Sunday School Lesson 27

LIFE SKILLS: GOAL SETTING

MEMORY VERSE:  “The plans of the diligent lead surely to plenty, But those of everyone who is hasty, surely to poverty”. — Proverbs 21:5 (NKJV)

BIBLE PASSAGE: Genesis 41:33-38

INTRODUCTION: Many people go through the journey of life aimlessly without a roadmap to help them navigate life (1Corinthians 9:26). Some others think that goal-setting is unspiritual because they believe that “people should wait for God to lead them. It is true that God neither wants us to forge ahead in pride without consulting Him for direction (James 4:13-15) nor does He want us to sit around without acting (Genesis 11:3). Consulting with God and setting goals show that you trust Him and believe that He is able to lead you while you are moving forward (Proverbs 16:9; Psalm 20:4).

LESSON OUTLINES

1. PRINCIPLES AND AREAS OF GOAL SETTING
2. STEPS AND ADVANTAGES TO GOAL SETTING

1. PRINCIPLES AND AREAS OF GOAL SETTING

A goal is a desirable outcome that someone carefully decides on, commits to, and plans to attain while, goal-setting is the process of deciding what you want to accomplish and devising a plan to achieve those desired results.

A useful way of actualising goals is to adopt the SMART acronym. While there are plenty of variants, SMART usually stands for:
S – Specific (Habakkuk 2:2-3).
M- Measurable (Luke 14:28).
A – Attainable (Proverbs 16:3).
R – Realistic (Proverbs 21:5).
•T – Time-bound (Ecclesiastes 3:17b).

Hence, your goals must be specific, measurable, attainable, and realistic and
time-bound as these aid the actualisation (Luke 14:28-30).

Areas where we can set goals include:

1. Career: Decide what level you want to reach in your career or what you want to achieve. (Proverbs 11:23; 23:18).

2. Financial: Set a goal on how much you want to earn. (Proverbs 21:5).

3. Education: Set academic goals in line with your career (Proverbs 2:3)

4. Family: What kind of relationship/partner do you want? What number of children do you want? How do you want to be seen by a partner or in-laws to be? (Proverbs 18:24; 2Corinthians 6:14).

5. Attitude: Do you have character defects or anything in your mindset holding you back? If so, set a goal to improve your behaviour or find a solution to the problem. (Matthew. 7:17-20).

6. Physical: Are there any physical fitness goals that you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this? (1Timothy 4:8a)

7. Pleasure: How do you want to enjoy yourself after you have worked? What plans do you have for vacation? You should ensure that some of your life is for you (Ecclesiastes 5:18).

8. Public Service: Do you want to make the world a better place? If so, how? (Matthew 5:14)

2. STEPS AND ADVANTAGES TO GOAL SETTING

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime or at least, by a significant and distant age in the future (Proverbs 16:9). As you do this, make sure that the goals that you have set are the ones that you genuinely want to achieve, not the ones that your parents, family, or employers might want (Proverbs 16:3). If you have a partner, you probably want to consider what he or she wants. However, make sure that you also remain true to yourself (Mark 12:31). Once you have set your lifetime goals, set a periodic plan. For example, a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan. Then create a one-year plan, six-month plan, and a one-month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals (Psalm 37:23). Each of these should be based on the previous plan. Then create a daily ‘to-do list’ of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals (Ecclesiastes 3:1). At an early stage, your smaller goals might be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your higher level goals. This will help you to improve the quality and the realism of your goal setting.

Finally, review your plans, commit them into God’s hand and make sure that they fit into God’s purpose and will for your life (Proverbs 3:5-6; 19:21).

A guiding example of personal goals could appear in this form:

Christianah has decided to think about what she really wants to do with her life. Her lifetime goals are as follows:

1. Career – “To be Managing Editor of the magazine that I work for.”

2. Artistic – “To keep working on my illustration skills. Ultimately, I want to have my own show in our downtown gallery.”

3. Physical -“To run a marathon.”

Now that Christianah has listed her lifetime goals, she then breaks down each one into smaller and more manageable goals.

Let us take a closer look at how she might break down her lifetime career goal:-

becoming Managing Editor of her magazine:

1. Five-year goal: “Become Deputy Editor.”
2. One-year goal: “Volunteer for projects that the current Managing Editors heading up.
3. Six-month goal: Get professionally certified.
4. One-month goal: “Talk to the current Managing Editor to determine what skills are needed to do the job.”
5. One-week goal: “Book the meeting with the Managing Editor.”

As you can see from this example, breaking big goals down into smaller and more manageable goals makes it far easier to see how the goal will get accomplished.

CONCLUSION: In order to fulfill destiny, set meaningful and achievable goals. Avoid navigating aimlessly in the corridor of life.

QUESTIONS:

  1. In setting goals, what does the acronym ‘SMART’ represent?
    2. What are the crucial steps to be taking in setting goals?

FURTHER READING:

Monday: Ps. 16:8

Tuesday: Prov.4:18

Wednesday: Eccl. 7:8

Thursday: Rom 12:2

Friday: Acts 20:24.

Saturday: Phil 3:14

Sunday: Hab. 2:2-3

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