Last Wednesday, we were lucky enough to hear from BYU’s student body president—Ryan Greenburg—on the topic of establishing a vision and setting goals to reach it.  I’ve heard a lot of different lessons and lectures on goal setting before, but the idea of having an overarching vision was new to me.  A vision is much more vague than individual goals, but it is really the ideas behind the words that make it strong.  Here is the vision I came up with for myself:

         My vision is to develop and maintain strong relationships with my Heavenly Father, my Savior, and my family, to live in complete accordance with the laws and principles of the gospel, and to continually strive to serve those who I come in contact with.

     When I put my vision into writing and really thought about what’s important to me, I realized that I need to readjust my priorities.  I have always been a competitive athlete, taken the hardest classes in school, and tried to participate in as many extracurricular and social activities as I had time for, and while these aren’t bad things, they also aren’t directly helping me achieve my vision.  My top priorities need to be tied to the gospel, my family, and service because those three things are the most important aspects of my life when I really think about it.

    After establishing a vision, the next step in the process is to come up with goals.  Ryan presented us with a clever way to formulate our goals: the SMART goal method.  The goals we set should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.  You need to be able to identify the purpose and the intended outcome of each goal, and be able to evaluate your progress along the way.  Your goals need to actually be within your reach, otherwise you’ll either become too overwhelmed or you’ll just neglect the goal altogether.  Here are the goals I came up with to help me achieve my vision:

• Study (not just read) my scriptures and pray personally to my Heavenly Father on my knees everyday
• Write in my journal for five minutes daily
• Keep the BYU honor code and encourage others around me to as well
• Attend the temple at least twice a month
• Fulfill all the responsibilities within my church calling with a positive attitude and make an effort to get to know the girls I am serving/serving with
• Talk to each member if my family at least once a week, whether through the phone or Skype

   I’ve always been an avid list-maker and used my planner to keep track of every little thing I do, but I’ve never really set goals for myself.  So that is my new goal: to set goals. :)  I am going to have at least five goals for myself every month that I will post on my wall so that I see them everyday and at the end of the month, I will evaluate myself and possibly adjust these goals.  Hopefully, in doing this, I will be able to refocus and come closer to fulfilling my vision.