Charles Stanley emphasizes the importance of cooperation, consistency, clear focus, courage, and dependence on God when setting and achieving goals. He highlights the need to cooperate with God's plan, enlist the support of others, and remain steadfast in pursuing the objectives set by the Lord. Stanley stresses the significance of maintaining a clear focus on the purpose ahead, acting with courage even in uncertainty, and cultivating a lifestyle of conscious dependence on God for true success.

1 Kings 5:1-12, 6:38 Last week we looked at some questions to ask ourselves when setting goals. Here are five other areas to consider. To achieve our aim, cooperation is required. First, we cooperate with God by agreeing to His plan. In agreeing, we are surrendering our way in order to do it His way. Secondly, we enlist the cooperation of others, starting with prayer support. To reach a goal entails consistency—a steady effort toward the objective. Since God helped us to establish our aim, we can remain fixed on accomplishing it. Even if others discourage us, we stay the course as the Lord has asked. Clear focus means fixing our eyes on the purpose ahead of us and not allowing ourselves to be distracted. By remembering that God set the goal for us, we will not allow others to change our direction. Often the goals we are given by the Lord require courage to act upon them. Courage here is the willingness to take action without knowing the outcome—we can do that because it is God who asks. As we deepen our trust in Him, courage will come. Developing a lifestyle of conscious dependence on God is important. It is too easy to put our own strength into achieving goals and forget about depending on God. True success requires dependence. These items are not a standard by which to measure ourselves; they are pointers to help us move in the right direction. If you haven't set goals, seek out someone who has and learn how. Be open to a new way of working.