Leaders and Goals

My Goal for 2015

I recently read Seth Godin’s What To Do When It’s Your Turn (and it’s always your turn). The book challenged me to set some goals and make sure I take my turn. At my age, I’m beginning to realize

that I don’t have a lot of turns left. I want to make the most of them. So I set a single goal for 2015: complete a book manuscript.

But like another favorite book, The One Thing: the Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller, I learned to identify my most important objectives and take my best shot. So, which book? I’ve had a number of ideas and 2 or 3 that I’d really like to write. But which one is the one for me?

What’s your most important goal for 2015?

What’s the one thing you can do this month that will get you to your goal? What’s the one thing you can do this week, or today? What’s the one thing you can do right now to make progress on your goal. Every great work is a series of small achievements, strung together by a leader or group of leaders.

Three actions to achieve your most important goal:

1. Identify the next thing (ideally the one you can do).
2. Do it.
3. Repeat.

Don’t obsess about the next things you can’t do or the risks you can’t alleviate. Do the best, most important, next thing you can. Then, let your growing legacy of accomplishments (think of them as completed next things) challenge you to do the next one and the one after that, and even the one that seems too hard or too difficult. Your next thing is all any of us can do. Do it.

Your next thing is all any of us can do. Do it!

Back to My Goal

My passion is to elevate purpose and mobilize people, so after some evaluation and thought, I decided my most important book will be one that challenges people to live their beliefs. My most important belief, because of my faith, is that we each matter and our actions matter. I believe we were created for a purpose; we’re not an accident. I believe we have the ability, right were we are now, to make a difference. We don’t need permission. It is, after all, our turn. Almost everything we need we can get.

But if all we do is set goals for ourselves, we’re going to create a pretty empty world. We need to set goals for ourselves, but we also need to take action. So this post is my stake in the ground. My next action then was to create a survey and get the opinions, experiences, and ideas from people regardless of their opinion about faith. My focus would be on how people react to my faith – Christianity. The survey is designed to get opinions about faith in everyday life, and, more specifically about faith in the workplace. It will become the research for a book on everyday faith. If Christianity is the faith I believe it to be, why doesn’t it make a bigger difference in the world today?

And we need to help others. How can I help you with your goal? Please feel free to comment below and let me know how I can help you with your most important goal of 2015. And, if you haven’t taken the survey I mentioned above, would you take 5 minutes and do it for me? I’d appreciate it. And if you have taken it, please share it with your friends. Thanks in advance.

I hope you carry out your goals in 2015.

Related Links:

1. Faith in the Workplace Survey at mikehenrysr.com
2. What To Do When It’s Your Turn by Seth Godin
3. The One Thing by Gary Keller

This post originally ran on LinkedIn Pulse