The Trap of Busyness

A book I recently read convicted me about the busyness of my schedule. In fact, my full calendar had become an area of pride and a marker of professional significance. Obviously, this is less than healthy as it leads me to avoiding rest and looking for ways to inflate my self-worth through a full slate of activities and meetings. As a result, I’ve been meditating on ways to change my perspective and alleviate some of my self-imposed stress.

My personality and work ethic won’t allow me to simply “pull back” and ease up on the accelerator (at least not for extended periods of time.) I’m discovering I need to take a two-pronged approach to altering my pursuit of busyness. First, I must take more intentional time to rest. This starts with a regular weekly observance of Sabbath and also ways of resting my mind and body throughout the week. This will hopefully refresh me on a more regular basis and allow me to keep up a more regular pace.

The second focus is on being busy in the right way. I don’t believe all busyness is negative, but instead of allowing "all things" to dominate my schedule I need to be strategic with what I do. I need to be clear on my personal and professional purpose and do the things that lead me further along that path. This is the principle of missional velocity—moving intently in a direction with the purpose of fulfilling my calling.

I’m not going to fix this overnight, but I also haven’t become a “busyaholic” that quickly either. I’m striving to become more intentional about the balance of rest and purpose and feel certain I’ll be in recovery for the rest of my life.

Shaping Life

“Incident piled on incident no more makes life 

than brick piled on brick makes a house.” 

Edith Ronald Mirrielees

If you want to build something worthwhile, you’ve got to take the raw material and shape it into what you desire. We don’t always get to decide what our supplies will be, but we can determine how we’ll use what we’ve been given. We forfeit the right to complain about the product if we won’t invest ourselves in the process.

Celebrations Help

I love to see lives transformed for the better and I appreciate the perseverance it takes to see success. Yesterday I wrote about beginning that journey right where we are and not waiting for some distant date or event before beginning. We won’t reach our destination if we are unwilling to start heading in a positive direction. I think there’s another key element that helps us maintain our focus along the way—celebrating the small steps of progress.

We miss opportunities to encourage people when we only celebrate ten years of sobriety, twenty years of marriage, or a year of wise financial decisions. Courage can often be gained and reinforced by honoring small moments of wisdom and perseverance. What if we shouted praises to the person who walked one lap around their neighborhood just as much as the person who finished their first marathon? What if we applauded one day of giving up cigarettes instead of reminding people of how far they have to go before their habit is kicked? You can’t build a year of positive habits without the 365 days that fill the calendar.

Let’s start encouraging people for their small steps in the right direction instead of waiting for a big moment to let them know we’re proud. The minimal investment of celebration may give them the courage to keep moving towards transformation.

Just Get Started

It's not a new thing for me to write and think about starting new patterns in life. I think it's become ingrained as part of me even though it wasn't necessarily natural until the last few years. Part of it is my passionate enthusiasm for the concept of new beginnings which can't become real until we start something. I think we get overwhelmed with this idea when we look at daunting changes and how far we have to go to reach our goal. I'll admit this can be discouraging and can persuade us to avoid change instead of tackling it head on. There have been times when I've given up before I started because the obstacles in front of me seemed to large and the journey too long.

I don't intend to make change sound easier than it is and I recognize how difficult life-altering habits can be to establish. Sometimes we just need encouragement from others on the journey and the validation that we can simply start where we are. We don't have to reach a certain level before we can begin life change, but can begin at whatever point in life we find ourselves. It's the forward progress that makes a difference. The starting line for the journey to transformation isn't off in the distance. It's right in front of us waiting for us to take the first step.

Know Who You Are

No matter how hard you might work to control details, life will never move exactly as you planned. There will be unforeseen circumstances, emergencies, uncertainty, and interruptions to derail us (almost sounds like a typical Monday, doesn't it?) Any amount of life experience will affirm this truth. What we have to determine is our personal response when this inevitability occurs.

Coping skills and adaptability are admirable qualities that help in these uneven times and can certainly guide us down the right path. These can be learned to a certain extent and should be strengthened as much as possible if we expect to be overcomers. I think the longest lasting success is found in something much simpler and more foundational: our identity.

If I am clear about who I am (son of the King, husband, father, friend, pastor) I won't allow these other events to pull me away from that. In fact, it's by reminding myself of the importance of who I am trying to become that helps me fight selfishness, anger, and stupidity. There's no guarantee I will always remember this, but hopefully I can see the value in maintaining the integrity of my character instead of responding flippantly to current circumstances. Don't let life's fluctuating events decide who you will be, but let your identity decide how you will respond.

Language Lessons

We wrapped up a series on marriage this week by sharing the idea of commitment in our relationships. This obviously takes some work from both people and a willingness to endure through difficult times. One of the keys to thriving is to understand the "love language" of the other person. While this may sound a little odd, it's a theory based on how we tend to understand we are loved. It varies from person to person and includes words of affirmation, physical touch, giving of gifts, quality time, and acts of service. I don't believe we are necessarily exclusive in these areas, but we are predominantly affected by some more than others.

If we want to effectively communicate our depth of feeling for those we love we have to understand how they hear us. Continuing to speak in a way that doesn't connect with them won't get the point across. Increasing the frequency of gifts won't affirm a person's feelings if they respond best to positive words. It's like speaking English to someone who only speaks Spanish and getting increasingly louder as we realize we aren't communicating. Soon we'll both be yelling and neither one of us will understand what's being said.

Past the Limit

I recently listened to a podcast from a leader I follow and he was talking about the principle of limiting beliefs. His podcast centered on the idea of the thoughts we allow that diminish our potential. Most of our limitations begin in our minds and the things we say to ourselves which reduce our effectiveness. It may be simple things such as, “I just can’t ever get in shape.” or “There’s no way I could quit smoking,” or “I’m not a leader—no one would follow me.” These statements reflect a limiting belief we have allowed to hinder our progress and keep us from growing into new things.

I think there is a lot of validity to this theory. I have hindered my own progress sometimes just by the things I said to myself. This doesn’t mean we don’t need to take an accurate measurement of our strengths & weaknesses. I will readily admit there are things that fall outside of my natural gifting and abilities. There are also situations in which I need to overcome my own misguided thinking and take action based on possibility. It’s a careful balance of maturity to be able to accurately assess yourself while avoiding the negative self-talk which can inhibit your growth.