Effective Goals for the New Year

So the New Year is soon here, and like most of you, I'm making goals for the New Year. Not resolutions, but goals. Why not resolutions? Well, because when you make resolutions and then fail, you can easily get down on yourself and give up. When you make goals, you can tell yourself in the Presence of God, "Okay, I know that I might fail from time to time with these goals, but I am going to make them anyway and strive to accomplish them."
Also, the world makes resolutions... it seems like such a worldly term. America makes resolutions every year [most of which don't revolve around God]. America makes goals and calls them resolutions, and then usually fails at accomplishing them anyway. But making effective goals for the new year [like getting closer to God, striving to be more like God, etc.] that center on God and God's Will for your life are what I think every follower of Christ should be doing. So like last year, I'm going to be making goals again for the new year. I know a lot of you are going to be making goals, too, so here's a list of questions that you can ask yourself - in God's presence - to make effective goals for 2008.

1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?
2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?
3. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?
4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?
5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?
6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?
7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?
8. What's the most important way you will, by God's grace, try to make this year different from last year?
9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?
10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?In addition to these ten questions, here are twenty-one more to help you "Consider your ways." Think on the entire list at one sitting, or answer one question each day for a month.
11. What's the most important decision you need to make this year?
12. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what's one way you could simplify in that area?
13. What's the most important need you feel burdened to meet this year?
14. What habit would you most like to establish this year?
15. Who do you most want to encourage this year?
16. What is your most important financial goal this year, and what is the most important step you can take toward achieving it?
17. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your work life this year?
18. What's one new way you could be a blessing to your pastor (or to another who ministers to you) this year?
19. What's one thing you could do this year to enrich the spiritual legacy you will leave to your children and grandchildren?
20. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most want to read this year?
21. What one thing do you most regret about last year, and what will you do about it this year?22. What single blessing from God do you want to seek most earnestly this year?
23. In what area of your life do you most need growth, and what will you do about it this year?
24. What's the most important trip you want to take this year?
25. What skill do you most want to learn or improve this year?
26. To what need or ministry will you try to give an unprecedented amount this year?
27. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your commute this year?
28. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to understand better this year, and what will you do about it?
29. If those who know you best gave you one piece of advice, what would they say? Would they be right? What will you do about it?
30. What's the most important new item you want to buy this year?
31. In what area of your life do you most need change, and what will you do about it this year?

Source: http://www.spiritualdisciplines.org/newyear.html