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Why You Need to Get Away Every Year with Your Spouse

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I know what you are thinking, “I can’t get away every year with my spouse. It’s hard enough to take vacation with everything our kids do and we do and the money.”

Yet, the longer you are married, the most important things Katie and I do are weekly date nights and yearly getaways. And before you think I’m crazy about the cost of this, date night doesn’t have mean you go somewhere. Some of our best date nights have been at home.

So why is a yearly getaway so important? A couple reasons:

  1. Life is crazy and all consuming.
  2. It is easy to lose spontaneity in marriage and get stuck in the cycle of life.
  3. Kids have a way of wrecking any romantic moment. They have a radar that tells them when romance is happening and they wake up right then and knock on your door!

So how do you make this happen and pay for it? Here are a few ideas:

  1. Plan ahead. It won’t happen if you don’t plan it. Because of figuring out babysitting and the expense, you will probably have to save up. This also can show your spouse how important this is, that you are planning it.
  2. Go on an off season. I know, it is more romantic to go on your anniversary, but that might be the most expensive time of the year or the hardest to get away, so go when it is cheapest and easiest. And no, that isn’t being lazy, that’s being smart.
  3. Stay in town. You don’t need to take a cruise. Find a groupon deal for a bed and breakfast where you live and go there.
3 ways to make a yearly getaway happen with your spouse.

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The goal is simple: go away without your kids, just your spouse and do things you each like. It might be a foodie tour of restaurants, sitting at a coffee shop all day or sleeping in.

What Makes Your Church Unique? by Will Mancini

Last year, I made the decision to re-read some books that were highly influential in my life as a leader and pastor. The reason is that I read many of them when I was a student pastor and knew more than the lead pastor I worked for. Now that I’ve planted a church and I am the lead pastor with a growing staff, I’m in a different place. I’m also hopefully a little more humble than the first time around.

One of those books was Church Unique: How Missional Leaders Cast Vision, Capture Culture, and Create Movement by Will Mancini. This book is like having Will come to your church and consult for you. It is jam packed with insights and learnings on how to create vision, cast it and move a church forward.

What I love about this book is that it is set on finding what makes your church unique, not the latest copy of the megachurch in your town or the last conference you went to. Which is what most ministry books set out to do. Which isn’t wrong, but I’m not sure it is as helpful to a pastor. The reason is simple, as Mancini points out: most effective pastors know what makes their church unique, and they did it. Then they write a book about it and a bunch of pastors copy it and now their church isn’t unique, they’re just using someone else’s vision.

Let me be clear, you should steal ideas from pastors and authors, but not visions. That is what God communicates to you in your city through your team.

Here are a few things that stood out to me:

  • Every day, local churches step either closer to or further away from becoming the movement that God designed them to be.
  • Church culture is the combined effect of the interacting values, thoughts, attitudes, and actions that define the life of your church. Church culture is foundational to the life and witness of every church. Unfortunately too many church leaders fail to recognize or understand the implications of this reality.
  • Too many goals threaten to make any one goal unclear.
  • Clarity is the preoccupation of the effective leader. If you do nothing else as a leader, be clear. Being clear as a leader means being simple, understandable, and exact.
  • The higher the leader goes, the harder the leader must work to stay clear.
  • You won’t do ministry that really matters until you define what matters.
  • Don’t tell me that you are excellent or relevant; tell me what makes you excellent or relevant.
  • The absence of strategy, as I am defining it, is the number one cause of ineffectiveness in a healthy church.
  • The most powerful position in the organization is the role that can choose the metaphors and tell the stories.
  • The greatest mistake in vision casting is not recognizing that vision is always a solution to a prior problem.
  • Without a mind-blowing goal in front of them, your people will never have a reason for risk taking, collaboration, and heroic sacrifice.

Here are some helpful questions for leaders and churches to discover their uniqueness and vision:

  • Leaders: What are the unique strengths of the leader(s) in your church?
  • Gifts: If each person has unique spiritual gifts in your church, what does the collective gift mix look like?
  • Experiences: What shared experiences do your people have in common?
  • Values: What values drive decision making in your church? What unique convictions do your people share?
  • Personality: If you were to describe what makes your church distinct from every other church, what would you say?
  • Evangelism: How do your people talk about the Great Commission? How does your church nuance it?
  • Recovery: What sins and sin patterns have your people been delivered from? What patterns of worldliness are they most tempted by?
  • Motivation: Is there a deeply motivational rubric behind how your church sees its mission (for example, community, service, prayer, or worship)?

To me, this is one of those books that you chew on, come back to and chew on some more.

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What Kind of Preacher are You?

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There are all kinds of preachers out there. If you preach every week, you probably gravitate towards a certain style that you like to listen to and a style that you have personally. There are times that you will move in and out of styles on a weekly basis and sometimes within the same sermon, but you will by and large live within a certain style.

Which kind of preacher are you?

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Here are a few I’ve seen:

  • The prophet. This is the in your face, yelling preacher. This one is often angry and typically reformed. There are times this is necessary in a sermon and some churches need to hear this style of preaching. Sin is confronted and not sugar coated.
  • The apologist. This is often the preacher that is filled with a list of facts, data and historical information to show the truth of Christianity. They are most comfortable when they are giving a lecture that feels like a class.
  • The evangelist. This is the preacher that is always about evangelism, always about making a choice to follow Jesus.
  • The inspirer. This is the preacher that hopes you’ll leave with new information, make a change in your life, maybe even take a step to follow Jesus. You will feel good after this sermon and feel like you can do anything.
  • The comforter. When you hear a preacher like this, you just feel like you got a warm hug.
  • The storyteller. This is the preacher that has a story for everything and is always telling stories.
  • The guilt ridden. This is the preacher that when you walk out you feel like you are the most horrible person on the planet.

I’m sure there are more styles, but you get the picture.

What is interesting about each style is that they usually have parts of the Bible connected to them. The evangelist hangs in Romans or the gospels. The comforter is always in Psalms or the gospels. The prophet can’t get enough of the letters of Paul.

This matters for a pastor because each one has his sweet spot. When a pastor gets out of that, he will need to prepare differently. For me, I find preaching from the Old Testament or Paul’s letters easy to do, the gospels are a challenge for me. I have good friends who are different. What happens if a pastor isn’t careful is they will preach only what they are comfortable with, so it matters to know what your style is.

You also need to know so that you can find other communicators not like you to help you grow or bring into your church.

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What Business Leaders Can Learn from Pastors about Speaking

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I was asked recently by Carmine Gallo what I thought business leaders can learn from pastors about speaking. All leaders speak on some level. It may be one-on-one, in a meeting, to a department or the entire company. Everyone who communicates wants to be heard and have their message make an impact. At the very least, they want the hard work they put into something to pay off.

I think it is possible, but will take some thought and planning.

Here are 7 things to do so that you are heard and motivate your people when you speak:

7 Ways to make Your Next Presentation Unforgettable

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  1. Be prepared. I am amazed when I hear a presentation, a breakout or a talk and it sounds like the person talking was simply picked at random out of the crowd to start speaking. Someone pays the price for a talk: the speaker in prep or the audience for listening. Be prepared, don’t wait for the last minute. 
    Someone pays the price for a talk: the speaker in prep or the audience for listening.

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  2. Have one point. It is hard to say business leaders can learn this from pastors because pastors aren’t always great at having one point. Instead of giving a presentation with 3 points, give 3 different presentations at different times. Your team or department will be healthier and more motivated if you work on one thing at a time.
  3. Speaking to those who are unconvinced. In a church setting, you encounter people who don’t believe you, who don’t agree with you. A business setting is the same. It is easy to think people will simply agree with you or get behind your initiative because they get paid to, but they won’t be inspired by it. You have to build bridges to them. Use this lens: how would I get them on board if they didn’t get paid to do this? This will make you hone your message in and think through more motivational and inspirational ideas. You can tell them to do it, but wouldn’t you rather if they wanted to do it?
  4. Plan a speaking calendar. Any good preacher has a preaching calendar and thinks through what they will communicate throughout the year. This helps a pastor cover what needs to be covered, moving a church to a specific goal. Not every topic is covered in every sermon or talk, but is given a place throughout the year. What if a business leader chose 12 things to discuss in his company or team and gave one per month to make sure it was covered instead of trying to cover too much? What if a business leader thought through what was most important to discuss ahead of time instead of simply sharing what they heard last on a podcast or read in a book?
  5. The goal of preaching is transformation or taking a next step. It is not the transfer of information, but to move people towards something. In preaching, that something is following Jesus, being more involved, giving, serving, joining a small group, etc. A business talk is not done until a next step is articulated, a call to action of some kind. Don’t let it hang out there. Any training must have a next step, it is not just about transferring information. A meeting must close with next steps and actions that will be taken. If there is no action after a meeting or a presentation, that was not a good use of time. 
    The goal of any sermon/presentation is action, not transferring information

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  6. Use visuals if you have to. I think speakers use visuals too often or don’t think through them. Never, ever simply put up what you are saying unless it is a quote. There is nothing worse than being given the powerpoint in a packet and having a speaker simply read each slide. Make visuals work for you instead of against you. Whenever someone is looking at a visual, they are not listening to you, so the visual must be compelling.
  7. Always point to the vision. If what you are going to say or discuss does not move the vision for your team, department or company forward, don’t say it. Every sermon I give I try to figure out, how can I connect this to our mission? This allows your team or company to know why you are doing something.

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Your Personal Growth Plan (Or How You Will Get Better)

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If you want to grow at anything, learn more about something or simply improve an area of your life, you need a plan.

It doesn’t just happen.

You don’t just happen to lose weight, get out of debt or learn a language.

Every year, I choose an area of my life or leadership that I want to grow in. I think one of the reasons we don’t grow in life is we pick too many things to grow in at a time.

To grow in life, pick 1 thing to improve, not 5.

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In years past I’ve worked on my prayer life, communication in my marriage, raising kids, preaching, team building and hiring. Now, this doesn’t mean you spend one year on something and you have it figured out.

It means, picking an area of your life that if you could learn more, grow more, it would make an enormous impact and put energy and effort into that area.

For me, this means finding books, blogs, podcasts, talking to people who I respect who are experts in that area and putting a concerted effort to grow in that.

I’m such a believer in this, it is required for all our staff and leaders at Revolution Church, so I hope you’ll do it this year as well.

Here’s how you create your plan:

  1. Decide. What is your one thing? Marriage, money, career, prayer, reading your bible, preaching, parenting, communication? You have to pick one thing. If you have two, save the other one for next year. Choose the one that will make the biggest impact in your life this year. I know this is hard, but being ruthless about only choosing one thing will help. 
    To grow this year, pick only one area to grow in.

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  2. Choose books and mentors. Purchase some books, find some blogs and people you respect who know more than you. Ask them to mentor you in this area.
  3. Share it with someone. This is the accountability stage. If you don’t create accountability, the chances of you succeeding go way down. Share it online, with a group, a friend, a spouse. Accountability is good, because remember, you want to grow and improve. Ask for help.
  4. Do it again. Once you complete the year, celebrate and choose the next thing.

Every year is an opportunity to grow, don’t settle.

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14 Top Posts of 2014

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In the month of December, I’ve been sharing my favorites of the year. You can read my favorite books of the year here.

Below are the 14 most read posts of 2014:

14. 10 Ways to Know if You’re Putting Your Kids Before Your Spouse

No one gets married thinking they will put their kids before their marriage, but over time without being intentional, it happens. It’s easy to do. Kids need our attention, they scream for it (literally). We also rationalize that it’s easier and the right thing to do. Or, we rationalize that we will have time for our spouse later in life, but later in life rarely comes.

13. Sometimes When People Leave Your Church, that is God protecting You

Whenever someone has left our church, no matter how much it hurt me personally, God has always shown himself faithful and allowed our church not to skip a beat. In fact, each time a volunteer or staff member has left, our church was stronger after they left and by God’s grace, we could take the next step.My point is, when people leave, sometimes it is for their good, your good and the good of the church because it is God protecting you.

12. 5 Things Productive People do in the Morning

Productivity is something everyone would like to raise in their life. To accomplish more is a goal most people have. Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on time management, productivity, cutting things out of your life and how to step your game up. It seems like productive people accomplish more than everyone else and it isn’t because their life is easier or they have more hours in the day. They do specific things that everyone does not do.

11. Surviving a Hard Season in Your Marriage

If you are in a hard season that simply means you are married. Too many couples look at a hard season and want to throw in the towel, don’t. Your marriage means too much, the ripple affects to how your marriage goes are enormous. Don’t believe me? Talk to a friend who grew up in a broken home and ask them how that has impacted their life. Fight for your marriage.

10. 10 Books Every Christian Leader Should Read

I often get asked about leadership books that pastors should read. If you haven’t read these books, I highly recommend them. Let’s just say, these are 10 books every Christian leader should read.

9. The Pain of Breaking the 200 Barrier

Most churches in America never break through the 200 barrier, in fact, only 15% of churches break through it. Some pastors talk about it like it is the mythical unicorn. There are books, podcasts, webinars, and articles on how to break it. For years, Revolution would bump up against the 200 barrier and then go back down. We’d have seasons where we would stay above it and I thought we were through. Finally, we broke through it.

8. Dear Worship Leader

I love worship leaders. I love that at Revolution, almost half the service is music. I want you to be great. If you don’t serve with a pastor that wants you to be as great as possible, go find a new pastor to work with. The people who show up each week show up wanting to meet Jesus and you are a big part of that. You help us encounter Jesus in a personal, emotional and logical way. I want you to be great and I don’t want anything to stand in the way of you being the worship leader God called you to be.

7. How a Wife Flourishes

The idea of roles in marriage is filled with land mines. Many people have misused and misinterpreted the beautiful verses in the Bible to make them say what they want to. Few people have actually seen healthy couples live out roles well and often have incorrect views of Biblical roles. We have visions of quiet wives who say nothing, men who dominate and abuse their families all based on Ephesians 5, completely missing the point of this passage. In thinking about how a husband helps his wife flourish and become all that God has called her to be, here are 5 ways men often fail and how to work against these problems to create the picture described in Ephesians 5.

6. The One Thing Destroying Your Marriage That You Don’t Realize

On a regular basis I will hear from a parent, “My child is disrespectful to me or to my spouse and I don’t know what to do about it.” Or I’ll hear this from someone, “I can’t seem to connect with my spouse. We don’t connect sexually. We don’t connect emotionally or relationally.” What is going on? I’m about to pull my hair out. I don’t know what to do. Your kids reaction to you is a mirror of how they see you react to your spouse.

5. How Your Church can Reach Men

I was recently asked to join a team that helps to put events on for men in Arizona. I started to ask around about the organization because truth be told, I thought it was interesting since Revolution doesn’t have a men’s or women’s ministry. Essentially, we see our church as those. I asked someone who knew them well what he thought of this organization and he said, “Their meetings are a bunch of talk about ideas, what they’ll do but in the end, no action.” I looked at him and said, “So, like a men’s ministry.”

4. Vague Pastors

When you don’t preach on something, you are preaching on that thing. You are just saying what you think won’t be as controversial or the thing that won’t lose you your following.

3. 11 Ways to Know You’ve Settled for a Mediocre Marriage

It is so sad when I meet a couple that is unhappy. Whether it is stress, finances, kids, in-laws or sin, too many couples simply settle for a mediocre marriage. They carry around this look that says, “I’m not happy, but this is as good as it will get.” I’m sorry, but if I’m going to be in a relationship for the rest of my life, I want it to be better than a sigh followed by, “this is as good as it will get.”

2. Pastors Can Make the Worst Friends

For most pastors, church is something they are always thinking about. The next capital campaign, new ministry year, next sermon series, next issue, hiring a new person. It never stops. They spend all their time with people talking about church. They sit with their wife on date night and talk about church. It is not just a job, it is their life. It is who they are and this becomes unhealthy.

1. Thoughts from a White Dad of a Black Son on Ferguson

One of my sons is black. I will raise two kinds of boys to become men. Three of them white and they will see the world, be treated by the world and interact with the world one way. Then, another son who will see it differently, interact with it differently and be treated by it differently. Three of them will walk around with little fear of violence or being arrested. They will walk around as young adults and not fear police officers. One of my sons will.

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How to Use Evernote for Pastors

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After writing about how I was done using an iPad to read, I got several questions about how to use filing systems, Evernote, capturing quotes and highlights on kindle so that you can retrieve them easily. For leaders and pastors, Evernote is a life saver, but you have to use well or else it can become a black hole of forgotten things.

How to capture quotes and information you don’t want to lose.

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There are two resources that I would recommend looking through if you are going to use Evernote well. The first is, Evernote Essentials: The Definitive Guide for New Evernote Users by Brett Kelly and A Guide to Evernote for Pastors by Ron Edmondson.

How to use Evernote.

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Here are 3 ways to use Evernote well:

  1. Make useful notebooks on Evernote. The first thing you need to do after creating an Evernote account is create useful notebooks. I have notebooks for every book of the Bible, topics (leadership, preaching, etc.), current event issues (technology, gay marriage, immigration, etc.) as well as a notebook for future blog post ideas and sermon series ideas. One of the mistakes many people make is not having Evernote prepared to work. You can simply throw everything into Evernote and search for it later, but I think it loses some of its power then. Your notebooks need to be sorted for you needs and centered around the topics you care about or will need in the future.
  2. Get the Chrome Add On. Online, I use the Chrome add on for Evernote. It then sits in the top right corner of my browser and whenever I come across a blog post, talk, quote, picture or article that I want to save to a folder, I simply click the button and it goes right to my Evernote. I can choose the notebook that I want it go in and it is there forever. So, when I know I am preaching on a topic in 8 months and find a great blog article, I simply save it to that notebook for future use and move on.
  3. Go to kindle highlights online. If you are reading books on Kindle, Evernote is your friend when it comes to highlights. Simply google Amazon kindle highlights and click on the link. You’ll follow this page and click on “your highlights.” The latest book you highlighted will be at the top. Simply click your Chrome Add on and it will then be placed in the notebook(s) of your choice. You are all set to find it whenever you need.
How to file your #kindle highlights.

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Why I’m Done Reading on an iPad

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I’ve always been a huge fan of reading and so when the first iPad came out, I quickly dove in and bought it and it quickly became my go to for reading. In fact, I can’t remember now the last time I bought an actual book.

Over time though, I started to dislike reading on my iPad. For a couple reasons:

  1. It is hard to read in the sun or outside when it is hot. Which in Arizona is a big deal.
  2. There is too much else on my iPad to distract me.

The last one is the biggest reason I went looking for a different device to read on.

And now, I only read on a Kindle Voyage. I realize you can get a Kindle that is similar to an iPad for watching movies and using apps, which I obviously didn’t go with for reasons stated above.

It does what I dislike about my iPad (I can read it outside and I have zero distractions on it). Now, I still use my iPad for other reasons.

Reading on a kindle is incredibly helpful. It keeps me focused, I have no other apps on it and have not even set up the browser to use, so the distractions are almost non-existent.

I use my iPad for apps, sports reading (MMQB and ProFootballTalk) and for preaching.

You may ask, as several friends of mine have, why don’t you just read a book.

Some love the feel of a real book in their hand, my wife is one of them.

For me, I love the ease of moving highlights from my kindle to evernote for my filing systems and research. The idea of going through each book after I finished reading them and typing out my quotes feels like an enormous time waster.

Also, I do love how cheap kindle books can be on certain days.

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Two Things Church Planters & Networks Don’t Talk About Part 2

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I’ve been in church planting circles for almost a decade now and have watched countless church planters start with zeal only to fizzle out and quit. The reasons are many, but they come back (often) to only two things.

The reason church planters give up (or fail) are because of things we don’t talk about

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What is sad about these the reasons is that they are the two least talked about topics on church planting circles.

Most church planters and pastors do not quit or fail in ministry because of theological issues or leadership skills. While this happens and you can lose your job because a denomination changes its stance on something or you fail in your leadership skills, that rarely happens.

The first reason pastors and church planters fail (that is not talked about enough) has to do with leadership health. I am stunned at the number overweight pastors, run down and tired church planters. We get excited about the preaching ability of a pastor but don’t ask him if he is resting well and taking his sabbath. It matters more if a pastor can raise enough money than if he is sleeping and eating well.

The second reason pastors and church planters faith (that is not talked about enough or at least correctly) deals with the pastor’s wife. It is helpful how many church planting networks are now assessing marriages and looking at the character of a man and how he pastors his wife. I’m not talking about that, but what happens in her heart.

One thing I hear from every network I encounter is how much they care about a church planters wife. Yet, when you attend any of their meetings, conferences, boot camps (or whatever else they call them), a wife is absent. We train him and expect her to come along for the ride. We ask him about his calling and assume she’s as excited as he is. We hear him talk about vision and leadership prowess and never ask if she’s excited about attending the church that exists only in his head.

Once the church launches and he’s building a team, following up with guests and killing himself (as we saw in part 1), she is dying by herself.

I remember hearing the pastor of a fast growing church talk about his wife and what she did at the church as far as serving goes and he said, “I’m just glad she attends.” And he was serious. After the nervous laughter everything moved on and I thought, “That’s our bar? She attends.”

Sadly though, church planters, their networks and conferences and books would say it is more than that and they have a higher expectation than that, but our practices don’t back that up.

What if, the priority was placed on caring for a church planters wife, like we do for a pastor? What if we had an expectation that she was as bought in as he is? What if when we ask him how he is growing and what is he reading, we ask her the same question? What if we talked about leadership health for him and for her? What if we were impressed by how much time he gives his wife to refuel her soul as he does to refuel his own? What if we cared about connecting wives with each other as we do of having the brotherhood relate to each other?

I think a lot would change.

While affairs and pornography take down a lot of pastors, part of why it leads to that is we have not placed a high emphasis on the health and well-being of a church planters wife. We talk about the importance of marriage and staying together, but what about the importance of care

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How to Catch Your Breath in December

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Right now, if you are like most people, you wonder how you will survive December and get everything you need. The list seems endless. Parties, gifts, people, food, traveling, more food, TV specials, plays, and recitals. The list is endless. People are coming and going. In college, you have finals on top of everything else. This is on top of what you normally do in life.

We know this isn’t how we should live, and it feels wrong at Christmas, but stopping to catch our breath seems silly. Impossible. UnAmerican.

It isn’t, and deep down, you also know that.

Here are 7 ways to catch your breath this month so that you head into the new year not exhausted but refreshed, and ready to tackle the New Year:

7 Ways to Catch Your Breath in December & be Ready to Tackle the New Year

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Schedule some downtime. If you’ve read my blog for any length, you know I believe that if something is not scheduled, it does not happen. We do things out of habit and planning, including wasting time watching TV or surfing the internet. Put into your calendar days and nights when nothing is happening. If you don’t, you will run from one thing to the next and not enjoy any of it.

If you don’t schedule some downtime, it won’t happen.

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Say no to something. If you schedule downtime into your schedule, chances are you will have to say no to something. This is hard to do. We like to say yes as much as possible, not miss anything, and be at all the parties and get-togethers, but we can’t and shouldn’t. If we say yes to everything, we will miss the important things. We will miss moments with our kids and friends we really care about and miss out on memories.

Have a food plan and stick to it. One of the areas that cause a lot of frustration for people on January 1st is how much they eat between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Don’t simply show up at the party and eat; have a plan. Here are a couple of ways: Take something healthy to the party. There won’t be a lot of healthy options, so bring one and eat it (think of the memory each year now when you and your friends laugh about the fact that you are the one who brings hummus to the holiday party). Another one? Don’t stand by the food. If you are away from the food, it makes it harder to overeat. The hardest one? Limit how much dessert you eat when you are at parties. And finally, get rid of leftovers as quickly as possible, even if you have to throw them out.

Key to losing weight in the holidays? Throw out leftovers quickly.

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Go to bed at 10 pm as often as possible. Sleep is one of the most overlooked but important areas of our lives. I know, you think you can survive on 4 hours a night and a Coffee IV drip plugged into your arm, but you can’t. You will crash, and that crash will happen sometime soon and ruin your holidays or at least make a dent in January when you need to get going for the new year. Get to bed. Don’t watch as much TV and if presents aren’t wrapped, put them in a bag and call it a win.

If presents aren’t wrapped, put them in a bag and call it a win.

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Don’t wait till January 1st to exercise. In January, health clubs everywhere will be packed. New Year’s Resolutions will be made to lose that holiday weight you put on. What if you didn’t wait until January to get into shape? Put it into your schedule now. If you work out regularly now, don’t quit over the holidays.

Plan fun memory moments. Christmas is a great time to make memories. The tree, decorations, TV specials, buying and wrapping gifts, plays, the food, the songs. All of it creates moments with family and friends in ways that other times of the year do not. Don’t miss this because you are busy doing other stuff. Spend time reading to your kids, TiVo the Christmas specials and watch them, listen to Christmas music all month, and take some special daddy (or mommy) dates with your kids. Make this time special and pack in the memories.

Make your goals for the New Year. Don’t wait till January 1st to make your goals for the New Year. Notice I didn’t say resolutions. Here is a simple process I use to help you set goals you will actually reach. Don’t make ten goals this year; make one. What is the one thing that, if you accomplished it, would make the biggest impact on your life and family? Do that.