Thank you to Miles Welch for giving us permission to repost his blog article. This is the fourth article in his series on self leadership. Check out his blog called Developing Next Generation Leaders to read his insightful articles: mileswelch.com. Miles has served the local church as a pastor and leader for 20 years, and has been at 12Stone Church (Lawrenceville, GA) https://12stone.com/ since 2001.
This is the fourth post in a series on self-leadership. Self-leadership is a proactive process, where leaders first seek self-understanding and then use it to intentionally direct their lives. So far, we have talked about the proactive nature of self-leadership and what it means to seek self-understanding. In this post, we will explore how to intentionally direct our lives.
Most people live on accident. Alice, in Lewis Carroll’s Alive in Wonderland, is a poignant example of this kind of purposelessness:
Alice asked the Cat “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where –” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“– so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
Self-leadership keeps you from making the same mistake as Alice – instead of ending up anywhere, you intentionally work toward a specific destination. Self-leadership connects your daily to-do list and your weekly calendar to your lifelong goals. Self-leadership means setting meaningful goals and then accomplishing them. Most people will not do this because there is a price tag: you lose your options. However, the price tag of not setting goals is a loss of influence. Most people choose options over influence and therefore never set goals. Leaders who are self-led set goals.
I have been following essentially the same goal-setting process for more than 20 years. Here’s my process:
1. Write a life purpose statement.
I did this twenty years ago and I have maintained the same basic purpose statement the whole time. Each year, I revisit it and tweak it (to keep it relevant ), but it is essentially the same.
I encourage you to take a stab at writing down your life purpose in a sentence or two. It doesn’t have to be perfect. God will refine it along the way, but you have to start somewhere. This first step is the hardest part because we immediately feel the loss of options.
2. Set life long-aspirations
Based on your life purpose, write 3-5 life long aspirations. These add another layer of clarity and strategy to your life purpose. For me, these answer the question, “When I am retired, what would I need to have done to have accomplished my life purpose?” These goals put meat on the bones of your life purpose.
Every year in December, I revisit my goals and make small tweaks to my life-long aspirations. As I learn more about my gifting and opportunities, my life-long aspirations gain another layer of clarity.
3. Set annual goals
Next, I ask myself, “What must I accomplish this year for each of my life-long aspirations to become a reality?” I write 1-3 annual goals for each life-long aspiration. When I started this, I used to walk away with 50 goals and I never got them done. Now I have about 8-10 goals per year, which makes them more achievable.
4. Put goals on weekly calendar
Each year, after I set my annual goals, I add them to my weekly rhythm. Calendar is where the rubber meets the road — my desire for options and my desire for influence collide on my calendar. If I will not actually put a goal on my calendar, I reassess the goal.
5. Follow your weekly rhythm even when you do not want to.
It is one thing to put an item on your calendar, but another thing to actually do what your calendar says. It is not fun to know what you will be doing two months from now at 1:30 p.m. but this is the only way I know to intentionally build my life in a way that accomplishes my goals.
To help make this strategy more concrete, here is a very simplified example:
- Life purpose: “Walk in close, committed relationship with God”
- Aspiration: “Study each book of the Bible”
- Goal this year: “Study Romans”
- Goal this month: “Study Romans 7-8”
- Today’s goal: “Study Romans 8:5-8”
This kind of intense self-leadership can look and feel like drudgery – when it’s unappealing or overwhelming, remember:
- Self-leadership decides ahead of time what you will do.
- Self-leadership decides ahead of time what you won’t do.
- Self-leadership allows you to build each day toward a desired destiny.
- Self-leadership ensures that your daily activity translates into a life of accomplishment.
- Self-leadership helps you persevere in difficulty.
- Self-leadership unlocks personal momentum.