Intentional about being intentional

[Ok I’m going to be honest upfront: This article is mainly for me! Understanding my weaknesses and challenges in leadership has caused me to study, think and apply what is written below. I hope it may help you!]

My biggest realization of late is that as leaders, we really need to be intentional. If we don’t lead intentionally, we end up playing catch up, or just succumbing to the most urgent request or the loudest voice. Living intentionally helps us be true to our call, gifting and God’s purposes.

But living intentionally often comes with its challenges. Often we want to change from living in reaction mode to living intentionally, but struggle to make this change. I read an article by Mark Driscoll once which really helped me with this change.

Driscoll argues there are 4 Ways to change your life:

1. Heart change – conviction that you want to change. This is often a deep realization that there is a better way (and probably inspired by the Holy Spirit).

2. Study – research and fact-finding for how to change your life, which includes reading the Bible and other books, watching and listening to talks, downloading podcasts, speaking with people you know and respect who have wisdom in that particular area, finding and working with a mentor etc. A great tool to help with this is a journal. Always keep a journal like this nearby to jot notes, thoughts, and convictions in.

3. Plan – ongoing, detailed, and prayerful life organization. Take the ideas in your journal and prayerfully and carefully add to and consider them.

4. Action – working your plan and making changes as life requires. Make sure you take the ideas and action points from your plan and put them on the calendar. Without being officially planned, nothing ever gets done to completion.

I find I’m often good at only one or two of these steps. I may have a heart change and do my homework but fail to make a plan and take action to change my life. I’ve seen friends who have plans and action but are religiously just doing duties because they have not experienced heart change. Others may move from heart change to action without research and a plan, they mean well but make their life (e.g., health, finances, relationships) worse.

My major realization was that I have to be intentional about all four. I know I need to take some time and be honest with myself, listing each of these steps in order from the one I’m strongest at to the one I’m weakest at. This awareness helps me maximize on my strengths while minimizing my weaknesses.

How about you? Are you living intentionally? Where is your life getting stuck and what can you do to grow where you are weak? Who do you need to talk to and learn from?
I’ve found that after understanding the above I’ve become intentional about being intentional. Try it, it works.

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Don Muller has spent the last 4 years working into corporate and church leadership development and training both locally and internationally. He has a passion for and works towards seeing individuals live out their strengths and calling daily.

How to escape escapism

[Disclaimer: the following blog post does not mean that you should not leave your current context. Please just consider it before you do!]

Jerry Seinfeld recently tweeted ‘where do forest workers go to escape from it all!?’ One of the definitions of escape is - ‘to get free of’ or ‘break away from’ something. We’ve all, at some point, felt that need to escape and just be away from it all - businesses, jobs, relationships, marriages etc. Not so?

Perhaps, however, the only thing we should escape from is escapism itself.

This may just be me, but I find my desire to escape is most heightened when I am bored, un-stimulated, imagining alternate scenario’s I think will be more fulfilling or I am literally just sick and tired. I have found that considering the following questions have helped me escape escapism:

• How energised am I?

When we are low on energy our perspective shifts into negative gear. Escapism becomes tempting. You are responsible for your own energy management - physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I am amazed at how a simple bit of exercise allows me to look at my situation differently and thus approach it in new ways.

• Am I living intentionally??

What we most need to do is also what we are least likely to do. Often when we live in a reactionary way finding ourselves at the mercy of what the environment dishes out to us. With the feeling of lack of time and space, the obvious solution is escape. Wrong. The way out is to be intentional about what we most need to do daily despite whatever habitual patterns or negative cycles it might mean you have to break.

3. Am I connected to the ‘why’

If we are unsure about why we are doing what we are doing we will experience doubt. Why did you start what you did in the first place? What was your vision? In a world where it is so easy to focus on ourselves, being connected to the why helps us focus on others and how we can contribute.

In a nutshell, sometimes the only way around is through. Your context may feel like a trial. That trial could be an opportunity to develop your character as you persevere and try new ways of engaging with whatever is causing your need to escape. It may be preparing you for the next level which requires greater capacity.

All the best escaping escapism.

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Travis Gale has spent the last 5 years running his own development business in South Africa’s corporate world and is currently involved in various long term partnerships with clients across a number of industries. Furthermore he has travelled to conferences internationally hunting down latest trends and insights. Having cycled around the world and survived a tsunami, his passion for crossing borders often lends itself to an interesting blend of stories and insight. He sees himself as a ‘change catalyst’ and displays strength in facilitating insight into the right spaces. Find out more at www.appletreelive.com

Can you hear Him?

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you." Psalm 32:8

God is speaking ...

As leaders we need to hear God, we are at the end of the day, wanting to serve Him in the way we lead, and use our leadership gift to serve others. And He wants to lead and guide us, he wants to speak to us.

But so often we struggle to hear.

Maybe we are hoping that we will hear God’s booming voice loud and clear, telling us what to do.

However it never seems to be like that with God. But the promise is that God is speaking, so maybe we need to try things differently. Maybe God’s voice is drowned out by all the noise around us.

This scripture tells a similar story:

1 Kings 19:11-13 The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

We have winds of work and stress, earthquakes of hurry, fires that burn with the desire for instant answers and solutions. But God so often comes as a gentle whisper, and these things drown out His voice. We can so easily miss it if we don’t take a step back, remove the noise and listen for the whisper...

Have you ever taken time out in silence and solitude?

In his book ‘Leading On Empty,’ Wayne Cordeiro says that there are only four ways to live your life:

1. Reaction – passively dominated by urgencies and pushy people.

2. Conformity – succumbing to the fear of man and just being and doing what everyone else wants, which is not necessarily following God’s will for you personally.

3. Independence – nonconforming rebellion in the name of freedom, marked by doing only what you want and ignoring godly authority over you.

4. Intentionality – reverse-engineering your life and living it prayerfully and purposefully, journaling your thoughts throughout the day, and using silence and solitude to hear from God and organize your life.

How are you living your life now? Where would you like to be?

Why not try things differently from now on? Instead of wanting God to shout above the noise, why not try turning off the noise and listening for the whisper?
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Don Muller has spent the last 4 years working into corporate and church leadership development and training both locally and internationally. He has a passion for and works towards seeing individuals live out their strengths and calling daily.

Perspective is an Interesting Thing

Over the past two days I have worked with a great group of people where the topic of perspective was spoken about at length. A bit of context: The company I am partnering has 4 values, one of which is 'PASSION'. We know that a value such as passion can't be taught. In fact we hardly speak about passion. We talk about perspective: Because (positive) perspective determines passion.

Perspective is liberating. Our thoughts and our actions (which end up as reality) are determined by our perspective. It is so easy to slip into a negative perspective. A colleague once said 'Nothing in life has meaning except the meaning that you give it'. What this means is that there is so much which wells beneath the surface when it comes to our perspectives. The more I work with it the more I see the following 3 areas in our lives either breaking perspective down or building it up.

1. Our own self talk
What we tell ourselves determined how we feel about it and what we do about it. Simple! We need to check our own 'internal language' and make sure that we are having positive conversations with ourselves.
• Right now what are you saying to yourself?
• If you had to access your internal conversations with yourself how would you describe your language?

2. Our limiting beliefs
What you have experienced in life has a huge bearing on what your perspective is at any given moment. As we experience life we develop our own lists of 'I can' and 'I can't'. So often the I cant's are simply a perceived reality which is not necessarily true. Anything that begins with an attitude of 'I can't' has already being marked with failure.
• What do you fear most? how real are those fears in reality?
• What can you do today that you would normally shy away from because of perceived beliefs? (do it and watch what happens!)

3. Lack of knowledge
I haven't saved the least for last here. This is one of the easiest to work with. Build knowledge. Lack of knowledge leads to assumption. Assumption and Perspective are enemies!
• What can you read that is relevant to your context in order to build knowledge?
• Who do you need to speak to (what questions do you need to ask) to minimize perceived assumptions that exist?

We all want to feel passionate at the end of the day. Rather than wait on the environment to make you feel that way, why not use your own influence over your own perspective and see what happens.

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Travis Gale has spent the last 5 years running his own development business in South Africa’s corporate world and is currently involved in various long term partnerships with clients across a number of industries. Furthermore he has travelled to conferences internationally hunting down latest trends and insights. Having cycled around the world and survived a tsunami, his passion for crossing borders often lends itself to an interesting blend of stories and insight. He sees himself as a ‘change catalyst’ and displays strength in facilitating insight into the right spaces. Find out more at www.appletreelive.com