The roll out of each new year brings with it a sense of anticipation that the upcoming year will be as good or better than last year. Here are a few SIMPLE things that can help move your life, relationships and business or ministry forward in 2019. If you lay a strong foundation in your personal life it will reflect positive results into your professional life. In addition to what we share in our 7 Simple Skills for Every Man or Woman books, there are a few traditions and tools that help Bill and I make forward movement each year:
Pray for God’s Heart: In January, we completed a “seek week” where we step out of our “normal” schedule and take a little more time to pray, worship and explore scripture.
I have found ANY week of the year that you create more space for God can be your “seek week” and God will grant you wisdom and insight from heaven’s view point. My goal at the end of seek week is to have a verse for the year that I can hang my heart on. This year, God lead me to my Word of the Year: Adventure, because the road ahead is bringing a lot of change. We are currently packing to place our home on the market. We will then downsize and move our home (and our Love-Wise ministry) nearer Bill’s aging parents.  (Read the details on how and why I selected My Word of the Year  and  the powerful results that can happen by using a Word of the Year to focus your energy.)
I am a woman who loves the outdoors  and I have learned on these adventures that  a positive attitude, an inspired heart, a determined spirit and a flexible plan can help you overcome ANY challenge turning OBSTACLES into ADVENTURES.
As I prayed over a few verses I thought might help me “Embrace Adventure”, my friend, Vicki Heath, the President of First Place 4 Health, and author of Don’t Quit, Get Fit,  recommended one I had already been pondering:
“…no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things God has in store for those who love Him.” (1 Cor 2:9)
Paint the Promise:  Last year I began Bible art journaling. One day in a quiet time, I read Psalms 55:22 and then dug into my Logos Bible software to study deeper meaning. What I discovered is when we “hurl” or throw our “burden” God sustains us. It is interesting that the word burden can also be translated gift, assignment or allotment. So things that we think are heavy burdens, God sees as a gift to our life! And the word “sustain” means God will “nourish” or “nurture” us so we can achieve that heaven-sent assignment. In SIMPLE terms, this verse is a promise that God will uphold both us and our ministry or calling. God will uphold YOU and YOUR ASSIGNMENT! That is Good News for a New Year!
Plan Specifically:, I will have the joy of leading a workshops on my new book 7 Simple Skills for Every Woman: Success in Keeping It All Together. One of the activities I enjoy most is leading woman through the process of creating her own personal plan of success. Part of that plan will be to help her identify her word, verse and theme for the year. We will then put feet to the dreams by setting some goals so she can make progress in her life. You can download the goal setting YOUR BEST YEAR YET worksheets Bill and I use to help you set some key goals for 2016. (for couples /  for women)
Project Success: Next, work your goals into your daily life. One way we do this is by sharing breakfast together, pray over our days and once a week we use a worksheet to talk through what we believe God wants us to accomplish that week. (Click here to download Weekly Meeting: Marriage Unity  worksheet) We often go to a Christian bookstore and buy other items with our word or verse of the year on them (mugs, journals, art or plaques).
Prepare a Team. Each day at 3:20, we pray Ephesians 3:20 over our life, our family and those I might be with. We have recruited a team who also pray Eph. 3:20 over our life and ministry too. So as I close this business minded blog, I am praying God’s blessings and vision over your ministry:
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us
Pam Farrel
Pam Farrel is an international speaker, author (or co-author) of 44 books including her newest, 7 Simple Skills for Every Woman: Success In Keeping It All Together . Pam and her husband, Bill, are co-Directors of Love-wise.com  and in 2016, after they reach their goal of relocating, want to begin traveling and speaking in the countries that represent the 15 languages their books have been translated into.
