20% down…

…sounds like an ad for a home loan program, doesn’t it? Actually, it’s what gone from 2008 already! Can you believe it? Friday marked the day that 20 percent of 2008 had passed. That means, if you set any goals for yourself on January 1st, and those goals were linear & constant, you should be 20 percent of the way to reaching them. Of course, not all goals are constant - some ramp up gradually, others have a big initial push and then taper off, and others follow a step function, getting completed in chunks. In any case, you should be making progress, and one of the ways to ensure you are doing that is to periodically review your goals and assess where you are in completing them.

At the beginning of the year, I posted several goals for myself, and to help keep myself accountable, here’s how I’m going on some of them (the others I’ll report on in a future post):

Faith

If someone at work asks what I did over the weekend, don’t ‘forget’ to tell them about going to church.

I’m making progress in this area. I usually start each Monday getting caught up with my team, finding out about what they did over the weekend, and reviewing the plans for the upcoming week. I’ve been conscious to talk about going to church, mentioning that I got a chance to talk to a former co-worker who goes there, etc. I even invited a couple of folks to come on Easter morning - I’m praying that they will come, and I know it will take a prompting of the Spirit for them to actually get there.

Health

Through a combination of getting lighter and/or getting stronger, I want to do a chinup without assistance.

Yes, I know, this is an odd goal. However, it’s a significant goal for me, as I have never done a chinup before. And I’m happy to say, I’m making progress - I’m still using the chinup assistance machine at the gym, but have gone from needing 110 pounds of assistance to only needing 80 pounds. That’s an improvement of over 20%, so if this goal was linear, I’d be ahead of the game. Keep on keepin’ on, and I’ll get there.

Family

Really lead family devotion time.

I have to be honest - I’m not progressing as quickly in this area as I’d like. I have found that we’re more comfortable talking about spiritual matters around the table at dinner and in the car, but as far as having any type of planned devotion time, we’re not there yet. I know it’s my role as prophet and priest for our family to lead the way, and lead I must. So I have some catch-up to do to get moving on this goal, and that will be more of a focus for the next 20% of the year.

For another perspective on what the first 20% means, take a look at Alwyn Cosgrove’s blog entry, which inspired me to write this entry today.