A New Year, a New Opportunity
As 2011 concludes, we can reflect on what might have been and on what was. As 2012 waits to greet us in a few days, we face a new year, a new opportunity. Let me point out the obvious. Success or failure starts right here. One of the ways we succeed is by setting goals. If you set low goals, your achievements will be low. If you aim high, you’ll hit high marks. The following are general goal-setting principles:
1. Consider your God-given talents.
Yes, you have God-given talents. I know a man who loved reading and writing. He didn’t get get first book published until he was 40 years old. He went on to have over 40 books published and win the Pulitzer Prize – James Michener.
2. Consider your God-given drive!
Major accomplishments and achievements do not always go to the most talented but to the one who is sure that he or she can! Remember the phrase – Think you can, thin you can’t, either way you are right. I want you to think you can and then go do try. You just might do it!
3. Consider the challenges God has placed before you.
Achieving your goals won’t be easy. They may appear as difficulties and impossibilities. Only as you face the possibilities will you learn that they really are chances to do something productive, to help you become a bigger, more well rounded, better person than ever before.
4. Begin where you are.
What is important is your mental attitude toward where you are right now. “There’s a way” you think — and you’ll realize that every difficulty is a call to some personal triumph, which is made up of two words: “try” and “umph.”
5. Consider your God-given values.
Will this bring the best out of me and benefit others? Here’s a warning and a promise: True happiness and success will come only as you live by the values that God gives and that honor Him as you live them
6. Consider the resources God has– not those He has given you, but the resources He has!
It’s been said that the true optimist is the person who plants a tree under which he will never sit or whose fruit he will never eat. Don’t try to do it on your own. Rely on God and His resources. And remember, you need to follow all six principles.
