We are going to have similiar themes. I have way to much stuff to not own a house!!! I just got married this summer and I am 26 but I feel like I should be on the way to owning a house! So this year my theme is I am a Grown Up Now! the little vacation of I finished school and have a little jingle (thats what we call money) is over. It's time to get my life organized. So yesterday I went to the bank and opened a 12 month payroll deducted CD , that means I can't touch it for a year, so I should have a down payment by next December cause I am not paying no penalities to get my own money. I got copies of my credit report, and even made an eye appointment, doctot appointments and dentist appointments. Now I need to go clean my house.......:rolleyes:

LOL
 

Love Me or Hate Me...I am Shaking the Dust Off of My Feet and Moving On :D

Re: Good topic
 

I second!!!!! I also like to say...If God is for me, who can be against me!!!! Lately...my GC friends...things have just been a big pile of mess.

I wish you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!:D :D :D

Check out my SIG!

Mine is straight up Love Don't Live Here Anymore. I am through with relationships. They are for the birds. It seems like the more I try to make a relationship work, it goes to hell in a handbasket. I keep going through the same cycles over and over and I am tired. I am resigned to the fact that relationships are not meant for me. I think that I am just one of those people that God has predetermined to be single forever.

I have always been a person that looks for love or feels "inadequate" without a man. But then, when I had given up on love and wasn't even looking for a relationship, a man came into my life and I thought that maybe God was trying to let me know that he was the one. Well, he wasn't.

Relationships are pointless to me now and I am facing that fact. That's why from this year on, I am going to completely focus on myself and advancing my careers and personal endeavors.

Re: New Year, New Statement
 

Soror, I want you to know that I thought about this over the break and it made me LOL! I'ma hafta think of a theme for this year...

Re: LOL
 

I like this alot. I'm going to have to think of theme......

"A goal, without a plan or hard work, remains just a dream."




Goals for the 04:

1. A closer walk with God
2. Commit to my writing
3. Re-focus (and grow) the investment portfolio

My theme
 

Its good to see so many other folks go with themes over resolutions. I have 2..one is (and I believe someone else has this too) Stop talking about it and be about it!! I have so many positive things I want to do and its time for me to start putting those things in motion instead of daydreaming about them. My second is to Stop dwelling on the things I DON'T have and be thankful for what I DO have! Its so easy for the enemy to take your eyes off of what's important...

I'm ready for '04! Bring on the blessings!:)

My goals for 2004 can all be summed up with the following phrase: IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!!!!

1. getting rid of all the toxic people, places and things
2. creating a better financial picture
3. getting better acquainted with my new church and the Lord in '04!!

oh, and to get myself ready to buy a condo at the end of 2004.

That's my theme as well. IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!!

My goals are the same as yours excpet for #3 finding a church home in my town.

1. moving OUT
2. getting a job that pays more!
3. more cardio

ME TOO!!!

I have to stop trying to be Superwoman (superwife, supermommy, super business analysis). I need to focus on Toocute and stop trying to be everything to everybody. I getting burnt out.

1. Getting reacquainted with my home church and the Lord
2. Tithe :o ( I give an offering but my grown behind should be tithing)
3. Eat better. 3 years ago I stopped eating beef and only had pork on the holidays. (My family is southern. I will not deny myself honeybaked spiral ham) I've been eating all sorts of beef and pork and want to stop....need to stop. Also need to eat more vegetables
4. Work out

2004
 

My theme for 2004 is "A New Focus: Fresh and New"

I chose that theme b/c I wasted a whole year doing nothing substancial and I think I am hitting a cyclical slump. I need to refocus on God and His glory. He wants to reveal quite a bit of stuff to me this year, but He is waiting on me to completely focus on Him and Him only.

BTW, my theme for 2003 was: Regroup, release, and relax. In that regard, the mission was accomplished in many ways than one.

Like most of you who posted in this thread many people use the beginning of a new year as a time to set resolutions/goals, etc. Here's a great article from a Christian Woman's magazine (I get articles online) that is appliable whether you are Christian or not. I wish you all much success on a happy, fufilled 2004!

______________________________________________

Today's Christian Woman, January/February 2002

Resolution Solution
6 great ways to make your goals stick
by Joan Esherick


I will go on a diet.
I will get my spending habits under control.
I will be more patient with my kids.
I will be a better wife, daughter, sister, friend.
I will exercise regularly.
I will pray more.

Sound familiar? If so, you're one of more than a million Americans who made New Year's resolutions this year. And by about March, if you're like most, you've either given up on your resolutions or you're about ready to quit. How do I know? I've been a New Year's resolution dropout myself.

It certainly wasn't because of a lack of desire; I wanted to change. Motivation wasn't the issue, either; I was highly motivated (at least in January). I couldn't identify the problem until I stumbled upon some old training objectives I'd set 20 years earlier while working in student ministry. I was amazed at how similar my ministry goals were to New Year's resolutions. As I read through my files, I realized my difficulty in keeping resolutions was less a matter of desire, discipline, or motivation, and more a misunderstanding of how to set goals effectively.

New Year's resolutions are nothing more than goals in disguise. Our problem is we often treat resolutions as desires (I want to get in shape) or promises (I will be a better friend), whereas goals give us a plan.

Try these six steps for more effective resolutions:

1 Be specific. In my work as a teacher coordinator, I meet with Bible study teachers to help them set personal and ministry goals. At one such meeting, a teacher mentioned her personal goal for the year was to "grow in Bible knowledge." While her desire was admirable, I had to ask a number of questions: "How will you know when you've grown?" "What does growth in Bible knowledge look like?" "What steps will you take to foster this growth?" Her goal needed to be more specific.

As I worked with this teacher, we were able to revise her goal from the vague—"I'll grow in Bible knowledge"—to the specific—"I'll spend 30 minutes a day in personal Bible study, 5 days a week." Her goal now expressed not only her desire, but the means to accomplish it.

2 Be realistic. During my college years I wanted to pray more. So I decided to rise every morning at 5 A.M. and pray for an hour before breakfast. But I also worked as the closing cook for Pizza Hut at that time, and rarely made it back to my dorm room before 2 A.M. How long did my prayer endeavor last? About two days. And in those two days I spent more time sleeping than praying.

In a recent interview, I spoke with Christian counselor Leslie Vernick, who said, "If our goals or resolutions begin to overwhelm us . …perhaps that is a sign . …we are not living within the limits and boundaries . …God has created for us. We are human beings. We all need to eat, sleep, and relax. Yet, at times we push ourselves in [ways] that [ignore] these realities at least temporarily. Then, when we can't do it anymore . …we give up. Instead, we should reassess our goal. Perhaps it was totally unrealistic."

My goal of early morning prayer was unrealistic in light of my work schedule, my class schedule, and my need for sleep. When I realized that, I replaced my original goal with a plan more suited to my schedule: I'd pray during my 15-minute breaks between afternoon classes 3 days a week. During my afternoon break I sat on a park bench near my classrooms and prayed. Unlike my first attempt, this three-afternoons-a-week prayer endeavor lasted the entire semester. My prayer life grew because my goal was realistic.

3 Include a way to measure your success. A good goal will answer the questions of what, how, and when; it's measurable.

Jean, a working wife and mother, decided to simplify her life by getting rid of the excess clutter she and her family had accumulated over the years. In January, she set the goal to clean out one drawer, cupboard, or closet each week. It was a specific, realistic, measurable goal; at the end of each week either she'd cleaned out something or she hadn't. She had a means to track her progress.

By April, Jean was still going strong on her "decluttering" routine. She explains, "The sense of accomplishment I felt as I measured my weekly progress kept me motivated to start the next week's clean-up. Today, my house feels less cluttered, and my life seems simpler because I tackle overwhelming tasks by breaking them into smaller jobs and keeping track of my progress."

4 Think short-term and long-term. Short-term goals (cleaning one closet a week) allow us to experience success at smaller intervals while working toward long-term goals (decluttering an entire house).

Sally was overwhelmed by the accumulating debt she and her husband were facing, so they met with a financial advisor who counseled them to develop both short-term and long-term financial objectives by using weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. "I never thought I'd like being on a budget," Sally recalls. "But it was freeing. When I looked at our debt as a whole, it was too big to deal with, but by working on it in smaller bites, it seemed okay." After three years of sticking to their short- and long-term goals, Sally and her husband are now debt free.

Finances and organizing things aren't the only areas in which to set short- and long-term goals. You can use them in virtually any area of life: education, child-rearing, family life, athletics, community service, church service, personal and spiritual growth, marriage.

When our three children were small, my husband, Don, and I discovered how easily parenting could cause us to grow apart. We decided to guard the health of our marriage by setting the following goals: We'll go out on a date once a month; we'll go away together without the kids for one overnight per year; every five years we'll attend a marriage seminar. Over the years, Don and I stuck to our goals, and today, as parents of three teens, we're still best friends. The short-term and long-term worked together to build and maintain a healthy marriage.

5 Be flexible. Linda, who's self-employed, recently faced this challenge: "I'm trying to expand my home business, so I set some fairly aggressive goals. Little did I know my family would become victims of the flu. Now, healthy once again, I'm struggling to make up for lost time. I hope to get back on track, but I never considered that life might get in the way."

Life can, indeed, get in the way. Two years ago, I planned to jog 500 miles over the course of a year. That worked out to be 2 miles a day, 5 days per week, 50 weeks out of the year. It was a specific, realistic, measurable, short-term and long-term goal. I was well on my way to achieving that goal when I hurt my knee. Did I quit? No. I wanted to stay in shape, so I learned to be content walking. I had to become flexible, which allowed me to stay on course, and ultimately contributed to my healing; walking gave my injured knee a chance to recover. After my knee healed, I started running again.

6 Review periodically. Regular review allows us to stay on course, track our progress, and adjust course as necessary. Each year I record my goals in my datebook/planner so they're accessible wherever I go. In a section marked "goals," I list specific objectives by category: personal/spiritual; marriage/family; professional; ministry; house/projects.

Then I set aside one Sunday every three months for reviewing my goals. On those "review dates," I check off the items I've accomplished. (What satisfaction!) Next, I look at what remains, and prayerfully ask the following questions:

*How am I doing? Am I still on course?
*Which goals am I encouraged about?
*Which are frustrating me? Can I be more flexible?
*Have circumstances changed since I set this goal?
*Is my goal realistic? Specific? Measurable?
*If not, what could I change to make it more so?
*Is this the right season of life to work on this?
*Have I prayed about this goal?
Based on my answers, I make any necessary changes, sometimes crossing off objectives that are too ambitious or impossible to fulfill because of changing circumstances. I finish my review time by prayerfully committing my remaining goals to God. Regular review helps me not only to stay on track, but to guard against overcommitment and burnout.

I find it helpful to review my goals not only on my own, but also with someone else. Often, another set of eyes can catch what I fail to see. Earlier this year, I set several work goals, then sat down to review them with a coworker who quickly noted they seemed a bit ambitious. I'd stated I'd take each teacher out to lunch once this semester when, in fact, I meant to say I'd take each one out this academic year. My coworker's review helped catch my error. I'm thankful I didn't commit to 16 teacher lunches in 14 weeks!

If you're a resolution dropout like me, take heart! Goal setting's a liberating alternative. It helps you realize objectives are simply tools, not promises or laws, and tools are something we can implement anytime. As counselor Leslie Vernick says, "Don't let falling off track keep you from your goals. Dust yourself off and get right back on track." Leave yesterday's failures behind, and treat today as a brand-new beginning. You'll be glad you did.

Joan Esherick, a freelance writer, lives with her family in Pennsylvania.

Need Some Goal-Setting Help?

Here are 10 easy tips:

Write down your goals.
Then cut them in half!
Tell someone your goals.
Keep track of your progress.
Reward yourself with each success.
Be optimistic.
Be prepared for difficulty and failure.
Adjust course as needed.
Measure growth by months and years, not days.
Treat each day as a brand-new beginning.
—J.E.


Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian Woman magazine.

I got this in email and thought it was cool and wanted to share. Lately I've been thinking that some of the things I want to do are "crazy," so this was on point for me. Not to mention, it comes at the perfect time for my weight loss venture. See y'all in that thread later! :)

Happy New Year!

For the last 12 years, I've written a New Year's message to my friends and readers of my books and magazines. Each year, I remind them of their opportunity to renew and improve in the 12 months ahead. I've encouraged them to focus on health and fitness; begin each day with at least 20 minutes of intense exercise; make eating right a lifestyle rather than a diet; set specific health-related goals and so on.

All of those recommendations are tried and true, and I stand by them. However, each year I learn more about what it takes to make miraculous changes for the better in your body and life. The more knowledge and insight I gain from people who've transformed, the more I realize that there's more to it than the bottom-line basics which I mentioned above.

The more "wise" I become about the transformation process, the more I realize how smart it is to "GO CRAZY!"

Let me explain...

I have heard again and again the "rational" person telling others it's "crazy" to think you can make a change like you see in the before and after pictures in my book Body-for-LIFE. "They" say you can't transform so much so fast and that it's crazy to think you can. Porter Freeman must have been crazy. He was 260 pounds, nearly half a century old and was more interested in eating potato chips and drinking beer every night than anything else. What logical reason did he have to think he could lose 54 pounds of fat and become lean, healthy, strong and so alive in just 12 weeks? Much less go on to become an inspiration to over a million people. But he did it!

How crazy is this: A boy is born in Austria under the shadow of oppression left by Hitler's Nazi war machine. He has an inspiration, passion, an idea that he can come to America and become a huge success. He becomes a world-champion athlete; goes on to have a 25-year career in film, which grosses over a billion dollars; marries into "American royalty," the Kennedy family; and then, with no "experience in politics," becomes the leader, the governor, of California. Yep... many would say that Arnold has spent his life doing things which are downright crazy! (The ideas weren't crazy to Arnold, by the way. That is an important point!)

Consider this example: Tom Archipley from Okemos, Michigan, decides to enter the Body-for-LIFE Challenge. He's excited about the idea of winning the $100,000 grand prize. He tells his friends. His friends tell him, "Tom, thousands of people enter that contest every year… You'll never win. You're crazy if you think you will!" He believes them. A few weeks later he stops working out. He throws in the towel. Yet he still has that desire to become lean, strong and healthy. So he tries again. Friends call him crazy. He quits again. A few months later, he still has the inspiration. He tries again. This time he decides that no matter what anyone says, he's going to follow his heart. "I decided I was in it to win it! All of it! The $100,000 grand prize. The new body. The new energy!" He not only finished my 12-week Body-for-LIFE Program, losing 31 pounds of fat and gaining 9 pounds of muscle, but as crazy as it sounds, I surprised him at his house one Sunday afternoon and awarded him the grand prize, including $100,000! (Now that's what I'm talkin' about!)

What about buying a bottle of pills you see in an advertisement claiming to burn all of your bodyfat without you having to do anything at all? Crazy, right? No. That's stupid! (There's a difference between crazy and stupid. You/we actually know inside if what we are about to do is stupid. So when in doubt, ask yourself.)

What about doing the same thing in 2004 which you did in 2003 and expecting a completely different result? Is that crazy? No... that's insane! (There's a difference between crazy and insane, too.)

Back in 1996 when I came up with the idea to offer my $250,000 bright-red Lamborghini Diablo as a prize in order to motivate people who were reading my magazine to apply the information they already knew about exercise and nutrition, what's the first thing you think other people told me? You know the answer… "Bill, that's crazy!" My reply: "Is it? Good!" It's to the point where if people with narrow vision and what I believe is an obscure perspective on human power, potential and possibilities don't tell me an idea's crazy, it's concerning!

Now, I'm not saying you need to run for governor, win the Body-for-LIFE Challenge, become rich and famous, etc., in order for you to "win" at this. In fact, your "crazy idea" may be quite the contrary. Consider a friend who had a six-figure salary, vice president position, a grand office and a view of Madison Avenue in New York City. His inspiration, the idea which he loved, was to move to the mountains with his beautiful wife and young son. His fellow corporate executives thought that was a crazy idea. Now he has his own real estate business in Vail, Colorado, where he and his family are loving the way they are living their transformed life!

What it all boils down to is this: What you feel excited about, passionate about, whatever transformations and healthy changes you want to make in your life in 2004, whatever really gets your motor running and makes you feel the pure, positive energy building up inside... well... that's something you should be giving some thought to as we begin this New Year. I'm not asking you to grab a piece of paper and write down more "resolutions," or make promises that you have no ability to keep, because they're not inspired by your passion, your heart. You see, far too many have tuned out that intuitive intelligence while mistakenly tuning in to what "they" (whomever they are) want you to want. What they think your goals should be.

And so, sometimes you have to go a little crazy—you have to go against the grain—in order to tap into your true energy, excitement and power to change. If you don't, it can get stuffed down, held back and feared, not celebrated. Why? It may be that someone else might think what you want to do, how you want to transform and improve your life, is crazy. And I'm telling you that many "crazy ideas" are not crazy at all! They may just be the BEST ideas you'll ever have! The ones which really can change your life and the lives of others!

As I see it, your dreams and goals in 2004 should be grand, exciting, big! And when those dreams and ideas are pure in purpose, when they benefit others more than yourself, when they literally make the world a better place, a little or a lot, then that's the direction I encourage you to go. And if that's crazy, well, then count me in! Because that's exactly where I want to go as well! If you're not afraid, I'd love to see you up there, somewhere, in 2004!

Happy New Year!

Bill Phillips