God,Goals & Growth
Wheew! God, goals, and growth are some heavy G words ya’ll. Let me firstly admit that 2 of these words were not my favorite topics to speak about. If you guessed goals and growth, then you are absolutely correct.
For years, I battled with procrastination, disorganization, and stagnation. I went through cycles of experiencing unexpected issues every time I wanted to accomplish a goal. At one point, I stopped planning because nothing ever seemed to fall into place.
I became numb as a defense mechanism to help me cope whenever life became overwhelmingly disappointing. To others it looked like I had it together, but your girl was secretly screaming “Lord, give me a break!”
It seemed like while I had suffered so many losses God was silent. I must admit your girl felt so defeated. Nevertheless, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to life than this.One day, I got fed up with my life on the level that it was at. That day I got on my knees and prayed to God for consistency in all areas of my life.
The answer didn’t come the way that I had anticipated. While I wanted automatic consistency in my life, God responded by giving me circumstances that made me discipline. As if I wasn’t experiencing enough, God was challenging me to stretch.
Can I tell you how uncomfortable that made me feel? Have you ever thought to yourself when things settle down then I’ll do that? Or maybe if I had the time and resources, I could get it done?
Here is the thing that I realized, growth requires stretching. When our nails, limbs or hair grows they stretch in length. Likewise, for us as believers we must stretch to spiritually grow as well.
The reality is most times we love the end product of growth,but we don’t necessarily like the transformation process. We love to attain our goals, but we don’t necessarily like going through the steps to accomplish them.
Here are the lessons I learned from stretching:
• The decision to embrace the stretch the beginning of maturity.
• If you GO IN the direction that God is stretching you instead of going against it, then you will GROW IN the stretch.
• There is protection in stretching properly (just ask dancers or athletes).
• The stretch came to BUILD you, not to break you.
• Your next level is most likely going to require stretching.
Stretch out of your excuses, stretch out of your insecurities, stretch out procrastination.
It’s time to Level Up and Grow baby GROW.
As life goes on, we gain more responsibilities, changes take place and trials come our way.
This is the year to fearlessly embrace your maturing season.
The longer you wait to mature, the longer it takes for your plans to come into manifestation.
Here is my truth today. I have fallen in love with the way how God has moved me from chaotic to organized. It took timeand I am still learning. I had to increase in prayer, increase in worship, increase in reading the word and increase in my intentional time with God. I started listening to podcasts, watching videos, attending goal setting events, joining coaching programs, reading books, and reading inspirational blogs on websites including this one.
It was only when I was able to manage life through the stretching that God gave me the time and resources that I needed to put my plans into action. I looked back some thingsof the things I was able to do in 2021 such as a build mycoaching business, launch a newsletter and speak at an event. It was only able to be accomplished once I became more dedicated to my relationship with God.
See some of us don’t lack time, confidence, support, orresources. What we lack is commitment. What if instead of spending hours binging Netflix or aimlessly scrolling social media, we decided to put in extra hours to achieve our goals?What if we didn’t allow our fears to hold us back from executing our plans?
What I was able to achieve in the first two weeks of 2022 wasmore than I’ve done in 2 years. It was all because I decided to stay committed to God’s plan regardless of how I felt.
“Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans” (Proverbs 16:3, NIV).
Now there are certain things I intentionally do whenever I set my goals.
Here are my practical tips for the planning believer:
Pray- Ask God for His vision/plan for your life. It could be regarding business, personal growth, fitness, relationships, finances, etc. He can guide you in every area.
Write it down- Place your thoughts or God’s instructions in a journal. Separate the right now goals from the future goals.
Plan meetings with God- When you intentionally connect with God, He gives you the strategies, systems, support, andstructure that you will need to succeed.
Prepare for it- There are days you must put your faith into action. Ensure the necessary requirements are in place for whatever you are planning for.
Celebrate it- Highlight those moments in your life when you accomplish something regardless of how small it is. This builds momentum keeps you going on days you can’t execute everything to perfection.