Resolutions & Goals (Groan . . .)

It's New Years Day and my church meetings don't start until 1:00 p.m. So, I suppose I should take the time to set some resolutions and goals for this new year. The only problem is that I hate setting goals and always have.

Of course I have through the years because I know it's good for me, and I have my share of guilt and responsibility, etc. It comes down to one of those personality things. Not to make excuses based on psychological profiling, but it does fit the pattern of the idealistic INFP. I want things to be genuine without the artifice of organization. If I am to accomplish good, it should be because it comes out of me naturally, not imposed by a list. And, I understand fallen man well enough (at least this one) to know that anything good that comes out of me is not much of my doing anyway. It is the action of Holy Grace by the workings of the Lord in my life, and often through His use of others around me as intermediaries for my own good.

Meyers-Briggs training though, teaches that knowing oneself is only to recognize our natural personality preferences along with those areas in which in which we may have to make extra effort to apply ourselves to important aspects of self that don't come as naturally.

For instance, the Franklin-Covey organizational mentality is NOT my natural state. I have used their system, most successfully when I was bishop. Although still having those scribbled notes on their special little calendar and note sheets, intending, perhaps someday to write the book that can't be published until long after I and everybody in that ward is dead (Don't worry, anyone other than myself would need a urim and thummim to interpret--and I'm not so sure about myself), I just can't bring myself to that stage of organization on a regular basis. My work calendar is on the computer and I can access it remotely as needed. My personal journal these days is essentially this blog. I trust my wife to keep the home calendar and let me know where I am supposed to be and when. (Yet it never fails that we only hear about school band concerts the day of. Maybe that's for the best.)

After all that lovely navel-gazing, let me go public with a few things. Of course it's easiest to do the things expected already or as a natural course of things (INFP and all).

I will run the Wasatch Back Ragnar in June mainly because my son-in-law had me sign up already on the team he is forming. I have lots of training to do which will be good for me physically and even enjoyable if I get my mindset back in that place. I have completed four marathons in fairly recent history--the last being in 2005. But there were mental more than physical complexities to that I may or may not try to address here in the blog. We'll see. Physically I am capable even if my training shape is woefully in need of serious work. Thankfully, we're not training for speed to win or place, just to make it.

I'll read the Book of Mormon again, at least once. I usually do that anyway at least once a year, so I guess that's not much of a spiritual challenge. It's the Gospel Doctrine course of study as well, so now my conflict is whether I start again at the beginning or keep on from the middle of Mosiah where I happen to be in my straight-through reading. I'll be reading a lot of other scriptures as well as I go along seeking after the Lord.

In Family History work, I feel the need to set a goal totally outside my control but certainly dependent on some effort on my part to find (or confirm our suspect as) the father of John Vaughan (1789-1851). I can't afford another trip to Wales this year, so I will have to carefully craft a project for a researcher I can hire in Wales to visit the NLW (National Library of Wales or Llyfregell Genedlaethol Cymru). My researcher operating out of Powys County suggests I go local to hire a researcher in Aberystwyth so I wouldn't have to pay travel expenses even for her. I'll figure this out. But speaking of those "outside my control" aspects, there are certainly some influences I feel from the other side pushing me on this for whatever their purposes may be.

Work goals. Well, mainly just to show up every day I have to. This coming Tuesday will be the most difficult. We'll just leave it at that.