Setting Your

Do you wake up each day filled with passion about what you will do with your day? Are you completely dedicated to something that requires you to use all that you are? When you attempt to describe your future, are the words vision, meaning and purpose part of the description? Are joy, enthusiasm and inspiration your frequent companions? These questions help in setting your life goals.

Sadly, most people cannot answer ‘yes’ to all four of the questions above. However, most people would like to be able to say, ‘yes’ but do not know exactly what to do to make that a reality in their lives.

If you have never set any life goals and you don’t have the life you that you want, then it may be because you are too much like I used to be. I created expectations that were far below what was achievable and then made them come true. I almost lost one of the most fantastic opportunities of my life because of my ‘small’ picture of what I thought I deserved.

It was 1972 and I was completing my second year as Associate Pastor of a small church in Massachusetts, USA. A church member, who was my friend and mentor, approached me with a question: ‘Would you like to do counseling and consulting full time?’. I said ‘no’ and that was that.

When I told my wife, she became very agitated saying, ‘You’re an idiot! Of course, you want to do counseling and consulting full time. That is all you dream about. You love it. Why did you say ‘no’ to him?’

Upon reflection, I had to admit that my wife was right, so I spent the next two weeks engaged in an intense inner search for the reasons behind my denial. I discovered that I did in fact have a dream of being a counselor/consultant, but I also had some extremely self-limiting attitudes that blocked the path to the realization of that dream. I felt undeserving and I could not see how I could overcome the obstacles that seemed to block my way. In addition, I had fears about my ability to do well in the profession that I dreamed about. Finally, I had a breakthrough and decided to return to my mentor and share what I discovered about myself and see what he had in mind. It was one of the best decisions of my entire life.