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Today’s blog is about one of my biggest weakness that I wish I had figured out before my mission – setting goals and making plans. I was always the kid that rolled his eyes at New Year’s time when everyone sat down to make New Year’s resolutions. My attitude was, “I know I’m not going to look at this paper again for the next twelve months. Why waste my time?” and “If I don’t right it down, then it is not considered an official failure if I don’t accomplish it.”
Setting goals and making plans is essential in all areas of missionary work, but I noticed the blessings of it most obviously in my language abilities. For the beginning part of my mission in the field, I struggled to come up with an effective language study. Finally, I came across a quote that changed my life. I don’t remember who said it, but it was something to the effect of, “Even if you don’t reach your goal, you will still accomplish more than you would have if you hadn’t set the goal.” This revelation was key to me overcoming my fear of failing to achieve a written goal.
So I pondered. I decided it was a dream of mine to speak better Russian and be able to use the scriptures better in Russian. So at the beginning of a transfer I set a goal to memorize forty scriptures in Russian that were related to the first lesson by the end of the transfer. I planned out which scriptures I was going to memorized and when. I believed it was possible, I really wanted to accomplish it, and so I went for it. I worked hard. I prayed hard. I think I fell just a little bit short of my forty, but by the end of the transfer I had memorized thirty-something Restoration scriptures in Russian, and I noticed that they helped me significantly improve my ability to teach the first lesson.
Dreams don’t come true on their own, or by the magic of a fairy godmother. When you learn how to turn your dreams into achievable goals, and learn how to plan to accomplish them, then you have the power to make your dreams come true. When your goals are in line with the Lord’s, and he helps you fulfill your plans to reach your righteous goals, miracles happen. I wish I had practiced more before my mission how to set goals and make plans.
That is very true. I agree with what you have said. I had a mission president who was very focused on goals. Not goals of numbers with how many lessons we taught, or baptisms we got, or any other number; but rather goals that made us better people, goals that made us better missionaries. He would constantly guide us in searching ourselves for what we were lacking, what we could personally improve on. He always expected specific plans of what we were going to do to help us improve, whether it was how we study, or how we speak to others, or any other manner of thing, he was always willing to help us. Those goals that he had us set to improve ourselves were one of the greatest rewards of my mission, I wouldn't have taken so much from my mission if I hadn't had goals with specific plans.
ReplyDeleteThis could not be truer! One of the major problems that missionaries have, including myself when I was a missionary, is not planning out commitments, questions they want to ask, scriptures they want to share, etc. If one can do this they will be great missionaries.
ReplyDeleteI love that quote! it is way smart, i have always been bad at sitting down and setting goals too, but maybe this year i'll give it a better shot. thank you for writing i really enjoyed it!
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