25th December; How Special?

25th December, 2015. Very special day. Of course as a proud Christian, this is the day we commemorate the birth of our LORD, Jesus Christ.

For fellow Christians, this should be a point of reflection. Jesus Christ, brought positive change in this world and that is what each one of His followers should be doing on a daily basis. It should also be a point of reflection and self examination about our readiness for His second coming and as to whether we are having personal encounters with the Jesus who made himself available to everyone in His Earthly journey.

Oh. Was about to turn it into a homily (that's the Catholic word for "sermon"). The whole point of this article was of course about how special the 25th of December is. Apart from this day being Christmas Day, it also marks the beginning of the last week of the year because in exactly one week it will be New Year's day (I hope I won't get a Mathematician counterarguing this in the comments). If you look at things the same way I do, you will discover that this is worth some attention.

End of the year. Again another time for reflection on how much progress has been made over the year compared against the preset goals for the year. I am hoping that the esteemed reader had some goals set for the year 2015.

There are some who are not yet in the habit of this sort of self evaluation. Contrary to talking about how bad lack of self evaluation is, I will talk about the benefits of its use.

The main benefit of course is that this whole exercise give life some sort of direction for the coming year. No fancy explanation for that. And of course the Author of Psalm 90 pleaded with the LORD that He teaches us to number our days so that we may be wise. It is therefore wise to use the calendar as a landmark when setting goals and planning (and yes, they are not the same).

Again, this whole post assumes that people have been setting goals, because of late I have noted that many of us do actually like to set goals. The element that lacks on the other hand is that of evaluation. At the end of the day, what happens (without evaluation) is the people go on and re-set the same unfulfilled goals without taking a look at why they were not achieved.

So how do we go about it?

First it is about going through the written goals that were set probably in December, last year and their deadlines. The next step is to separate the fulfilled ones from the unfulfilled ones.

For the achieved goals, it is worth reflecting on the experience on how you achieved them especially on the  "how" part. This is important as it is something that can be built on in the next period of time in which you will execute plans for certain goals.

For the goals not achieved, evaluation is equally if not more important. In this case, it is good to look at what went wrong between the setting of the goal to its realization. This, again will help with the planning as it helps with adjustment towards the achievement of the goals. Worth noting is that thus can also help you seek guidance from people who have previously achieved similar goals or are knowledgeable on the same.

This evaluation is important as it is a vital element of setting goals for the next year.

Anyway. Its Christmas Day and my Whatsapp is flooding with messages. Yours too, probably, so I shouldn't keep you reading.

I hope you all had a wonderful day and that you did not take Christ out of the Christmas.

Merry Christmas from Richie.

I will leave the New Year in peace for now. No rushing.