Life and Year Planning

Last week I spent four days with virtually no TV, food, people, phone, internet. I mostly spent the four days reviewing, praying, thinking, and planning. In my post yesterday I told you I want to avoid living the same year, year-after-year. And this is part of the way I try to prevent that.

I take a few alone days at the end of a year or at the beginning of the next year to look back. I evaluate various facets of my life: Spiritual, Emotional, Relational, Physical, Financial, Ministry. I compare where I’m at to the goals I’ve established for my life in each of those areas. And I pray through the steps I need to take to get from here to there.

For instance, one of the obvious issues I had when I did this at the beginning of 2011 was that I was woefully out-of-shape physically. So I set a goal of losing 35 pounds in 2011. Unfortunately, I didn’t reach my goal. But I did lose about 25 pounds. Not what I wanted, but I’m 25 pounds closer to where I want to be than where I was. And why? Because I spent time evaluating and challenging myself and creating steps to move towards my goal.

Maybe you need to do this too? When could you carve out at least a few hours (if not a day or two) to create some life goals, and to take a long honest look at your life and evaluate how you’re doing in comparison with how you want to be doing? Getting into the regular habit of doing this will change your life.