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Asking This Question Can Be the One Thing That Leads to Nothing Getting Done

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How Do I Know Which Thing, is the Right Thing, to do First?

This is the million-dollar question…literally.

I think this one question costs us more time and money than any other. Especially as entrepreneurs and business owners.

Last week I wrote about the millions of bricks that represent all the small pieces that our dreams are made up of and the difficult decision of choosing the one from the millions.

When there are millions of things to choose from it can be overwhelming.

As a recovering perfectionist I struggle with indecision. This indecision comes from a long list – lack of clarity, it won’t be good enough, fear of failure, fear of success, and a multitude of other insecurities.

This indecision is the one thing that costs me more than anything else.

It’s frustrating having dreams and them not becoming reality.

Dreams are the subliminal ideas, thoughts and images occurring in our minds. I believe this is how God shares His ideas of our purpose and a direction for building our lives.

This means that when we’re not taking actions to move us toward those dreams, we’re ignoring God.

Dreams are critical to living the life God intends for us.

In the Certain Decision, from the Andy Andrews book, The Traveler’s Gift, he says, “A person without a dream never had a dream come true.” This is what happens after we’ve had dreams that haven’t come to fruition. We give up on those dreams and just drift through life without a plan. We get stuck between dreaming and results and just stop dreaming.

I gave up on my dreams until God got my attention with a smack in the head with a board. Don’t ignore your dreams. They’re there for a reason.

I would have all those big dreams, but for some reason I couldn’t get from dreams to results. I could figure out a plan and get the dreams turned into goals but would struggle to get to the results that were needed to turn those dreams into reality.

How do I get my DREAMS to become RESULTS?

The missing part was the ACTION. This needs to be actions specific to achieving the goals. Not just actions that make us feel good about being busy. They need to be specific to accomplishing the goals that lead to the “one thing”.

Previously I wrote about building our dream lives one brick at a time and the importance of doing something rather than nothing.

My life plan includes a process for getting dreams to results.

DREAMS   →   VISIONS   →   GOALS   →   ACTIONS   →   RESULTS

Having a life plan helps me do the things that get the results that will build my dream life.

It starts with a plan for building my best life as per God’s plan –

  • Building my relationship with God (spiritual)
  • Building a family legacy (family)
  • Helping people build their dreams (vocational)
  • Build wealth (financial)
  • Build the best me (personal well-being)
  • Help others build a better them (ministry)
  • Help build a better world (social & community)

It also includes a list of big, someday dreams –

  • Home addition/remodel to level of new
  • Keep my truck repaired and maintained in like new condition
  • Build, repair and/or maintain out buildings, fences, yard, etc.
  • Traveling / cruises
  • Have a four-wheel drive project/play truck
  • Own properties; houses, commercial buildings, land
  • Have trucks, trailers, tractors, loaders etc.
  • Vacation home in the mountains
  • Own a NASCAR team (possibly sponsor instead?)
  • Have a plane with optional container spaces – office, seating, living, storage and ability to haul my truck (Could be used for disaster response and various services)

But how do I know which thing, is the right thing, to do first?

Next week we’ll go deeper yet.

How to Achieve Your Desired Life Results

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Not to be Confused with Goal Setting

 

 

I think most of the time goal setting is seen the same way as budgeting – restricting, confining, controlling, restraining, and limiting. This is the opposite of how either should be seen.

 


Both should serve as a plan for intentionally building the life of your dreams.


Do you have a plan for what you want your dream life to be? I bet you do, we all do. Sometimes, for whatever reason, we choose to ignore these dreams, to push them down and forget them. Maybe it’s because we’ve had our dreams shattered or after years of waiting, we just gave up. Whatever the reason, you can decide to make that dream a reality or give up on it.

 


I remember years ago, before I knew about Dave Ramsey and Financial Peace University, I didn’t like the idea of budgeting. I thought it would keep me from being free to spend money or have fun. Then after going through the class and beginning to budget, I found it to be the opposite. I then had a plan for spending, it gave me more freedom than I had before. Budgeting actually gave me more control of my money.


Goal setting can give you more control of your life.


Our perception of words is part of the problem. We connect our own experiences with words which creates our own individual perspective. Goals is one of those words. Like budgeting, goals can feel constraining. Like budgeting, the opposite is the case.

 

 


Look at the negative, comedic way New Year’s resolutions are viewed. This is a good example of how the lack of intentionality is misleading. When we get caught up in the rhetoric we will just float through life without a plan. If we don’t bother to dig down and build our lives on a solid foundation, we will be blown in whatever direction the wind blows us.

 


A goal is a desired result. A desired result sounds good.


I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t want to achieve their desired results. If we are to live this life we have been given to the fullest, we need to be intentional to do all that we can to achieve the results God has planned for us.


 

Another problem with goal setting is that it can become overwhelming. Most of us have way more dreams and goals than we can ever get done. We built this mountain of things that we want to do. We’re the ones who let it get this big and we’re the ones who can make it smaller. To keep it from feeling so daunting we need to focus on one shovel full at a time rather than the whole thing.


We can’t blame anyone but ourselves for the size of our mountain.

 

It’s also important to remember that if we always set our goals small, we will never grow. We need to be growing and learning all the time. If your goals are always reached, then they aren’t big enough.

 


God has put a life dream in each of us. If we want to achieve it, we need to plan it. It doesn’t matter what you call it, what matters is that you do it. The mountain can be moved, it isn’t too big.


What matters is to align our plan with God’s and start shoveling.

We Won’t Have Transfiguration Without Transformation

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Actions Lead to Results

Most of us are aware of the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration, Luke 9:28-36, where Peter, James and John went up on a mountain with Jesus.  While Jesus was praying the disciples fell asleep. (They seemed to do this often while Jesus was praying.) When they woke up, they saw a transfigured Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah. Peter was so enamored by what he witnessed that once again his humanity took over and he blurted out something before thinking.

We are all so much like Peter and the other disciples. We sleep through important things going on around us. We get so worn down with our everyday lives that we miss out on the miracles. Or we open our mouths and say things without thinking through it before we say it.

Most of us have had a mountain top experience. We wish they would last, but they don’t. Life isn’t just the mountain top, it’s also the valleys. We see the transfigured Jesus in His glory and want some of that. The problem is that it’s not that easy.

Being transfigured starts with transformation. The definition of transfiguration, in Dictionary by Farlex, “is a marked change in form or appearance. A change that glorifies or exalts.” Transformation on the other hand is “the act, process or operation of changing”, according to the Meriam-Webster dictionary.

Transformation is something that we can choose to do. Transfiguration is a result of choosing to be transformed.

We need to see Jesus for who he really is and ourselves for who we’re meant to be.