I'll admit it. I'm one of those borderline A-types who is an avid list maker and goal-setter. Every year, every so many months, I prayerfully write down what I want to see happen in the next season of life--career, family, personal, or spiritual, depending on where I sense I need more focus and growth. But in all honesty, that's about where I stop. I don't take the highly recommended next step of routinely looking back at my goals to see what's been accomplished, except maybe once a year, and sometimes less frequently than that. Once I finish writing it, I feel a sense of freedom and I move on.
But you know what's amazing? Many of the things I write down usually still come to pass, even though I don't systematically go back and check on them.
I think the primary point of power in the practice of goal-setting is just writing them down, setting them free in your world to find their place, settle down, germinate, and take root. Somehow when I write things down, they become part of my consciousness; and somehow my hope, actions, speech, and expectations align with what was written.
How does it happen? I have no idea. Maybe it has some similar relation to how we commit things to memory. Writing things down as we say them, hear them, or play them back in our minds somehow embeds them in our memory. I don't know how this happens, but when I look back and see I "unconsciously" accomplished the goal, I am completely amazed.
I believe God knew what He was talking about when He said, "Write the vision and make it plain on tablets [I take this to mean iPads, Galaxies, Kindle Fires, and the like], that he may run who reads it" (Habakkuk 2:2). Whatever God says, I believe, has supernatural power to bring some very interesting results in our lives (so it says in Isaiah 55:11).
And, by the way, He really didn't say anything about coming back and checking on it to make sure it's happening. I think He wants us to trust Him with that. We can get in the way of ourselves sometimes, trying to overmanipulate results.
If we can just be faithful in obedience, He will do the rest.
So tell me: have you harnessed the supernatural power of your pen to prayerfully and effectively written down the plans and goals for the dreams churning in your heart? If you haven't and are still waiting to see things happen in your life, I challenge you to do it and then don't look back until you feel in your heart it's time. You will be surprised at how you've progressed.
If you do write down your goals and plans, when's the last time you looked back to see what's been accomplished? I challenge you to look back, not on last year's goals, but maybe the goals from two, five, or even ten years ago and see how far you've come. And you know what? It may only be in one area that you see progress. But I guarantee, it's more progress than you would have made if you hadn't written anything at all.
Do you agree that things happen differently in your life when you write your plans or goals down? What have the results been? Did you follow the recommended path of routinely monitoring your progress? Or did you write it and forget it? If you don't write things down, do you think that you would accomplish more if you did?
Let me know. I am still learning.