Goal Setting

They say goals are dreams with deadlines. I think goals go hand in hand with dreaming big. I was reading the other day about a man named John Goddard, who, when he was 15 in 1940, sat down one afternoon and wrote down "My Life Goals."  127 of them to be exact. Here's a few of them-

• Milk a poisonous snake
• Skin-dive to forty feet and hold breath two and a half minutes underwater
• Learn jujutsu
• Study primitive culture in Borneo
• Land on and take off from an aircraft carrier
• Run a mile in five minutes
• Go on a church missions trip
• Retrace the travels of Marco Polo and Alexander the Great
• Learn French, Spanish, and Arabic
• Light a match with a .22 rifle
• Climb Mount Kilimanjaro
• Study Komodo dragons on the island of Komodo
• Read the Bible from cover to cover
• Circumnavigate the globe

One of the coolest goals he had on the list was to visit the moon. This was in 1940! Nobody had even left the atmosphere at that point! Mr. Goddard didn't achieve all his goals, but how many of those do you think he would have actually done if he had never written them down or dared to dream them? 

I believe goals go hand in hand with dreaming big, and praying big. God wants us to live life to our fullest capacity. Why would there be so many amazing places waiting for us to experience them? Goals turn into prayers, and prayers turn into goals. 

Here are 10 steps to goal setting:

1. Start with prayer
2. Check your motives
3. Think in categories
4. Be specific
5. Write it down
6. Include others
7. Celebrate along the way
8. Dream big
9. Think long
10. Pray hard