On the Ninth Day of Christmas . . .

Okay, so this is gonna sound weird . . . the gift of goal setting?

Blick.

I have to remember not to confuse goal setting with New Year's Resolutions. The latter are the things I break, the former the things I don't achieve.

Oops. Time for a mindset change, don't you think?

Actually, as I look back on my goals for 2008, I didn't do too bad. Definitely not great, but considering I'd hidden them out of sight sometime during the course of the year, I accidentally accomplished the spirit of a couple of them.

Does that count?

I went back and read what I'd posted last year about goal setting. Maybe I was smarter then, but I think it's possible I'm wiser now.

I think one of the purposes of goals is to inspire. Framed positively, they lift me up and help me believe things are possible.

Goals are dreams that are written down.

The trick comes with planning the action steps to realize those dreams. And you know what they say about getting a laugh out of God . . . tell Him your plans.

When I put my goals together last year, they were inspirational and even seemed reasonable. Then my mother went into the hospital on January 2nd and died on April 5th. What would have worked at one point in my life needed serious tweaking to work for the next point in my life.

I will set goals again. But I also plan on putting a reminder on my calendar every three months or so, to pull them out and review. I'll gauge my progress and see if any tweaking needs to be done. I want to keep me working toward my goals as long as my goals are working for me, and we're not going in disparate directions.



Still reading the Betsy Thornton.

It's all better with friends.