Abandoning Balance

Achieving balance in your life sounds great. The way it’s talked about, you’d think that if you could perfectly balance your time you’d experience peace like never before. I’m no different. I envision a life where I get everything done, make everyone happy and never feel stressed or hurried because I’ve got this time management thing down. And just like you, I’m never going to get there. It’s just like the stories I read to my son each night, a fantasy that will never come true. A perfectly balanced schedule is impossible. 

Abandon balance as a goal. It’s not going to help either of us get more done. 

One glance at the pages of any history book tells the story in full. They're filled with story after story of meaningful lives rarely characterized by balance. Look carefully and you’ll see men and women who tackled the challenges before them with passion. They didn’t expend their energy trying to balance forty different things, instead, they gave their all to each part of their life. 

What are the things you’re passionate about? You wife? The kids? A project you’re working on? A side hustle you’re building? What would it look like if you allowed your passions to drive you instead of the mythical creature called balance? 

I’ll confess, I don’t have all the answers. This is still a new concept for me, and I’m working to understand it more fully. What I want to share with you today, however, are a few things I’ve learned through this process.  

1. You have to decide how you’ll spend your time before other people do it for you. 
2. Time management is life management. 
3. Every time you want to make progress, you’re met with some form of resistance.  
4. Balance is a bad pursuit - it doesn’t feel like an advance, it feels like a retreat.
5. People who accomplish significant things aren’t balanced people, they’re passionate people.
6. The passion you bring to your work, brings glory to God regardless of what you do. 
7. You have the same amount of time as every other person in history. 
8. Not all hours feel equal. Energy levels wax and wane throughout the day. 
9. Do what you’re best at when you’re at your best. 
10. Schedules are a good thing.  

I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking the answer to getting more done, is working harder. It’s my default setting. Whenever I meet resistance, I put my head down and push harder. It rarely if ever ends well. Burnout and breakdown are usually its side effects. Hard work isn’t a bad thing, but it can’t be all you have. You’ve got to plug into passion.  

How would it transform your life to pursue everything you do with passion? 

Let’s stop playing defense by pursuing balance and go on offense by engaging in every area of our life with passion. I’m still learning how to do this, but love the shift in mindset it brings. Going on offense is so much more fun than sitting back and playing defense. 
 

Two Types of Discipline

There are two types of discipline. 

The first is imposed discipline. This is where the habits and practices of discipline are forced upon you. The military is particularly skilled at this. They tell you what to do, how to do it and when. They set high standards and expect you to meet them, and doll out punishment when you don’t.

The second is self-discipline. You hold yourself to high standards and force yourself to meet them. You don’t need anyone looking over your shoulder, or screaming in your ear, you just get things done. 

Imposed discipline will only get you so far. 

To truly get things done and accomplish your dreams, you’re going to need self-discipline. You’re going to need the will and determination to push through hard times. You’re going to need the strength to face your fears and overcome them. You’re going to need the discipline to hold the line and stay the course when you don’t feel like it. 

Cultivate self-discipline. It’s the best and truest form of discipline and the best path to achieving your goals. 

Discipline Without Direction Equals Drudgery

Several years ago I decided I was going to be a morning person. I’d read a ton of articles and blog posts that made me feel like a slouch for not getting up early enough. They had valid reasons why I should and warned of the opportunities I would be leaving on the table if I didn’t. I didn’t want to be one of those nuts that get up at 4 am, but I did want to start getting up earlier. 

I set my alarm for 15 minutes earlier each day throughout the week, trying to train myself to get up at an earlier time. It was successful, at first. I had moved my wake up time back an hour after one week. Things were flying high and going well. No worries, no problems, and no obstacles. The first several weeks were a breeze. 

I slowly crept back towards my previous wake up time as time past. I’d hit the snooze a time or two, or stay up too late the night before and have a good excuse for why I needed extra sleep. After a few months, I was back in my old routine without even noticing it. 

How many times have we endeavored to establish better and more disciplined habits that didn’t take? How many times have we set goals to get up earlier, workout more or eat healthy without following through? 

It’s been an all too regular occurrence in my life. I’ll set a goal, and even come up with a plan on how I’m going to make it happen, but too many of them end up as stories of failure. They haunt me. If I let them they tell me I’m a failure as well, and that I shouldn’t try to make changes to the life I lead. I should accept the status quo. 

I can’t listen to those voices. I can’t listen to the weakness. They’re not telling the whole truth. There may be a kernel of truth in there somewhere, but it’s covered with lies. The truth is that I failed because I was missing the most important piece to the puzzle. Have you put together a puzzle only to realize you’re missing a few important pieces? 

Unless you have kids, it may not happen to you often. But I’d lay down big money it happens all the time in the real world. You decide you’re going to do something, you consider the cost, and come up with a plan to get there. You invest time and work hard to see change occur, but it’s short lived. What happened? What was the missing piece to your puzzle?  

You must know why you’re doing it in the first place if you’re going to have a chance at real lasting change. “Discipline without direction,” Donald Whitney said, “is drudgery.” 

You must have a compelling reason and purpose for change to stick. ‘Want to’ isn’t enough, there must be a real, and powerful reason why you are endeavoring to change. It has to be a reason that forces you forward and pulls you through the hard times. 

The vague promise of productivity wasn’t enough to get me out of bed, but getting up to workout and write has been. I’m actually getting up even earlier than I’d thought possible because I’ve found an irresistible motive. 

Spend some time this week, thinking about the why behind your biggest goals. What would your life look like if you reached them? Move beyond the vague and focus on the specific. I trust that if you find a powerful purpose behind your goal, it’ll become that much easier to hit your target. 

5 Ways to Make More Happen in 2017

'Get stuff done.' That's the mantra of the daily grind that is America 2017. You drag yourself out of bed earlier than anyone else. You stay late at the office three or more nights a week. You bust your butt and stockpile vacation days like they're going out of style. You do all this and more under the guise of getting stuff done. It's as if you believe he who gets the most stuff done wins.

You do this ever year, yet reach December with unfinished projects and unreached goals. Amidst all the grinding discipline on display in your daily routine, things fell through the cracks and the goals that meant the most to you were neglected for more urgent things. We recently discussed setting goals and I'm sure you have tons of them for 2017. Today, I'd like to share with you five things that help me keep my priorities in line and give me more time to work on my goals. 

1. Write Things Down. 

You have a ton to keep up with. Most of the time you can remember it all without trying or thinking anything of it. When it comes to important things however, you write them down. Your wife doesn't send you to the store without a grocery list. You have a to do list and hopefully a don't do list at work. You use lists to run the important areas of your life. What could be more important than achieving your annual goals?

Write down your goals. Find a nice quiet spot, free from distractions, and spend some time writing out all you're committed to achieving this year. This one simple act makes you 42% more likely to reach your goals. Write them down and put them somewhere you'll see them every day. I have a friend who puts his in his closet. Every morning as he gets dressed for the day, he looks at his goals and every night before bed he does the same. It helps him ensure that he is taking concrete steps towards them each and every day. Do something similar. 

2. Rig The Game

People who want to get to Disney World don't simply get in the car and start driving, hoping the road will somehow get them there. Instead, they look at a map and chart their course. They do this in advance, rather than waiting until they arrive at the wrong destination or discover they've spent three days driving the wrong direction. If you want to get somewhere, guesswork is a poor strategy. Just like you planned a route for your last road trip, you need to decide how you are going to reach your goals.

Regardless of how strong your will power or how committed you are, there are going to be days where you don't feel like working on your goal. Imagine your goal is to run a marathon in 2017. Reaching that goal will require you to go run everyday. If each morning you have to convince yourself you really want to do this, you're in trouble. It's a huge obstacle to overcome. Over time, it will wear you down, and could derail your goals. The solution is to remove that daily decision by rigging the game in your favor.

"You will never change your life," John Maxwell said, "until you change something you do daily. The secret of success is found in your daily routine." Get over the hump and assure yourself success, by finding a way to make your goal a habit. It can be as simple as, "When I get up each morning, I sit down to write for thirty minutes." Building small daily habits like this, makes it as close to impossible to fail as you can get. It forces you to be consistent and consistent action over a period of time is the surest route I know to achieving them. 

3. Focus On The Right Things

"What is important," Dwight Eisenhower said, "is seldom urgent, and what is urgent is seldom important." Many of the tasks you spend time on each day don't get you any closer to reaching your goals. They come to you with sirens and horns blaring demanding your attention, but offer little in return. These urgent deadlines, and problems have to be dealt with but pull you away from other important things. Likewise interruptions and time wasting activities draw your attention away from productive endeavors. With emergencies, interruptions and problems coming at you left and right, how do you continue to move forward on your goals? The answer is found in a helpful decision matrix popularized by Steven Covey in his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, the Eisenhower Decision Matrix.     

When tasks cross your path, run it through the matrix above. If it lands in quadrant four (not urgent, not important), do it later. If it belongs in quadrant three (not important, but urgent), delegate it to someone else. Obviously, the urgent and important tasks need to be attended to immediately, but don't forget to make time for quadrant 2 (important, but not urgent). The more time you can focus on this quadrant, the better off you'll be. It will allow you to deal with important things before they become urgent. 

4. Get Up Early

If you want to get a lot done while avoiding the time wasters, interruptions and all the things that keep you from working on your goals, get up earlier. This isn't a popular suggestion. Most people scoff at the thought, and that's exactly why you shouldn't. You don't want to settle for average, you want above average. Average people sleep in as late as possible, while the above average person gets up early and gets to work on their most important projects.

As you read about focusing on those tasks that belong in quadrant 2, you wondered where the time to do that is going to come from. The early morning hours are the perfect solution to that quandary. If you made the decision to rise one hour earlier, you could gain five extra hours of productive time per week. That's roughly six plus weeks over the course of a year, while still taking two weeks off for vacation. This is how you get your goals done.

5. Don't Throw In The Towel

No one ever achieved more by quitting. Your greatest weakness is listening to that voice in your head telling you to give up when things get hard. When you find yourself on the verge of giving up I want you to give it one more try. There is so much value in staying in the fight.   

3 Things Goals Should Have

You've read and heard a thousand different things about goal setting. You know how important it is, yet the majority of you don't have written goals. Far too many of you are playing around when it comes to your goals. You have a few nice ideas about where we want to go and what you want to do in life, but you haven't committed to them enough to write them down. The upside is you aren't discouraged when things don't pan out. We never put ourselves out there and as a result we think we're safe from the pain of failure. 

The down side is, that its an illusion. Not committing to something, is a type of failure all its own. "Its hard to fail," Roosevelt said, "but it is worse to have never tried to succeed." Its' a failure in courage and it leaves you even more defeated than they guy who dared to take on the mountain and failed. Your neither hero nor villain. Instead, you're irrelevant. No one will remember or pay attention to the things you never dare to try. Should you live your life begging for the attention and appreciation of others? No, but we weren't put here to stay on the sidelines either.

Daring to do great things is about more than deciding to give it a shot and see what happens. Achieving great things is all about setting the right type of goals and pursuing them with everything you've got. As you sit down and hammer out what you want out of 2017 ensure your goals include at least three aspects.  

1. Energizing

Whatever it is you want to get done in 2017, make sure you're focusing on things that fill you with energy. You want them to cause you to leap out of bed each day, ready to get after it. Many of the goals you fiddle around with each year don't inspire this type of want to and energy. No wonder 92% of Americans fail to achieve their new years resolution. That's a an utter shame. If you're going to have any shot at reaching your goals in 2017, you can't afford to waste your time on things that don't get you out of bed before the sun, or keep you up long after its set. If they don't make you want to get after it, you need to set some bigger goals. The first step to making big moves in 2017, is to set your sights on mega goals.  

2. Measurable

How do you know who wins the Super Bowl each February? That's not a trick question, you look at the scoreboard. The team with the most points, walks away with the Lombardi Trophy. If you're going to make big changes in 2017, you have to define exactly what a win is going to look like. Be as specific as you can. You've got to find a way to turn that energizing goal into something tangible, something that can be measured. It's hard to hit a target you can't see. The second step to a great 2017, is making your goals something you can measure. 

3. Time Bound

You don't have forever to get things done. Life doesn't work that way. It might make you feel good to set goals without a definite time table, but it doesn't help you achieve much. How many of your friends have goals to "some day" do this, or that? Ask yourself how likely it is they'll ever get them done. If your not introducing time to the discussion, your not serious about the goal. Give your goals deadlines that make you uncomfortable. This will motivate you to work harder and get it done. Step three is to ground your goals in time, while remembering that if you don't get there you can always reevaluate and set a new time table.