Throughout childhood, we all remember what it was like to want something very intensely. Whether it was a pair of shoes, or a snack in the grocery aisle next to the one mom was in, or being allowed to have a sleepover with all your buddies, there is something inherently inside of us that wants and desires things, people, or circumstances.
As you continue to develop this tendency through your temper-tantrum-throwing years all the way through high school, you learn very quickly that there are often things you can do to get what you want. Action steps, as you might call them, in order to achieve your ‘goal’ of acquiring what you want or where you want to be.
But somewhere along the way… we were deceived. You see, the reality of our nature as broken and corrupt human beings (yes, this happens naturally, most of the time we weren’t taught by our parents how to push other little kids, lie, or talk back to our elders) is that we are instinctively terrible at knowing what it is that we truly want. How many times have you wanted something really bad, only to be disappointed when you finally get it?
It happens all the time.
Case in point: You want to invest in your children and church, and you really want to get that promotion at work. If you could build a better relationship with your kids by showing them you are willing to throw-down big money for their club sports teams and also serve a couple times a week at church and put in the extra hours to impress the boss and hit the big pay-raise, you just know that things, and life, would be better.
But what has this intense (and not-very-unique) desire led to for millions of American dads?
A busy, hectic, and chaotic lifestyle: one where we consistently skew our priorities all because we do not understand what it is that we truly want. A life of running around, being late to almost everything (besides work), and constantly juggling the different schedules that coincide (or don’t) in your home.
You love your kids so much that you’ll invest a ton of time, energy, and money in order to allow them to ‘be involved,’ and you realize that you have a lot less time to truly connect with them. In fact, the most you talk to your son is driving him from soccer to basketball practice.
Or perhaps you find yourself beginning to resent your service to the church body, because showing up to help with classes, cleaning, organizing, etc. has taken you away from more evenings with your wife and things are now strained in the marriage relationship.
And lastly, your pursuit of that big-money raise has you getting into the office even earlier than usual, around 6AM. You now spend every weekday from 5:15AM (there’s a commute) until 6PM grinding in the office, only to rush off to either church or soccer practice, not arriving home or really seeing/connecting with your family until 8:30PM every night.
And your health? Well that’s taken a dive, but we don’t even have time to think about that right now. This is just a busy season, right?
It ends up being a cycle that never ends. But it must. And it’s our responsibility to take the first step.
If you have been following my series and commentary on The Power of Less by Leo Babauta, hopefully you have considered beginning your journey towards living a more effective and efficient life as a busy dad.
So far we have gotten you started by:
*Not getting all hyped up about changing a bunch of things only to either quit or realize that you can’t sustain the changes.
*Asking yourself 3 questions to identify where in your life there might be a need to set limitations (that was easy, right?? So many to choose from!).
*Giving you a quick, yet effective step-by-step process to setting those limits.
Now we want to take a quick look at doing a real-time analysis of what happens after you set limitations.
Choosing the Essential
Bullet points taken from Leo’s book, the italic text underneath each of them are my expansion and thoughts.
1 Values – what are they?
As for me and my home, we will serve the Lord. I desire to build my home on the foundation of the Word (bible) and through the teaching and mentoring I receive through prayer (by the Holy Spirit) and older men in my life who can encourage and correct me.
Regardless of whether you love the Lord or not, being aware of the set of ‘rules’ or ‘guidelines’ you live your life by (and we all have them, don’t fool yourself into thinking that you don’t) will help you discover part of what is essential to you.
2 Goals – life, annual, for the month?
This goes into your deeper calling and desires. Your life, annual, and even monthly goals should go beyond your feelings and emotions. Start with your 5 Lifetimes Achievements (the 5 things you want to accomplish in your lifetime before you die) and work backwards from there.
Later on I will dissect Leo’s process on goal setting and how to remain focused on it.
3 Love – what do you wish you could do every day?
This is a critical component to finding your ‘Area of Destiny,’ which will appear in a future post; what are you both good at and love to do?
*Hint* What would you love to do for 5-6 hours a day, every day?
4 Priorities – what’s important to you?
Everyone has priorities; whether they’re productive or destructive is another matter. Are you prioritizing your life in a meaningful way?
Try the 90 year-old rule. Visualize yourself at 90 years of age, and imagine that you are the last member of your family alive (parents, wife, or children). What are you going to cherish the most at that point in your life?
Again, start from there and work backwards to discover what your priorities should be currently.
5 Impact – what would have the most?
This is an especially difficult one, mostly because of the phenomenon of, ‘You don’t know what you don’t know.’ But the process is taking the current information you do have and asking yourself the following question: Is this part of the 20% of my work that produces 80% of the results? OR, is this going to move me towards my priorities and goals while fitting inside of my system of values?
6 Long-Term Impact –
We’ve got to get back to our roots: what did they try to teach us when we were 5 years old? Delayed gratification. But take that and amplify it to cover years of delay. We’ve got to adopt and develop a long-term view to see the future impact of our daily decisions.
Once we start there, yup you guessed it, work backwards from there and reverse engineer to find out what is essential.
7 Needs vs. Wants
Do you really need two cars? Or that guest bedroom? If you use a budget or even if you simply use your credit card statement, sit down and look over your expenses. Which is the most unnecessary? Are you spending a lot on eating out when it would be easy to bring lunch to work?
And that’s just concerning finances. Look at the relationships in your lives. Do you really need that big of a group of friends? Honestly, how much is it going to decrease your standard of living if you didn’t need to golf with your buddies twice a week? Limiting that might even help you with your back pain while you’re at it.
We call that killing two birds with one stone.
8 Eliminate the rest!
Once you come up with your list, go over it another time. Show your list to your spouse and talk it over with her. If there are things on your list that you’ll be eliminating and it will affect her (and they definitely will in some way), make sure you bring her in on the process.
Share your heart behind wanting to eliminate some of the stress and overwhelm. In your conversation with her, include your vision and goals to let her know that you want to drive your family towards something of impact and long-term value.
9 This is a continual editing process: come back to it consistently!
Put it in your calendar to review this list (that you should place in your wallet or on your phone) once a week for 10 minutes. Once a month, review it with your spouse and ask her to help you consider how you can continue to grow and adjust it depending on how things are currently going.
Nobody expects you to know exactly what is and isn’t essential to your life this very day. Walking through the process will hopefully illuminate certain areas of stress in either your or your wife’s lives that one of you didn’t know about.
For now, find at least three things that are essential to your health. I want you to broaden your understanding of your health, too: it includes all 5 Pillars of Sustainable Living (again, future post).
Exercise
Nutrition
Systems of Accountability
Habit Development
Personal & Spiritual Development
Think through how each of those three might impact your current schedule, if at all.
We will be looking at how to implement the essential (and continue to limit what’s not) as the Power of Less series continues over the coming days.
Until Next Time,
Cody