Becoming Goals vs. Doing Goals

In our church, we do not have paid preachers who deliver sermons every week.  Instead, members of the congregation are asked to speak and encouraged to draw on personal experiences, the scriptures and words of our General Authorities and Prophets to share a message.  Usually the topic is assigned by our lay leadership. 

I was asked to give a talk to our congregation this New Year’s Eve.  A few friends asked that I share a copy with them so here it is. I've tried to share links to resources a little bit better and expanded things left out originally in the interest of time. Ten minutes goes so fast!  Hopefully I’ve given credit where credit is due and stayed true to sources.

The topic I was assigned was a little vague: a little on repentance and goal setting, but basically doing better in the New Year.  As I pondered this topic, I had a million thoughts swirling through my head.  Then I was listening to book called Christ in Every Hour by Anthony Sweat and heard these words:  our “progress is not measured in the doing, but in the becoming.”  It pricked my heart and I knew that “becoming” needed to be the focus for my talk.

Also in preparation for this talk, I crowd sourced the topic, asking my friends what their goals and resolutions were for the New Year.  Many answered the typical things one would expect: losing weight, exercise, getting out of debt, decluttering and organizing homes, learn a new skill, reading the scriptures, etc.  I call these the doing goals.  And there is nothing wrong with those.  They all are worthy goals.

A few friends wrote that they don’t make resolutions for fear of feeling like a failure when they don’t measure up to the doing. Most of us can relate to that.

But I was much, more intrigued with the becoming goals.  One friend Terra wrote that her goal for 2017 was to be nice.  I’ve never known her not to be nice so I asked her to expand on this a bit.  She wrote that she started the year very concerned about the political climate of the country, especially attitudes towards minorities and immigrants.  As she examined herself, she realized there might be some room for improvement in her own interactions with others so she made a conscious decision to be friendly, open and kind to everyone regardless of any deep down, preconceived notion she had about a person based on their race, ethnicity or other difference.  She made eye contact, smiled and made small talk with strangers, especially ones that were different than her.  She stood up to others who might say something that could be perceived as intolerant. She says at times she looked like a weirdo, but a kind weirdo.  And she wrote that somewhere along the way, it wasn’t an effort any more.  Her heart had changed and she became the nice person she wanted to be.   I just love this so much.

Another friend named Tara (I have several friends with this name all spelled in various ways) picks a word to concentrate on each year.  In 2016, her word was “content.”  Last year, “strength” and this next year, it is “brave.”  As she focuses on each of these words, she becomes those words. 

An example from my own life: a few years ago, my goal was to lose weight.  And I did.  But I regained it all back.  However, when my focus changed from losing weight to becoming healthy and active, my motivation and determination changed and I became much more consistent with exercise and moderating my eating habits.  And what motivated me even more was the desire to NOT become something: a type 2 diabetic which runs in my family. I have not reached my original weight goal again, but I don’t worry about that anymore because I can physically do things I could not before.  I am no longer afraid of hikes that are listed as strenuous.  And I feel so much better about myself.  And I don’t hate exercise anymore. In fact, in the times I’ve been sick or injured, I actually look forward to starting back up again.

Now “doing” is definitely part of becoming. I still have to exercise and eat better if I want to be healthy.  However, when our focus turns from checking things off our list to show we’ve accomplished something to checking things off our list because it is helping us become something, our motivation and desire changes.  As we focus on “becoming” we can ask ourselves if the actions we are doing each day, each hour, each minute are moving us closer to becoming what we want to be or further away from it. 

To those that don’t make resolutions for fear of failure, I believe the great thing about becoming goals rather than doing goals is that we are never truly fail.  Regardless of how badly I’ve eaten the past two weeks, and really, let’s not talk about it, I can get back to being healthier tomorrow. With our becoming goals, we either become that thing we hope to be and have that “mighty change of heart,” or we keep working at it.   We get a new year every 365 days, but we get a new month every 28-31 days, a new week every 7 days and a new day every 24 hours.  If we didn’t work so hard at our becoming goal today, then we can work a little harder at it tomorrow.   And if our actions are taking us further away from our becoming goal, we can change, and redouble our efforts.

I’ve mostly focused on more temporal goals.  But this applies, maybe even in greater measure, to our spiritual goals.  In The Book of Mormon, 3 Nephi27:27 we read Jesus’ words to the Nephites, “What manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.”

In October 2000, Elder Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk entitled The Challenge to Become.   In it he says, “In contrast to the institutions of the world, which teach us to know something [or do something], the gospel of Jesus Christ challenges us to become something.”

He goes on to say, “The Final Judgment is not just an evaluation of a sum total of good and evil acts—what we have done. It is an acknowledgment of the final effect of our acts and thoughts—what we have become. It is not enough for anyone just to go through the motions. The commandments, ordinances, and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become.”

Our path to becoming more like Him, will not always be a straight line.  We may wander from time to time off the path.  But, through the atonement we can become what He wants us to become.

ElderJeffery R. Holland in April 2016 said it this way: “Please remember tomorrow, and all the days after that, that the Lord blesses those who want to improve. . .. If you stumble in that pursuit, so does everyone; the Savior is there to help you keep going. If you fall, summon His strength. Call out like Alma, ‘O Jesus, … have mercy on me.’ He will help you get back up. He will help you repent, repair, fix whatever you have to fix, and keep going. Soon enough you will have the success you seek.”

As we seek to become as He is, it easy to get bogged down in all the ways we are not measuring up.  In this past October GeneralConference, Elder Holland devoted his talk to the commandment to “Be ye therefore perfect.” And he added the word “eventually” to the title of his talk.

And we need to be especially careful not to get caught up in the worldly definition of perfection, or as Elder Holland calls it “toxic perfectionism.”  Some have called perfectionism Satan’s counterfeit to the commandment to be perfect.  I first heard this in a talk given at BYU Women’s Conference by Sister Denise PosseLindberg.  It’s when we get so caught up in looking and acting the part of a perfect person, with a perfect house, perfect wardrobe, perfect hair, perfect family, perfect job, etc., that we begin to rely on the praise of others for our worth and on ourselves for salvation.  And we also get totally stressed out.

Elder Holland said, “With a willingness to repent and a desire for increased righteousness always in our hearts, I would hope we could pursue personal improvement in a way that doesn’t include getting ulcers or anorexia, feeling depressed or demolishing our self-esteem.  That is not what the Lord wants for Primary children or anyone else who honestly sings, ‘I’m trying to be like Jesus.’”

In their book, The Christ Who Heals, Terryl and Fiona Givens write about the commandment to be ye therefore perfect: “[P]erfect, as rendered in the original Greek text (teleios) or in the German Bible that Joseph [Smith] called ‘the most correct’ (vollkommen) means whole, complete or having reached its goal or end.  And the original verb is in the future tense. ‘Therefore you shall be whole and complete’ is indeed a strictly literal rendering of the passage.  We should read Christ’s words as expressing his hope, his wish—even his promise—that we will eventually fill the measure of our creation, become complete and whole, as part of a process He is overseeing and guiding as our Shepherd and Healer.”

Returning to Elder Oaks talk, he gives a parable of a wealthy father who wants to impart to his heir all that he has AND all that he is.  However, his heir has not yet developed the necessary wisdom and stature and the father fears the inheritance would be squandered.  He told his heir:

“That which I have, I can easily give you, but that which I am you must obtain for yourself. You will qualify for your inheritance by learning what I have learned and by living as I have lived.  I will give you the laws and principles by which I have acquired my wisdom and stature.  Follow my example, mastering as I have mastered, and you will become as I am, and all that I have will be yours.”

This is exactly what Heavenly Father wants for us.  He wants us to inherit all that He has and all that He is.  But first we much become as He is by following His plan.

In conclusion, I hope we can all take this chance at the beginning of the New Year to look at our lives and ask ourselves who we want to become.  Whether our goals are to become healthier, more financial stable, more organized, nicer, braver, stronger or what each of our goal should be: to become what Heavenly Father wants us to be, I challenge you to focus on the becoming, and not just on the doing.  Write down your becoming goals and then ask yourself every day if the things you are doing are taking you closer to becoming what you want to be or further from it.  I also know that Heavenly Father will help us with our temporal and our spiritual eternal goals if we prayerfully ask him and then do the things we are prompted to do.  I know he loves each of us and wants us to  succeed.