Tuesday, January 24, 2012
“BHAG”
Big Hairy Audacious Goals
“Setting goals is a practical way of dreaming big. Goals are well defined dreams that are measureable. Getting in shape is not a goal; It’s a wish. Running a 1/2 marathon, however, is a goal because you know you have accomplished it when you cross the finish line.”
“Goals are dreams with deadlines. And these deadlines, especially if your personality is like mine, are really lifelines. Without a deadline, I would never accomplish anything because I am both a procrastinator and a perfectionist. And that is why so many dreams go unaccomplished. If you don’t give your dreams a deadline, it will be dead before you know it. Deadlines keep dreams alive. Deadlines bring dreams back to life.”
“Nothing honors God more than a big dream that is way beyond our ability to accomplish. Why? Because there is no way we can take credit for it. And there is nothing better for our spiritual development than a big dream because it keeps us on our knees in raw dependence on God.”
“In 1995, Alvaro Pascual-Leone did a study validating the importance of visualization. Researchers came to the conclusion: imagined movements trigger synaptic changes at the cortical level. When you dream, your mind forms a mental image that becomes both a picture of and a map to your destiny. That picture of the future is one dimension of faith, and the way you frame it by circling it in prayer.”
“In 1992, a Canadian swimmer named Mark Tewksbury won the gold medal in the 200-meter backstroke at the Barcelona Olympics. When he stepped on the gold medal stand, it wasn’t the first time he had done so. He stood on the gold medal stand the night before the race and imagined it before it happened. He visualized every detail of the race in his mind’s eye, including his come from behind victory by a fingertip.”
It is time to set your Big Hairy Audacious Goals for 2012 and beyond.
Ten steps to Goal setting
1. Start with Prayer; if you set goals in the context of prayer, there is a much higher likelihood that your goals will glorify God, and if they don’t glorify God then they aren’t worth setting in the 1st place.
2. Check your motives:: You need to take a long hard look in the mirror and make sure you’re going after your goals for the right reasons
3. Think in categories: Start with Spiritual, Academic, Soccer and Personal.
4. Be specific: If a goal isn’t measureable, we have no way of knowing whether we’ve accomplished it.
5. Write it down: “ The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.”
6. Include others: Nothing cements a relationship like a shared goal. Goals are relational glue. And God set the standard with the Great Commission. If you want to grow closer to God, go after God-sized goals
7. Celebrate along the way: When you accomplish a goal-celebrate it.
8. Dream Big: Include goals that are big and small– long term and short term. Make sure you have a few BHAGs.
9. Think long: Most of us overestimate what we can accomplish in two years, but we underestimate what we can accomplish in 10 years. If you want to dream big, you need to think long.
10. Pray hard: Goal setting begins and ends with prayer. God-ordained goals are conceived in the context of prayer, and prayer is what brings them to full term.
Mark Batterson-The Circle Maker
