Goals

Christ, as recorded in the gospel of Luke, teaches us an important lesson about how we come to reach our full potential as disciples: "For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish" (Luke 14:28-30). Here our Savior teaches about the importance of planning. Planning and goal-setting are innately connected. I will try and expand on the latter, getting down to the nitty-gritty of goal-setting: the why, the what, and the how.


Why Goals?

As creations of God, we seem to have a natural tendency to set goals. We want to get in shape, be an astronaut, get married in the temple. These goals come naturally with powerful motivations to accomplish that goal that we have set. What we seem to fail to do is two-fold: 1) We fail to plan ahead in order to fully grasp what needs to be done to accomplish it (like the tower that Christ spoke of) and 2) we fail to constantly focus on setting goals as the primary means of progression in this "tabernacle of clay." Elder M. Russell Ballard said, "I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don't set goals in our life and learn learn how to master the techniques of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life" (see Preach My Gospel manual, chapter 8).

Goals are the means by which we shake off little by little our shell of the natural man and woman that surrounds the godly skeleton within us. It also is a way of measuring our overall progress goal by goal. It's very difficult to measure how we're doing if our direction isn't clearly defined. That is why "mastering" the art of goal-setting, as Elder Ballard describes, is so vital to our ultimate progression in this life. In the satirical words of the late, great Yogi Berra, "If you don't know where you're going, you might end up some place else."


What Goals?

If you have served a mission, or took some time to click the above link and read through chapter 8 of the missionary manual, Preach My Gospel, you know that a major part of full-time missionary work in Christ's modern Church is goal-oriented. Every week, missionaries hold a weekly planning session, where they set goals to push themselves to maximize their efforts in sharing the gospel and having their investigators progress toward accepting the covenant of baptism. Every day, missionaries set goals in the same areas, and try to ultimately reach those weekly goals through continued daily effort. Though there was not a single week in my mission that I met all of the goals I set, the principles of the goal-setting have made a huge impact on how I go about trying to improve myself, and these have spilled over into my post-mission life. The difference, however, between mission goals and life goals is that most of the mission goals were given to us; they were called our "Key Indicators," and they were even nicely printed into our daily planners with a box for the goal and one for the result. But life is so topsy-turvy; how are we supposed to know what goals to set? I suggest a few simple steps.


1) Ponder. The late Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin said, "Pondering, which means to weigh mentally, to deliberate, to meditate, can achieve the opening of the spiritual eyes of one's understanding....To soundly plant good in our heart requires prolonged, intense, unremitting pondering. It is a deep, ongoing, regenerating process which refines the soul." The pondering that you must do is to ponder who you are, where you're at, and where you'd like to be. It would be helpful to watch (or re-watch) President Nelson's devotional from earlier this year to learn how to do that.

2) Pray. Once you have begun to understand who you are and who you'd like to become, you can begin to get a sense of what will be required of you. What praying does is shows our Heavenly Father that we are willing to follow this course of personal betterment. It is your first true act of faith in the matter. You must pray and ask what you can do to "be anxiously engaged" in the cause of your own progress.

3) Get your goals on paper. Write down where you'd like to end up with your progress, and brainstorm ways to do that. As you write them down (on paper or on your computer) the Spirit will reveal specific ways in which you can begin your road to progress.

4) Commit. You can learn nothing nor will you progress in any real degree unless you fully commit to your goals.

5) Pray again. Bring your goals to the Lord and enlist His aid in your having the strength and diligence to stick to your goals. As Nephi taught, "Ye must not perform anything unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul" (2 Nephi 32:9).

How Goals

While it's good and fine to follow those steps and have that disposition to improve, one of our great failures regarding goals is not really planning ahead. I can set a goal to lose weight, but if I don't stop to plan out what I must remove from my diet or add to my physical activity, there's very little chance that I will do it. On my mission my companion created this visual to help the missionaries under his stewardship to understand the importance of setting sub-goals to our ultimate goals.
Setting goals is much like walking up stairs. For most of us, this activity is now like second nature. But think about walking up an particularly unknown set of stairs you are climbing for the first time. If you're focused on the destination at the top of the stairs, you run the risk of miscalculating your next step, tripping, and falling before you reach that goal. The principle is the same with goal-setting, especially when we are trying to change something very important in our lives. We need to set sub-goals that will lead us to the "big goal." The visual notes, "Every [individual] step is a goal. The progress can be daily, weekly, or during the course of our lives, but if we don’t set goals in how we are going to meet the goal, we won’t get there." As you follow the steps in the section above, remember this: some greater goals require sub-goals. If we humbly enlist the Lord in the planning process, we will know how we can best succeed.


Stopping to re-examine the scripture from Luke, it is important to note the following. With our goals and our planning of them, it is extremely uncommon that somebody mocks us when we come short of our goals and our plans. But certain feelings can come upon us: guilt, sadness, disappointment, etc. This, however, is really only the case if we fail to plan. If we plan out specific ways in which to complete the goal, if we fail, we will be left with a clear understanding of what went wrong. We can then correct the problem and move on with confidence. On the other hand, if (and when) we succeed, we will also have the satisfaction that we didn't do so "by accident." We did so because of our diligence and the Lord's grace. We will then be on a beautiful road to a far-better us.