SCRIPTURE: “For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1 NLT)
QUOTE: “Goals are dreams with deadlines” -Diana Scharf
NOTE:
Evidence has shown that most people don’t like deadlines. Our natural inclination or tendency as humans is to toll the path of least resistance or least pressure. No one by default likes deadlines, but in order to increase your personal effectiveness, you will need to learn to set deadlines on your goals and dreams.
Deadlines are also important for almost any task and any role, and they are also essential for the smooth running of any organization. Setting personal deadlines are important for the following reasons: Firstly, to ensure that we complete our work. It’s easy to delay or to forget a task that has no agreed end point.
Deadlines help to avoid this. Secondly, deadlines are important to encourage a smooth flow of work. Deadlines help us to collaborate toward achieving a shared goal, and to keep complex, multistage projects on track. Thirdly, deadlines help us to set expectations. Deadlines make clear what we’re expected to deliver and when. This means that we can take control of our work, free of confusion.
ILLUSTRATION:
Setting deadlines on our dreams or aspirations should be something we do. Even the God we serve set deadlines and we must be imitators of Him. From our scriptural text, we see that God sets a time for every activity under heaven. We must also set a time for every activity or dream we intend to embark on. “There is a time for every activity under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). We must set a timeline for the accomplishment of our goals. Without the willingness to set deadlines, our personal effectiveness is greatly reduced. Our unwillingness or refusal to set deadlines on our vision will be a great disservice to the great wealth of potential that God has deposited in us.
REFLECTION:
- Do you have a deadline for your goals and your dreams? Can you begin to set your deadlines now?
TWO YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN: 1 Kings 5 – 6, Psalm 6