Can I tell you a little secret? I know it might not be that little and it might not be that much of a secret. Are you ready? Here it is — Life changes. Did you get it, just two words? Life changes.

What does that have to do with setting goals? What does that have to do with knowing yourself? Well, as life changes it can bring about new or different roles, responsibilities, and relationships.

We need to know our roles, responsibilities, and relationships before we write goals for a new year. Knowing this will help us to plan and dream how we will grow.

This is Part Three in Know Yourself which is designed to help you write goals that are achievable. Part One is the foundation for your goals. Part Two is about knowing yourself.  It is important that you do these in order. So go and begin with Part One, the Part Two and came back to Part Three.

The Three R’s that you need to know before writing goals are Roles, Responsibilities, and Relationships.

Know Yourself – Roles

Know that God has placed you in the roles that you are in. It might be a season that you are in this role or it might be a lifetime. God has placed you in these roles so that you will know him and glorify him.

Take a few minutes and write down your roles. Don’t confuse roles with responsibilities. Roles would be things like Christian, wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, small group leader, neighbor. It could be a long list.

Are there new roles that you have added this year? Are there roles that you have dropped?

Work within the roles that God has placed you in. Learn to grow in your roles.

Know Yourself – Responsibilities

Responsibilities are the things that we need to be doing or supervising because of our role. Not every responsibility means that you have to do it. It might be something that you need to make sure your children do. Just as each of our roles is unique to each of us so are the responsibilities.

On the page that you have written your roles in the next column right some of your responsibilities for that role. The responsibilities might be long but write the first things that you think of.

Knowing your responsibilities that you currently have will help you plan what changes you can make. Your goals should line up with areas that you are responsible for.

Know Yourself – Relationships

Because of your role you have relationships. Your relationships relate to the responsibilities that you have. In this case, we are thinking of the specific people that you relate to because of your roles and responsibilities.

This is still just a Know Yourself phase. We have not gotten into writing goals but this will help us know what goals to write.

For example:

If one of our roles is “student”, then some of the responsibilities might include attending class, do the assignments, study, participate in class. So then the relationships would include the teacher and other students.

As we begin writing goals, we will reference our Three R’s. Have fun doing this. Begin to think of how you would prioritize these. I will tell you another little secret, you can’t do everything.

This process of knowing yourself should help you to write goals that you will be able to achieve.

I have a basic worksheet that I will be sending out to newsletter subscribers in the next few days. If you would like a copy, be sure to sign up for the newsletter. You also need to confirm the email that you receive.