Let’s talk about setting goals, failing to achieve them, and a spiritual coaching tool that can help!

Following the lead of Michael S. Hyatt, I reviewed 2016 and set goals for 2017 that, if achieved, would likely make me feel that I’d had the Best Year Ever. Believing I should, I set a fitness goal based on my intellectual understanding that, although I’m active, trim, and healthy, I had to exercise X times per week for cardiovascular conditioning, regulating blood-sugar, and strength training. At the end of the first quarter, I’d utterly failed to get near the goal and I sought input to help me get on track. I rejected all the suggestions because they didn’t excite me.

I realized I had a limiting belief—that I don’t like to exercise unless it’s just for fun like tennis or snorkeling. I’d built in flexibility and triggers to remind me, and I’d brainstormed ways to try to make it more fun. But the goal didn’t excite me—even fulfilling it sounded more like discipline than enjoyment, let alone elation about it being the best year. I was stuck. My heart didn’t buy into it. In prayer, the Holy Spirit + Creativity led me to know what would excite me. The solution: I revised my goal accordingly and have now been happily meeting my new fitness goal: Get endorphins going for at least 20 minutes of vigorous movement X times a week so I start to love that feeling!

Have you got any goals that need reframing?

Not surprisingly, my physical-psychological challenge tied into what’s been happening in my family and spiritual challenges.

It’s about not trying to put a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment or into a vintage quilt, because the patch will pull away from the old cloth, resulting in a worse tear. It’s about not putting new wine into old wineskins or they’ll burst, the wine will pour out, and the wineskins will get ruined. [See Matthew 9:16-17.] We need to put new wine into fresh wineskins—new ideas, reframes, revised expectations, and a new way of living out our calling—all are asking for new containers, new constructs, and fresh viewpoints. The “same old” just doesn’t work. “Because we’ve always done it that way” isn’t wise reasoning.

Parenting an almost teen, like our grandson who’ll be 13 in October, requires our daughter (his mom) to use a different approach than when her son was younger. How we relate to her has had to change accordingly.

Our other daughter (in the overalls above) earned a Masters in Art and Ecology this month, right after we went to see her interactive thesis exhibition in which family members shared outdoor experiences (on April 30th with  snow that morning in Albuquerque). One experience (shown here) involved hiking into a wildlife preserve with a unique backpack our daughter made (along with other models) and washing each other’s hands, which was symbolic and moving, then later sharing a meal carried in another of her special backpacks. Definitely new and different art and experiences.

Also this Spring I presented a Lenten Day of Reflection on the 5 Keys to Freedom in Christ, base on Unbound healing and deliverance prayer ministry. It’s a brand new ministry in the San Francisco area, though it’s been growing in other states and countries. The Holy Spirit orchestrated that opening, and from it, we now have a dedicated team of trained women as well as priests referring people to us and lay people eager to know more and come to us for prayer and more training. The ministry (that is, God, through a certain prayer model) heals and transforms people in a way that takes them out of their old skins of discouragement, hopelessness or depression, bad habits, the bitterness of unforgiveness, and so forth, so they can experience the new skins of freedom and life to the full that Christ intended. I’m very involved in ongoing team development and feeling invigorated and enthusiastic.

Extending the metaphor, even my latest 2017 quilt was inspired by a something old (a vintage quilt), but changed enough so I now consider it as a new wine in a new skin! The original was a small mostly handstitched crazy quilt (left or top) and mine is a bed-sized machine-stitched rendition.

Are there areas of your life where it seems the old wineskins aren’t ready for the new wine of your life? Take stock and take heart. Remember to sow holy boldness into the art of your daily living and your goals! Also, try taking absolutely everything to prayer. And maybe, like me, it would help to break your goals into small actions that are challenging, doable with effort, and exciting to your heart and soul!

However, if you’re really stuck, consider if there is a spiritual reason, maybe even a subtle tactic or scheme of Satan, that’s keeping you where you are. If so, 5 Keys to Freedom in Christ prayer ministry, or just reading Unbound by Neal Lozano could be your Get Out of Jail Free card!