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Meditation 10:45 am
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Oasis Rising Center 8125 West Sahara Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89125

Enjoy another wonderful text by Rev. Phil Smedsted, minister Emeritus of Oasis Rising Center

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Phil Smedstad's texts are one of the ways Oasis Rising Center supports members.

A Positive Path for Spiritual Living

Oasis Rising Center Spiritual Center
Oasis Rising Center 8125 West Sahara Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89125
(702) 804-8189
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“Happy New You.” 

By Rev. Phillip Smedstad

Last week, millions of people made New Year resolutions.  By now, many of those resolutions have been broken.  In my experience, people don’t feel empowered by doing resolutions.  It’s as if they want something that they can’t actually have.

Goal setting, on the other hand, is an amazing activity, especially when the goals are written down.  According to experts, when people write goals, they are 80% more likely to achieve what they want in life.

Why, then, is it that more of us don’t write goals?  Perhaps one reason for that is that many people think that goals are supposed to be things which are “good for us.”  As “Hagar the Horrible” said in one of his comic strips, “The four most unappetizing words in the English language are ‘it’s good for you.’”

The truth is, a goal isn’t YOUR goal unless it makes your heart sing.

Another reason some people don’t write goals is that they believe they don’t know what they want.  After working with people deeply for four decades, I have found that we all actually know, at some level, what we want.

Our wants might be buried, or we might be afraid to know what we want (as I was for the first 35 years of my life), but we do know.  Many of us grew up in situations where we were not encouraged to know what we wanted.

Also, many of our parents didn’t know about what we in Unity call “the power of creation,” one of our innate attributes as expressions of God.  Had they known how powerful we all are to create our reality, they could have supported us in creating our own desires, instead of believing that it was their job to provide everything we wanted.

For example, if we wanted a pony, they could have said, “You want a pony?  Here’s what you do:

• Read a book on the care and feeding of horses and write a report on it.
• Talk to people who own horses.  Offer to help one of them take care of a horse for a month.
• Do a ‘treasure map’ (pictured prayer).  I’ll help you do it.

We are all so powerful that God is constantly creating our life through us, always giving us what we are asking for according to our deepest beliefs and the direction we provide.

So, set some goals that make your heart sing.  If you believe that you don’t know what you want, then make THAT a goal – to know that you know.

In one of his books, Dr. Gay Hendricks says that knowing what we want and asking for it through goals is like placing a “cosmic order” with the universe.  Just as we wouldn’t go into a restaurant and say to a waiter, “I don’t know what I want,” we can learn to also ask the Universe for our desires.

When writing goals, I suggest having ones which are “realistic but unreasonable.”  Having them be realistic means to have them beyond your current level of demonstration, but not so far out there as to be unbelievable.

Having them be unreasonable means to have them be beyond your known ability to accomplish.  Goal setting is a form of prayer.
When Jesus’ disciples asked, “How can we have more faith,” Jesus replied, “Have faith in God.”  So, in your life, do you have faith only in your own ability, or in God’s availability? 

What I personally do in setting goals is this:

• I ask the Holy Spirit for direction.
• I write down what I hear as direction from Spirit.
• I practice seeing and feeling myself having my desire.
• I take whatever steps I can take every day toward having one of my desires.

One step might be to write affirmations.  Another might be to make a treasure map.  I might open a savings account for this desire.  I might do research on it, or talk to others who have this in their lives.  There is always a next step to take.

One important thing in goal setting is to not judge your desires.  Just know that as you evolve spiritually, so will your goals.  As someone once said, “If you want to you can, because you couldn’t want to if you couldn’t.”

So take time this week to write goals.  How do you want your life to be different by the end of 2015?  Think about your health, your inner life, your spirituality, your relationships, your finances, your career, your leisure activities, and your community involvement.

Let 2015 be the best year ever as you practice: