New Year’s resolutions, identifying a word for the year, setting and/or evaluating goals, are all commonly thought about this time of year, but I wonder how many of us think about them for a day or two and promptly forget about them. I’ve never been big on new year’s resolutions, never did the word for the year thing, but I do have goals. The end of the year is a good time to consider what you’ve accomplished, what you’ve learned, how you’ve grown, and before you flip the calendar, it’s also a good time to look forward.
We’re used to the end of the year routine, but how about using the same approach for your life.
Retirement can be a pivotal moment to look back over months, years, decades, and at the same time to look forward to what’s next.
Hopefully, as you are reimagining your retirement, this newsletter has given you some ideas for next steps. I’ve tackled topics like identity, restructured lives, education, managing new and different interactions with family members, volunteering, dealing with option paralysis, placing limits on ourselves, facing up to opinions about aging, and the value of our time, among other topics. I encourage you to read or re-read some of these.
Many of my articles focus on envisioning retirement not as the end of your productive life but as the beginning of a new and possibly better chapter of your life, and the last week in December is an obvious time to set goals for the next page or two of that chapter.
When I begin to write an article I have an objective, but often as I’m writing a slightly different purpose becomes clear. That’s how I’m looking ahead to 2024. I will work toward my goals, but with the understanding that they can and most likely will be adjusted due to unforeseen events, family needs, opportunities, and schedules.
Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. Proverbs 19:21
Only God knows the full story of our lives, what the next couples of pages will include, and how they will inform the following pages and chapters. He uses what we have learned and puts us in situations in which we are stretched, must depend on him, and use or develop our gifts.
I’ve been thinking about what God’s goals might be. While not wanting to presume to know, I believe that he desires close relationships with us and for us to live through relationship with him as the prophets encouraged us to live. For example,
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
Fortunately, we don’t have to do that on our own. I’ve learned that when I don’t act justly or love mercy or walk humbly with my God, if I acknowledge my failings, he will help me improve. Actually, I can’t do anything of lasting value without God.
This is always my first goal: to get closer to God, understand him better, and live a more fruitful life through that relationship. In retirement years we have wisdom and may have time to get to know the God who created you, loves you, desires relationship with you, takes great delight over you, and has plans for you.
Wishing you well as you consider your goals and have a blessed New Year!
The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. Numbers 6:24-26
What have you learned in 2023? What are your goals for 2024? Have you learned anything about God?
Another one of my goals is to improve the readership of this newsletter. If you have appreciated the content, please pass it along to others. Thank you!
Photo by Maddi Bazzocco on Unsplash
Judy; if I can use the familiar, a blessed new Year to you and yours. I thank you for your most recent post and how much I enjoyed it and pondered upon it. In doing so, I began to think of the reflection of the previous year, and bringing that reflection into the New Year. How we should go back through the previous year and see what we were good at, what we accomplished, what brought us fulfillment, etc. These are the blessing of God, in our time and talents. Now look at what we failed at, didn’t carry through with, discarded, and what brought us pain and sadness. These are what we no longer need to do again and/or avoid. Finally, again reflecting on the previous year with what I have previously pondered upon, what are my intentions and purpose for the coming year. Here then is where the rubber meets the street. My intentions are the time and talent God has instilled in me, for all mankind. What I was made for. It is recognizing this and incorporating in my life what I was designed for, not for my own self, but for all those around me. Now that I know my “intentions”, I can now see what I need to accomplish this coming year, not what wasting my time and talent on the unnecessary, the useless, the selfish, etc., but what truly fulfills my purpose, what I was knitted together in my mother’s womb to be.
I love the idea to hold the plans and goals for the new year loosely. Sometimes that's hard for me. Ha! Thank you for the reminder. I've been writing blog posts about goal-setting, and I think I'll be sure to share your post with my readers.