On November 1, I made a goal to write for 30 minutes every day during the month of November. It is now December 1 and my writing challenge is over.

Here’s a recap:

30 days in November
18 days of writing 30+ minutes

This means that there were 12 days when I didn’t write at all.
Did I reach my goal? No; I got a little over 50%. But I wrote more than I would have if I had never made the goal.

I think the reason some people don’t like goals is that they don’t know what to do when they don’t reach them. It feels really good when you reach a goal, doesn’t it? So potentially, it could be really discouraging if you fall short of your goals.

But maybe we should change the way we evaluate our success. A missed goal is just that: a missed goal. It doesn’t mean you are a terrible person. Maybe it just means you made a wrong goal. Maybe it was a fantastic goal, but the wrong season for it. Or maybe it means you stopped pursuing your goal so you could reach out to someone else and help them.

Does this sound like a justification for why I didn’t write for 30 minutes every day in November? Maybe so. But it’s more than that.

Goals for the New Year

The new year is coming up, and with it, a lot of people will be talking about goals. Can I encourage you to think carefully and prayerfully about your life? Think through the last year: your actions, habits, ways you grew, relationships you developed, how you changed. Think through things the Lord taught you. Then take time to think about the new year. How does God want you to change? What might he want you to pursue?

And then, prayerfully make a goal. Ask someone else to pray with you about it. You could start with just a monthly goal and re-evaluate as needed. Maybe you’ll make a goal to pray for 15 minutes every day in December and only do it 20 out of 30 days. Guess what? You still did it for 20. And now it will be easier to do it for 21 days the next month.

Don’t look at a missed goal as a reason to not make goals. Instead, learn from it, be grateful for the ways God used it to change you, and continue to make goals that will encourage you to honor God with the life he’s given you.

“One thing I do:
forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”
(Philippians 3:13-14).