SETTING GOALS
15 Keys to Living Your Dreams
New Life Ministries
CBN.com –
Authors Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend provide practical
steps for setting goals and achieving your dreams.
1. Success comes from following God’s laws and from
receiving His favor.
2. Although working in the ways that God has ordained does not
guarantee our “success,” if we don’t follow His
ways we most likely won’t achieve success.
3. Start with God. Trusting God with your goals means believing
that He is the source of all good things and that He can instruct
you about what is good.
4. If God is your primary goal, then you will reach your other
goals, for He will guide you in determining what they are and
reaching them.
5. To reach your goals, say “yes” to who you are and
“no” to others’ definitions and expectations of
you.
6. Sometimes it is just not God’s will that we reach a particular
goal. Yet it is not His will that you never reach any of your
goals. If that seems to be happening, the reason may be patterning.
7. See if you can relate to any of these patterns: no defined
goals; specific goals, but too unrealistic; specific goals, but
under-resourced or under-planned; external motivation or definition;
derailed by personal weaknesses; start but don’t complete
or finish; lack of discipline or structure; hit obstacles and
not able to recover; failure did you in; people did you in.
8. Identify your strengths and gifts, and operate within them.
9. Before you set out to reach your goals, sit down and figure
out what it is going to cost you in terms of money, time, sacrifices,
relationships, acquiring skills, emotion, and gaining knowledge.
10. As you count the cost, keep reality in mind. Look at your
goals in terms of reality, and let reality motivate you. (If you
don’t like what you see, you may be more willing to do whatever
it takes to change reality.) Also look hard at what will be true
if you do not pursue your goals and dreams. (Can you live with
that?)
11. Write out a plan.
12. Make little choices. Goals are reached in little steps.
13. Expect challenges and problems, and let these obstacles (fear
and other difficult feelings, conflicts with people, failure,
lack of resources, lack of abilities, discouragement, doubt, distance
from God, second-guessing, and criticism) help you grow.
14. Failure is not the worst thing that can happen to us. Wasting
our lives by not trying is.
15. Ask God to show you who you are and what you are to do –
and then trust Him to make a way.
Taken from God Will
Make a Way: Personal Discovery Guide by Drs. Henry Cloud
& John Townsend. Used by permission of New Life Ministries. New
Life Ministries has a variety of resources on men, women and relationships.
Call 1-800-NEW-LIFE or visit www.newlife.com.
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