Tag Archives: results

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7 Reasons Your Eternal Goals Are Short Sighted, Part 2

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[This is the third post in a series about setting goals that have an underlying eternal purpose.]

In the first post, I explained eternal goals – what they are and why they are important. In my last post, we began looking at the 7 reasons why most people neglect to set eternal goals. We used one of my personal goals for 2015 to illustrate these reasons.

eternal goals 2

Today, I want to jump right in and go through the rest of the 7 reasons. Let’s do it!

Reason #4 – I Can’t Know For Sure If I Have Hit Them

A critical part of an effective goal-setting process is having a very clear way to know when you have achieved the goals. When you first start talking about eternal goals and the results you want, it does seem like it would be impossible to know if you have achieved them or not.

That is another reason for us to base our eternal goals on activities that we believe will best LEAD to the eternal results. We must trust God for the actual eternal results, but we can certainly do what is within our control to give us the best odds at eternal impact.

Using my example of wanting to impact more people for eternity through my blog, the measurement I chose was email subscriber count. Like I said before, it is not perfect. However, it is measurable and I can know if I hit the goal. I have to rely on God to turn that count into eternal impact.

Reason #5 – These Goals Cause Abnormal Behavior!

This is a tough one. It is tough because it is true. Seeking to set and achieve eternal goals will absolutely drive you toward behaviors that are not common or normal in today’s culture.

At the same time, Jesus called us to be salt and light. We are going to stand out from the crowd if we follow His calling. The sooner we get comfortable with this idea, the greater the impact we will have!

Reason #6 – Eternal Goals Conflict With My Current Goals

Much like Reason #5, this is also potentially true. Many people set goals to save a certain amount of money by the end of the year. Or maybe their goal is to buy a new house. These goals are not bad in and of themselves.

Unfortunately, there CAN be conflict when we begin to think about giving and other similar ways to achieve eternal impact. For me, I have a goal for our family to give a certain percentage of our income to faith-based efforts. The money we want to give could make other large ticket purchases difficult or impossible.

Conflict like this is best resolved by seeking godly advice and counsel from accountability partners and trusted advisers as well as prayer and study of the Bible. This conflict is greatly reduced when your goal-setting process begins with prayer and includes an eternal perspective from the start.

Reason #7 – I Cannot Fully Control The Results

For those of us who are “Type-A” personalities, this can be one of the toughest reasons to overcome. We want our goals to be based on our own performance. We do not want to rely on someone else to help us hit our goals.

Maybe that mindset works in individual sports, but it absolutely will not work when it comes to spiritual matters – even goal setting. We are designed by God to need Him. We are incomplete and cannot achieve anything meaningful or of lasting value without Him. We must accept this and set our goals accordingly.

While I cannot control the eternal impact He creates with my writing, I CAN control the activities that LEAD to that impact. I set my goals based on controllable activities and leave the rest to Him. I am usually surprised at the results!

Summary

Like I said earlier, most people have never set eternal goals. After going through the most common reasons for this and explaining how to set these goals, I hope you are more comfortable with attempting it going forward.

I have also given you this advice before: start small and feel free to contact me with questions! Try this with one goal and see how it goes. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the results!

Have you started with an eternal goal yet?

What is holding you back from jumping in?

Who are you getting to hold you accountable?

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Are You Too Focused On The Results?

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Business people count things. It is what we do! If you are like me, you often find yourself counting various processes or results in your business and your life. Of course, once you count whatever it is, you must then compare that count with something or someone else to determine if you are doing a good job or not. It is in our nature to do this and most of us do it quite often. However, there is a problem with doing this.

results

Results Are Critical

Now, before you even think about taking this to the extreme, please relax! I am not going to tell you to stop counting and measuring activities or results in your business. A significant part of being successful in business is establishing processes and goals and then measuring your progress to those goals.

I am not going to tell you there is anything inherently wrong with measuring results. That is not my point at all.

Watching Results Can Be Trouble

My point is really to shed light on some of the potential dangers of watching these results. While there is nothing wrong with the idea of measuring results, there are some pitfalls that you need to keep in mind. Once I go through the short list of these pitfalls, I think you will understand what I am saying and agree.

1. When you’re checking the results, you’re not watching what you’re doing!

    Take driving for example. Imagine you are driving on the interstate, but you are too focused on your dashboard computer as it tells you your rolling average fuel economy. Obviously, this behavior can have fatal consequences! In this case, it would be fine for you to check your mileage every time you fill up the tank or stop for food.

    We can do the same thing in our businesses. When we establish goals in a certain area, we need to measure and track the results on a regular basis. However, if we are constantly watching these results, we may miss something important! We need to set specific intervals for checking our results and resist the temptation to look more often.

2. You may find yourself well ahead of the goal and relax.

    One of my favorite scenes in the movie Facing The Giants was the death crawl scene (watch here).In this scene, the coach challenged one of the football players to crawl on all fours with another player riding on his back. The challenge was to get from the end zone to the fifty yard line. The catch was that the player was to do it blind-folded so he could not see his progress.

    Evidently the fifty-yard challenge was a stretch because the player thought he could never make it. The other players looked cynical as well. The result? The player, by giving his absolute best and ignoring the progress, ended up in the far end zone – a full 100 yards away! It was an amazing scene – proof that ignoring the progress and pressing on can produce greater-than-expected results!

    The blindfold was the key. If we can “blindfold” our teams every once in a while and challenge them to give their best without checking the results, I think we all would be surprised at what could be accomplished!

3. You may begin to believe that you are the reason for the results.

    Take a look at King David in 1 Chronicles 21. At the prompting of Satan, King David decided he wanted a census of the fighting men of Israel and Judah. The commander of the army, Joab, questioned David. He argued that God could multiply the size of the army to whatever number He needed – why the need to count? But David persisted and the census was taken.

    As a result, God punished Israel. Evidently David was beginning to feel some pride in his position and wanted to boast of the strength of the army. Rather than giving sole credit to God for the increase and the might of the army, David appeared to be looking for some credit of his own.

    If we allow ourselves to get too caught up in “counting” in our businesses or lives, pride is likely to creep in and separate us from dependence on God. Not all counting falls into this category, but you do need to be aware of the danger!

4. Your timeframe may be off.

    A watched pot never boils. Sometimes God gives us a picture of something He wants us to strive toward. Sometimes He does this without showing us WHEN that picture will come to fruition. If we continually watch the progress towards that picture, counting the results before the right time, we may be tempted to give up or get frustrated.

    God gave Joseph a clear picture, actually two, of his brothers bowing down to him. The problem was that God did not tell him when it would happen! As you can read in Genesis 37-45, it took over 20 years for the dream to come true. During the interim, Joseph was sold into slavery, accused of attempted rape, and confined to prison for many years.

    We can assume there were times when Joseph questioned God about the timing, but he remained faithful to trust God. Rather than constantly checking our results against the picture God has given us, we need to follow Joseph’s example!

Trust God

See, sometimes we can spend too much time checking our results. We can also check these results too often and at the wrong intervals. When we get to the point where we are too focused on watching our results, or the progress to these results, a lot of problems can arise. Instead, let’s learn to work our hardest and then put our trust in God and His faithfulness. The right results will come in His time.

Do you fall into this trap at times?

How do you get out of it? How do you avoid it the next time?

Do you see other pitfalls I have left out?

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Unrealistic Expectations: “You’re Just Not That Good!”

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You know how you can learn big ideas in the most mundane situations? If you pay close attention to life around you, you can usually pick up on truths that God is dying to share with you. It happened to me once when I was playing golf with a business associate, John, several years ago. It had to do with expectations.

Golf Frustration

expectations

John was telling me of another time he was playing golf with a friend of his. John had not been playing as well as he would have liked and his behavior was showing it! After several bad shots, John slung himself back into the cart with clear frustration. Bill finally spoke up.

“John,” Bill said with a pause, “You’re just not that good!”

John was stunned, he tells me later. But then it hit him what Bill was saying. See, Bill was trying to help John recognize that going to the golf course once a week did not give him the right to get upset over not-so-great shots. Bill knew it would take much more work and dedication than John had given so far before he could rightfully get upset at his less-than-stellar results.

Expectations vs. Commitment

John wanted to see exceptional results from less-than-exceptional commitment. Like many of us, his expectations were unreasonable when he considered what he had put into the game.

Now, how do we apply this at work and with our faith?

Simply put, we need to match our expectations with our commitments.

You could start with your expectations and let them lead you to the commitments you need to make. Or you could begin with your commitment levels and then determine reasonable expectations from them. You could even use one method for certain areas of your life and then switch to the other method for the rest.

It really is not important which one you use first. The key is to make sure they match. High commitment levels and low expectations will likely cause you to fall short of your potential. High expectations and low commitment levels will probably create frustration as it did with John.

LIFE Planning

Soon, I will be sharing with you the methods I use to determine my expectations and commitments during my own personal LIFE planning each year. My intent is not to show you the only way to do so, but simply the way I choose to do it.

If you already have your own plan, I hope you can find something worth adding to your own method. If you have never done this before, I want to give you some ideas that can get you started. Either way, I strongly encourage you to take time to plan your year.

If you do not fill your schedule with your own priorities, other people will fill it in with their own!

Are your expectations reasonable in light of your commitment levels?

Where do you need to change your commitment or expectations?

What can be your next action step toward making this happen?

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Accountability – Step 5 In A Strategic Ministry Plan

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This is the final post in a series of posts on creating a Strategic Plan for Ministry in your business. At this point, you should have a mission statement with an eternal perspective. You should have a well-defined mission field as well as a set of action plans for ministry activities that will help you to impact that mission field. Now you need to lay out the accountability processes to ensure your action plans are executed and achieve the results you desire.

Accountability

Accountability Reporting Example

Let’s take a look at an example to illustrate my point. An easy example for our company is the CCA chaplain program (Corporate Chaplains of America). We have a chaplain assigned to our company as a benefit to the employees. By permission, this chaplain speaks to each of our employees face-to-face at least once per week.

He is on call 24/7 and 365. He will meet with employees after hours for extended care sessions in person or over the phone, according to their preference. He performs funerals, weddings, and hospital visits. He prays for the company and every employee on a regular basis.

On an ongoing basis, I need to know whether this program is achieving the results I expect from it. Fortunately, CCA provides their own reporting process as part of the program. They send me a report via email at the end of each month that details the activities of the chaplain. A report like this makes it easy for me to determine whether the program is working or not.

Here is an example of their report:

accountability

Your Accountability Reporting

Your reporting may look very different. It may not be as formal or it may be more so. The format is not important. The accountability is. While each ministry activity will likely present its own measurement challenges, try to make sure there is some ability to track and measure the activities and the results (if possible).

You should have some sort of reporting for every ministry activity on your action plan. If you cannot measure it in some way, then you need to decide whether it is worth doing or not. This is not to say that you are not to do anything that you cannot measure – there are certainly exceptions. It is more about making sure that there is accountability built in to every part of your plan.

Too often, companies come up with a great idea, begin a process or initiative, and never build in accountability. Without a clue as to whether it is effective or not, they forget about it until something goes wrong or someone leaves. This is simply not being a good steward of your resources.

Measuring Ministry?

There are a couple of challenges I will note about measuring ministry. First of all, we are not able to save anyone. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. While we may count the number of times someone turns their life over to Christ during one of our activities, we certainly cannot take credit for that. We are simply celebrating!

Second, we cannot truly know the condition of any individual’s heart or whether that condition has improved in a measurable way. To attempt to measure life change or improvement is not something I recommend. I think you get it, but measuring ministry is very difficult.

As a result of these challenges, we will most often revert to simply measuring our activities in ministry. As an example, look at the chaplain’s report. We do not attempt to measure the effectiveness of the chaplain’s prayer for our company and individual employees. We simply measure the number of times he prayed. We do not attempt to measure whether his care sessions had the intended effect. We can only count the times he had them.

I think you get the idea. When dealing with the heart and spiritual matters, measuring is difficult. At the same time, we cannot just leave our efforts to chance! Therefore we do our best to discern the right activities, maintain our focus on the right purpose, and then measure our efforts. We leave the results to God.

Do you currently have any sort of ministry results reporting?

If so, do you review it as often and with the same intensity as you review your financial reporting?

I won’t ask a third question…that last one hurt too much!