Flipping through the channels on New Years Eve, my wife noticed something really quickly – Weight Watchers was wearing out advertising on nearly every channel. Not to mention Alli, Hydroxycut, and every other dietary supplement you can imagine. It’s a smart business model, capitalizing on people’s goals for the new year to get in shape. Of course, by this time next month those commercials – and those new customers – will be long gone.
So it got me thinking about my own goals for the new year. What will they be? How will I actually stick to them? I’ve decided that my goals will be very attainable. One thing I’ve learned through church planting is that you are much better off to just “get on base” with every at-bat than you are to try to swing for the fences every time up, only to hit a homerun every once in a while.
So here are my personal “base hit” goals for 2012.
1. Read one book a month. I love to read, and over the years have read more than even I realized. But the past year or two have slowed me down big time as I’ve allowed busyness to get in my way. I saw one guy on Twitter post his goal is to read 100 books this year. That’s a homerun for me, so I’ll stick with my base hit. Afterall, a stat I saw recently showed a person reading one book a month will be in the top 5% of their field within 5 years. Sounds good to me!
2. Lose one pound a week. When I got married, I was in great shape. Then starting a church and getting pregnant (it might as well have been me as much as I ate!) got me way out of shape. One pound a week will be more than accomplishable with a little discipline, and by mid-summer I’ll be at my goal of losing 30 pounds. Again, the base hit will be key. Homerun dieters rarely make it.
3. Workout three days a week. A couple years ago I tried to go to the gym everyday. Then a meeting would pop up one day, a business trip the next, or a sick family member the next. And because my homerun goal was instantly shot, I just didn’t go back. So this year I’ll aim for three out of seven – much more attainable. At the end of the year that will be at least 150 visits to the gym, which is about 100 more than last year!
4. Fast one day a month. Spiritual disciplines definitely fit into the homerun category far too often for most Christians. We set goals that are not attainable and end up doing nothing rather than something. So for me, I’m going to find one day each month to commit to fasting and prayer, and see how God transforms me one base hit at a time.
What are some goals you can set? Shoot for just getting on base, and eventually you’ll make it home a lot sooner and more often than when you swing for the fences.
