Salt Life

Burn Brightly...

We'll I'm finally taking the time to sit down and post my thoughts on my most recent read - Burn Brightly without Burning Out by Richard Biggs.

Here's what I came up with:

Ability and attitude, when used in right combination, can determine the outcome of your goals. For example, if I say I want to run a 10K race, I'll never be able to do it if I'm constantly telling myself as I'm running, "I can't do it, it's too hard!" No matter how well trained I am physically, my mental attitude will destroy all of that with one thought! Attitude will make or break you. As John Maxwell says in The Winning Attitude - "Our natural reaction is to bail out of the right attitude to compensate for our problems." Here are a few of the most prevalent attitude busters as listed by Biggs: Problems, self-pity, worry, criticism and fear of failure. Personally, the last one is my vice!

Doing four things well is the next truth I found helpful: 1) Define your purpose, 2) Determine your dominant interests, 3) Develop your goals, 4) Decide on your priorities. If we maintain our daily priorities well then we will eventually achieve our goals. When you reach your goals in all of your dominant interests, you find balance. Where there is balance you are more readily able to "fulfill your purpose and lead a more meaningful life." It sounds simple but requires great discipline and focus to achieve. We need to be very intentional as we tackle each new day.

As women, we juggle a lot of responsibilities. Children, husbands, jobs, our home, ministry, and the list goes on. How do we keep things manageable without losing our minds? If you're struggling with this right now in your life, this system is for you! Biggs shares these 5 "D's" to help prioritize goals and get more done: 1)Determine Importance--develop a habit of listing the things that need to be done each day and then stay focused, 2)Deadline It - assign items a specific time slot and stick to it, 3)Decide on a Plan of Implementation - beware, however, of letting the planning become a time waster, 4)Delegate - if someone can do it better than you, let them! 5)Do it! - speaks for itself!

The last thing I took away that really hit home with me was "Develop Good Habits." Due to the fact that fear of failure is one of my frailty's, I took to heart Albert Gray's quote that "successful people form the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do." Wow! I read on only to learn that "successful people are influenced by the desire for pleasing results. Failures are influenced by the desire for pleasing methods and are inclined to be satisfied with such results as can be obtained by doing things they like to do," I almost gasped! Is that me? I hope not, but for safe measure I will, from this day forward, determine in my mind to no longer take the easy way out! Jesus didn't!

Labels: books, ponderings

posted by Kushmama @ 1:55 PM