Come Fly With Me

What brave thing will you do today?

Teach Your Children Well

There is nothing more humbling than re-learning something you should already know from your kids.        During the last few months I have been working on focusing my time and efforts on the things in life that really matter.  We are pulled in so many directions that if we aren't careful we will end up living by default rather than by design.  School, work, family, friends and church--all of these parts of our lives add joy and meaning but they also require something of us.

My son is in high school and we are in the midst of the frenzy that surrounds academics and extracurriculars and test scores--oh, my!  Everything they do is IMPORTANT FOR THE FUTURE.  It will absolutely drive you mad, if you let it, and I have to admit, I let it at times.  This week there was an officer election in one of the groups he belongs to at school.  He and I went to toe-to-toe over whether he would or wouldn't run for office.  For some reason I doubled down on this, because, you know, SCHOLARSHIPS.  And COLLEGE APPLICATIONS.

Finally, after our umpteenth discussion, he turned to me and said "Mom, I don't have time for this.  I have these goals for this upcoming year" and he listed them for me.  "I need  to focus on them and not all the little stuff.  I can do this other thing another year.  It will be alright."

Well.  Apparently he's getting more from the books I'm reading and the podcasts I'm listening to than I am!  (And through osmosis, apparently.  Which could be quite the time-saver if I could figure out how to do it). I agreed to let it go and I couldn't have been prouder of him for standing up for himself, even if it was to me.  Or maybe especially to me.  He's setting his own boundaries and setting his own goals and that's exactly what he needs to do.

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Wildflowers

Have a beautiful Sunday, friends!

I am so honored you took the time to visit my blog!  I would love it if you would like to subscribe to my posts via email.  The link is in the upper right hand side of the page.  Thank you!

Take It To The Limit One More Time

Boundaries.  Fences.  Guideposts and playbooks for our lives.  They seem so solid and immovable and final.  But what if they're wrong?  What if--just what if?--they're not our limits but someone else's?

We had a survey done this week on some land we own.  It's been in the family a few decades and over the years fences have been built and corner posts poured in concrete based on the limits and boundaries handed down by previous owners.  But when the surveyor crew came out, we discovered that two of the corners weren't right.  I drove out and saw that small wooden stake standing outside the imposing iron and concrete post,  Just a step further and one foot over the line.

How many times have I not gone past my own (real or imagined) limits?  How many times have I thought I couldn't do something based on someone else's idea of who I should be or what I was capable of doing?  How many times have I imposed boundaries on someone else?  You know those words, meant to help us know our place.  Many times they're spoken in love, but sometimes they're spoken in fear and jealousy.  It's hard to dismiss limits that come from those we love and respect and they become part of the inner conversation in our hearts--you can't do that, that's not your talent, what if you fail?  

We get bogged down in those words and we set our lives in concrete, knowing our place based on someone else's idea of what our limits are.  The next time you hear those words in your heart or from someone else's lips, think hard about whose boundaries they are.  You could discover that your world  might be a little bigger than you thought.

I am so honored you took the time to visit my blog!  I would love it if you would like to subscribe to my posts via email.  The link is in the upper right hand side of the page.  Thank you!

Time We Have Wasted On The Way

I'm not sure I've been wasting time lately, but there sure doesn't seem to be enough of it.  So many things clamor for our attention--the urgent, the important, the must-do-this minute--that it's hard to even consider planning for the future or enjoying the present.  Part of it is the season of life we're in and part of it is my tendency to schedule too much because I'm pretty good at logistics and I can usually make it work.  This past week, though, my schedule (really, the kids' schedules) got the better of me.  There was no time for cooked meals, a presentably clean house, or down time with the family., and certainly no time for writing.  All of the events that took our time were good things and they were all activities we knew were coming.  But still, I had a nagging feeling that something had to give.

This past January, I participated in a phone coaching class with The 1 Thing coaching.  It's based on the book by Gary Keller, The One Thing.  I really enjoyed the book and the class, but I have not been very successful at integrating what I learned into my life, because it seems at times that I'm not in control of my life.  Anybody else every feel that way?  Changing that starts with me and it starts with priority.

Setting a priority (1 priority, hence the name of the book) each day for my business and scheduling time blocks to accomplish that priority are crucial to making our goals happen.  Gary Keller has some great ideas about focus and they apply not just to our business/career, but all aspects of our lives--health, relationships, finance, and spiritual.    Michael Hyatt has a short, free e-book available if you subscribe to his email newsletter.  It's called "Shave 10 Hours off your Work Week" and it echoed a lot of the same ideas in the Keller book and a lot of what Tim Ferris has to say.  In it, he mentioned an app that got my attention:

The Priority Matrix

The 4 quadrants come from Steven Covey's First Things First.  Quadrant 1 (upper left) is important and urgent, which should be top priority.  Quadrant 2 (upper right) is important, but not urgent and is 2nd most important.  Quadrant 3 is urgent to someone else and here is where most people get bogged down.  It's hard to say no to someone who is asking for our help.  I think we should help if we can, but it needs to take a backseat to items in our Quadrant 1.  This old sign explains why, in most cases:

for sale here

This weekend, I have a free day.  Some activities we previously planned fell through, so, I'm going to take advantage of it and do some short and long term priority planning.  I hope these tools I've shared will help those of you who need a nudge to make better use of this beautiful gift that God has given you.  Because that's what your time really is--a gift.  Use it well.

Precious to Me

Be Brave

I love podcasts.  I listen to all kinds--they inspire me, educate me, entertain me and open my eyes to the world in new ways every day.  I recently discovered Michael Hyatt's podcast and have been listening to some older episodes.  This one, called Avoid the Drift, stopped me in my tracks.  The first two questions he suggested every leader should answer weren't anything I haven't heard before.  The 3rd one, though---what brave thing will you do TODAY?  Today?  I think we usually think of bravery as something soldiers do or missionaries or teachers in inner city schools.  But me?  A brave thing today?

And as I listened to his two examples, one a really big, possibly career changing decision and one do-the-right-thing decision, I thought about my friends and family--my people--who do brave things every day.  Serving in the military, working with convicts transistioning to the outside, teaching, fighting cancer, raising our kids in the crazy culture we live in:  all of these are BRAVE things they do every day.  Little and big, these decisions impact us, our families and the world around us.  Our leadership matters and our decisions matter, sometimes more than we think.  

So, friends, what brave thing will you do TODAY?