Tag Archives: goals

2018

02 Tuesday Jan 2018

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I completed some of my goals for 2017 and missed the mark (sometimes way off the mark) on some of my goals.  Time to move on to 2018.

Here’s some changes for 2018.

  1. Become healthier.  What this means for me is to reach a specific weight.  That means I’ll work on eating healthier, following an exercise routine, and get back to doing a distance race (1/2 marathon).  I haven’t identified which race, but first I need to get into good enough shape to start training for a race.
  2. Social media focus.  Since this is my blog, I have specific goals for the blog and social media in general.  I’m streamlining some things.  I have made the decision to stop doing travel blogging posts.  This blog will focus on theology/philosophy/life.  It will be more focused on these things.  I love to travel, but posting about our travels takes up a good amount of time.  I can use that time for many other things.  That will save me a considerable amount of time each week.  I know several of my readers come to this blog specifically for the travel posts, and to them I say, thanks for coming and reading my posts.  I appreciate you visiting.  I wish you well.  I’m making this change because it’s more in line with the direction of my life.
  3. Writing.  I’ve made goals about writing many times before.  I’ve tried setting a routine.  I’ve tried many things before.  I haven’t succeeded at this.  Clearly, my motivation for this is questionable.  Therefore my goal is to just write a book and get it over with.  I will complete this by Dec. 31, 2018.
  4. Career.  I’m now a pastor at a congregation that I love serving.  The biggest goal that I hope to accomplish is to develop some kind of discipleship model that incorporates visitors, members, and disciples within the church.  This really excites me and I can’t wait to see what this will look like and how it will evolve.

 

That’s enough public goals to share for today.  I hope you have goals for the year.  Go get em!

Goals for 2017

03 Tuesday Jan 2017

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We’re three days into the new year.  It’s time to declare my goals for the year.  Only, this year is a bit different.  I have goals, but the goals a bit different.  They are more like themes that will guide me.  Or maybe it’s the idea of setting up systems that will help me accomplish what I am setting out to accomplish.  To keep it simple, I’ll keep calling them goals.

I actually took some time over Christmas break and mapped out these goals through 2022.  Let’s get real for a moment.  Do I expect everything to go according to plan?  Of course not.  In fact I expect that there will be changes along the way.  Graduating in May and then being ordained, and starting ministry will definitely bring some changes – changes I can’t even foresee.  But that doesn’t mean I just sit around and wait.  Instead, I can try some things out, see how they work, and determine if they are something I will continue with.

So, here’s my goals, or themes, or systems, or whatever you want to call them for 2017:

Health – Run two half marathons in 2017.  I feel as though all of my injuries from 2016 have finally healed up.  I’ve been to the Y two days in a row, doing different workouts – running, cycling, lifting some weights.  I’ll be getting back to outdoor running soon.  The system here is that I created a schedule for myself, with what I’ll be doing each day.  Part of this is also eating healthier as well.  I want to weigh 165 lbs – which means as of yesterday, I will drop 14 pounds.  I’d really like to drop a pound a week, which means I eat considerably less and healthier.  I started this yesterday and already feel healthier.  I’m glad the holidays are over for one simple fact – better eating is easier now.

Career/calling – graduate in May and be ordained.  My last semester of seminary starts soon.  I’ve heard from the registrar that as long as I pass the classes I have signed up for, I will graduate in May.  After graduation – then it’s ordination.  I’m looking forward to seeing where God will be putting me to work.

Family – several things here.  Take a trip with the family for up to two weeks after graduation.  We’re looking at a few options of where this might be and I’m really excited about the possibilities.  I also want to play more games with them and spend open time with each one and as a group with nothing at all planned – just being present with them.  Also, I’m committed to cooking a nice meal once a week – my hope is that I find enough recipes that are unique and that I learn some things from this.

Writing – yes, writing gets it’s own section.  There’s a lot of things I want to write about.  I’ve actually created a schedule for writing.  This may be over the top, but I’ve got five different ideas that I want to write about.  Here’s the thing – I don’t expect that I’ll be writing about all five by the end of the year.  I do expect that I’ll be writing about three of them.  I’m not sure what they will lead to, and frankly, I don’t care.  I just want to write about these ideas.  The topics include church, politics, and prayer.  Also, I’ve been doing a bunch of social media stuff (twitter, blog, etc) that are all very focused.  I want to determine what I’m keeping and what I’m shedding and then some direction of where it might be taking me.  In other words, narrow in on a focus for this – probably in line with the topics I will be writing about.

That’s enough to focus on for the year.  What are your goals for 2017?

Review of 2016

29 Thursday Dec 2016

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So, I’m doing this a couple of days early, but better early than never.

2016 was a pretty good year for me.  Lots happened and if you follow this blog regularly, you’ve seen and heard about them over the course of the year.  As for this blog, this year was a big year – more visitors and views of the blog than the previous two years.  I also had my most read blog post ever this year – soon after the 2016 presidential election – almost 600 reads on a blog post I did arguing that pastors ought to be non-partisan.

2016 also brought about some great travel experiences for our family, finishing up my internship year, starting my last year of seminary, and being approved for ordination.  That’s the quick highlights.

Here’s how I did with my goals for 2016:

Running – complete two half marathons in 2016.  Failed.

Running – I will run 1000 miles this year.  Failed.

I failed because this was a terrible year for me physically.  I turned 40, which means that my body literally fell apart.  I suffered a pulled hamstring at the end of January.  It started to heal and a month later I pulled it again.  It was nasty and gross with internal bleeding and my using crutches for about 3 weeks.  It took many months of recovery and when I got back into running, left foot decided it was time to speak up – I had plantar fasciitis on my left heel.  It was painful and kept me from running even longer.  When I finally was healthy enough this year, it was November.  I ran a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving – a 5k and did well.  I was proud of my son who beat me by a couple of minutes too.  Maybe another runner in the family?  We’ll see.

Travel – I want to do some trips with the family.  Success.

Success here.  We didn’t have any international trips planned – wouldn’t have worked in our schedule anyway.  But we did take a trip to Pittsburgh, and we explored around Altoona, PA  – where we were serving out my internship year.  I was also able to go to NYC with my family and the youth group for a church trip.  I also went to Atlanta for the Festival of Homiletics – which included a few side trips.  In June our family did a family vacation to Raystown Lake for a week – lots of fun.  I was also able to spend a couple of days down in Baltimore with my supervisor and a mutual friend for a relaxing time.

Career/Calling – Get approved.  Success.

Not much more to add here.  I was greatly relieved and also excited to be approved for ordination.  Seminary is almost done!

Writing – Write a book on the challenges the church faces/things I’ve learned from my time in Finland.  Failed.

I didn’t succeed in this venture.  However, I have written a ton over the course of the year.  The form of the book has changed over the year.  And I’m not giving up on this goal yet. I actually have a few writing goals for 2017.

Financial – Have only student loan debt and a mortgage. Success.

I have no credit card debt, no car loans, no other types of debt.  Plenty of student loan debt and a mortgage, but hey, it’s a start – a big start.

Blogging – Keep writing a travel post and a post on theology/politics/current events each weekday.  Mostly a success.

I wrote 394 posts this year.  (I have a couple more through Saturday, including this one).  I didn’t post every single weekday though.  But many days I had multiple posts in a day.  I wrote travel posts very consistently and posts on theology, politics, and other random things pretty consistently too.

Family – I want to teach my children how to play six new games this year. ????

I honestly don’t know if I succeeded in this goal.  We played a ton of games over the course of the year, so I’m guessing that this was a success.

Overall, 2016 was a good year.  I’m looking forward to 2017.  I’ll have new goals posted either on Monday or Tuesday next week (after the kids go back to school).  Happy New Year!

Goals for 2016

04 Monday Jan 2016

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So I was going to post my goals for 2016 on Friday, Jan. 1, but this little thing called “the internet was down” happened here at our home.  So I decided to wait until today.  I don’t like to make a ton of goals, but the goals I make do push me and often help me do various other things throughout the year.  I don’t do goals in a particular order, but rather for different parts of my life.  So here goes:

Running – I will complete two half marathons this year.  This isn’t really a stretch for me, but more something to keep me on track.  Let’s put it this way, I’ll be disappointed if I don’t do two.

Running – I will run 1000 miles this year.  I got this e-mail about a 1000 mile challenge.  I thought it would be easy.  Then I thought about how many miles that is each week.  This will be a stretch goal for me, but I think it’s doable.

(Author’s update:  I was a bit off on this.  Upon further examination, the challenge that I am referring to is from Mapmyrun.com.  And the challenge is to run 1000 km. I started it anyway.  I’m still shooting for 1000 miles – it would be good for me.)

(Update #2 – There’s a second mileage challenge.  I got it in a separate e-mail.  It’s for ilovetorun.org and it has a challenge of running 1000 miles or running 100 days in 2016.  I signed up for the 1000 miles.)

Travel – I want to do some trips with the family.  We won’t be doing any international trips this year, as far as I can tell.  But that shouldn’t stop us from seeing some of the great cities in the Mid-Atlantic – cities like Pittsburgh, DC, New York City, and Philadelphia.

We also want to see some of the smaller places of interest – places like Gravity Hill.  This is one of those weird places on the planet where you go to the bottom of a hill, put your vehicle in neutral and then feel the car start to roll up the hill.   Pretty crazy.

Career/Calling – Get approved.  This is the third and final step in the candidacy process for a Lutheran seminarian like myself.  It’s a big deal.  There will be another nasty paper to write in preparation for this, complete internship, do another interview in front of the candidacy committee (about 30-40 people).  Approval essentially says that yes, I’m ready to be called as a pastor somewhere (so long as I pass my remaining classes)

Writing – Write a book on the challenges the church faces/things I’ve learned from my time in Finland.  I’ve been saying I want to do this, this is the year to make it happen.

Financial – Have only student loan debt and a mortgage.  That would mean no credit card debt. I’m well on my way to completing this, but I’ll be thrilled when it happens a little later this year.

Blogging – Keep writing a travel post and a post on theology/politics/current events each weekday.  I’ll not going to say that the goal will be a failure if I miss a few days.  The point is to keep posting content consistently, which for me means each weekday.  I’ll probably take holidays off.

Family – I want to teach my children how to play six new games this year.  Why?  If I’m teaching them a game, then I’m spending time with them and they are learning something new.  I’m already on my way with this one – the girls now know how to play rummy.

Review of 2015

31 Thursday Dec 2015

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If you’ve been reading my blog since the beginning of the year, you know I’ve had some goals for the blog.

Here’s the original post.

And here’s how I did.

Goal 1. Get a great internship site placement.  Check that off.  I am serving at a great internship site, learning many things, have a great relationship with the supervisor.  I feel as though I am learning what it means to be a pastor.  In other words, it’s all good preparation.

Goal 2. Run in three half-marathons.  Check that off as well.  In fact I ran four halves in 2015 – three in Finland in the course of six weeks and one in Pennsylvania here in the fall.

Goal 3. Travel to Stockholm, Sweden, the Laplands and Germany.  Not totally, but pretty darn good.  As a family, we went to Stockholm and individually I made it to Germany.  But we didn’t make it to the Laplands.  We discovered that it was too expensive to go.  So expensive for us that it would have been the only trip we made during out time in Europe, so we scratched it.

Goal 4. Write a book about what I have learned about the church in Finland and how it relates to mission redevelopment in the US.  Not done.  I have something started, but it’s still in the beginning stages.  Having never done a book before, it feels a bit overwhelming in the sense that I am doing something new for me.  We’ll get there though.

Goal 5. Do 20 speaking engagements concerning our trip to Finland and what I learned about the church here and how it applies to mission redevelopment.  I did nine.  At this point I have come to realize a few things about these presentations.  First, the target audience is 50 years old and above.  They seems to be the only ones who care enough to listen.  Second, if it doesn’t directly apply to someone younger than that, they aren’t interested for any number of reasons.  In the end, not a bad goal in the sense that it has helped shrink down what I talk about, improved my presentation skills and focused what I want to write about.

Not too bad of a year as far as the goals are concerned.

Other things that I want to make a note of:

2015 really has been a great year for me personally.  I continued with my studies at the University of Helsinki.  Living overseas was an incredible experience – for both me and the rest of my family.  We all loved it very much.  I can easily say it is one of the very best experiences of my life.  Living overseas expanded my perceptions of many things and opened me to many new experiences that I would have never known before.

2015 was certainly a year of travel for our family.  We traveled around Finland, went to Stockholm and Iceland as a family.  My wife and oldest daughter traveled to Russia.  And I made it to Munich and Salzburg.  That’s on top of the places we went to in 2014 when we started off out journey.  Since then we’ve traveled back to the US and moved to our internship site.

2015 was also a year of adjustments.   Adjusting to the idea of going back to the US.  Adjusting to living in a new location.  Adjusting to American culture again.  Adjusting to working instead of classwork.  Adjusting.

I’m grateful for the wonderful year that 2015 was.  We had incredible experiences and learned a great many things.

Tomorrow I’ll have my goals for 2016.  And then the fun begins – starting to do them.

Goals for 2015

01 Thursday Jan 2015

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As promised, here are my goals for 2015 – some specific for the blog and some more general to my life.

Before I list them, let me say why I make goals – because it works for me.  I think it’s important to find a way for each of us to achieve what we are setting out to achieve.  For some people goals work and for other, well, they don’t.  If goals seem too intimidating, then use some other method that works for you.  If you aren’t sure, there are two ways to deal with this – 1. try something and see how it goes. 2. look back at what worked for you before and do it again.

Without any further ado – my goals for 2015

1. Get a great internship site placement – This is really an important career/calling goal for 2015.  All seminarians at LTSG have to go on internship in order to graduate.  And if a person is going to go on internship, it might as well be a great location.  We’re pretty flexible with this as a family when it comes to location – that happens when you pack up and leave the country for a year.  But I want the site to be a great site where I can learn, try things, and gain some pastoral life experience.

2. Run in three half-marathons – I’m not sure if this will happen, but it will stretch me.  I know of at least one half-marathon in May here in Helsinki.  Part of this goal will be accomplished in knowing where our internship site will be so I can determine what half-marathons will be nearby.

3. Travel to Stockholm, Sweden, the Laplands and Germany.  Stockholm and the Laplands are nearby and not too expensive to get to.  Germany is our goal for June, but it will depend on how much money we have left at that point.  And that depends on living costs, food, transportation, etc.  So Germany is our stretch goal here.

4. Write a book about what I have learned about the church in Finland and how it relates to mission redevelopment in the US.  I’ve learned a ton and have lots of notes so far with a great deal more to go.  I’ve got to do something with all of these notes and things I’ve learned.  The goal may change based on what advice I get about this, but the idea is to do something with what I have learned.

5. Do 20 speaking engagements concerning our trip to Finland and what I learned about the church here and how it applies to mission redevelopment.  I have a few reasons for this – 1. it would be fun – yes, some people would rather die than speak in public, but I love public speaking.  2. The more you talk about something/read something/think about something/write about something – the deeper you delve into it and gain a different understanding about it.  I also expect to receive a lot of questions for me to consider and ponder, which will help me delve in even further and understand what other people are thinking and care about.  I know I’ll be writing plenty on this, but speaking is no guarantee, so this is a stretch goal.

There’s the list for 2015.  There’s one more thing about this list – it’s not set in stone.  I see it more as a guide, than something concrete that has to happen.  The goal list gives me a sense of direction.  But by not being attached to it, I am open to other possibilities.

Do you have goals for 2015 that you want to share?  I’d love to hear what you have – you might inspire me or others.