Category: Personal Growth

Posted on

Make it Personal

I recently read about a spiritual exercise that I thought I would do myself. After doing it I was humbled and reminded what it really means to love people. We sometimes just read Scripture and don’t make it personal. I would encourage you to read this with your name instead of mine. Then ask yourself does any of this describe me? Do I love other people this way? Would anyone in your life say this about you?

Chad is patient, Chad is kind. He does not envy, he does not boast, he is not proud. Chad is not rude, he is not self-seeking, he is not easily angered, Chad keeps no record of wrongs, Chad does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. Chad always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I don’t know about you, but that was a wake up call for me. That is what I want people to say about me when I am gone. What can you start doing today to make some of that true about you in your relationships?

Posted on

A look Back and Forward

Think about yourself a year ago. Go back to 2008 and think about what you were like, who you were hanging out with, what you were doing, what weren’t you doing? Think about the type of person you were, the relationships you had, the work you were doing the way you were parenting, the quality of your relationships, the health of your marriage.

Now think about where you are today. Have you changed? Are you a different person? Are you pretty much the same? Are you doing worse? Deeper in debt? Are you closer to God? Farther from God?

Sometimes it helps to have a bigger perspective on your life. When you step back and look at the bigger picture of your life story, it helps to see things a little more clearly.

Now start thinking about next year, 2010. Where do you want to be? What are some things you can start doing today to become the person you want to be? Maybe it is reconciling a relationship, or maybe improving your financial condition. Maybe its going to school or having a different job. Maybe its getting closer to God and exploring the Bible. Maybe its finding a church that you can relate to. Maybe its developing some friendships. Maybe its becoming a better parent, maybe a better husband or a better wife or a better son or daughter.

How will you be different a year from now? Will people notice you have changed for the better or will they say you are the same old person as last year?

Posted on

Cleaning out the Garage

On Thursday my wife and I cleaned out our garage, in preparation for a garage sale next week. The first thing we did was take everything out of the garage. We took everything out into our driveway, we then took everything off the shelves and put it on the floor. Next we began to clean the shelves and then each item that was on the shelf. We then used a vacuum cleaner on the corners of the garage and the walls throughout the garage and then scrubbed the floor.

One of my jobs was to clean every item we took out of the garage. We then had to make the decision about what items we wanted to put back in the garage. We ended up throwing some things out. Things that were broken or of no use to us. Other things we put on a pile to sell.

This was a long and dirty process and it made us tired. However it was needed in order to bring order and organization to our garage. It also gave us a sense of satisfaction that we had completed this task and it made more room for the important stuff.

You may be in need of some intense emotional housecleaning as well. The attic, the basement, a closet and the garage of your heart may be crammed with clutter from the past. You may be overflowing with emotional debris.

Often times we don’t notice our mess for years. We accumulate stuff and put it in a corner. We accumulate emotional garbage during our childhood and have added to it every year as we grow older. When you get married, you tend to combine your junk. This can lead to all kinds of relational problems.

If you don’t have regular times of cleaning house, this stuff gets out of control. We find it hard to move around, because there is so much clutter. This can be a big daunting task to take everything out and either clean it up, throw it out or put it back in it right place. However, if you don’t start to do this, it only gets worse.

Sometimes we need some help getting things cleaned up. Getting wise counsel, meeting with a mentor or a coach, can be a huge help. Asking God to help is vital, He will take all our junk, just like the garbage man took ours.

So what room in your heart needs cleaned out? What junk do you need to throw out? What needs to be cleaned and scrubbed? Start today, you will be glad you did. What a great feeling it is to have a clean garage.

Posted on

Understanding People

How well do you understand people? Why do people do the things they do? To understand people we must first realize that everyone is at a different place in life. Everyone has unique experiences, personality and abilities. God created each of us uniquely. That is why sometimes it is difficult to understand others, especially if they think, act and believe differently than we do.

To understand someone you first must be willing to listen to them and get to know them. It takes time to get to know someone, we can sometimes jump to conclusions about people based on a brief encounter with them. That is a dangerous thing to do. We can write someone off or judge someone before we begin to understand them.

I heard this story about a man and his three children. They were riding on the subway and the kids were being unruly. They were out of their seats, loud and pretty annoying. The father sat in his seat, just starring out the window. The people around the man and kids looked at each other with that look of annoyance. Finally one man decided to approach the father. He said “excuse me sir, but could you please manage your kids, they are out of control”. The man turned to him and said “I am so sorry, they just lost their mother. We are on our way home from the hospital. I guess they don’t know how to handle this and I don’t either.”

Immediately every one’s attitude changed. They now understood what was happening and it changed how they viewed the man, and the children. How often do we do that? We get irritated with someone and don’t know what they are going through. We get angry at the guy that cuts us off, but don’t know what is going on in his life. We get irritated at the co-worker that is late to work, but don’t know what she is going through at home. We don’t know the life the other person has lived, the hardships they have experienced, the grief they have been through, the pain they are in right now.

Remember that we all have different backgrounds, families, experiences and personalities. All of those things affect how we act, what we say and how we live. We all have lies we believe that influence the things we do. Once we understand that in others we can be more effective in helping them.

When we seek to understand people, it is much easier to be patient, forgiving and kind. Once you understand the person better then you can begin to speak truth to them in a loving way.

Posted on

Why Wait?

What are you going to do this week to change and grow? Where do you need to change and grow? In what area of your life are you struggling? How are you dealing with the hard things in your life? Who do you need to spend more time with? Less time with? What do you need to say no too? When will you start making some changes? Do you even need to make any changes?

This week you will continue on the journey, the adventure called your life. It can be filled with the same old stuff, or it could be filled with something unexpected. We don’t know what the upcoming week will hold. Or the next year for that matter. We cannot control what happens around us, and sometimes even what happens too us. However we can control how we respond, how we prepare, what we say and what we do.

It amazes me how many people wait until tragedy strikes or hardship hits before they begin to make changes. Unless the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of change we tend to not change. We wait until we have a health problem before we change the way we care for our bodies. We wait until a relationship is damaged before we make relational changes and start working on it. We wait until a financial crisis hits before we change our spending. We stuff our emotions until we explode. We avoid conflict until it gets so big it blows up in our face.

Start making the changes you need to make before the pain intensifies. It is never too late to make changes in your life. Ask God to help you discover the areas you need to work on. Go get help, seek counsel, read a book, listen to a CD, go to a seminar, spend more time with God, read your Bible, go on a fast, go on a spiritual retreat, work on a life plan, set some goals, change your calendar, add some things to your calendar, delete some things from your calendar, say no, say I don’t know, admit you need help. Do something this week, don’t wait. Start small and keep building on it. A year from now you can look back and see the progress you have made. You can do it.

Posted on

PDA

Here are some insights from Mark Sanborn on leadership. Mark was a speaker at the Maximum Impact Simulcast last Friday. He has a new book out called “Encore Effect”.

What if you were so good at your work, such an asset to your company (or family), such a remarkable leader that your boss (or spouse) or board of directors would do almost anything not to lose you to a competitor.

PDA stands for Performance Development Agenda. He challenged us to think two levels up instead of just one. Try to think about being a more remarkable performer, thinking two levels up. Be a more remarkable person, understanding who we are is critical. Help others become more remarkable, help others surpass themselves.

Mark said that both passion and process are needed for success. Passion is not enough, you need a process. This is the process he described:

  • Prepare – This is where remarkable performances always begin. You prepare for what you love. How are you preparing for your performance at work and life?
  • Practice – It won’t make you perfect, but it will always make you better. Learn to summarize critical activities and learn essential skills. Ten thousand hours of practice leads to greatness. Some critical activities of leadership include persuading, vision-casting, coaching, communicating and executing. Are you practicing your critical activities and skills?
  • Perform – This is where preparation and practice payoff. Great performers move people to act, think, feel good and laugh.
  • Pitfalls – Avoid them when you can and be prepared to handle them when you can’t. Most pitfalls can be avoided. Remarkable is not perfection, it is being authentic and real in the midst of pitfalls.
  • Polish – Good is never good enough, keep polishing and improving every aspect of what you do, so that your next performance is even more remarkable than your last.

School is never out for the encore performer. Passion is the fuel for remarkable performances.

Posted on

Mixed Messages

Why do we send mixed messages? I mean in our relationships, at work, in our marriages, with our children and yes even at church. Saying one thing and then doing another. Talking one way and then living or behaving another. Asking to have it one way and then you doing it the opposite. How about saying you love someone and then showing you don’t.

This is an area that has really been jumping out at me lately. People not walking the talk. I really think this is a problem in many relationships today. In our minds we know what is right and good, but somehow it doesn’t reach our heart. It is the heart that dictates our behaviors and our actions.

You see this in the church as well. We say we love all people and want everyone to come to know Jesus Christ. Then our behaviors, our words and our actions don’t line up with that. We speak a language of insiders, we expect everyone to look, dress, talk and act like we do. We put on a friendly outward appearance and then go out and do whatever we want to do. Every church struggles with this problem. The reason I know this, is because the church is made up of people. Imperfect people that send mixed messages. Outsiders see these messages and ask why they should become a part of all that. They don’t get a real good look at Jesus.

I don’t think Jesus ever sent any mixed messages. He spoke the truth and loved people. He attacked the religious people and reached out to the outsiders. He was authentic and real to everyone all the time. He did not pretend everything was great when it wasn’t. He faced temptations and overcame them every time, because of his heart. His heart was pure and full of truth.

A friend of mine told this story about a guy he has gotten to know. His friend was at a restaurant meeting with another friend. This friend was trying to share Jesus with him. He was trying to convince him that he needed Jesus in his life. When the waitress came up this guy ripped her because the last time he was in they got his eggs wrong. When he was done ripping her he turned to his friend and continued to talk about him needing Jesus. That is a mixed message and that small action turned off whatever light had begun to shine.

How about in your marriage or special relationships? Do you disrespect your husband and then expect him to show love to you? Do you demand respect from your wife and then do or say unloving things to her? Do you discipline your children for certain behaviors and then do them yourself? Do you ever catch yourself saying or thinking, “Do as I say, not as I do”?

Do your actions and behaviors line up with your words? Do you ever try to manipulate to get your own way? These are heart questions, is everything OK in your heart? Ask God to help change your heart and stop sending mixed messages.

Posted on

This Week

This week I want to move from reactive to proactive, from unfocused to focused, from unclear to clarity, from being driven by circumstances to being directed by purpose.

To do that I must carve out time to work “on” things and also schedule time time to work “in” things. What I mean by that is this: “On” time is when you step back and take a look at the big picture. It’s like getting into a helicopter and taking a look from above. It’s when you spend time thinking, observing, planning, prioritizing, reading and studying. This is a time for self-development and identifying where your blind spots are. It’s a time of putting your strategy together for the coming days, weeks and months. It’s sharpening your ax.

“In” time is also important. That’s when you do administrative things. The day-to-day stuff that needs to get done. The reports that need completed, the emails, voice mails, notes, memos and meetings. It’s doing the laundry, washing the dishes and sweeping the carpet. “In” time is a vital part of every leader’s day. If you don’t pay attention to the details some of the time you lose track of things and balls get dropped.

So this week I am going to work on a better balance of “on” time and “in” time. The only way to do that is to think ahead and plan out your week. By planning out your week, you bring clarity, purpose and focus to the things you are doing.

Lead ON

Posted on

Focus

One of the things I have to constantly be working on is focus. It is so easy to get distracted by urgent things, fun things, or things other people could do for you. Where I work the pace is fairly high. I find myself “busy” sometimes, instead of productive. When that starts happening, I have to re-focus myself. I need to step back and look at the big picture and start asking myself some questions. It can be that way not only in our work lives, but also our personal and spiritual lives as well. Here are some questions I found from Bob Biehl that have been helpful for me:

  1. What three changes in me would most please our Eternal God in His Holy Heaven?
  2. What can I do to make the most significant difference for God in my lifetime?
  3. Why am I on the earth?
  4. If I could accomplish only three measurable priorities (Problems to solve, Goals to reach, Opportunities to seize) before I die, what would I accomplish?
  5. If I could only accomplish three measurable priorities in the next ten years, that would make a 50% difference in my life-long contribution, what would I accomplish?
  6. What single word best captures the focus of my next year?
  7. What three land mines, or roadblocks need my immediate attention?
  8. If I had to cut my budget 20%, what would be the first three things to go?
  9. If I got a surprise gift of 20% of my budget, what three things would I do immediately?
  10. What three changes could improve the quality of my work by 50% in the next 12 months?

These are big forward thinking questions. They help to get us out of the here and now. It’s kind of like having your hand two inches in front of your face. All you can see is your hand. If you fully stretch out your arm you can see beyond your hand.

If you need to bring some focus to your work or to your life, start asking some of these questions. When you know what the most important things are in your life, you can then begin to focus on those areas.

I still must work on the small things, the urgent things, the boring things and the unimportant things. I still need to have fun and relax. But you actually have more time for those things when you do the important stuff first.

Posted on

Life Plan

Do you have a clear idea of what is most important to you in life and how you can achieve those things?

Do you know the disciplines, improvements and outcomes necessary to win in life?

If that is a little fuzzy for you then maybe you need to take a time out from life and develop a life plan. What is a life plan you ask? Why is that important?

A lot of leaders, myself included, spend most of their planning time setting goals. Most of us set goals, but very few experience real long-term success. When we reach a goal, we enjoy it for a moment and then are on to the next goal. By taking the approach of a life plan you begin to see that every decision you make will either increase or decrease your success in the important areas of your life. Every decision incurs a cost somewhere. More time at work can deplete your account at home.

Most successful people are running at a very high pace. Especially if you are doing something you are passionate about. We tend to think that we will run at this pace for a while and then later on I can slow down and get to the other areas of my life. That does not happen, it doesn’t get any slower tomorrow. We always find something else to keep us busy.

By developing a life plan, you become proactive instead of reactive. I am trying very hard to be more proactive in my life instead of just reacting to what happens. Psalm 90:12 says “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” We have a limited number of days. None of us knows how many days we have left.

To develop a life plan you need time to think and plan. To think through how you want to be remembered by those around you. What kind of a legacy are you leaving behind? What is your purpose or mission in life. How can you add value to each of the main accounts or relationships in your life.

There are some good tools out there to help you through this process. One that I am using is a book called “Becoming A Coaching Leader” by Daniel Harkavy. This book has been challenging me to grow as a leader. He has a great tool for developing a life plan. I am excited about working through this process. I challenge each of you to start this process as well. If you need help let me know and I will share what I have learned.