Rather than let my quarter-life crisis continue to be imminent as my twenty-fifth looms around the corner, I decided to be proactive.

When a man has a mid-life crisis, he either gets confused or depressed. If confused, he will likely buy a boat, a car, or that big TV he has always wanted. If depressed, he may become somber and run back to his old vice.

When a man has a quarter-life crisis, he either goes crazy or gets stupid. If crazy, he may start setting unreasonable, often selfish, goals. If stupid, he could do one of the countless things that men who aren't ready to grow up yet do--you know the story.

I have a goal setting personality type, which makes being unreasonable a risk for me. I've set way too many ridiculous goals in my life; and yet when I meet them, I rarely celebrate. Instead, I ponder what went wrong along the way or what I'm going to do next. Both of these steps are good things, but they've often hindered positive feelings. This means that no matter how successful my last year was, I always go into my birthday feeling like the year could have been better. Although I'm always thankful for my relationships--with Christ, my wife, family, friends, colleagues, and others--I rarely reflect on that. Instead, I'm stuck thinking about what didn't happen during the last year and what needs to happen in the next. Sometimes it's holy discontent, but other times, it's just unnecessary mourning.

Our kids participated in a triathlon camp this summer at our local YMCA and loved it. Now they are sold on it and are training for a kid's triathlon that's coming up in a couple of weeks.

Yesterday I did a bike ride with them after school. Noah, our 10-year-old, wanted me to take my road bike because it has a “speedometer” on it. Periodically he’d ask about our speed and distance. He seemed content that we were averaging 10mph, however, each time I looked back at them, both kids appeared to be on a leisure stroll, not a training ride. So I asked if we should bump it up to 12mph or more.

“No, I don’t think I go that fast,” he spouted. Noah is our conservative child. His mind was telling him to keep it safe but I knew he could handle it. So I did the obnoxious mom thing and gradually began upping the pace 10, 11, 12 mph...looking back periodically to see how they were doing. I kept us there for a few minutes and checked again – they still appeared to be on a joy ride.

“How you guys doing?”

“Great!”

“We’re going 15 mph!”

“No way!! I didn’t think I could go that fast!” Confidence was building and it shown in his eyes.

Numbers can be intimidating. They give us a concrete goal that we either do or do not meet. They can inspire us to push our self beyond old limitations. At the same time, they can also paralyze us if the hurdles before us are too daunting. Doubt takes over and it pollutes our vision and it's hard to move forward.

God didn’t create us for mediocrity. Jesus told us we’d do greater things than He. But, there is wisdom found in realistiic goal setting. Growing up, I wanted to be the first female, professional soccer player but my genes thwarted that one. Just because we want to do or become something doesn't necessarily make pursuing it a wise use of our time and effort.

How are we to balance goals that lead us to the greatness God created us for without misleading ourselves?