MusingsWithTime

It’s a new year and we’re already in the last week of January! This being the time for reflections and goal-setting, I set my 2022 goals in the first week of January. That was before I came across the book ‘Redeeming your time’ by Jordan Raynor. I first heard Jordan Raynor discussing the book on the Carey Nieuwhof podcast; I was so intrigued and compelled by his passion and discussion on the podcast that I ordered the book immediately afterwards. Anyone who knows me even moderately well will know that I LOVE books, especially personal development and productivity books and I have a lot of favourites but it’s not very often that a book has made such an impact on me that I’ve had to review my new year goals, delete some of them and start the process of goal-setting afresh.

I haven’t come across any author who addressed the topic of goal setting the way Jordan Raynor did nor from the perspective that he did in his book. I’ve always struggled with setting goals, writing mission statements, etc. I read other peoples’ well-constructed, detailed mission statements and they just highlight how inadequate mine was.

Another issue I’ve faced is that I tend to set goals that I considered were safe and easily attainable with not very much of a stretch for me. Sure, I made my goals challenging but I also set extremely realistic goals that didn’t require stretching my faith. 

The principles outlined in Jordan’s book weren’t completely new to me, I’d come across several of them in other books but the way he combined them and presented them in a new way resonated with me. The first point he made about writing a mission statement was a winner for me – we all have one mission in life and I don’t have to worry about writing a whole paragraph about my mission. I like to keep things simple and having this one mission simplified made me go yay!

He then went on to state that from that one mission, we could identify several callings, I identified mine as a wife, mother and pharmacist/entrepreneur. He also recommended setting between one and five objectives and key results for each quarter of the year. I could write out my objectives and key results within the hour with this method.

I have recently completed the book and the insights I’ve gained from it have been invaluable. Another bonus to the book is that there are videos and other bonus resources with practical demonstrations of the principles and practices in the book available on Jordan’s website.

One of my goals in 2022 is to read a minimum of 15 non-fiction books this year and wait for it………………write a blog post about what I’ve learnt from the book. This is one goal that is sure to stretch me and I don’t mean the reading part but the writing aspect. The book ‘Redeeming your time’ is an easy one because I enjoyed reading it and sharing the ideas proposed within it. I will recommend this for anyone who wants to set goals from a Godly perspective. It’s written for a Christian audience with biblical references but I still say this is a book for anyone willing to change their mindset around goal setting.

In the meantime, happy new year folks and happy goal-setting! It’s not too late to set your goals for 2022.