Yesterday, I blogged about how I’m having trouble aligning my goal plan with my overall values in life. In particular, I’m having trouble determining how to write specific, measurable, actionable goals for more nebulous and ongoing journeys, like my faith, my relationship with my wife, contentment, peace, etc. When I wrote the post yesterday, I had some thoughts already in mind, but I wanted to see what people said in the comments. Dave posted a great thought that is in line with what I’m thinking:

I think that it is possible to create SMART goals for things that affect the “intangibles.” For example, I can’t really make a goal to love my wife 10X more, but I can make a goal to spend an extra evening each week doing something with her. Or to leave a little “love note” for her every morning on the bathroom mirror or something. Spirituality can be the same. While it may not be possible to say “I want to be 35% closer to God.” you can say things like “I want to spend X amount of time each week serving others.” or “I will spend 15 minutes each morning meditating/in prayer”

Here’s what I think about creating SMART goals for the things that matter most: you can’t. However, as David points out, you can create goals that align your resources (time, money, energy, etc) with your values, in ways that are most likely to result in growth in those areas. Just because I spend time each morning in prayer or reading Scripture doesn’t necessarily mean that my relationship with God will be strengthened, but it certainly improves the odds To that end, I’ve started looking for ways to write goals that encourage the alignment of my resources with my values. It’s the best I can do.

For the last week or so, I’ve been working on reviewing, streamlining, and unifying my goals across different areas of my life. I’m building a comprehensive goal plan for the next ten years, and I’m calling this effort Project Goalpost (cheesy, I know). One of my guiding principles that I’m employing while working through all these goals is to ensure that each goal is SMART, which is a useful mnemonic that says goals should be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time-bound

I have found this device to be a useful one when devising my goal plans, as it helps avoid nebulous and ill-defined goals like “get into better shape” or “prepare for the future”. How would you have any idea when those things have been accomplished?

Currently, I’m dividing my goals into these different life areas:

• Personal
• Physical
• Financial
• Entrepreneurial
• Real Estate
• Spiritual

I’m doing pretty well with most of these, but it’s the Spiritual category that’s giving me the most trouble. I’m just not sure how to write specific, measurable goals for matters of the heart, especially for several years out.

For one thing, faith is about the journey, not really the destination, and much of that journey occurs in ways that don’t lend themselves to metrics. For example, it doesn’t really make sense to say that you want to be 35% closer to God, or have your prayer life be twice as good. The destination doesn’t really exist, either, as I don’t believe that Christians can ever really say that they’ve accomplished their mission as a Christian, at least not in this life.

Second, I’m not entirely sure that our faith is something that should get a category of its own. Shouldn’t our faith undergird all that we do, rather than being put into its own bullet-point list of todo items?

And why does this bother me at all? I guess because my goals should reflect a lot about who I am, but when you look at my list, it seems so shallow and materialistic, because a lot of my goals revolve around financial gain, real estate, and other items in that vein. Those things just lend themselves to measurement. But they aren’t what matter most in life, and I know that. What matters most in life are things like relationships, contentment, and faith, but can you really create SMART goals for those things? I have a few ideas I’ll explore in a future post, but I would love to know what you think.

A friend of mine wrote a great blog post on the intersection of politics and Christianity in America.  It eloquently sums up much of what I feel on the subject.  Here’s an excerpt…check it out!

Modern Christianity has transformed itself from a grassroots movement that sought to change society by changing lives, into a Political Action Committee trying to enforce morality through legislation, a plan that might change the nation’s actions but can never change its heart. Even if it succeeded, it would only create a nation of pretty tombs, gleaming rocks full of dead bones.

I’ve decided to start a side blog about Christianity (or faith in general) and science, technology, and the future. I need a name. Here are my thoughts so far:

• Would Jesus Have an Ipod?

Yeah, that’s all I’ve got so far. Seriously, toss some ideas my way. Please.