Re-Blog from Ambs' Pastor

Wanted to do a RE-BLOG here, from Ambs' pastor's blog, Mark Batterson of National Community Church. It was sooooo good, and with the New Year here, and my challenge to you about "The Bucket List", thought this might help you get started on setting some of your own goals or making up your own "Bucket List". Read on and get to it!!!
~God's love & mine,
Nonnie
aka Lauren
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This weekend we kicked off our How series. We're talking about everything from How to Set Life Goals to How to Study the Bible to How to Manage Your Money. I think the series will be inspiring, but our goal is to be painfully practical. It's not a self-help series. It is a stewardship series. Really hope it helps people maximize their God-given potential.We kicked off this weekend with How to Set Life Goals. You can watch the webcast or listen to the podcast when it's uploaded this week.
Here are the ten steps:
#1 Start with Prayer: If you just set a bunch of selfish goals you'd be better off spiritually if you didn't accomplish them! Set your goals in the context of prayer so your goals are conceived by God. Then they become an expression of faith.
#2 Check Your Motives
#3 Get Ideas From Others Don't copy other people's goals. But its ok to get ideas from others. Other people's life goals help your synapses fire in new ways. I've been inspired by two goal-setters: John Goddard and Ted Leonsis. And I hope my life goal list helps my kids set their goals. In fact, I'm sure we'll end up with some shared goals.
#4 Think in Categories. Different categories help me think of different kinds of goals. I have five categories:
1) family goals
2) travel goals
3) physical goals
4) experience goals
5) influence goals.
You can check out my life goal list here.
#5 Be Specific
#6 Write Them Down
#7 Include Others Most of my goals involve others. I don't want to accomplish lots of goals without taking anybody along with me for the ride.
#8 Celebrate Along the Way
#9 Think Big Big goals make big people. You need some crazy goals that require divine intervention. Big goals are good for you because they force you to work like it depends on you and pray like it depends on God.
#10 Keep Dreaming It's never too late to be who you might have been. It doesn't matter how old you are or how many times you've failed.
Keep setting new goals.
~Mark Batterson, Senior Pastor of National Community Church