Boom! Just like that, it’s over. In a few days we are set to close out a whole Decade and begin a new one. By some accounts, we just experienced the best decade ever. Could bigger and better be yet to come? I believe so. But that bigger and better all starts by making some 2020 goals to help launch this next decade.

Are personal goals really worth it? Some people live and die by them. Others pass them off as cliche and not worth the effort. I mean, who really cares about setting goals when you know for sure you won’t keep or reach them?

It is true that people have varying degrees of success when it comes to completing their goals. But just because you may fail at them doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have them. For a variety of reasons, setting goals is simply too valuable an exercise.

Goals provide pacing to your life. They focus you on short and long-term tasks. They give you direction, purpose and clarity. Completing them gives you confidence and propels you on to do even more.

But maybe most importantly, goals allow you to dream.

“What would life look like if I could…?”

“How would my life change if I accomplished/gave up/worked on…?”

“Who would benefit if I…?”

It’s in the dreaming stage that goals are birthed. So as you dream about what the next decade of your life looks like, perhaps it would be good to set some 2020 goals that will serve to guide you through the next 10 years.

2020 Goals to Launch Your Best Decade Ever

Some goals are very Specific. These type of goals require special planning on the front end. The better you plan out the specifics, the better chance you have to completing them.

Related Content: How to Set Goals: Make them SMART

The details of your goals you will have to define. Today, I’d like to give you some over-arching goal themes to consider as you plan your specific 2020 goals for next year. These should be patterns of thinking you always return to as you plan for Specific Goals year in and year out.

Plan Like There Is No Tomorrow

One thing we are not guaranteed is tomorrow. Life could end at any moment. That’s not the most encouraging thought as we kick off our 2020 goals. However, it is the reality and we can’t ignore it.

In the New Testament of the Bible, there were some individuals who were really caught up in planning out their entire future. While not necessarily a bad thing, these people were demonstrating a spirit of pride. They believed they alone controlled their destiny.

The Apostle James, addresses their arrogance by saying:

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit’; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’”(James 4:13-15)

James descriptively says our lives are like a vapor, here one moment and gone the next. We shouldn’t boast that we can control life or pretend to know what will happen. Only if God allows it do our plans come to pass. So, these are not anti-planning verses. Rather, they are plan-with-the-right-perspective verses.

The implication is that our plans should take on a sense of urgency. Because life is fragile, we need to plan like there is no tomorrow.

So the first big theme related to 2020 goals is to always be planning. Never stop evaluating your life circumstances. With a planning mindset, it will be easier to determine specific life goals that will help move you forward and tackle the challenges that will follow.

Related Content: 6 Awesome Lessons for Managing Through a Financial Crisis

Love Your Work

Are you enjoying work? That’s a tough question to answer. To say “No” admits failure at some level with your choice.

The dwindling passion for your career comes from many places. Compensation, family issues and colleague conflicts are all culprits. Or maybe, you simply found something else you’d rather do.

A danger exists in dealing with your negative feelings about work. In short, your three options are to:

1. Fall in love again, rediscovering why you once loved your career
2. Fall in love with something else and do that thing
3. Continue hating your job, sticking with it for the rest of your life

Surprisingly, many people choose option 3.

Certainly this is not how God intended it. In the Bible, King Solomon wrote about this exact issue. He says,

“…It is good and fitting for one to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor in which he toils under the sun…for it is his heritage….For he will not dwell unduly on the days of his life, because God keeps him busy with the joy of his heart.” (Eccl. 5:18-20)

This may revolutionize how you think about work. God’s desire is for us to busy with the joy of our heart. Therefore, it would be counterproductive to stay in a job that you hate. You’ll experience no joy or fulfillment through your career.

You simply can’t hate work for the next decade. Love it again or find something else, but don’t stay in something you hate.

Related Content: How to Choose a Career: 6 Tips for Making the Right Choice

Give Like Never Before

What expense is at the top line of your budget? Like most, it’s probably something major like the mortgage, food, or the car loan.

What tends to get pushed to the bottom of the budget? Giving. Do your 2020 goals and the decade ahead, have any plans for giving?

We have so much yet we tend to give just leftovers. We give from what money is left at the end of the month. Ultimately, this minimalist giving mindset doesn’t set giving up as a priority.

But what if it were? What if we gave giving first priority?

In the Old Testament, God instructed Moses to build a temple like structure for worship. Moses laid out the vision and asked the people to give to build the structure. We read that…

“…everyone came whose heart was stirred…and they brought the Lord’s offering for the work of the tabernacle…They came, both men and women, as many as had a willing heart…” (Ex. 35:20-22)

These people were sensitive to a need and acted on it. They did so voluntarily with a willing heart. Their actions led to an extraordinary outcome…

“So they continued bringing to him freewill offerings every morning. Then all the craftsmen…came…[and] spoke to Moses, saying ‘The people bring much more than enough for the service of the work…So Moses gave a commandment…‘Let neither man nor woman do any more work for the offering of the sanctuary.’ And the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was…indeed too much.” (Ex. 36:3-7)

The people made giving such a high priority they were told to stop! That’s radical giving.

What if we did that for the next decade? How would lives be changed?

Related Content: How to Develop a Purposeful Plan for Giving Away Money

Put Your Trust in the Right Place

Finally, for your 2020 goals I’d like you to consider your trust issues. Specifically, I’d like to ask the question, “Where will you or in who will you put your trust to help you get through the next decade?”

Our last Bible passage comes from the prophet Jeremiah. He spoke to Israel about their relationship with God. Here he gives them the formula for having a fruitful life. He says,

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is in the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.”

The Israelite’s lack of trust in God was hindering them from becoming a prosperous nation. So Jeremiah outlines for them how to get back on track.

If they trust in the Lord, they will be like a tree that is:

Growing. There is a never-ending source of nourishment for this tree because it is growing so close to the energy source. Because it has access to the water, it is able to spread out its roots and push into areas of the dirt it has never reached before.

Courageous. It knows at some point in its life it will face the heat. When those times come, it is not afraid.

Relaxed. This tree isn’t concerned about drought (a barren time). It has stored up enough to see itself through.

Producing. Day in and day out, it produces fruit. It is beneficial for everyone that eats from it.

I believe every person wants to be successful and accomplish something with his or her life. We stand the greatest chance of reaching our potential when we trust in God as our energy for today and our hope for the future. He is the living water we so desperately need.

Goals Conclusion

In conclusion, do you want the next decade to be the best ever? It starts with these big themes and then moves forward with the specific 2020 goals that you will make by following our goal making strategy. So get started and launch the next best decade of your life.

Leave a Comment or Answer a Question Below: What has the last decade meant for you? What are you looking forward to for the next 10 years? Do you have some 2020 goals already in place? What are you going to do to reach your goals? 

Image courtesy of Art Stocker at Shutterstock

The post 2020 Goals That Will Make This the Best Decade Ever  appeared first on Luke1428.