Fresh Start

This is the beginning of a new week. This is when you have the chance to start over fresh and focus on those parts of your life that you think need improvement. Take a look at yourself and wonder what is it this week that I want to be better at then I was last week. I want to take look at goal setting and why that is important to being armed, but also for anyone.

"My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose – somehow we always win out.” Ronald Reagan. 

This thought from Ronald Reagan sums up what the purpose of goal setting is for. If you have no goals in life you will drift aimlessly, never quite reaching the potential that you want, but not putting the effort in to reach for what you can achieve.

You will not become perfect overnight, in a week, or even years from now. What we want in this life is to strive for perfection in all categories in life. To become the perfect husband or wife, the perfect employee or employer, the best shot in the world, or the best physical shape. Now these definitions can change depending on what you see as perfection, but no matter what it requires setting goals.

By writing down your goals and the steps needed to acquire these goals is over half the battle. It gives you a map to be able to follow. Now for the men reading this we need to follow this map and reference it frequently. We can't just look at it once and then think that we know the way until the end goal. Take time reference your map, make corrections to your path if you have drifted.

You need to record your progress consistently. I'm going to use weight loss for this part of goal setting. If you simply are following your plan you might be making progress, but you aren't sure how well it is working until you record the results that you are making. "When performance is measured, performance improves..." Now to extend this thought even more, "When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates" Thomas S. Monson.

Goals work better when you are working with a partner. In marriage this could be your spouse, for physical goals it could be a lifting buddy, when shooting a spotter. What makes these people so important is they add a level accountability. When it is just you and you give up you are only giving up on yourself, but now you have someone that is counting on you and supporting you and are there to help you. These partners help increase the effectiveness of our goals and might have similar goals to achieve them.

So this week as someone that could be called upon to defend yourself, loved ones, or even strangers from the dangers of this world find an aspect in your life and make steps to become better in that area of your life. Like an investment, little consistent steps are better than random big contributions.

Here is a free website to help you goal set: http://www.goalsettingbasics.com/free-goal-setting-worksheets.html