Be Specific: Set Smart Goals

First things first: it's my birthday today :). I have officially hit my mid-twenties. It feels great. I'm hoping to squeeze in a run to Starbucks to get my free birthday drink, and Jeff mentioned something about making me a cake. I will certainly take a picture if that happens. Haha! He is a keeper.
Anyway, on to the real reason we're here today...

In my last post, I shared my dreams. I was very encouraged by your sweet comments. I appreciate every single one of you! 
I didn't dish out every last detail of my dream in last week's post, but I hope to reveal more as we go {and as I figure it out!}  In this post, I want to lay out a couple of my goals...specific ones. I need to figure out how to get from where I am currently {point A} to where I want to be {point B}.

What's necessary is realizing that goals aren't ultimatums; they are simply directions. We are in charge of them -- they're not in charge of us. - Holley Gerth in chapter 2 of the "Do What You Can Plan"

It is so important to set clear, specific goals. Goals are the stepping stones to the dream. Not only is it important to set a specific goal, I believe it's imperative to set a time frame on accomplishing that goal, and maybe even set up a reward for achieving the goal. That's right, reward yourself! For example, if my dream was to lose 20 pounds, I would first set a date that I wanted to lose it by, and then my first goal might be to simply cut in half the number of times a week I eat fast food or another guilty pleasure. If I achieve my goal that week - whether I lose a pound or not - then my reward could be a cute piece of jewelry or some other small thing in proportion to my goal. This is a concept called "feeding your elephant" talked about in the book "The Ant and the Elephant" by Vince Poscente. The book is a parable and has some fantastic insights on how to keep moving towards the big picture dreams. It is definitely one of my top five books and I plan to read it many times over. 

Holley challenged us last week to do one little thing this week to move forward towards our God-sized dream. I did two very little things this last week: 1} I added to my Pinterest dream board, and 2} I read at least 15 minutes a day.
Now, most of my dreams I want to achieve are more long-term things. We are not planning on breaking ground on our dream home in the next 6 months or anything. I know...rather disappointing. I already had people inviting themselves over {I love it!}. One thing I can do now to work towards our dream home is visualizing it and building a dream board. Sounds a little hokey, but if you study successful businessmen/women or athletes, you will find that many of them are dreamers and use this technique. If you took sports at a competitive level, you are probably familiar with visualization. Picturing that perfect layup or goal over and over in your mind is a key part of a professional's practice. You get what you picture. 
Along with regularly visualizing and building a dream board, another thing I can start working on right now is growing personally in wisdom and character. I have a whole stack of books that have been recommended to me by my mentor, and I want to get through one book a week. I have not achieved my dreams because I am not the person I need to be yet. I have not grown enough, worked hard enough, or smart enough...yet. I am going to be consistent {ah...there's my One Little Word!} and wait patiently for God to bless in His timing.  
For further reading on building and pursuing your dream:
Ant and the Elephant - Vince Poscente Magic Of Thinking Big - David J. Schwartz The Dream Giver - Bruce Wilkinson
Do you have any book suggestions? I would love to hear them!
I am blessed to be a part of the God-sized dreams team, and we are linking up here {you can too!}: 

{connect with Emily here}