The One Question We All Must Face

I’ve talked to hundreds of people who were hoping to save or repair a relationship in their life. I’ve talked with parents who were struggling with their children, and husbands and wives who were struggling with each other. I’ve comforted the heartbroken and sought to calm the enraged. Some people were struggling with just one person, others felt that they had alienated everyone around them. While every relationship is different and has its own unique challenges, relationships are also similar in many ways. There is one question that every relationship faces at some point. It’s the one thing that anyone who is seeking healing in a relationship must ask themselves. That question is, “Am I Willing To Change?”. This is the most important question you can ask for several reasons:

You Are Not 100% Right

You’ve probably already come to realize this, but you are not perfect. I know, I was crushed when I found out as well. We all fail from time to time. We all misunderstand. We all act too quickly at times and too slowly at others. Even if the person you are relating to is totally wrong, it doesn't mean that you don't have room to grow as well. Since we are all imperfect, we all have the opportunity to grow and learn something new. So, if you are open to change, you always have the possibility of growth in front of you. No change = no growth.

You Are The Only Person You Can Change

As much as you may hope that your patience and understanding will one day break through to your spouse, the truth is you have no real power to change him. You can be great, and she can still choose to treat your poorly. You can parent perfectly and still have your child make disastrous decisions. If you put all of your hopes on being able to change the person you are relating to, you will end up discouraged and defeated. Instead, you must be open to whatever change may be the most healthy for you. You must be honest about the person you care for, but you must focus the bulk of your energy on your own growth.

Your Change Can Be Inspiring

While your growth may inspire your friend to examine themselves more closely, there is no guarantee that they will actually make any changes. What is guaranteed is that every time someone finds the courage to examine themselves and make changes, it is inspiring others. It may inspire others around you that you aren’t even aware are noticing. People who have the courage to change can inspire others who may also want to change. Not only that, but your ability to change will give you more confidence when new you face new challenges in the future.

Are you willing to change? Change isn’t easy and it can be quite scary, but growth is impossible without change. When you are willing to focus on your own strengths and weaknesses,  you can make the sort of changes that make you stronger, and when you are stronger, you will have more consistently stronger relationships!

How To See The Danger You Can't See: 3 Ways To Deal With The Blindspots In Your Life

I love quotes. I love it when someone is able to package words together in a memorable and insightful way. It’s not an easy task. Most of us throw out thousands of words a day, and few of them seem to stick. I stumbled upon a quote recently that stopped me in my tracks.

                “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.”1

The quote is from the mid 900’s BC by the Jewish King, Solomon. Even though the quote is approximately 3000 years old, it is still incredibly powerful. We have the power to convince ourselves that we are right even when we are dead wrong. I bet you’ve got examples of this from your own life, I know I do. There are moments from my past that still cause me to cringe when I look back. At the time, however, I had convinced myself that I was right, or that what I was about to do or say didn’t really matter that much. Our ability to deceive ourselves is incredibly dangerous.

The second half of Solomon’s proverb describes how to deal with our powers of self-delusion. “A wise man listens to advice”. So, how can we embrace the wisdom of this thought and protect ourselves from being blindsided by bad decisions?

Seek Advice From Experienced Sources

Most of us have a consistent pool of people that we share our lives with. Most often, these people are a lot like us. They may have kids our age. They live the same neighborhoods, or attend a lot of the same activities. It’s natural to limit ourselves to the advice and insight of people in our peer group. The problem can be that those in our peer group are often limited by the same things that limit us. They are asking the same questions and facing the same challenges. It’s always a good idea to seek out someone a bit older who has had life experiences that you haven’t had yet. Find someone who has been in your business for 20 years longer than you have. If you have children, find someone with grandchildren. Experience is a powerful teacher, and if you can learn from someone else's experiences, you will save yourself a ton of grief and frustration.

Seek Advice Close To Home

Even though we don’t want to limit ourselves to our peer group when looking for advice, we definitely want to take advantage of what they have to offer.  If you are a software designer, there are things only another software designer can teach you. If you are a stay at home mom, there are challenges that you face that only another stay at home mom can fully appreciate.

Clearly Ask For What You Want

Once you’ve found someone that may have wisdom that could help you, you will need to give that person permission to speak into your life. Many people are hesitant to share their thoughts and advice with others. No one wants to seem pushy or intrusive. If you really want to know what someone thinks about something, ask them directly. When they do share with you, make sure you receive what they say with grace and gratitude, even if what they share is tough to swallow! Sometimes the advice we need the most can make us uncomfortable. If you are gracious when others share with you, they will be more likely to share with you in the future.

We can all fool ourselves into thinking that we are right about everything going on in our lives. So, it’s important to have trusted sources of advice and wisdom that we can tap into. There are likely people already around you who can offer wisdom that would make your life better. Look for them and invite them into your life. You will be glad you did!

1 - Proverbs 12:15 (ESV)

Why Telling Yourself "No" Can Make All Of The Difference

For most of us, our childhood and adolescent years were built on trying to get people to tell us “yes”. As children we heard “no” a lot. While it wasn’t our favorite answer, it wasn’t a bad thing.  A healthy childhood is built on hearing “no” from teachers, coaches, and parents.

“No, you can’t eat paste.”

“No, you can’t bring that stray cat into the house.”

“No, if you don’t come to practice you won’t play in the game.”

When faced with “no”, we tried harder, argued more forcefully, and became more sneaky. We were desperate to turn the “no’s” we were hearing to “yeses”.

Then all of a sudden, high school ended. You headed to college or off to a job, and there were fewer people there to tell us “no” than there were before. Your job tells you, “no, if you aren’t on time or don’t perform on your job, you might be fired”. But, there is no longer anyone there telling you that you can’t stay up until 2 a.m. We can do pretty much whatever we want to do, and many of us do. We soon learn though, that the results of over indulging on our new found freedom can have some pretty tough consequences.  When life stops telling you “no” all of the time, your success depends on learning to tell yourself “no” at the right time.

More than any other skill, the ability to tell yourself “no” sets the stage for success as an adult. Adulthood reminds us that just because we can, doesn’t mean that we should. Is your inability to tell yourself “no” making your life difficult? Here are three tips that may help:

Insert a pause

There’s a time and place for making quick decisions. That time isn’t every time, and that place isn’t everywhere. Few people like telling themselves “no”, so if you act based on what you feel in the moment, you are likely to give into things that you know aren’t great for you. If, however, you can find a few minutes or hours to slow down and think things through, you are much more likely to come to an answer that best reflects your core values.

Don’t forget “future you”

It’s easy to restrict our thoughts to the here and now, to think only of what we feel now, think now, and want now. But “future you” (that’s you in 5 to 10 years) matters too. Something that doesn’t seem like a big deal now could really cause problems for future you. Take some time to imagine what you would like life to be like in 5 to 10 years. What sort of skills would you like to have developed by then? What sort of relationships would you like to have? What sort of activities will you want to be involved with? Then ask yourself if your present decisions are taking you to your preferred future.

Enlist some help

Life without the input and encouragement of others is hard. When you have people around you who value the things you value, you have an amazing resource. You can learn from their successes and their struggles. You can ask them when you aren’t sure about decisions you have to make. You are more likely to tell yourself “no” at the right time, when you are surrounded by people who will support your decision.

Telling ourselves “no” isn’t easy, but it’s an important skill for all growing adults to have. Like every other life skill that is desirable, this one gets better with practice. So, begin to tell yourself “no”. It might not be easy at first, but it will be well worth it. You and “future you” will be glad you did. 

The Danger Of Needing Your Relationships Too Much

If you need your relationships to make you ok, you’ll never be ok.

In a previous blog post, I talked about the dangers of giving too much in relationships. While being too giving in relationships is dangerous, being too needy is a problem as well. We all know someone who defines themselves by their relationships, and most of us have done it ourselves at times. When the relationship is going well, life is going well. The skies are blue, the birds are singing, and everything is perfect! When the relationship breaks down however, life breaks down. It’s hard to get out of bed, and everything seems gray. It’s normal to be down when a relationship fails, it’s not healthy to feel as if you have nothing valuable left in your life.

There are some things you can only do for yourself.

It’s easy when you care deeply about someone to think very highly of their opinion. You admire that person or you wouldn’t be dating them or be their friend. The danger comes when you defer all of your thoughts and decisions to that person. Even if you think they are really smart, you shouldn’t share all of the same opinions. You need to be able to think for yourself. There are parts of you that won’t grow unless you take time to think through things for yourself. So, don't just adopt the viewpoints of others.

If you need someone for everything, you will eventually blame someone for everything.

When you go along with what your friends decide in situations instead of thinking things through and deciding for yourself, you will also blame your friends when those decisions go wrong. It’s a toxic cycle. In life, we are guaranteed to make mistakes. If we are humble, we can grow from those bad decisions. If you depend on others to make decisions for you, you will never learn by making the normal mistakes that the rest of us make. Few things hinder growth more than blaming others for the things that aren’t working in your life.

If you define yourself by them, you’ll never find you.

You matter. You have unique insights. You are a combination of talents and experiences that is unlike anyone else. When you live off of the approval of your friends or family, however, you will slowly stop being you, and start trying to be the person they think you should be. It’s important to listen to and learn from the people around us. That doesn’t mean that we should mindlessly become what others want us to be. The two most dangerous people in the world are those who listen to and follow every voice they hear and those who refuse to listen to or follow any voice.

Relationships are wonderful and life-giving, but you can only fully enjoy them, if you learn to be yourself first. If you are not happy with who you are before you have a relationship, you will never be happy with yourself in a relationship. 

When Doubt Makes You Stronger

Ivy Baker Priest served as the Treasurer of the United States under Dwight D. Eisenhower and as Treasurer for the state of California under Ronald Reagan. She was credited with saying, “I’m often wrong, but never in doubt”.  It’s a funny comment, that I’ve heard others use, but it also has a ring of truth to it. For many people having doubt (or at least expressing doubt) is unacceptable. This attitude is especially prevalent in many churches, where doubt is treated as a lack of faith or the mark of an immature Christian. Not only is this sentiment wrong, it’s dangerous. Here are three important things to know about doubt:

Every thinking person has doubts

It’s impossible to think deeply about things without having doubts. Doubting and questioning things is how we test their strength and more important, it’s how we take ownership of belief ourselves. Everyone has doubts. Not everyone expresses them. What many churches are unintentionally telling people when they warn against doubt is “don’t think too deeply about it” or “if you do think about it and have doubts, hide them”. Neither of those paths leads to growth. Honesty and humility are the beginnings of growth.

Doubt fuels faith

Doubt doesn’t necessarily mean that someone has no faith. Doubt can actually fuel a growing faith. When we doubt, we ask questions. If we can ask honest questions and seek out honest answers, our faith will grow. We don’t have to be afraid of questioning God. In fact, the writer of Hebrews stated, “(God) rewards those who earnestly seek him.”1 Doubt can turn to seeking. It doesn’t mean that you are failing, it may simply be an opportunity to think more deeply and search more passionately.

Honesty is more important than certainty

I get nervous when someone tells me that they have all of the answers. When this comment is made in reference to God, it’s especially terrifying. God is bigger than we could possibly imagine. Our brains can’t possibly wrap all the way around all there is of Him. Learning more about God most often creates humility instead of certainty. There are things to be certain of: God’s love, perfection, care, etc…  But, one of the most important things we can be certain of is that we don’t know it all. Doubt can be the start of seeking new answers and new growth.

Doubt isn’t to be feared. It doesn’t mean that everything you have believed is false, and it doesn’t mean that you don’t love God. It simply means that you are thinking and open to whatever God may choose to show you next. So don’t run from your doubts. Take them to God. Share them with friends who care for you. It may be the start of something incredible.

1 Hebrews 11:6b (ESV)

Life Without Trust: How Your Fear of Trusting May Be Costing Your More Than You Realize

I’ve come to the realization that I am not an overly trusting person. I’ve only recently come to this realization and to test it, I decided to make a list of the people/things I distrust immediately. Here’s what I have so far:

I don’t trust…

            Coffee that comes in a vacuum sealed bag

               

People who say, “I know exactly what you are feeling…”

               

Warranties of any kind

               

TV News Shows

               

Anyone who says, “I believe in this product, this is not a pyramid scheme…”

Anyone who introduces me to someone who says, “I believe in this product, this is not a pyramid scheme…”

Anything from Taco Bell

People who show me the air filter from my car every time I get the oil changed

Anyone whose first name is a city (Never play pool against someone named Memphis Jones)

People who never make eye contact

People who make too much eye contact

Long car rides with people who do trust Taco Bell

Trust is a fragile thing. Once it’s been broken by someone or something, it takes a great deal of courage to trust again. On top of that, we live in a world that seems to be less trustworthy than ever before. TV is filled with ads promising things that their products can never deliver. Job loyalty seems almost non-existent. Many employers appear to be out only for themselves. Employees will jump from job to job chasing the next big thing. As a culture, our lack of trust has left us terrified of commitment. People are abandoning marriages in favor of living together. Many people prefer online friendships over real-life interactions.

This is not to say that we should blindly trust others. Choosing not to trust isn’t always a bad thing. Trusting someone or something that’s unreliable can be costly. You could lose money, waste time, or even have your heart broken. But there is a place for trust. In fact, trust is necessary for a full and enjoyable life. To put it plainly:

Relationships are impossible without trust, and life is meaningless without relationships.

Are you struggling to trust others? Do you not trust yourself and the decisions you make? Are your relationships suffering as a result? If so, choose today to give trust another try. It’s scary but it’s worth it. If you are not sure where to begin, check back in later this week for the second installment of this post entitled Turning Courage Into Action: How To Begin To Trust Again. 

Leadership Is A Relationship

One of my professors at seminary used to say that he loved the students at our school, because they would all “charge hell with a water gun”. He meant it as a complement.  I had many classmates who were passionate and eager to make a difference in the world. They were willing to go wherever and do whatever to make lives better. There were others, however, who were simply eager to be in charge.

Many people want to lead, but struggle once they are in a position of leadership. A DailyMail.com article found that nearly 40% of the highest paid CEO’s in America had faced action due to poor performance in the past 20 years.1 These leaders were the best and the brightest, and were paid incredible money to bring success to their companies. This trend doesn’t exist only in the highest profile jobs. Leadership breakdowns happen everywhere. While there are a lot of different reasons that  leaders  fail, one that seems to show up again and again is when leaders fail to recognize the relational component of leadership. Leadership is a relationship, and when it’s not treated as one, it’s doomed to fail.  Here are a couple of relational truths that will make you a better leader:

Leadership Means Leading People

There are a ton of great leadership theories. Many great leaders have written books about how they turned around their companies or improved their churches or schools. While these stories are powerful, they can not be blindly applied to every situation. Leadership means leading people. You must meet your people where they are, and to do that you have to take the time to get to know them. What works in one context or setting may not work in another. Knowing how to relate with those you work with will help you understand how to lead them.

Have Honest Expectations

No one’s perfect. You are not and neither are the people you lead. There’s nothing wrong with casting an incredible vision for your company or church, one that seems almost impossible. It’s something else entirely to demand the impossible from your staff or employees. Unrealistic expectations erode confidence and will eventually cause those who work for you to quit or rebel. Be ambitious but honest in your expectations.

Always Leave Your Door Open

A work place is only relational if communication can flow both ways. If you only talk to (or at) your employees, they will soon believe that you don’t care about them and only see them as a means to an end. Be open for feedback. Take time to hear people out. Listening to critiques or the other side of the argument doesn’t make you weak. After you have heard someone out, you may choose to continue on with your opinion, but occasionally you may gain insight that you didn’t have before, allowing you to change direction and be more effective.

Leadership is a relationship, and if you fail to recognize that, your leadership will likely fail as well. Respect and take care of the people who follow you, not only will you win as a leader, but you will be winning in life. 

1-http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2405299/Americas-highest-paid-CEOs-fired-fined-bailed-out.html

The Right Way To Be Wrong (Part 2)

Everybody fails, but some people seem to go on to achieve great things. It's as if the failure didn’t affect them at all, or maybe that it had somehow made them stronger. Others, seem to get flattened by their failures. They become more cautious and less confident as time goes on. They settle for average, even though most people around them believe them capable of greater things.

What’s the secret? What makes some people wither while others grow and excel? In the first post in this series we looked at the danger of blaming others when we fail (The Right Way To Be Wrong (Part 1)). Blaming other people for our mistakes (even when they have made mistakes of their own) ensures that we will not grow. Many people choose not to blame others, but make an equally disastrous choice. They blame themselves.

Toxic Response to Failure #2: Blaming Yourself

Blaming yourself isn’t the same as taking responsibility for what you’ve done.

Most people by now have seen or heard the famous slip up Steve Harvey made in announcing Miss Universe 2015. It would be hard to imagine a more public forum in which to make a more horrible mistake. The social media universe exploded in response. Memes were created. Parodies were worked up for TV shows. Many spewed outrage, others mocked, and still others took the opportunity to criticize the pageant system as a whole.  But as the hours ticked by there was another group of voices that grew steadily in Twitter and Facebook streams. Many people began defending Harvey, or at least expressing their admiration for how he handled his gaff.

As soon as Harvey realized what he had done, he stepped up, corrected his mistake and took full responsibility. It’s hard not to admire that sort of courage. The ability to accept responsibility for your mistakes is a life skill that all successful people share. Blaming yourself is a different thing all together.

When you choose to blame yourself for something you have done wrong, you are choosing to make a wrong decision or action an indicator of your personal worth. It wasn’t just the failure that was bad, but you were bad too. That may sound noble, but it’s actually quite toxic.

When you live a life of blaming yourself and beating yourself up whenever things go wrong, your confidence slowly erodes. You doubt yourself more and more.  Blaming yourself also prevents you from accurately diagnosing and correcting the mistake you made in the first place. There are thousands of reasons we fail or make bad decisions. Having the courage to understand why we made the mistakes we made allows us to make corrections and thereby to grow. When you are blaming yourself you are saying that you are the problem, Which means that you will be bringing the problem with you to the next relationship, job, or life decision you make.  

So, if you have a habit of blaming yourself when anything goes wrong. Stop for a second and give yourself a bit of grace. Nobody is perfect, but we all can grow. Blaming yourself all of the time makes that grow incredibly difficult. 

How To Avoid Damaging Others With The Bible

I know a great photographer. My family has used her on a couple of different occasions, and she is simply the best. Everyone who sees her pictures absolutely loves them.  I would recommend her highly and will use her for all of our photographic needs. How much sense would it make though if I asked her to bring over all of her equipment to the house to help me with my most pressing need right now, a deck that desperately needs to be stained? No matter how superior her camera and lighting is, it won’t do much good on the deck. It wouldn’t make sense, no matter how great she is with photography to expect her to be equally prepared and skilled when it comes to carpentry or fly fishing or chemical engineering.

But many of us have been taught that it’s ok to treat the Bible that way.

The Bible is life giving. Every word it says is true. It informs our lives. It guides, inspires, and corrects. But, in the words of Reggie Joiner, “the Bible is all true, but not all truth is found in the Bible”. Yet we stretch the Bible to force answers that it doesn’t supply on it's own. Here are three things we can all do to avoid damaging others with the Bible:

Quit Using The Bible To Speak When It Is Silent

Just because the Bible doesn’t tell us the year that the universe was created doesn’t mean that it’s less valuable. There is no reason to be afraid of what the Bible doesn’t include. God inspired the writing of the Bible to include what it includes. He has also inspired it to leave out what it leaves out. If He is ok with us not having all of the answers, then we can be ok with it too.

Quit Using The Bible As A Fact Finding Tool

The Bible wasn’t written to supply you with pithy answers to atheists who challenge you. It’s a bad idea to use the Bible to try to prove how wrong other people are. The Bible is a beautiful collection of stories, history, and poetry. It’s a story to be caught up in, not a tool to bludgeon others with. When we read the Bible with the primary goal of relating to God we will never be disappointed.

Quit Using The Bible To Try To Prove Your Point  

When we go to the Bible to back up what we already believe we close our eyes to things that God may be interested in showing us. The Bible is not a tool to prove how right you are.  It’s an invitation by the God of the universe to open our hearts and minds and be changed. When we read the Bible we are entering into a relationship. In the same way that it’s not good to use someone for our own purposes, it’s bad to use the Bible simply to win arguments.

The Bible is a powerful book. It doesn’t need to be twisted to do things it doesn’t do. It does everything we need for it to do. When we force the Bible to say things it isn’t really saying, we either become discouraged or we hurt other people, and the Bible doesn’t exist for either of those purposes.

Quote from Reggie Joiner at Orange Tour Charlotte 2015

Fear Is Contagious: How To Avoid Being Infected

My mom used to love to watch Christian television. There was a channel devoted only to Christian programming, and when no one else was watching, that’s what the TV would be tuned to. I remember sitting down when one of the shows was on. I was too lazy to try to find the remote, so I let the show continue on. There was a man with large hair sitting next to a woman with even larger hair, and they were talking about the end of the world. They had these huge smiles on their faces, like they had just won the lottery, or rather that you had just won the lottery and they were eager to steal it from you. They talked about government alliances, red heafers, the pope, beasts with horns, and a lot of other things that I can’t remember. I was too young to know what it all meant, I only knew that they seemed very convinced that the world was going to end. Although they seemed happy about it, the brutal events that they were talking about scared me to death.

In the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy there are instruction regarding warfare for the nation of Israel. As I was reading through (not that I’m planning on going to war anytime soon), one of the instructions captured my attention:

“Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own.”1

That verse put into words something I had already experienced and that you probably know as well: fear is contagious.

If you spend a lot of time around fearful people you will become fearful as well. Fear spreads like a virus. Your brain starts to chase down all of the worst case scenarios and all of the bad things that could happen and before long, fear is in the driver’s seat of your mind.

Is your peace of mind being shaken by fear? Here are three things to consider:

Is my fear likely or only possible?

Few people have a daily fear of being struck by a meteor. The reason for that is that it’s extremely unlikely for it to ever happen. It’s possible that it could happen, but the chances are so remote, that there’s no real reason to consider it. It would be like building a home that could withstand incredible blizzards and sub-zero temperatures in Miami Fla. It would be a waste of money to build that home in Miami. It’s also a waste of emotional energy to worry about things that are incredible unlikely. If you made an  honest list of your fears, how likely would they be? Some may be realistic but many are probably not. If there are unrealistic fears that you carry, set them aside. They are gobbling up much needed energy and are doing you no good.

Am I taking action against the fear?

Fear multiples when we refuse to address it. It shrinks when we face it head on. If you’ve ever jumped off of a high diving board at a pool you know what I mean. The first time you edge your toes up to the end of the board, the pool seems to be a million feet below. Once you make your first jump, your fear begins to subside. Pretty soon, your fear is replaced by enjoyment. The more you think about what you fear and dread it, the more the fear will multiply. Facing the fear itself is much less stressful than carrying around the dread of it.

Are you talking about it to the right people?

Silence can be an incubator for fear. The more fear bounces around in your mind, the more it grows. Talking to someone about what you fear allows you to clear the air and get a fresh look at what is worrying you. The release that comes from getting your thoughts out relieves a great deal of stress. Also, it allows someone else to help you sort through your thoughts. Not being alone in your fear can help more than you ever imagined.

If fear is wearing you out and wrecking your life, take some time to think through these questions. While some fear is realistic and healthy, much of what we carry around isn’t. Fear doesn’t have to control you, you can have the peace you desperately want and need.

1 - Deuteronomy 8:20 (English Standard Version)

Photo Courtesy: "AustralianMuseum spider specimen 03" by Toby Hudson - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 au via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AustralianMuseum_spider_specimen_03.JPG#/media/File:AustralianMuseum_spider_specimen_03.JPGontrol you, you are likely more courageous than you’ve given yourself credit for.

How Stopping Can Set You Free

My to-do list this week is insane. The list seems endless, there are arrows to other items, things marked out, and things underlined. I couldn’t survive without a list to help make sense of my day. In some ways my list is healthy. It allows me to stay focused and to prioritize my activities during the day. In other ways, my list is unhealthy. It feeds a compulsion that I have been battling for a while. It’s just so easy to add one more thing to the list, to pretend that I have an infinite amount of time and unlimited resources. There’s a quote from Jim Collins incredible book, Good To Great that helps me return to sanity when I’ve let my to-do list get too long.

                “Your stop-doing list is more important that your to-do list.”

Collins advocates taking time on a consistent basis to evaluate what you are doing, and to remove things from your to-do list by creating a stop-doing list. Here are three ways that a stop-doing list can help you this week:

1)It allows you to spend more time doing the things that matter most.

 

It’s so easy to spend gobs of time doing small things, which then cause us to not have enough time to do the things that matter the most. Just because an activity is good doesn’t mean it’s good for you. We all have things that are important to us. Spending time on those things and with those people gives you greater fulfillment and helps differentiate you from everybody else. 

2)It allows you to practice your “no”.

I am convinced that the word “no” is critical to healthy work and relationships. It’s not always easy to say “no”. There are so many good opportunities and so many people that we don’t want to let down. But if you never say “no” you will never find your unique fit at work or in your relationships. You'll spend all of your time doing things that matter to everyone else. Practicing our “no” helps us be ready to fend off the pressure and turn things down when we need to. Building your stop-doing list is a great way to find the freedom that “no” offers.

3)It reminds you that life isn’t all about productivity. 

If you try to do everything, you rarely get to fully enjoy anything. An overly long to-do list is an indication that you have come to believe that productivity is life. Productivity is important, and we should all take seriously the things we hope to accomplish, but life is more than productivity. You were not placed on this planet just to get things done. You were made to love and be loved. You were made to enjoy moments of rest. Not only are you to help others, you are to allow others to help you. Finding something you can take off your schedule is a good way to break your productivity obsession. 

Take some time this week and find something to stop doing. Step off of that committee. Don’t coach this year. Don’t squeeze in another client. It’s only when we are able to stop doing things that we are free to enjoy the things we choose to do, the causes we choose to fight for, and the people we choose to love. 

The Law of Relational Momentum: How To Keep Your Relationships Strong

I have a favorite coffee shop in town that I go to when I get stuck in a creative rut. It’s an edgy place with great coffee. Sometimes a change of environment can make a huge difference in your thinking.  I’m amazed when I go there at how all of the employees seem to be in constant motion. If they aren’t taking orders, they are making drinks. If they aren’t making drinks they are preparing food. If they aren’t  preparing food, they head out amongst the patrons and wipe down any table that is open. I’ve seen them wipe the same table 3 or 4 times before anyone new comes to sit down. It’s almost impossible to sit at a messy table in that place.

It’s a good business strategy, but it’s a good relational strategy as well. Not the staying in constant motion part, but the idea of doing what you can, when you can. Sometimes we don’t recognize that our relationships are struggling until they are broken and bleeding. Waiting to attend to your relationships until there are problems is like waiting until your engine is smoking to get the oil changed in your car. By that point the damage is done, and sometimes the damage is irreparable. Doing what you can while you can may simply be starting a conversation. It may be making sure your wife gets a break from the kids. It might be stopping what you are doing so you can watch some TV with your son. It doesn’t take much to keep relationships healthy, but it takes a ton to bring them back when they become unhealthy. Here are a couple of the benefits of doing what you can when you can:

It Limits The Amount Of Unseen Damage That Is Being Done

One of the challenges of relationships is that the person you care for may be struggling without you ever being aware of it. Some people process internally, and they may be hurting a long time before it becomes visible. When it does become visible, there is usually a lot of damage to address. Relating in small ways when things seem ok keeps that sort of hidden damage from festering. 

It Limits The Amount Of Work Needed

My best friend and I learned an important truth in high school. Neither of us had great cars. Cars are totaled when the damage done to them exceeds the value of the car. If either of us broke a cup holder in our car, they would have been totaled. So, we both had opportunities to push our cars (into the gas station, into a rolling start, etc…). We learned the crucial lesson that it’s easier to maintain momentum than it is to create it. Getting a car rolling is a challenge (especially if your best friend’s car is made of more steel than a battleship). Once you got it rolling, however, it was easier to keep it moving. The same is true of relationships. It takes less work to keep the fire of a relationship going than it does to start a fire once the it's out. Doing what you can, when you can keeps the fire going.

It Keeps You Relationally Awake

It’s easy to lose focus and become numb to things that have an everyday presence in our life. Continuing to ask, confess, invite, and listen keeps us relationally alive. It reminds us that we have relational work to do every day. Most days that work doesn’t seem like work at all, other days it might. The way to stay relationally awake and aware is to consistently make your relationships a priority. Give the time, say the words, do the work. It will add to you relational effectiveness and enjoyment. 

When you do what you can, when you can, you'll find that a little bit of effort at the right time can go a long way. Take some time today to think about what you can do to add value to the people around you. Your relationships are worth the effort. 

 

How Good Questions Build Strong Relationships

The heart of this blog is relationships, how to enjoy them, and how to repair them when they have broken down. For that reason, I write a good deal about communication. Communication is the life blood of relationships. Couples that communicate well tend to have strong marriages. Families that communicate well handle adversity better than other families. Work places where good communication exists are more productive and more enjoyable. One component of good communication that is often overlooked is the importance of good questions. Communication thrives when it includes the right kind of questions. Here are a few of the things good questions can do to make your communication better and your relationships stronger:

Good Questions Invite Conversation

Good questions are open-ended, that is, they can’t be answered with a simple yes or no, but invite greater explanation. If someone in your family or work isn’t incredibly talkative, a good question will keep them from simply answering yes or no. Sometimes people just need to find a comfort level in a conversation before they open up and relax. Good questions will help them do that. For example, “Did you go to the game this weekend?” isn’t a good question. “How was the game this weekend?” is much more likely to start a conversation.

Good Questions Welcome Different Opinions

We’ve all been in conversations where someone is rambling on about how much they hate this political candidate and that new album, and about how anyone who eats fast food is irresponsible. It’s hard to find a place in that conversation to offer up that you are actually voting for the candidate that they hate so much, and that you just bought that new album which you plan to listen to on the way home after you hit the McDonald’s drive-thru. Good questions allows people to have their own opinion. If you can’t talk with someone you disagree with, you will spend your life talking with the small number of people who think exactly as you do, or with people who don’t mind lying to you to humor you. Differences are not to be feared. We can learn from them, and they can often add to our enjoyment of the other person. Good questions allow honest disagreement.

Good Questions Show That I Care

It can be easy to talk about what’s going on with me without even realizing that we haven’t talked about you yet. Good questions show that I care about what’s going on with you. They allow me to hear about your day and learn more about you. When you are asked a question and you feel that the person asking really cares about the answer, you feel valued. That value will make the conversation flow more smoothly and will add enjoyment to the relationship.

Struggling with a relationship in your life? Take a second to think up some good questions. It will make the communication easier and over time will make the relationship stronger.

Photo Courtesy of Death To Stock Photo

Are Good Activities Damaging Your Family?

Great families don’t just happen. They require thought and effort. The same is true of any grouping of people. You can have great athletes and not have a great team. Companies can hire the best and the brightest and still go bankrupt. Families can be composed of great fathers, mothers, and children and still not function well together as a family. While you can’t run your family like a company or football team, there are similarities that need to be noted. Greg McKeown in his insightful book, essentialism, explains one of the things that families have in common with all teams and companies:

“With no clear direction, people pursue the things that advance their own short-term interests, with little awareness of how their activities contribute (or in some cases, derail) the long-term mission of the team as a whole.”1

It’s the natural instinct of all people to do what they think is best. It may not always be the best decision, but it seems best at the time. Our kids will do what they think is fun, or will make them more popular, or will gain them praise from a coach or teacher. Parents might put in the extra hours that will get them a promotion or raise at work. They might also join clubs or activities for their children that they think will best prepare them for later life. None of these decisions are bad per se. The problem for most families is that while their decisions may be good for individual parts of the family, they do nothing to make the family better as a whole.

We are quick to rail against basketball players that are selfish and never pass to teammates. They may score 60 points a game, but their team suffers. We get angry at CEO’s who give themselves lavish raises while their company struggles. We ignore, however, all of the hours and dollars that are spent on individual persons in our family, while the family grows weaker and less effective.

Is your family doing a lot of good things that may be damaging the family as a whole? Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself:

What is our purpose as a family?

Some companies exist to make money, others exist to raise awareness for issues they feel are important. Many companies don’t know their true purpose (don’t worry about figuring out which companies those may be, they won’t be around long anyway). The purpose of a company drives the behavior of a company. In the same way, the purpose of a family will drive the actions and decisions of that family. If you don’t have a clear purpose, you have no way of knowing if you are winning or losing.

Will the activities we have on our calendar help us fulfill our purpose?

Once you know your purpose, you can use it to gain greater clarity about what to do with your time. There are a thousand good options to engage in every week, but only a few that are best for your family. Having a clear purpose allows you to find those things and commit to them. Understanding your purpose also allows you to say “no” to things that seem good without feeling guilty or unsure of yourself.

Does my family know our purpose?

Having  purpose is useless if your family doesn't know it. Your family can’t support their purpose if it isn’t talked about and explained from time to time. Clear purpose makes discipline and sacrifice possible. For example,  it’s hard for your teenager to  not obsess over new game system he’s been wanting. It’s easier to put off getting it if he knows that the family is saving up for a great vacation in a couple of months.

These questions aren’t easy and will require a good deal of thought and communication in your family, but they are critical to your success as a team. A clear sense of direction also makes the journey a lot more enjoyable. So, set aside a couple of hours on your calendar this week and begin asking the hard questions. You’ll be glad you did!

Photo Courtesy of Death To Stock Photo

1- Greg McKeown, essentialism (New York, NY: Crown Publishing, 2014)

The Best You Possible (And How To Get There)

“If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first four sharpening the ax.”

                                                                                -Abraham Lincoln

I love this quote by Abraham Lincoln. The man was a walking tweetable moment. I’ve chewed on this quote in the past, pondering how to best prepare myself for whatever challenges or opportunities that awaited me in the future. The more I’ve thought about this quote, the more I realize that its application needs to be much more focused that I had originally thought.

Trying to prepare for anything that might come in life can be really exhausting. There are so many possible challenges that the future might spring on us, that it’s hard to know how to best prepare.  We end up wearing ourselves out by trying to prepare for all possible outcomes. In the end we are tired, and still feel unprepared for whatever might lie ahead.

Once we realize that we can’t focus on everything, we often choose to focus on our weaknesses. Our weaknesses are always more visible than our strengths, often creating shame and doubt inside of us.  So, we frantically jump in and try to get better at things that we are no good at and probably don’t enjoy. The time we spend on weaknesses though is very often wasted time. We can spend hours and hours of work on something we are not good at. The reward we get for all of that hard work?  We are ok at something we hate doing. No thanks.

What if, rather than trying to become good at everything, we focused on the few things that we are already gifted in and passionate about? What if we sharpened the tools that we used the most and that we most enjoy? Time spent trying to improve in things we are passionate about is always more enjoyable and more productive. 

So, the question is: what gifting or skill are you actively sharpening? What passion or talent is it that makes you feel alive when you are doing it? Are you working to maximize those strengths? If not, how can you begin to “sharpen the ax” that you use the most?

You were made with a unique set of talents and skills. You have experienced a collection of moments in life that no one else has. You bring something to this planet that no one else can bring. So, instead of trying to be everything, why not just be you? Be the best you possible, and look for ways to grow in that every day. You'll never regret time spent "sharpening the ax".