It is hard to believe that the year is already half over. Although it may not be time to begin thinking about doing your Christmas shopping, it is time to review where you have been during the first half of the year and where you plan to go in the remaining months that make up 2013. The place to do that is by reviewing your goals for this year. If you created goals using the format I shared early this year or late in 2012 you should have had a number of Key Result Areas (KRAs) for each goal. These are the things that, when accomplished, help move you closer to achieving your goal. How many of the KRAs have you completed for each of your goals? Are you ahead or behind where you thought you would be for this goal? Why? These are the kinds of questions you should be asking yourself for each goal you establiehd for 2013.
This is also the time of the year when you may realize you need to revise or even completely change some of your goals. Things change, and one of the marks of an adaptive leader is to know when to change some of your plans or goals to adapt to the changes occuring around you. I've seen churches change their budgets mid-year as they realized their finances had changed for the better or for the bad. Personally, I think it is fine to change some of your goals mid-year. Maybe something that seemed to be a priority is now seen as an option, and other things have become more pressing.
I can give an example. My work load changed greatly as we entered the month of May. One of our staff members retired and was not replaced. I became responsible for most of the churches he worked with for our region. I went from having 77 churches that I was responsible to assist to having 130 churches. The geographic area I cover virtually doubled in size as well. I need to change some of my goals and add a couple of new ones because of these changes. Some of the things I used to do with our churches I may not be able to do now. I need to focus on some of the most critical issues facing our churches and spend less time on maintenance activities. I'm not doing that because I want to but because the changes that have taken place in our region force me to determine new boundaries for how I will invest my time in the churches for which I am responsible.
I hope you set goals at the start of the year for a variety of items in most people's lives. Your relationship with God must be a priority, and I pray you've set some goals and identified KRAs to help you achieve those goals that will help grow your relationship with Him. Your family should also be a priority in your life, and you should have set some goals to strengthen your relationship with members of your family. Obviously, if you are the leader of a congregation you should have some goals that will help you provide the best possible leadership for your congregation. One critical area that too many clergy neglect is their own self-care. Every leader should have goals in place to help him or her practice good self-care. I hope you also have goals around finances, health, relationships, and anything else you believe is a priority for you, your family, and your ministry.
Now that the final summer holiday is behind us and the pace of our church activites begins to slow down until the fall it is a great time to begin reviewing your goals for this year. Rejoice over the short-term goals that you may have already achieved. Take a second or third look at some of the other goals and determine where you are as far as implementing them. Do they seem as important to you now as they did when you wrote them down? Determine whether or not to remove them as goals for this year or how you might modify them. You may even decide to add a new goal to the mix in order to address a challenge or an opportunity you've been given since the year began. These are your goals, so make them work for you. By taking a mid-year review and making whatever adjustments you decide need to be made, they will work for you.
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