What are you doing about it? Since I started posting on this site in 2005, there have been two sentences that have appeared in every single post. What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it? I believe those two questions sum up the reasons that so many people do not pursue their dream and even fewer reach the specific goals associated with their dream.
What are you passionate about? A surprising number of people do not really know which things in life they care about most. It is a simple question but one that a lot of people have difficulty answering. If you knew you were going to die, would you spend today differently? Would your to-do list more closely reflect your long-term priorities? Not to be morbid, but here is a news flash. You are going to die. Everyone reading this article is one day closer to death than you were yesterday. An exercise occasionally employed to encourage us to think about our dreams, goals, and long-term priorities is to visualize what you want said about you at your funeral. Do you want people to say that “you spent more time in front of the television watching sports than anyone they ever knew?” How about, “She shopped like a mad woman and was inducted into the MasterCard Hall of Fame for keeping her charge card maxed out for 30 years?” Maybe your mourners will admire your score playing Halo 3.
It is important to consciously sit down and list your priorities. It is said that the two things that provide the best evidence of our priorities are our Day-Timer/calendar and our check book. That is, how we spend our time and our money reflects our priorities more accurately than anything we can say. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, “What you are doing speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you are saying.”
It is important to list out your dreams and priorities. If you don’t begin without the end in mind, there is little chance you will get there. Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland wrote, “If you don’t know where you are going any road will take you there.” It is important to know where the finish line is. You may have heard the story of Florence Chadwick. Florence was the first woman to swim the English Channel both ways. In 1952 Chadwick stepped into the Pacific Ocean from Catalina Island surrounded by thick fog. She was determined to swim the 22 miles from Catalina Island to the California coast. She swam for 15 hours before begging to be pulled from the foggy Pacific Ocean. When she was pulled onto the boat she realized that the California coast was less than one-half mile away. At a news conference the next day Chadwick lamented, “All I could see was the fog…. I think if I could have seen the shore I would have made it.” Too many of us are like Chadwick. We fail to reach our goals because we cannot see the finish line. Make sure that you are not hampered by not having a clear vision of your goals.
What are your doing about it? The second deterrent to reaching our goals, which probably occurs even more frequently than the first is not having a specific plan. By definition, a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) is a daunting task. It is essential that we break up our dreams and goals into achievable, short-term, steps. How do you eat and elephant? One bite at a time. Getting that degree may seem unachievable. But if you just schedule out which classes you need to take and the order you need to take them, knocking them out one or two classes at a time make the goal more achievable. Owning your own business may seem like something that is just too far out of reach. But you can learn more about the industry, gradually save your investment, learn from others who are in that business, and your dream of owning your own business may be closer than you think. A dream without a plan is only wishful thinking.
For too many people, their “plan” to reach their dreams is to win the lottery or have a big night at the casino. They think that their own personal fairy god mother is going to come around and turn them into a princess. People with this mindset tend to get involved with every get-rich-quick scheme that comes along. Christians with no plan, may pray fervently for God to deliver them to their own personal promised land. Yet they don’t take responsibility for their own actions. Don’t get me wrong. I am a praying man myself. But I believe we have a responsibility. In the film, Facing the Giants, a local prayer warrior told the beleaguered coach, “Two men desperately needed rain for their fields and prayed to God. But only one man prepared his field. Which man do you think was most faithful?”
Philip Yancey in his book Prayer wrote, “Although we may ask God to intervene directly, it should not surprise us if God responds in a more hidden way in cooperation with a person’s own choice. An alcoholic prays, ‘Lord, keep me away from drink today.’ The answer to that prayer will likely come from the inside, from a stiffening resolve or a cry of help to a loyal friend, rather than from some marvel like the magical disappearance of liquor bottles from the cabinet…. Sometimes like the boy who asks his parents to solve a math problem while he plays video games, we ask God for things we should be doing ourselves.” I heard a speaker say once that if one is going around a curve at 80 MPH and the posted speed limit is 25 MPH, then something bad is probably going to happen, even if we are listening to Christian radio, have a statue of Jesus on the dash, and a fish bumper sticker.
There is nothing wrong with praying for a miracle. A God worthy of our worship is certainly capable of miracles even today. But if you are praying for rain, make sure you have prepared your field – and don’t be surprised if God answers your prayers through people and circumstances that allow him to remain anonymous. Like Thomas Jefferson, “I am strong believer in luck and I find that the harder I work, the more I have.” Success lies at the intersection of opportunity and preparation. The opportunities will do us little good if we are not prepared when they come.
Make sure you have a plan. There are a multitude of personal planning resources on the Internet and at your local book store. Most any of them will be more effective than what many of us are doing now, which is almost no planning at all. Need I say it again?
What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?
What are you passionate about? A surprising number of people do not really know which things in life they care about most. It is a simple question but one that a lot of people have difficulty answering. If you knew you were going to die, would you spend today differently? Would your to-do list more closely reflect your long-term priorities? Not to be morbid, but here is a news flash. You are going to die. Everyone reading this article is one day closer to death than you were yesterday. An exercise occasionally employed to encourage us to think about our dreams, goals, and long-term priorities is to visualize what you want said about you at your funeral. Do you want people to say that “you spent more time in front of the television watching sports than anyone they ever knew?” How about, “She shopped like a mad woman and was inducted into the MasterCard Hall of Fame for keeping her charge card maxed out for 30 years?” Maybe your mourners will admire your score playing Halo 3.
It is important to consciously sit down and list your priorities. It is said that the two things that provide the best evidence of our priorities are our Day-Timer/calendar and our check book. That is, how we spend our time and our money reflects our priorities more accurately than anything we can say. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, “What you are doing speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you are saying.”
It is important to list out your dreams and priorities. If you don’t begin without the end in mind, there is little chance you will get there. Lewis Carroll in Alice in Wonderland wrote, “If you don’t know where you are going any road will take you there.” It is important to know where the finish line is. You may have heard the story of Florence Chadwick. Florence was the first woman to swim the English Channel both ways. In 1952 Chadwick stepped into the Pacific Ocean from Catalina Island surrounded by thick fog. She was determined to swim the 22 miles from Catalina Island to the California coast. She swam for 15 hours before begging to be pulled from the foggy Pacific Ocean. When she was pulled onto the boat she realized that the California coast was less than one-half mile away. At a news conference the next day Chadwick lamented, “All I could see was the fog…. I think if I could have seen the shore I would have made it.” Too many of us are like Chadwick. We fail to reach our goals because we cannot see the finish line. Make sure that you are not hampered by not having a clear vision of your goals.
What are your doing about it? The second deterrent to reaching our goals, which probably occurs even more frequently than the first is not having a specific plan. By definition, a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) is a daunting task. It is essential that we break up our dreams and goals into achievable, short-term, steps. How do you eat and elephant? One bite at a time. Getting that degree may seem unachievable. But if you just schedule out which classes you need to take and the order you need to take them, knocking them out one or two classes at a time make the goal more achievable. Owning your own business may seem like something that is just too far out of reach. But you can learn more about the industry, gradually save your investment, learn from others who are in that business, and your dream of owning your own business may be closer than you think. A dream without a plan is only wishful thinking.
For too many people, their “plan” to reach their dreams is to win the lottery or have a big night at the casino. They think that their own personal fairy god mother is going to come around and turn them into a princess. People with this mindset tend to get involved with every get-rich-quick scheme that comes along. Christians with no plan, may pray fervently for God to deliver them to their own personal promised land. Yet they don’t take responsibility for their own actions. Don’t get me wrong. I am a praying man myself. But I believe we have a responsibility. In the film, Facing the Giants, a local prayer warrior told the beleaguered coach, “Two men desperately needed rain for their fields and prayed to God. But only one man prepared his field. Which man do you think was most faithful?”
Philip Yancey in his book Prayer wrote, “Although we may ask God to intervene directly, it should not surprise us if God responds in a more hidden way in cooperation with a person’s own choice. An alcoholic prays, ‘Lord, keep me away from drink today.’ The answer to that prayer will likely come from the inside, from a stiffening resolve or a cry of help to a loyal friend, rather than from some marvel like the magical disappearance of liquor bottles from the cabinet…. Sometimes like the boy who asks his parents to solve a math problem while he plays video games, we ask God for things we should be doing ourselves.” I heard a speaker say once that if one is going around a curve at 80 MPH and the posted speed limit is 25 MPH, then something bad is probably going to happen, even if we are listening to Christian radio, have a statue of Jesus on the dash, and a fish bumper sticker.
There is nothing wrong with praying for a miracle. A God worthy of our worship is certainly capable of miracles even today. But if you are praying for rain, make sure you have prepared your field – and don’t be surprised if God answers your prayers through people and circumstances that allow him to remain anonymous. Like Thomas Jefferson, “I am strong believer in luck and I find that the harder I work, the more I have.” Success lies at the intersection of opportunity and preparation. The opportunities will do us little good if we are not prepared when they come.
Make sure you have a plan. There are a multitude of personal planning resources on the Internet and at your local book store. Most any of them will be more effective than what many of us are doing now, which is almost no planning at all. Need I say it again?
What are you passionate about? What are you doing about it?
1 comments:
Hi there - just stumbled upon your blog. Funny - I just wrote about this very thing on my blog yesterday! Great post - I enjoyed reading it.
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