Reaching Your Goals and Living Your Dreams

[Forum Administrator]

15 Keys to Reaching Your Goals and Living Your Dreams
From the book "God Will Make a Way: Personal Discovery Guide" by Henry Cloud & John Townsend

1. Success comes from following God's laws and from receiving his favor.

2. Although working in the ways that God has ordained does not guarantee our "success," if we don't follow his ways we most likely won't achieve success.

3. Start with God. Trusting God with your goals means believing that he is the source of all good things and that he can instruct you about what is good.

4. If God is your primary goal, then you will reach your other goals, for he will guide you in determining what they are and reaching them.

5. To reach your goals, say "yes" to who you are and "no" to others' definitions and expectations of you.

6. Sometimes it is just not God's will that we reach a particular goal. Yet it is not his will that you never reach any of your goals. If that seems to be happening, the reason may be patterning.

7. See if you can relate to any of these patterns: no defined goals; specific goals, but too unrealistic; specific goals, but under-resourced or under-planned; external motivation or definition; derailed by personal weaknesses; start but don't complete or finish; lack of discipline or structure; hit obstacles and not able to recover; failure did you in; people did you in.

8. Identify your strengths and gifts, and operate within them.

9. Before you set out to reach your goals, sit down and figure out what it is going to cost you in terms of money, time, sacrifices, relationships, acquiring skills, emotion, and gaining knowledge.

10. As you count the cost, keep reality in mind. Look at your goals in terms of reality, and let reality motivate you. (If you don't like what you see, you may be more willing to do whatever it takes to change reality.) Also look hard at what will be true if you do not pursue your goals and dreams. (Can you live with that?)

11. Write out a plan.

12. Make little choices. Goals are reached in little steps.

13. Expect challenges and problems, and let these obstacles (fear and other difficult feelings, conflicts with people, failure, lack of resources, lack of abilities, discouragement, doubt, distance from God, second-guessing, and criticism) help you grow.

14. Failure is not the worst thing that can happen to us. Wasting our lives by not trying is.

15. Ask God to show you who you are and what you are to do - and then trust him to make a way.