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I made a change to my goal-setting process, and it’s been a game-changer. 

Year after year, I’d fill in my “Brainstorm Your Year Ahead” page in my PowerSheets to be overwhelmed with the sheer number of ideas for the new year. The next few pages in the planner aim to narrow those ideas down. But for some reason, I couldn’t quite figure out what really mattered to me.

Then I read All It Takes Is A Goal by Jon Acuff, and I had the biggest “Aha” moment in goal setting since I got the PowerSheets way back when.

Creating a Best Moments List transformed my goal-setting process by helping me set goals that actually matter to me.

The question that always daunted me as I set goals is “How do I know what I want this year?” There are so many directions the year could take, but the goal is to cultivate what matters. 

In Jon Acuff’s book All It Takes Is A Goal, he presents the idea of creating a “Best Moments List” to narrow down exactly what matters to you. Your best moments can be anything big, like your wedding day, or small, like eating Mexican food on the beach. His challenge is to write down your best moments from the last 20 years, reflect on them, and set goals to make moments like those —because those are the moments that matter most to you.

The genius of this list is that it makes you reflect on the joyful experiences in your life. I think oftentimes during goal-setting, we focus on the negative because we want to improve. But this list inspires us to be grateful for what we have and proves that we can enjoy life now. The goal isn’t the point …it’s the journey to the goal.

Reflect on priorities

Jon recommends going through your list and categorizing each best moment into:

• Experiences
• Accomplishments
• Relationships
• Objects

By putting each moment into a category, you’ll easily be able to see what matters most to you. I took my list and compared it to my brain dump list of goal ideas. Then I could decide if the goals I wrote down could help me create more best moments.

What’s on my best moments list?

Here are some of the things on my Best Moments List to give you some ideas:

1. First date with Matthew
2. Getting married
3. When Juliana was born
4. Getting a full-time job in college
5. Getting engaged
6. Meeting my best friend Nichole
7. Riding around with Nichole in her car in high school
8. Teaching Juliana to read
9. Reading Harry Potter to Juliana
10. Thanksgiving with our family
11. Seeing John Mayer play all of Continuum live
12. Eating Mexican food on a bench overlooking Moonlight Beach
13. Eating red snapper in Sorrento
14. Exploring Pompeii
15. Monterey trip with Matthew
16. Father-daughter dances
17. Weekend dinners with our family
18. Newport trip with the family, watching Juliana go down the waterslide
19. Christmas caroling with choir friends
20. Buying our house
21. Praying the Rosary in St Anne’s Chapel in Italy
22. Seeing our live adoption profile
23. Bringing baby Juliana home from the hospital
24. Going to my first concert (the Backstreet Boys) with my mom
25. Breakfast at Nana and Papa’s house
26. Being asked to be interviewed on podcasts
27. Watching Juliana’s first horseback riding lesson
28. Chamber Choir rehearsals
29. Re-reading my favorite childhood books to Juliana
30. Our first apartment

Make your own Best Moments List

I keep this list in the Notes app on my phone and update it during the year. (My list is at 110+.) Now, when I begin my PowerSheets, I print out my Best Moments List to guide my priorities for the year.

If you’re struggling to figure out goals that matter to you, make your own Best Moments List. Jon Acuff has a helpful guide to get started, or, better yet, read his book,  All It Takes Is A Goal.