Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Priorities

The Greatest importance; the state of having importance or urgency. Somebody or something that is ranked highly.

A Life Without Priorities Will Inevitably Lack Purpose.

If nothing & no one is more “Important” than anyone or anything how will you know what to do next or who to spend time with to accomplish your Purpose? 

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life. ~Johann Wolfgang Goethe

This sounds easy, but we all know how hard this is to put into practice.

Author John Maxwell’s books have been a great source of help for me on this subject. I pass along some of his wisdom…..

Take Back Today

“Have you ever noticed that the people who have nothing to do usually want to spend their time with you? Poet Carl Sandburg said, "Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you."

Your greatest possession is the twenty-four hours you have directly ahead of you. How will you spend it? Will you give in to pressure or focus on priorities? Will you allow pointless e-mails, unimportant tasks, co-workers, interruptions, and other distractions to consume your day? Or will you take complete responsibility for how you spend your time, take control of the things you can, and make today yours? If you don't decide how your day will be spent, someone else will.

Ask Yourself Three Questions

1. What is required of me? Any realistic assessment of priorities in any area of life must start with a realistic assessment of what a person must do. For you to be a good spouse or parent, what is required of you? To satisfy your employer, what must you do? (If you lead others, then the question should be, What must you personally do that cannot be delegated to anyone else?) When ordering priorities, always start with the requirement question and give it careful thought before moving on to the next question.

2. What gives me the greatest return? As you progress in your career, you begin to discover that some activities yield a much higher return for the effort than others do. (Anyone who hasn't discovered that probably isn't progressing in his career!) The next place to focus your attention is on those high-return activities.

3. What gives me the greatest reward? If you do only what you must and what is effective, you will be highly productive, but you may not be content. I think it's also important to consider what gives you personal satisfaction. However, I find that some people want to start with the reward question and go no further than that. No one can be successful who doesn't possess the discipline to take care of the first two areas before adding the third.”

We are setting some New priorities at New Life.

We must live to our potential and fulfill our Purpose in the Kingdom.

Some things must take Preeminence ….. others must move.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook! ~William James

Deb & I want to help you “Live On Purpose”

See You In Church.

Check out the attached “Study Tool” ~ Priorities = Purpose

 

 

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Wisdom

Why do the same problems keep re-appearing?


Maybe it's because Lessons Reappear Until We Learn Them.


Some of us do the same thing over and over and still expect a different result.


Intelligence allows for making new mistakes and learning from them, instead of repeating the old ones.


The more we live, the more we learn, the more adaptable we should become and the fewer mistakes we should repeat.


Learning requires change; dying to the old, giving birth to the new.

However, Nothing really Changes until We do.


Because our attention is often distracted, obscured, or lost in thought, we fail to notice many things. That is why the ability to pay attention to what is arising in any given moment - to our Actions and their Results - is one of the basic principles of living on purpose.


Failures and unwanted outcomes MUST serve to Generate new Behavior and Different Approaches.


The only real Failure is the Failure to Learn from our mistakes.


"Awareness of a Problem is Half the solution."


"The Wise Learn from Adversity; the Foolish Repeat it."


Until we become AWARE of our Actions & Attitudes we are destined to Re-peat our behavior patterns and their Consequences.


Recurring problems in our lives point to lessons not yet learned.


We know we've learned a lesson when our actions change.


Insights are powerless without behavioral change!


Knowledge + Prayer = Wisdom


Wisdom + Application = Transformation


Let's keep Growing!


See you in Church.


Mark & Deb


Be smart Read the attached Study - WISDOM