Seven Habits for Me!
Today I’m jotting down a few goals for myself for the next week. These are goals with the idea of improving a few areas on my life and family, but most of them are personal goals.
If fact, these goals are to cultivate a better outlook for my life, and to improve my health just a little bit each day. I’ve chosen to focus on these little habit changes for just a week! At the end of the week, I won’t dump these habits, because they will be a little bit more a part of me than before. Hopefully, as I see success in these seven basic areas, I will enjoy the fruits of the change, and add to these.
It takes around three weeks of consistency to form a new neural pathway. Tackling seven at once may seem a bit ambitious, but that’s why I chose seven very attainable goals. I just want to conquer some small things to gain my momentum.
Please note that these habits I have listed are on top of my established priorities, like time with God, reading the Bible, and eating healthfully.
Setting SMART Goals:
AdIt’s good to set goals, but there are some types of goals that we are more likely to achieve. We can follow the above acronym SMART, and formulate our goals for success.
The image is pretty self-explanatory.
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Timely
I have a reason for each of my goals. Each reflects a habit that I want to improve on.
Despise not small beginnings
Seven Goals for a week!
Every day, I will:
- Hike to the ridge morning and evening, or equivalent
- Give massage to every family member
- Write something positive
- Crochet 10 minutes
- Contact one person just to encourage him/her
- Pick up my clothes and hang them up.
- Pick up seven things inside or out.
This is a simple list but you have to start somewhere.
I could elaborate on my list and explain why I chose each habit to work on. Normally, I would do that. This time, however, I will just leave the list as is. I hope that it sparks a few ideas in your mind.
The object is to start somewhere.
Whether you have very small goals for yourself, or lofty ideals, neither is worth much of you never get around to pursuing them.
Even small goals achieved are better than no goals at all!
Seven Habits Books
We’ve read several books that help with deciding which goals to set. The original is the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I don’t fit into that category, but I do appreciate the counsel. As I said, if we aren’t as effective in some area as we wish we were, now is the time to begin, not tomorrow.
We listened to the Teen book on audible. Now it’s time to get out the version for families, because there’s nowhere that we so regularly fail as in our families. It’s just hard to fake it at home. That’s why so many of my goals have to do with making choices to put other family members first, before myself. If this was easy, I wouldn’t need to set a goal for it.
Remember, you only fail if you don’t start. Any progress is better than doing nothing.
Don’t negate the power of prayer!
While you can set new goals, and strive towards success, I find it encouraging to remember that God wants me to develop good habits in my personal life and family. He has put this idea in my heart, and if I trust Him, He will help me with my small new habits, as well as looking forward to larger goals.
There are so many Bible promises that encourage us to press on, that God is on our side, that God loves us, and that He will never leave us for forsake us.
I believe we can strive forward with a Bible promise in our hand, and a prayer every day. God wants us to succeed!
A few encouraging promises to me are these:
What are your goals for the week?
Please let me know what habits you want to work to make or break!
Check back with me and see how I’ve done!
And if you comment here, I can do the same for you!
Let’s do this!
❤️
Kind of related, but not directly related to this post, is a challenge I signed up for, called the Ultimate Blog Challenge. It’s a challenge on Facebook, where each blogger commits to write one blog post for each day of the month. Then we come together to share and encourage each other in our blogging journeys. I started midstream, so next time I will begin at the beginning. It has been good for me to have a set goal. It’s al about taking small steps consistently…
May you be encouraged!
As you highlighted above, the journey starts with the first step. I wish you much success in your efforts this week. I’ve got several projects that I’m juggling and my goal for this week is to have at least 2 of them finished. Let’s check in next Sunday to see how we did.
Angel
Embracing Change Blog
Sounds good! 👌🏼 I wish you well!
I enjoy setting goals, it keeps me on my toes. Goals and challenges are what I like to set every week, sometimes they aren’t major, but anything to keep me on track.
Yes. It’s true. If I have no goal, I’m pretty random about getting stuff done.
Some years ago, I started setting goals and planning each day the night before. These practices made a big difference in my attitude to life and the things I accomplished over time.
My go-to scripture reference that keeps me going is Philippians 4:13 – I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Amen! It’s so true!
We can do anything gGod sets before us with His help!