Do You Set Goals?
Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.
1 Corinthians 16:13
I can’t believe that I have been writing these devotionals for over 3 years now.
How crazy is that?
Over the last 3 years, we have gotten to know each other pretty darn well. The God First Family is something that I treasure.
You might not know this, but God First was created from one of my goals. About 4 years ago I was called to make a goal to start a Christian-based nonprofit.
I wasn’t sure what its mission would be. But I knew that we needed to create it.
So, we did.
We set the goal just after the first of the year.
You see personally I am a HUGE fan of setting BIG, SCARY, HAIRY, AUDACIOUS goals. I love setting goals that when you think about them make your stomach move up into your throat.
You know what I’m talking about.
When you tell someone else about your goal they look at you like a dog looks at a high-pitched squeal. They don’t think that you will ever accomplish it, no matter how long you give yourself.
How about you? Do you ever set goals for yourself personally or professionally?
The other day a buddy stopped by the house, and we were chatting about life. He was telling me about how he wasn’t really feeling motivated to do anything and that he didn’t feel fulfilled. He felt like he was just living paycheck to paycheck.
As we chatted I could see that it was really bothering him that I was extremely driven and had HUGE goals, but he didn’t have the drive he wanted.
So, I asked him, Hey bud, what are you working towards right now?
He answered, Not really anything. I have a house, a wife, kids, a GREAT job that I like, and a reliable car. My life is pretty good.
Pretty good? Why not GREAT?
Well Dan, the truth is that I just don’t have any drive right now. To be honest, you kind of aggravate me. You have so MUCH drive and I don’t feel like I have any.
What do you say to that???
He asked what gives me my drive.
Then I told him that I get my drive from setting goals that are HUGE STRETCH goals. Like more than tripling the size of our business over the next year. Building a HUGE convention center that is shaped like a truck. Serving 100,000 clients a year. Getting my pilot’s license.
You know, just small little goals.
Then I said, maybe you need a goal or two to go towards.
We worked together and I helped him to set a few goals.
As we continued chatting he asked me, how do you keep chasing your goals when they are soooooooo big?
Well bud, I know that as long as I am doing them for God and with God in my heart that there is no chance that I will ever fail. I know that it won’t be easy, but I also know that he wants me to succeed. He needs me to get back up when I hit a wall. He needs me to have faith that I can achieve them!
By the end of our little chat, he was a completely new guy. He got that light back in his eyes and held his head up higher as he left the house.
My question for you is, do you currently have any goals that you are working towards?
If not, then I highly recommend that you set a few goals for yourself.
Take Action
Today I would like to highly encourage you to re-evaluate your current goals.
A lot of times when we set goals that take a long time to reach, we need to reevaluate them every so often.
Personally, I reevaluate my BIG goals every quarter.
If you don’t currently have any goals set in your life. Then I would highly recommend that you set a few goals.
Don’t start with HUGE goals if it’s been a while since you have set any goals.
The reason I say this is because a lot of us get paralyzed by analyzation. What that means is that we freeze up when we think about what we need to do to get to the endpoint.
My suggestion is to set that huge goal, then break it down into smaller steps you can take to accomplish your HUGE goal.
Prayer
Lord, today we come to you with hearts that are full of love and joy for everything that you have given unto us. We are so grateful for the gifts that you have given us.
We are grateful for the ability to achieve anything we put our minds to. We are grateful for the people that you have placed in our lives. We are grateful for this amazing world that you have built.
God if we could ask for one thing it would be that you give us the drive, energy, and faith to set HUGE goals that benefit you. Not only to set those huge goals but also to achieve those goals.
Lord, we ask all these things in your precious son’s name.
Amen
A Little More
If you know me you know that I LOVE goals.
Especially goals that scare me. I feel that if the goals don’t give me mild to major discomfort then it’s not big enough.
Jenna loves my HUGE goals. Sometimes she laughs at me when we start talking about what we are going to accomplish.
The thing with her is that she is always 1000% behind me. Which is just one of the reasons I love her.
Looking back over my entire life I have always set pretty darn big goals.
When I was in high school there was a time when I wanted to enlist in the army and learn to fly helicopters. Not exactly a small goal.
But that wasn’t it. After I finished my enlistment I was going to come out and get a job flying a chopper for fires. But not just any chopper I wanted to fly one of those heavy lift birds that sucks water out of ponds and then dumps it on fires.
Well, all of those plans went awry when I met Jenna and fell in love.
so.
I changed my goals.
My new big goal was to get married and start a family.
Then it was to build a house. But not just have a house built for us. I wanted to build it myself.
Most people would have looked at that goal and said, I don’t know where to start.
NOT ME!!!!!
I had never designed a house, framed a wall, poured concrete, or even hung a door before in my life when we started building our house. But I did not let that stop me either. I simply asked questions and learned from anyone who was willing to give me advice.
I am proud to say that with the help of TONS of people (way too many to name here, lol) we were able to get the house built in just over a year.
Then I decided that I wanted to become a CDL tester and provide a service to our community that was much needed.
So, I started that uphill battle. Anything you do with the government is an UPHILL battle!!!! I hit so many walls working towards that goal. But I never gave up.
It took me over 1 and half years just to get the state to accept my application to become a CDL tester. Then I had to figure out how to get to Denver for a week of training. Luckily I have parents that have always supported my craziness. They loaned us the money so that I could get up there.
After achieving that goal, I set my next goal!
And then another one. And then another one.
Then I came up with the wild idea that I wanted to start a business. There were lots of people that I talked to that reminded me that 95% of all businesses fail in the first year!
Then I had even more people tell me that 98% of the businesses that make it past year one fail before year 5.
Then I had even MORE people tell me that 99% of the businesses that make it past 5 years fail before year 10!
That meant that if I wanted to succeed in business I had a 1 in 921,690 chance of making it to 10 years of being in business. That’s not GREAT odds.
But guess what. We have made it past year 1 and last year in April we passed year 5! To top it off we show no signs of slowing down!
How wicked cool is that?????
What I think has helped us to be so successful is the fact that we set scary goals that stretch us further than we could have ever imagined.
I’m going to be like Babe Ruth and call my shot! My next HUGE goal is to have 1 million followers across all of my social media channels!
As of right now, we are sitting just above 20,000! That’s a great start, but we still have a long way to go to get to 1 million!
So I better stop typing and start making my plan of attack to get there!
Until next time.
Dan Greer
