Welcome to 2009, Kynetic! We're looking forward to our best year yet!
Okay, so this past Tuesday was the first Kynetic meeting of the year, and we got the year started by talking about what we want to have accomplished by the end of the year. That's right -- Tuesday's topic was Goals! We talked a little bit about the goals of Kynetic, but we talked a lot about why it's good for each of us to have inidividual goals, and how we can set those goals.
Dayton took us to Genesis 8:13 to point out an interesting note. After the Flood, after all the time that Noah had to wait for the water covering the earth to recede, the Bible says that "in the first month, on the first of the month, the water was dried up from the earth."(NASV) Now, we may not be on the same year schedule as Noah was, but still, for us, this coincides with the beginning of the year. It was a new beginning for Noah, and it can be for us as well. But we have to look up and look out to see what could be before us. Just like we're supposed to do when we're driving, or riding a bike, or walking even -- our outlook determines our direction. If we want to move forward in our lives we have to look up and look out, not just at our feet. We can look directly in front of us for our next step, or out further down the road, or off into the horizon. But how far we look is how far we plan to go -- and it's how our goals are determined. There are short-term goals for immediate progress, medium-range goals for progress down the road, and long-term goals for the achievements of our lives. We know God's ultimate plan for us on earth; as John 10:10 states, Jesus "came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)."(Amplified) But we have to act on that promise personally for it to have any effect for us personally.
That's where writing down our goals comes into play. Writing things down makes it real; it begins to bring things into reality. Having a goal in your head is not nearly as concrete as having it written down outside your head. Obviously there are different ways to do that, including using a vision sheet to capture your goals as habits, or focusing on addressing your goals on a quarterly basis, or writing your top goals on a daily basis to ingrain them in your mind. (Some of these ideas -- and more -- were covered in our goals discussion last year.) Dayton remind us to be specific with our goals. They need to be measurable, so you can see your progress. Abstract thoughts to do equal goals, and achieving them is much more difficult because there's no clear plan for accomplishing them. But one of the most important things is to write your goals as though you are doing them, not as though you just want or plan to do them. It goes to back to the words you're putting in your mouth -- you respond internally to "I AM" or "I DO" in ways that you don't to "I want" or "I hope".
Whew! We're off to a good start at Kynetic this year! How about a goal to keep the discussion going by posting your thoughts below?
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I think the break did us all good and I know I was looking forward to our first meeting of the year. The discussion was really good and so relevant to us as we kick off another year. I think for our age group, we're at that point where we have to decide what we want to do with our lives and then begin to set goals to work towards that. One point that was brought up is that though our long term goals may sound so far fetched and ridiculous at the moment, we can take baby steps to achieving them through short term goals.
I found this quote recently that I’ve shared with some people but want to put it here as well: “Without risk you never discover who you are – who you can be.” I know someone brought up the fact that they don’t like to set goals because if they don’t accomplish them all, they feel as if they’ve failed when in fact the opposite is true. That may give some cause to not set goals at all but if you don’t ever make an effort to move forward, you’re going to never progress and never know what you could have done if you’d only tried. I think trying and not being successful as I’d like is better than not trying at all and wondering “what if?”
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