Goal Setting

Hello Sis,

I believe your week has been awesome, the Lord is your strength in Jesus Name.
Its the third week of the year and I am a believer of "it's never too late to learn how to do life better".

From time to time, we set out to achieve a thing or two which are often called goals. However, the bone of contention is whether we set these goals in a way to make them achievable.
As cliche as this may sound, goals are fundamental to most success stories. Goals are destinations, where you want to be or what you want to achieve over a period of time. The period of time could be short term (within a year), medium term (greater than a year but less than 5 years) or long-term (over 5 years).

You would agree with me that the importance of timing in setting goals cannot be overemphasized.
I do not intend to dwell on theories (which I'm sure you're familiar with already) so, i will be sharing practicable ways of setting and smashing your goals (using myself as a case study😊 on my post partum weight loss journey):

1. Identify what you desire and why: What is the destination you're aimimg for? After I delivered my second son in September 2018, I desired that I wanted to return to my pre-pregnancy size by the time I would be resuming work in January, 2019.
Here's one of my reasons: I want to be fit and healthy.
When identifying your goals and 'why', avoid ambiguity.

2. Identify how to get these desires into reality: In doing this, you must be specific with the things to be done. For me, I knew I had to have a daily 30minutes work-out plan and eat right. For my meals, first, I controlled my portion and 2 months after, I focused on the food content.

3. Set timeline for points identified in '2' above: I remember in 2018 I set to do an online course every quarter. My timeline for this goal was quarterly. On the post partum journey, my timeline was to shed the baby weight in 3 months (after I was certified okay).
What you don't put a time to will never happen.

4. Measure your progress. Not with anyone else! (2Corinthians10:12) but with who/where you were before. I have a folder on my phone where I put pictures taken every 2 weeks to see how I'm progressing.
For you measuring your progress could be: how long do you pray for now (at a strech) vis-à-vis when you started the journey? Quantifying your progress is in itself a motivation.

5. Be disciplined. Procrastinators never get anything done. There would be distractions here and there, excuses why you cannot but you have to keep your eyes on the prize by paying the price - discipline.
One of the importance of setting goals is that you are able to understand (like paul) that "All things are legitimate [permissible–and we are free to do anything we please], but not all things are helpful (expedient, profitable, and wholesome). -1 Corinthians 10:23 Goal setting comes with setting boundaries. One of mine was to take more water instead of juices. You will need to say N.O. to certain things.

6. Don't leave any vaccum. When you say you don't want to do this, you must replace it with what you want to do. Otherwise, you would fall for anything. For me, I aimed at cutting down my junks intake by eating more of fruits/vegetables (e.g carrots) as snacks.

7. Don't stop! Dream Big!! The whole essence of goals is because you are not where you want to be, if you were, you won't be setting goals. So in as much as you must make goals realistic, don't make it too small that it doesn't stretch you. Someone said if your dreams don't scare you then they aren't big enough.

Remember, goals are incomplete until they are written. Habbakuk 2:2

I love reading your comments 😊 share with me 👇 what works for you when setting goals.

Loads of love

Your  Sis