It’s that time of a year where everyone starts making goals. We sit down and look over the last year and evaluate certain areas of life that we think need improvement. We make a list of all the things that we want to focus on this year. These lists can range from little things all the way to big things. There may be goals that we want to accomplish daily, monthly, over time, or all of the above. The beginning of the year seems to spark this internal motivation for growth in all of us to become better.

Except, I stopped making goals.

You read that right, I no longer make goals for the New Year. Very rarely a goal I set was I able to keep. It wasn’t because I wasn’t trying. It wasn’t because I wasn’t committed to that goal. It wasn’t because I gave up after a few weeks. What I didn’t know making those goals was what life was going to look like a month from now, two months from now, or half way through the year. In making goals I couldn’t account for the changes that would come over the course of the year.

You see what I learned is that my plans, my goals, aren’t always the plans that Christ has for me. There are a lot of things that He knows about my upcoming year that I don’t. So instead I have made it my lifelong goal to grow more into the person He is calling me to be. Instead I have begun coming up with an overall theme for my year, a word that encourages me to grow more into who God is calling me to be and allowing that word to shape me throughout the rest of the year. It doesn’t mean there aren’t things I want to work on each year, there are. But I don’t want to stop working on them at the end of the year. I want to grow, and continue to grow for the rest of my life. And just because I didn’t set a goal at the beginning of the year, doesn’t mean I can’t pursue a new goal in the middle of the year. I don’t set New Year’s goals because I should make it my goal to grow continuously throughout the year.

I have found that each year this word shapes my year. It shapes the goals and desires placed on my heart throughout the year to continue to grow as a person. I am not tied down to just a list of goals, but I am continuously exploring this theme in every aspect of my life, in every area. I am making it my heart’s mission to become more and more like Jesus. This theme shapes my years, it shapes my desires, and it shapes me as a person. It doesn’t keep me in a box, but it expands to many areas of my life encouraging me to grow beyond just a set goal. It stretches me to levels I couldn’t have set myself. It inspires continual growth in my life, and I never want to stop growing.

What about you? Do you set New Year’s goals? If so, what are yours? If you choose a word for the year, what is yours this year?