Goal-Setting God's Way

Posted on September 11, 2024 by Ciara Myers, One of Thousands of Career Coaches on Noomii.

My God Goals
I prefer variety. I use Google Workspace, paper notebooks, a typewriter, two computers, a whiteboard, online software, and apps. Each of these serves a specific purpose in organizing the chaos that is my brain. If you also suffer from an overactive mind and need a simple goal-setting system, feel free to take this one.

Overall Vision
I write down the overall vision so that it’s at the forefront of my mind. When I focus on God first, my goals will be set up for success.

Master List
In one classically lined, oatmeal-colored notebook, I make a master list of every goal I can envision for my future, even if they seem absurd or out of reach. Most of these goals are as they should be: quantifiable and targeted. Some of them are vague, leaving white space for trial and error, ambiguity, and God’s hand.
Then I get specific. Which goals are strictly for my benefit? Which goals benefit God’s kingdom instead? This step is for clarification. Are my goals aligned with the overall vision God’s given me, or am I sidetracked, setting goals for personal gain instead?

Cross Out Personal Goals
With a thick, black Sharpie, I cross out any goals that do not align with my overall vision. The ones I know are just for me: experiences I want to give my children, smarter business moves, places I want to travel with my husband, and material things I’d like to own.

Underline God Goals
Then, for the remaining goals, I underline the ones that most honor God. The goals that might never be noticed at parties; the ones that aren’t trying to prove my worth. Simply put, these are the goals that bring people closer to God’s love.

Highlight the One
Out of the now-dwindling but artful list, I make my final decision. I choose one goal to focus on that honors God, pleases Him, and aligns with the overall vision He’s given me. With newfound fervor and my favorite highlighter, I highlight this new God goal of mine. I write down all the reasons I’m pursuing it. This helps me better communicate my core values to myself by getting painstakingly clear about the motive behind all my efforts.

Short-Term, Mid-Term, and Long-Term
This is a standard step in every goal-setting process for good reason. Brainstorming sessions are fun and important, but measurable data helps me to evaluate my progress. If I hope to reach my God goal one year from now, I write that date down as if I’m certain of its success. Then I create two mini-goals (one short-term and one mid-term), which help me reach the overall goal. I write these dates down and create positive incentives for myself to enjoy once I’ve reached them, such as having a celebratory dinner with a friend.

Tiny Tasks
If my God goal still feels far away, inaccessible, like a lemon hanging from a tree I can’t quite reach, I analyze it even more. I establish small action items for myself. I set tiny tasks, including weekly deadlines, to-do lists, and phone reminders. I stick relevant quotes and Bible verses around my home for encouragement. The more I can truly understand my motives, and the clearer my tasks are, the less intimidating my God goal will seem.

Once I finish this exercise, I feel much more at ease, like myself. I am relaxed and focused, full of intention. I can stand tall, with both arms up in the air, one of them, reaching and finally grabbing that juicy lemon, and the other, waving and screaming back at that grizzly bear. Now that I have a centeredness about me again, and I have the right ingredients to work with, I can start cooking. I’ve learned through experience that goals don’t do the work for me. That would be so comforting—but also kind of boring—if they did. No matter how deeply I believe in something, it will never come true without action.

There’s obvious pressure and attention placed on achievement here in America. If I’m not careful, goals can become idols, sources of major stress, leaving me run ragged until I’ve patted myself on the back after conquering them all one by one. But truth be told, the last thing I want now is to set a God goal, reach it, celebrate for an hour or two, and then look around for what’s next, feeling emptier than before. I’m starting to admit that self-satisfaction can’t be measured by a laundry list of goals I’ve met, or failed to meet. It’s becoming more anchored than that for me. I’m beginning to ask questions like, “Am I the kind of person I like to be on a daily basis?” “Am I becoming more and more like Christ over time?” “Am I working toward the things that matter to God?”

A Foundational Question for You
I’d set the same God goal—to read the Bible every day—and year after year, I fell short. It was sweet but unrealistic of me to think that I could wake up on January 1, decide to start reading my Bible, and like magic, that habit would stick for the next 364 days. It’s not that easy for any of us, no matter how much willpower we have. Things change incrementally, like a butterfly.
Rather than creating a new habit using sheer determination, because I’d already tried that and failed, I started asking myself this easy, foundational question: “What can I do today that will bring me closer to God?” It made my God goal easier to pursue because the motivation this time was behavior-driven, not results-driven.

This foundational question gave me just enough spiritual fluidity to figure out what I needed. Every day looked different from the last. Some mornings I wanted to listen to worship music while I took a shower and got ready. Or I needed to read a devotional because I was tired of the voice in my head. Most days, I couldn’t wait to read the Bible outside, surrounded by the sounds of nature and the squeaking trampoline on which my children bounced. Some days, I just needed to get off social media and spend more time in prayer.

I encourage you to create a foundational question for yourself, one that relates to the new habit you’d like to build. Ask yourself that same useful question each morning. Then act on it, and notice how instinctual it becomes over time.

Accidental Habit Tracker
Another way I developed a habit was by using a journal. At the end of the day, I wrote about what I did and how it felt as it pertained to my God goal. Even small things were recorded. Here’s one entry: “I read the Bible outside today for thirty minutes. It was bright and warm. For the rest of the day, I felt deeply connected to God and myself.” I had written proof of my consistency, and I felt a sense of accomplishment. I became accountable for the next day and the next, excited to show up for myself in ways that I might not always feel like. Slowly and almost accidentally, I began to build a new habit. And after a year, that habit became so ingrained in me that I achieved my God goal with ease. I still refer to my accountability journal from time to time to catch a glimpse of the habits I’ve built.

Understanding
I like to remind myself of the science behind habits, which is based on my favorite part of the book Atomic Habits:

The four stages of habit formation are cue, craving, response, and reward. The cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop—cue, craving, response, reward; cue, craving, response, reward—that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits. Here’s an example of this feedback loop:
Cue = I hit a stumbling block on a project at work.
Craving = I feel stuck and want to relieve my frustration.
Response = I pull out my phone and check social media.
Reward = I satisfy my craving to feel relieved. Checking social media now becomes associated with feeling stalled at work.

The point here is that habits are doomed to fail if they go against the grain of human nature. So, I ask myself these questions:
1. How can I make it obvious?
2. How can I make it attractive?
3. How can I make it easy?
4. How can I make it satisfying?
I made “drinking more water” an attractive habit by ordering a beautiful carafe and tumbler set. I ordered several of them and placed them around the house so that drinking water seemed obvious no matter which room I was in. Even though it was a small feat, I felt proud of myself. I wanted to repeat that healthy behavior the next day and the next. Eventually, it became a new habit, and I enjoy drinking water again.

Stacking
I was never really that great at keeping to a routine. I’d start with the best of intentions, but somewhere along the way, I lost sight of its necessity, made excuses, or got bored of the mundane. I preferred to act on intuition, like a dog barking because it senses the onset of a storm still miles away. But intuition alone isn’t enough for me anymore because I’m not a dog. I’m an adult, and I have eternal responsibilities to tend to. I need consistent habits and systems to complement these strong instinctual abilities of mine.
Habit stacking is another helpful concept from Atomic Habits. If I’d like to exercise more, I need to associate that desired behavior with something I already do every day, such as washing the dishes. I need to tell myself, “After cleaning up the dishes from dinner, I’m going to work out for thirty minutes.” I’ve officially stacked the current habit of evening dishes with the new habit of exercising. And just like that, the two become associated with each other. The more consistent I am with this new routine, the more automatic it will become.

Systems
I then place my stacked habits inside a larger system. Here’s an easy example: I wake up at 6:45 a.m., drink water from my bedside tumbler, and stumble into the kitchen to make my morning coffee. As soon as the coffee brews, I crawl upstairs to wake up Audri. As she gets dressed for school, I make a quick breakfast for her, fill her water bottle, set out her vitamins, and put freezer packs in her lunch box. When I’m reaching for the freezer packs, I’m reminded to get Zoey’s frozen dog food to thaw because I stacked those two habits together. Audri eventually comes downstairs and enjoys breakfast. Later, while she brushes her teeth, I’m reminded to brush her hair because I stacked those two habits together. She kisses me goodbye and joins Paul for their morning walk to school. Then, still in pajamas and still trying to figure out how to be a person, I tend to Averi’s needs.

This simple morning system is a group of positive habits stacked together. And it derived from sheer madness. I needed a new way of doing things as my old morning routine wasn’t cutting it. My children and dog are bouncing balls of energy at the start of a new day. And well, I have a disorder in which I have seizures if I don’t get enough sleep. You can imagine that this has been an interesting combination, to say the least. To maintain peace for myself and my family, I decided to create new habits for us and to stuff those habits into one large system.

Where do you consistently experience your daily moment of chaos? Chances are that you could benefit from an updated system. Or maybe it’s not chaos per se, but you’d like to tweak something. Establish a large system full of small stacked habits to make it all a beautiful reality.

Personal Dos
Remember the fear-setting exercise I suggested in chapter 3? We’ve completed that exercise together with an overall vision in mind. This time, let’s do this exercise with the God goal in mind.

Personal Don’ts
Before I started choosing one God goal to focus on at a time, I was notorious for setting goals in every area of life and all at the same time. I felt like a Dr. Seuss character balancing plates while on one leg, only to find out I’m standing on a small spinning top.

In hindsight, I can confidently say prioritizing every goal simultaneously as if they were all of equal importance, was the quickest way I got off course. I think one of Satan’s most effective techniques, for me at least, is the art of newness. If he can keep me on the edge of my seat, anticipating the future, coveting the latest, high on the drug of productivity and output, he wins. I’ll be so busy bouncing around from one checklist to the next, that I’ll miss God’s heavenly promptings, His calm whispers, loving nudges, and subtle signs. It’s math, really, supply and demand of my energy and bandwidth.

So I don’t fake-balance anymore. I now alternate between goals. After I’ve reached one God goal, I’ll pursue a personal goal. And after I hit that personal goal, I’ll start over with a God goal. That’s right. I’ll create a new master list, crossing out the goals that do not align with the overall vision, underlining the goals that have the most potential to showcase God’s love, and highlighting the one goal that I know is from God for this season.

It’s incredible how grounded this pattern keeps me while still allowing me to pursue what matters most at the time. This tactile, albeit extreme, approach to goal-setting helps me to see those other goals as the distractions they might have been.

Triggered
All too often I tumble back into a negative habit because of a subconscious trigger I’m unaware of. It all starts so well and with the best intentions. Then, like a bad song I grew up listening to but hadn’t heard in years—but could, unfortunately, still recite every last word—I’d fall back into the familiar pattern of doing the thing I didn’t want to do and avoiding the thing I needed to do. That trigger could be stress from work. Or it’s anxiety from wanting everything for my children, coupled with the fear of not being able to give it to them. It’s the feeling that I’ll always be a few strides behind, running from a giant shadow of unmet expectations. It’s neglect, criticism, or any number of things that pull me further from the me I want to be.

I think I’m wired to stick with the familiar, to keep repeating what I’ve always done, who I’ve always been. This is a difficult cycle for me to break out of, especially when I’m triggered. But if I recognize the triggers that send me reeling back into old habits, I can find time for healthy coping mechanisms, like talking to someone I love on the phone, laughing with my kids, or moving my body. I can break free from the power my trigger seems to have over me, and I can create new rhythms. I’m realizing that I don’t have to be the person I’ve always been. I don’t have to do the things I’ve always done. Neither do you. We can develop new skills. We can wake up early enough to see the sunrise, throw a baseball with a child, or become a beekeeper. We can sing in the shower or learn a different language. We can adopt. Or hold hands, hike a trail, fight for a cause, or make a new friend.

Closing Thoughts
I’m learning that goals, habits, systems, faith, and work are close partners in the business of a divine vision. The overall vision often encourages me to take inventory of my goals, asking questions like, “Does this goal point me toward or away from the vision?” "Is this in alignment with my values? My God goal provides inspiration, and my systems provide the framework, like a skeleton for my habits to thrive, which determines my ability to grow. If you’re overwhelmed, I’d love to personally champion you because I’ve been where you are, and I decided not to stay there.