Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution and attempted to make the change throughout the year? According to studies, 45% of people make resolutions, but less than 10% are ever successful in achieving their resolution. So, instead of focusing on resolutions that aren’t likely to succeed, this week I wanted to give you a way to set goals in the new year that will help you actually reach them.
When a plane is going to take off on a flight it doesn’t immediately get from the ground to 30,000 feet in the air. It has to gradually climb to that height and if the pilot tries to reach that altitude too fast the plane will break apart and crash. The plane must first work to reach 10,000 feet, then 20,000, and finally it can cruise at 30,000 feet. Josh Jansen, who works on staff with BASIC, shared with me a concept for setting goals in a similar way to flying an airplane.
You start by first determining what your goals are. To start this process make sure you spend some time in prayer. Feel free to dream a little bit here and list out goals that are both short-term and long-term. Once you’ve written out your dreams it’s time to start categorizing them by thinking about them in the magnitude of work it would take to achieve each and how soon you think each can be accomplished.
Begin assigning an altitude level to each goal with the lower heights (5,000 feet) being the most attainable and short-term goals and then increasing from there to 30,000 feet. For example, maybe your goals would look something like this:
5,000 feet – grow our large group meetings to 50 people per week
10,000 feet – have at least 6 small groups each semester with at least 10 students attending each
20,000 feet – grow our large group meetings to 200 people per week and have at least 10 students on the leadership team
30,000 feet – fill the 400 seat campus auditorium once a year by holding an evangelistic concert and see at least 30 students make commitments to follow Christ
Depending on where your ministry is currently your goals may need to start bigger or smaller than this, but this is just an example. You can also add time periods to these goals as you prayerfully consider them (in 5 years, by 2014, etc.). Now that you have your goals categorized you can begin working on them by starting on your lowest altitude project, but before you do that there’s one more step.
A plane can’t take off without the pilot first lowering the flaps, increasing the throttle, and then beginning to ascend. The common mistake people make with new year’s resolutions is deciding what their goal will be without ever planning out the action steps needed to get there. Similarly, maybe you’ve worked for a company before in which many great ideas were thrown around, but after walking out of meetings no one had been given specific tasks to start bringing those ideas to life.
In order to actually achieve the goals you’ve set you now need to determine the appropriate action steps needed to get there. Take some time to chart out at least 3 steps you will take to reach each goal. You may find you need to add some steps along the way, but if you’re someone who gets easily overwhelmed by this type of exercise 3 should do for now.
You’ve done it! You’re now on your way to setting goals that you can actually attain. Remember, even if you never achieve all of these goals it’s been proven that the person who sets goals accomplishes far greater than the person who never does!