Work On It, Not In it

Work On It, Not In it

Which “you” shows up when you experience stress, do you Work On It, Not In It?

   I was asked this exact question while serving at one of our Journey Training weekends.

People often think that I don’t get stressed out, but those people would be wrong. I just deal with stress differently and they don’t recognize when I am struggling with it. I tend to go through three stages when I Work On It , Not In It:

Stage 1

 I begin to feel pressure, so I stop, back up, and evaluate the situation. What small things can I whittle away to reduce the stress? What can I remove, complete, or change to dial it down?

 Stage 2

 I begin to get overwhelmed. At this point, I try to regroup and focus so that I can dial back down to stage 1 or before. Unfortunately, if the level is rising quickly, I tend to lash out at people I love and I get short and snippy in my communication.

Stage 3

I tear up. Yes, that’s right. Cry. They are most often tears of frustration. Here’s an example of what I had on my plate that brought on Stage 3 and how we handled it.

The Hamster Ball Relay, this event is monumental in itself.  The few extra minutes I had each week were invested in helping The Journey Training get going.  This is on top of my normal responsibilities at my two Chick-fil-A locations and the location I am the consultant for in Kansas and don’t forget the importance being a husband, dad and friend.

Frankly, it was all too much.

My wife said something simple and profound when I needed it most: “Let me know what I can help you with. There are people who can help you.”

There’s a word for what she was telling me: DELEGATION.

I teach delegation on a regular basis, but I still struggle with it from time to time myself. I had all of the typical excuses for why I could not/should not delegate.

  1.  It was all too important to delegate
  2. We can’t delegate, we are still trying to figure it out
  3. No one else knows how to do it and it will take too long to teach them

 As leaders, we MUST learn to get outside of what we are doing from time to time and work on the big picture so that the details don’t overwhelm us. This can help us stay healthy and effective for the long run instead of breaking down on the side of the road like so many do.

Most people who are around you genuinely want to help, they just don’t know what you need. When our pride gets in the way, we don’t ask for the help we need. What we miss is that more work can be done with more hands – and it’s often done better when each person has less to carry. They may also have gifts and talents we do not and our pride keeps them on the sidelines.

Remember these three items to Work On It, Not In It:

  • Step outside of the project to focus on the “BIG” picture, not the details
  • Ask for help, delegate the work load so each team member has less to carry
  • Look for ways to encourage your team to use their personal gifts or talents

Is there someone in your life you can ask if they need help?

Who can you ask in your life to help you carry the burden?

This thirty minute podcast is by Andy Stanley called, “Work On It” that I believe will really speak to you.  Andy Stanley is a church leader whose principles apply to any environment.

 

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Reprogramming Your Life

Reprogramming Your Life

In past blogs I’ve talked about the “programs” that run us.  Most of the decisions that we make are made by our beliefs – or the programming of our beliefs from our experiences.  These “Life Programs” can be good, and they can also be devastating! It all depends on what we want in life.

OUR LIFE PROGRAMMING

Good programs might be the confidence built in us by our parents or teachers that leads us to believe we will succeed before we even begin!  Some people automatically think anything they try is possible if they only put their mind to it.  Others lack that confidence and in turn believe the odds are against them before they even begin a challenge.

 “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”  – Henry Ford

The question becomes how do we change those beliefs that work against us in life?  If you lack confidence, how do you gain confidence?  If you continually sabotage your relationships by becoming impatient and snapping at people, how do you stop those behaviors? We all have beliefs and behaviors in our lives that need to be reprogrammed. So how do you go about reprogramming your life?

CHANGE YOUR THINKING

  • Well, to change our beliefs, we must first change our thinking.  If you lack confidence, your ability to find it begins with your own words. Let’s try something. I want you to begin counting in your head from 10 to 1 backwards, and when you get half way done, speak something out of your mouth.  Ready: GO!

What happened to the counting when you spoke? It stopped.  You see, it is very hard to think on one thing while saying something out loud.  Your thoughts gravitate to that action of speaking. This is how we can reprogram our lives.

  • If you lack confidence, you must begin to tell yourself you are confident. I know; at first you won’t believe it.  But in time, with continual practice, you eventually will begin to see it – at first just a little, and later even more!  If you snap at people because you are impatient, begin telling yourself that you are patient.  Speak out what you want and you cannot think on something else! Remember the train that “thought he could?” “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…”  That makes sense now, doesn’t it?

 MAKE AN AGREEMENT WITH YOURSELF

  • Find those beliefs that are holding you back, sabotaging your success, or making your relationships hard.  Write down on a piece of paper what you need to be instead of those things.  If you aren’t confident, write “I am confident.”  If you aren’t patient, write “I am patient.”  If you aren’t strong, write “I am strong.”  Yes, you can have more than one.  Take two or three.
  • Write them down and read them every morning when you get up, before you walk into a meeting, or before you get home to your family – whenever you need those things – just speak them out of your mouth. It’s good to do this while looking into your eyes in the mirror.  At first this will be awkward, but soon you’ll begin to believe it!

Before I went to The Biggest Loser, I would tell myself, “I am a joyful and passionate man!” At that time in my life I had lost all joy and passion.  I needed that again!  I began to believe it, and I found the joy, and then I surely found the passion!  Now I need focus, so I tell myself “I am a joyful, passionate and focused man!”  Soon, my beliefs will change.  And so will yours!

In The Journey Training, we see people enter the training every month believing wrong things about their lives.  These beliefs may have been programmed by the words of others, or even their own words about themselves. By the time these people finish their training, you can see a complete difference in the way they look, walk and carry themselves. Some look physically different, while some just can’t stop smiling – and they are believing different things about themselves, too!

When will you reach for what you want – when will you begin reprogramming your life?  Just remember these three simple steps.

  • Know your life programming
  • Change your thinking
  • Make an agreement with yourself

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Overcoming “Impossible” Obstacles

Overcoming “Impossible” Obstacles

You may have seen a report recently about two climbers, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson, who became the first to successfully free climb the “Dawn Wall” route of Yosemite’s El Capitan face. January 14, 2015 marked the end of a 19 day trek up the sheer rock face that placed them in the record books.

Seven years of planning and a lifetime of practice in completing other complex free climbs prepared this duo for achieving what many, including themselves, considered an impossible feat.

The climb took them up a path that traveled back and forth and even downward at times as they headed toward the summit. In preparation, they spent countless hours rappelling down the face of the rock to map even the smallest cracks or ledges that they could utilize to make their way to the summit. Each successful foothold or handhold represented movement toward their ultimate goal.

Aided only by safety ropes should they slip and fall, which they did multiple times (Jorgeson fell 11 times on just one section of the climb), they successfully completed each of the 32 sections or pitches before moving to the next.

At the end of each days climbing, they rested on a “portaledge,” a temporary horizontal surface with a rainfly, and suspended themselves from the face of the wall in order to get some much needed rest from the physical demands of free climbing. Every few days, supplies were delivered to the climbers by their friends on the ground who were acting as their support team.

How can you apply their achievement to your life?  Are you wanting to reach a goal, quit a bad habit, or overcome an addiction?

Look at the lessons below and apply them to your situation:

Easy challenges require little planning while extreme challenges may take years of preparation.

Size up your challenge and plan appropriately. Lack of planning in a free climb may spell death. Fortunately, lack of planning to reach your goal or make a life change is rarely life threatening, however it can certainly result in setbacks in your attempt at change. Minimize your potential for setbacks with planning that is appropriate in complexity to the challenge at hand.

Imagine your own rock wall you need to traverse. The bottom represents where you are today, the summit – where you want to be, and the wall between the bottom and the summit are the challenges, behaviors, temptations, and old habits you’ll have to overcome to reach your goal.

• Between you and success are potential opportunities to fail or succeed.

You’ve studied your behavior patterns and have identified the potential areas that you might sabotage yourself or just make a mistake and experience temporary failure.

• Every forward step matters, even if it is a small one.

Just like the climbers, a minute ledge or foothold may be all you need to keep moving toward your goal. You may feel like some of the steps you take don’t matter, but you’d be wrong. Every step in the right direction takes you toward your new goals, so celebrate each and every one of them!

What is one small step you can take toward overcoming your old ways?

• The path usually isn’t straight and it’s not going to be easy. 

Remember the saying, “the shortest path between two point is a straight line?” That may be mathematically accurate, but it is rarely the case when making life changes or achieving a goal. Just like Jorgeson and Caldwell, the path for your success will undoubtedly take you sideways and possibly backwards at times. Mapping your path ahead of time helps you keep your focus and not lose heart when you don’t “feel” like you are making progress or it appears to others that you are losing ground.

Keep in mind, even when Jorgeson or Caldwell fell, they didn’t fall all the way back to the starting point. Slipping when you reach for a crack to hold onto or when you place your foot on a small ledge doesn’t mean you’ve failed with a capital “F”, it merely means you’ve experienced a momentary setback and have an opportunity to learn how to better identify your next small step and try again for success. Successful people know that they learn as much or more from their “failures” as they do from their successes.  As Arthur Greeno, a Journey Training facilitator states, “Failure is always an option.  But so is Success.”

What “failures” have you experienced in the past? Did you learn from them or treat them with a capital “F” and give up? What lessons can you learn from your past setbacks that can empower and energize you toward future successes?

• Have an accountability partner and support team. 

Any task that we can reach by ourselves probably isn’t stretching us much and causes us to live in comfortable mediocrity. Reach for a larger goal or develop better lifestyle choices that require you to enlist the help of others. The help may come in the form of a mentor, coach, or accountability partner. The key to remember here is that you can’t achieve great things in life alone. Everyone needs support in some form or fashion.

Even Jorgeson and Caldwell had each other and a National Geographic Camera crew for accountability and encouragement. Add to that, their family and friends were there to provide assistance and supplies when needed.

Who are your accountability partners to help keep you keep on track? Who do you have around you to provide encouragement? Who do you have to help sustain you during long treks in your journey?

It is worth it.

So why endure all of the planning, frustration, setbacks, vulnerability, and reliance on others? Because it’s worth it! You are worth it! It’s worth all of this for you to become a better you and to help you in your pursuit in overcoming “impossible” obstacles. When you become a better you, then you can help others better themselves.

For more information on Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell’s climb of the “Dawn Wall” of Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan rock, see the links below.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2015/01/150114-climbing-yosemite-ca…

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Low Hanging Fruit

Low Hanging Fruit

Earl was an elephant. He loved the fruit from the trees! He would spend much of his time looking for and reaching up to get the best fruit he could see. But there were fruits that were too high for Earl to reach.

Earl would watch the monkeys screaming and playing in the trees. They would eat the fruits that were high up in the trees. Earl wished his trunk was long enough to reach those fruits, but it was only long enough to reach the low hanging fruits. Earl would eat those low hanging fruits, but in his heart he longed for the fruits up high in the tree. They looked bigger and more colorful, and he could imagine the sweet, sweet taste that was just out of his reach.

One day, Earl called to the monkeys, “Hey! I want some fruit! Can you drop one to me please?”

Mindi the monkey replied, “Why? You have fruit right in front of you. Just reach up and grab it!”

Earl shouted back, “But I want the high fruit! I’m sure it tastes much better than the fruit I can reach!”

Mindi shrugged her shoulders and said, “Okay Earl. Here you go!” And she dropped a fruit to Earl.

Finally! Earl had what he had longed for! He looked at the fruit and thought of all the times he ate that low hanging fruit while dreaming of the high fruit! Now he was going to taste the good fruit and finally see what he had been missing out on.

He took a bite and the fruit hit his tongue. He closed his eyes and tasted the sweetness. He chewed and ate the fruit.
Earl was confused. “This fruit isn’t any sweeter than the fruit I’ve been eating! I was so sure it would be better, but it’s exactly the same!”

Mindi climbed down the tree and looked at Earl. “I was wondering why you so wanted the high fruit!”
Earl asked, “Why do you eat the high fruit Mindi? Why do you climb so high to get them when there are fruits that are low?”

Mindi replied, “The high fruit is easiest for me to get, because I live high in the trees. Why would I travel so far to get the low hanging fruit when I can simply reach out and eat the fruit that is within my reach?”

Earl thought about all the time he had wasted dreaming of the high fruit and not enjoying the fruit he had right within the reach of his trunk!

“Never again will I long for something without enjoying what I have. I will dream, but not at the cost of the moment. I’m going to enjoy the fruit I can eat – the low hanging fruit – and truly savor what I have within the reach of my own trunk!”

In your life, what are you dreaming of? Dreams are great, but if you are only able to see the dream, what are you doing with the moment – with right now? Don’t spend your life running so fast toward your goal that you pass by the life you have now. Sometimes the greatest joy can come from the low hanging fruit, so look for that first – and enjoy it – and keep reaching high for the stars as you do! If you are a steward with what you have, more will surely follow!

‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.’ (Matthew 25:21 NIV)

 

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