should be SMART.

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Require Faith
• Time-Related

I think the easiest way to explain is to give an example. One of my goals for 2009 is to strengthen my relationship with God. That’s pretty vague. How to I determine if I’ve accomplished that goal? So, I need to break it down.

For the month of January I plan to go through the Morning Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer every morning. That is specific. I can measure my success or failure. It is certainly something that is doable, but it will not be easy. I’m not a morning person. Waking up 45 minutes early every morning will take quite a bit of effort. Finally, it has an end point. This gives me something definitive to strive for, ensures that there is a time certain when I can evaluate the accomplishment, and frees me from the impossible task of committing to something for the rest of my life.

Heather also talks in that same blog post about breaking goals down into categories. I’m planning to use the categories:

• Physical
• Intellectual
• Devotional
• Creative
• Ministerial
• Relational
• Personal

One more important point, in his sermon on Sunday, Mark encouraged us not to set too many goals. If you plan to change everything in your life at one time, you’ll inevitably fail. Ever tried to move from a fast-food diet and no exercise to something like Body-for-LIFE while committing to having dinner as a family 5 nights a week, spend less time at work, become a more avid reader, improve your golf game, and invest more time at your church? FAIL

Take steps. Take steps that require faith. Take steps that are big and meaningful, but don’t try to do everything at once. For example, as I mentioned in a previous post, I’m putting my book on the back burner to focus on other things. I’ve got too much going on right now to commit to that. I’d rather do a few things well than do everything poorly.