The Circle Maker_Praying Circles Around Your Biggest Dreams and Greatest Fears

by Mark Batterson

  4. Be Specific

  Just like our prayers, our goals need to be specific. If a goal isn’t measurable, we have no way of knowing whether we’ve accomplished it. Losing weight isn’t a goal if we don’t have a target weight within a target timeline.

  One of the ways I’ve increased the specificity of my goals is by attaching ages to them. I want to complete a triathlon in my fifties and sixties. Those are two separate goals that are time-stamped. I’ve also added nuances that make my goals more meaningful. I don’t just want to see the Eiffel Tower; I want to kiss Lora on top of the Eiffel Tower.

  It was extremely difficult to attach numbers to some of my giving goals and writing goals, but I decided it was better to aim high and fall short than to aim low and hit the target. And it’s OK to make revisions to our visions.

  I cannot control how many books I sell, and that has never been my focus. I write because I’m called to write. But I was inspired by a goal that was set by Jack Canfield and Mark Hansen, coauthors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Their books have sold more than 80 million copies, and their 2020 vision is to sell a billion books and give $500 million to charity. I love the motivation and specificity of that goal.

  One of the life goals that Lora and I have is to eventually live 90/10. In other words, we want to live off of 10 percent of our income and give away 90 percent. That goal was inspired while reading a biography of J.C. Penney, the founder of the department store by the same name. He started out giving 10 percent and living off of 90 percent, but by the end of his life he was giving 90 percent and living off of 10 percent. Each year, Lora and I try to increase the percentage of income we’re giving back to God. Living 80/20 and 50/50 are benchmarks along the way. Eventually, our goal is to reverse tithe or give God a 90/10 split.

  Since we’re on the subject of J.C. Penney, it’s worth sharing what he said about the importance of goals. “Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I will give you a man who will make history,” said Penney. “Give me a man without a goal, and I will give you a stock clerk.”

  5. Write It Down

  I have a saying that I repeat to our family and our staff all the time: “The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.” If you haven’t written down your goals, you haven’t really set them. Something powerful happens when you verbalize a goal, whether in a conversation or in a journal. And it’s more than a good idea; it’s a God idea:

  “Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets.”

  On more than one occasion, I’ve been able to achieve a goal almost immediately after setting it. A few years ago, I blogged about a new goal that I had just added to my list: visiting the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, where Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses and sparked the Protestant Reformation. The very next day I got an invitation to be part of a gathering of leaders and thinkers to discuss what the next Reformation might look like. The place? Wittenberg, Germany. And our gathering took place on Reformation Day!

  At some point in the process of goal setting, you need to muster the courage to verbalize it. That act of verbalization is an act of faith. When you write down a goal, it holds you accountable. The same goes for a prayer journal. I used to think that written prayers were less spiritual because they were less spontaneous. I now think the opposite. A written prayer requires more faith simply because it’s harder to write it than to say it. But the beautiful thing about written prayers in particular and prayer journals in general is that you have a written record of your prayer. Too often we fail to celebrate an answer to prayer simply because we forget what we asked for before God answers!

  6. Include Others

  I used to have a lot of personal goals, but I have replaced most of them with shared goals. Nothing cements a relationship like a shared goal. Goals are relational glue. And God set the standard with the Great Commission. If you want to grow closer to God, go after the God-sized goal He set nearly two thousand years ago. I’ve also discovered that when you go after a goal with another person, it doubles your joy.

  One of my travel goals is to spend a night on Catalina Island with Lora. I fell in love with the idyllic island when I first visited it ten years ago. I strolled the streets and toured the town. I even checked a life goal off my list by parasailing over the Pacific. It was a magical day, but I was by myself, and it wasn’t the same without Lora. All day I kept thinking to myself, I wish Lora was here. So one of my goals is to take Lora there someday so we can experience it together.

  Many of my goals revolve around my family. They are tailored to the unique personality and passions of my wife and children. Josiah is the biggest football fan, so he got in on the goal of going to the Super Bowl. My daughter, Summer, is a gifted swimmer, so I thought swimming the Escape from Alcatraz, a 1.5-mile swim from Alcatraz Island to San Francisco, would be a great goal for us to go after. And Parker has my adventure gene, so he went with me to Peru last year to hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu.

  One of the most important life goals on my list is creating a discipleship covenant for my sons. I think I’ve made more mistakes than the average father, but I knew I needed to get this right. When Parker turned twelve, I had circled his birthday in prayer. I spent months praying and planning a discipleship covenant with three components: spiritual, intellectual, and physical. The physical challenge was training for and completing a sprint triathlon. The intellectual challenge was reading a dozen books together. The spiritual challenge included reading through the New Testament, identifying our core values, and putting together his first life goal list.

  At the end of that year, we celebrated the completion of the covenant by going after a life goal on both of our lists: hiking the Grand Canyon from rim to rim. Those two days will forever rank as two of the most challenging and fulfilling days of my life. We made the 23.6-mile hike in July as temperatures climbed above 120 degrees Fahrenheit. I lost thirteen pounds in two days! It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but that is what made it so memorable. I’ll never forget the feeling as my son and I ascended the Bright Angel Trail and made it to the top of the South Rim. The first thing we did was get a vanilla ice cream cone at the concession stand. Then we just stood on the rim looking back at the trail we had traversed. No one can take that moment or that memory from us.

  7. Celebrate along the Way

  When you accomplish a goal, celebrate it. When God answers a prayer, throw a party. We should celebrate with the same intensity with which we pray. One of my favorite Hebrew words is ebenezer. It means “thus far the LORD has helped us.” When you accomplish a God-ordained goal, it is an ebenezer moment. You need to find a unique way to celebrate it and commemorate it. Whenever I write a new book, for example, our family celebrates with a special meal on the day the book is released. And I get to choose the restaurant!

  One of my favorite family traditions is dinner at Tony Cheng’s in Chinatown on New Year’s Eve. We go around the table, sharing our favorite memories from the past year, and it’s amazing how many of those memories were once goals. Taking Summer to her first Broadway play, learning to snowboard with Parker, and celebrating an anniversary in Italy with Lora are some of my greatest memories, but like all memories, they started out as imaginations. Setting goals is the way you turn imaginations into memories, and once you do, you need to celebrate them.

  8. Dream Big

  Your life goal list will include goals that are big and small. It will include goals that are short-term and long-term. But I have one piece of advice: Make sure you have a few BHAGs on the list. You need some God-sized goals that qualify as crazy. Here’s why: big goals turn us into big people.

  One of my crazy goals is to make a movie. I have no idea how this goal will be accomplished. If I had to guess, it’s more likely I’ll write a screenplay than land a role as a stunt double. But who knows? I have no idea how it will happen, but this motivation traces all the way back to one of my earliest memories. When I was five years old, I put my faith in Christ
after watching a movie called The Hiding Place. Somehow God used the medium of a movie to save my soul. I’d like to make a movie that does the same for someone else.

  9. Think Long

  Most of us overestimate what we can accomplish in two years, but we underestimate what we can accomplish in ten years. If we want to dream big, we need to think long. Big dreams often translate into long goals. My goal of leading National Community Church to give $25 million to missions won’t happen next year, but if we give faithfully and sacrificially over the next twenty-five years, we’ll get there. And Lora and I want to lead the way with one of our long goals: giving away $10 million over our lifetime.

  Remember the question that Honi the circle maker grappled with his entire life? Is it possible for a man to dream continuously for seventy years? If you want to dream until the day you die, you need to set goals that take a lifetime to achieve. And it’s never too late to start. My octogenarian uncle, Ken Knappen, always dreamed of writing a book, but he didn’t accomplish that goal until he was in his eighties. Is it possible for a man to dream continuously for seventy years? Evidently it’s possible to dream into your mid-eighties and beyond.

  The sad truth is that most people spend more time planning their summer vacation than they do planning the rest of their life. That’s poor stewardship of right-brain imagination. Goal setting is good stewardship. Instead of letting things happen, goals help us make things happen. Instead of living by default, goals help us live by design. Instead of living out of memory, goals help us live out of imagination.

  10. Pray Hard

  Goal setting begins and ends with prayer. God-ordained goals are conceived in the context of prayer, and prayer is what brings them to full term. You need to keep circling your goals in prayer, like the Israelites circled Jericho. As you circle your goals, it not only creates God-ordained opportunities; it also helps us recognize God-ordained opportunities by sanctifying our reticular activating system.

  The Reticular Activating System

  At the base of the brain stem lies a cluster of nerve cells called the reticular activating system. We are constantly bombarded by countless stimuli vying for our attention, and it is the job of the reticular activating system to determine what gets noticed and what goes unnoticed. Like a radar system, the RAS determines what makes a blip.

  When God gave us the dream of starting a coffeehouse, I immediately started noticing everything about every coffeehouse I visited. Before the dream, the only thing I noticed was the taste of my drink. After the dream, I noticed everything from signage and seating to store layout and product branding. The dream of starting a coffeehouse created a category in my reticular activating system, and I started collecting ideas.

  This is why goal setting is so important. It creates a category in your reticular activating system, and you start noticing anything and everything that will help you accomplish the goal. Prayer is important for the same reason. It sanctifies your RAS so you notice what God wants you to notice. The more you pray, the more you notice.

  It’s no coincidence that being watchful and prayerful are coupled by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Colossians: “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.” The word watchful is a throwback to the ancient watchmen whose job it was to sit on the city walls and scan the horizon for attacking armies or trading caravans. They saw sooner and further than anyone else. Prayer opens our spiritual eyes so we see sooner and further.

  The Aramaic word for prayer means “to set a trap.” Prayer is the way we take thoughts and dreams and ideas captive. And one way to set prayer traps is by keeping a prayer journal. In my opinion, journaling is one of the most overlooked and underappreciated spiritual disciplines. Journaling is the difference between learning and remembering. It’s also the difference between forgetting and fulfilling our goals.

  Life Goal List

  My life goal list is always morphing, but here is the latest evolution. Some of the goals may seem grandiose, while others seem trivial. Obviously, travel goals are not as significant as financial goals, which aren’t as important as family goals. The goals are not ranked in terms of importance or priority. The goals that are italicized are the ones I’ve already accomplished at the time of this writing.

  Family Goals

  1. Celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary.

  2. Dedicate my great-grandchildren to the Lord.

  3. Celebrate an anniversary in Italy.

  4. Celebrate an anniversary in the Caribbean.

  5. Take each child on a mission trip.

  6. Coach a sports team for each child.

  7. Pay for our grandchildren’s college education.

  8. Create a family foundation.

  9. Leave an inheritance for our children.

  10. Write an autobiography.

  11. Create a discipleship covenant.

  12. Take each child on a rite of passage pilgrimage.

  13. Create a family coat of arms.

  14. Research our family genealogy.

  15. Find and visit an ancestor’s grave in Sweden.

  16. Take our grandchildren to a state fair.

  17. Go on a camping trip with our grandchildren.

  18. Take our grandchildren to Disney World.

  19. Celebrate a family reunion on a cruise ship.

  20. Celebrate a family reunion in Alexandria, Minnesota.

  Influence Goals

  21. Write twenty-five-plus nonfiction books.

  22. Pastor one church for forty-plus years.

  23. Help 1,000,000 dads disciple their sons.

  24. Speak at a college commencement.

  25. Speak at an NFL chapel.

  26. Write a New York Times bestseller.

  27. Write a fiction title.

  28. Start a mentoring group for pastors.

  29. Create a conference for writers.

  30. Create a conference for pastors.

  31. Teach a college course.

  32. Lead National Community Church to 10,000-plus in weekly attendance.

  33. Baptize 3,000 people in the same place at the same time.

  34. Build an orphanage in Ethiopia.

  35. Build a vacation home.

  36. Get a doctoral degree.

  37. Start a chain of coffeehouses that give their net profits to kingdom causes.

  38. Help plant 100-plus churches.

  39. Make a movie.

  40. Host a radio or television program.

  Experiential Goals

  41. Take Summer to a Broadway play.

  42. Hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with Parker.

  43. Go to a Super Bowl with Josiah.

  44. Spend a night on Catalina Island with Lora.

  45. Go paragliding with Parker.

  46. Go skydiving.

  47. Go cliff jumping.

  48. Go to a cowboy camp with my boys.

  49. Take Parker to a film festival.

  50. Learn how to snowboard.

  51. Learn how to surf.

  52. Take a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon.

  53. Take a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon.

  54. Take a three-month sabbatical.

  55. Do a silent retreat at a monastery.

  56. Go on an overnight canoe trip with one of my kids.

  57. Drive a race car with one of my kids.

  58. Read the Bible from cover to cover in seven translations.

  59. Take a hot air balloon ride.

  60. Go horseback riding as a family.

  61. Spend a night in a tree house hotel.

  62. Go to a Packers’ game at Lambeau Field.

  63. Hike the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

  64. Run with the bulls in Pamplona.

  65. Play a round of golf at St Andrews in Scotland.

  66. See the Stone of Destiny at Edinburgh Castle.

  67. Do a stand-up comedy routine.

  68. Take Lora to the Oscars.

  69. Go to a TED Conference
.

  70. Take a mission trip to five different continents.

  Physical Goals

  71. Hike the Grand Canyon from rim to rim.

  72. Climb a 14er (mountain over 14,000 feet tall).

  73. Swim the Escape from Alcatraz with Summer.

  74. Run a 10K with one of our kids.

  75. Run a triathlon with Parker and Josiah.

  76. Dunk a basketball in my forties.

  77. Bench-press 250-plus pounds in my fifties.

  78. Run a triathlon in my sixties.

  79. Run a half marathon.

  80. Bike a century (100-mile trip).

  81. Run an urbanathlon (urban obstacle-course race).

  Financial Goals

  82. Be debt free by fifty-five.

  83. Give back every penny we’ve earned from National Community Church.

  84. Live off 10 percent and give 90 percent by the time we retire.

  85. Give away $10-plus million.

  86. Lead National Community Church to give $25,000,000 to missions.

  Travel Goals

  87. Retrace one of Paul’s missionary journeys.

  88. Take an RV vacation as a family.

  89. Hike to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.

  90. Stay at the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite.

  91. Visit the Biltmore mansion.

  92. Stay at Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park.