Making Sundays more meaningful: Goals

Honestly, I am not the best person for tips on how to keep your Sabbaths more holy or to get more out of your church attendance. I don't rule out improvement and that I might have something to pass on later.

For now, there is one thing that I have been liking a lot.

I have a lot of things that I am working on, some of which are going to play out over months or years.

Recently I started breaking down some of the longer goals into shorter sections, and looking at indicators for knowing that I am staying on track.

That has included creating a weekly list of thing to accomplish, which has become a part of my Sunday journal session, including breaking down what things I should be working on each week.

That includes looking at the last week's goals, going over each line and what happened and what didn't. Then I write out goals for the new week.

I break those goals down further on a daily basis.

One thing I am working on is clearing out old e-mails, most of which require some reading. Generally I will pick a section and then plan on reading two per day, so a daily goal is reading those two messages.

I try to keep things realistic; my tendency is to be overly ambitious, but I have gotten better.

I still miscalculate sometimes, whether that is regarding what a task requires (like starting something on a web site and finding out you need to wait for a letter before you can finish) or just what my schedule will allow.

Last week my plans changed on the Monday. 

One thing came up unexpectedly, throwing off the start, but more badly than I would have thought possible. I realized that I needed to do that particular sequence on a different week. 

Ultimately, that deferral was a logical adjustment; not sticking to the plan did not make me a terrible person.

Being able to feel that way does show some personal growth, so that is a part of it. In addition, making these extended plans means that for all that I do not accomplish, there are still things that I am accomplishing, and the average setback will usually not affect the long-term goal.

Obviously it is important to keep perspective.

Part of that is also allowing myself to appreciate the things that did go as planned, and sometimes even better.

There can be this weird taboo against ever appreciating or liking yourself because of pride, but that's a misunderstanding. Pride is when you think your good qualities and accomplishments make you better than other people. 

Constantly berating yourself is not humility.

If I were doing this too ambitiously and failing a lot, or if I were not allowing myself to adjust as a reasonable thing, this could be very damaging.

As it is, it has been affirming. I am accomplishing things I want to do and seeing my progress, and I feel good about it.