The effectiveness of our leadership is determined by our ability to relate to others. Leadership is influence. Whether it’s effective, positive leadership or ineffective, negative leadership, when people are leading others, they have influence—what they say, what they think, and what they do influence those who follow them.
Your relationship with others determines how you will influence them. Are they under your care? Are they accountable to you? Are you consistent and approachable? Do you project a positive attitude? Your relationships with the people around you will do more to determine your effectiveness as a leader than anything else. Too often we try to separate leadership from relationships. We look at leadership as position, title, or a name.
Jesus’ Relational Leadership
John 10 gives us a biblical understanding of relational leadership. Jesus, describing the Good Shepherd, says,
The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.... He goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. And a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers. (John 10:3-5)
There are three components of relational leadership in this Scripture passage. The first is that the shepherd knows his sheep intimately. His relationship with them is such that he recognizes them instantly. The sheep know his voice, and he knows their names. He is personally acquainted with each one:
The second component of relational leadership is that the relationship is built on trust. The shepherd not only knows the name of his sheep. but his sheep trust him. They hear his voice and come to him, but they will run from a stranger. From this we can learn that leaders must be worth~’ of their followers’ trust.
The third component is that relationships are modeled. The shepherd walks ahead of his sheep, and they follow him.
Someone asked chief executives of major companies in the United States to name the characteristic they wanted most in potential employees. By far the great majority of these executives said that what they wanted to see more than anything else in people who came into their companies was the ability to work with other people. Of course they want them to have certain abilities and skills, but more than that, they want people who can work well with others. If you can relate well with others, you can go survive almost any situation in life. John Rockefeller, the builder of giant corporations, said, 1 will pay more for the ability to deal with people than any other ability under the sun.”
A survey was sent out to 2,000 employers, asking respondents to check the files of the last three persons they dismissed from their jobs and tell why they were fired. In two out of three cases, the answer was the same: the employees could not get along with other people. People did not lose their jobs because they lacked skills; they lost their jobs because they lacked ability to relate effectively with others.
We’re going to deal with two things in this chapter: handling conflicts in relationships, which I find to be the number-one problem of people in leadership positions, and creating effective relationships.
Handling Conflicts
The secret to handling conflicts successfully is to live according to the 101 percent principle. If there is someone under your umbrella of leadership who tends to he obstinate, find the 1 percent on which the two of you agree, and give it all you’ve got—100 percent of your effort and ability. Let that 1 percent shred of agreement be the tie that binds you together.
There’s a tendency for us to generalize and idealize relationships. Remember the Parable of the Lost Sheep? One sheep disobeyed and disappeared; it left the security of the flock to go out and do its own thing. The shepherd could have said “We’re better off without you—be some lion’s dinner!” But no. the shepherd left the 99 that were secure and went in search of the one that was lost (Luke 15:4-6). That’s a perfect example of the 101 percent principle. The shepherd looked until he found it; he expended a great deal of energy to develop that relationship with the very one who had not been in kilter with the rest of the gang. That’s the 101 percent principle.
And I want to give you ten commandments fur handling conflicts. I think they’ll be helpful to you because all of us have times when we have to take a relationship that’s not healthy and try to bring healing to it.
Ten Conflict Commandments
Follow the 101 percent principle. I had a friend in my last church who had caused me all kinds of difficulties. He had done the same with the two previous pastors. In fact, I’m pretty sure he was the reason both of them left the church. For months I thought and prayed about ways to develop a relationship with him. I was looking for that 1 percent. He and his wife had adopted two children into their family, and we had adopted two in ours. One Halloween night I took my daughter, Elizabeth, who was then about two years of age, to his house and knocked on the door. I’d already programmed her to go over and give him a big hug and tell him she loved him. She did and he melted. As he stood there crying, I knew I had found the crack in his tough exterior and the 1 percent that we had in common—adopted children. That began to build a relationship that became very successful. That’s the 101 percent principle.
Love people more than opinions. Anyone who loves his opinions more than he does his friends will defend his opinions and destroy his friends. People who are not effective in relationships usually have a higher regard for their opinions than they do for people. We need to step back and look at what is really important to us. Is it helping or hindering our relationships with people?
Give others the benefit of the doubt. We usually rule ourselves with our hearts, but we rule others with our heads. We have mercy on ourselves but not on the other person. If you want to build relationships, follow this rule: when working with yourself use your head; when working with others, use your heart. Give other people the benefit of the doubt.
Learn to be flexible. Thomas Jefferson once said “In matters of principle, stand like a rock. In matters of taste, swim with the current.” In my last church when they were decorating the sanctuary, I really didn’t like what they were doing, but I also realized that it wasn’t that important. If the issue is evangelism, I’m not going to waver for anybody— that’s a matter of principle. But if we’re talking about the color of the carpeting or the stain on the pews, I’ll swim with the current. Learn to be flexible in your life. The greater the man, the more flexible he is. Good leaders learn how to say I’m sorry” more quickly than followers. Effective leaders know how to back down; they don’t constantly feel the need to defend their rights; they’ve learned to differentiate between principles and taste; they’ve learned to be flexible.
Provide an escape hatch for the person in conflict I have watched people defend their actions, not because they knew they were right, but because their pride kept them from backing down. It takes a strong leader to allow someone who has been defeated to ease out of a situation and save face. Once the point has been made, back off
Check your own attitude. Many times wrong relationships develop because of wrong attitudes. You need to ask yourself questions to help you know whether your attitude is right or wrong. For instance, if you’re having conflicts with several people, there’s a good chance the problem is you, not them. Ask yourself, Am I constantly in conflict, or is this an exception? If it’s an exception, your attitude is probably fine. The attitude with which we view people determines to a large extent our perception of how they feel about us. Check your attitude.
Don’t overreact to conflicts. You’re going to have conflicts; don’t make them worse by overreacting to them. Don’t drop a bomb when a slingshot will work. If you expect conflicts, you will be better prepared to handle them sensibly.
Don’t become defensive. You never win in relationships when you’re defensive. A secure leader knows how to say, “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I misunderstood. Please forgive me.” The moment that you defend yourself, the moment that you stand up for your rights, you’re going to start a battle. We never resolve differences by being defensive.
Welcome the conflict Make it a learning experience. Most of us will never enjoy conflicts, but we can be thankful for them if we learn from them. Conflicts will either give you ulcers or understanding: you choose which it will be.
Take a risk. Many people do not handle conflict in relationships because they are afraid to put their hands out first. If my relationship with you is shaky and you extend your hand toward me in a gesture of friendship, how do you feel if I don’t clasp it? First, you feel ridiculous standing there with your hand in the air. Then you feel rejected. Many people don’t handle their conflicts because they don’t want to be rejected. They’re unwilling to take that risk.
When I realized that I was going to be a leader, I sat down one day and wrote down all the ways a leader can be hurt. After I wrote them down, dozens of them, I categorized them. I decided that leaders will always be hurt. Don’t let anybody sell you on the idea that everybody’s going to love you all the time. If you are out front leading people, you will be hurt. The issue is not will you or won’t you but in what way will you be hurt? I decided that I would be hurt because I trust people and make myself vulnerable to them. I know people who say, “I won’t get close to people, so they won’t hurt me.’ I’ve watched people build themselves into glass cases; they make good mannequins but poor leaders. Because I am willing to be hurt in that area, I find that there are people I have trusted, people I have believed in, who have grown because I risked getting close to them; I risked being rejected by them. Many times more often than not, it’s worth the risk. Allow yourself to be vulnerable.
Cultivating Good Relationships
Fortunately, we don’t always have to handle conflicts. We do have some good relationships. How can we make them better? In John 10 we can find three things to do to cultivate relationships: know them, grow them, and show them. Relationships start with knowing, continue with growing, and climax with showing. Know them: Jesus called His sheep by name. Grow them: they heard His voice and came to Him. Show them: Jesus walked ahead of His sheep, and they followed Him.
Know them. Let me give you the ABCs of beginning effective relationships. Acknowledge your need for others. For ~‘our relationships to be cultivated effectively, you have to admit that you need other people in your life. Paul teaches that “there are many members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’; or again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you’” (1 Cor. 12:20-21). A complete Christian is filled with God’s Spirit but is also complemented by different gifted friends. Friends are essential. Acknowledge your need of them. Until you do that, you’ll never cultivate effective relationships.
Believe in the value of others. Carlisle said, “A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats the little man.” The value you place on people determines whether you are a motivator or a manipulator of men. Motivation is moving together for mutual advantage. It’s all of us moving together because it benefits all of us; manipulation is moving together for my advantage. There’s a difference. With the motivator, everybody wins. With the manipulator, only the ‘leader” wins.
Concentrate on people, not programs. The only things that God will ever rescue from this planet are His people. Therefore, if you want a ministry of permanence, you must build into the lives of others. Changing programs won’t establish permanence; changing people will. Some of the most miserable people I know are program changers and builders. On the other hand, the happiest people I know are people builders and changers. Where are you going to put your life? Concentrate on people.
Grow them. If you want to help people grow, you need to be available to them when they need you. People going through hard times have deeply felt needs that you can reach out to meet. As you do, you will find your relationships with them deepening. Timing is more important than time in a relationship. Walking into the lives of people when they really need you is more important than being with them all the times when they don’t really need you. Timing is essential.
Be a reliable leader. Relationships grow on consistency; they shrink on moodiness. Be approachable: have you ever wanted to see somebody who had tremendous mood swings but hesitated because you didn’t know whether that person would love you or bite your head oft? As a leader, be reliable so your people can always feel comfortable coming to you.
Be a reassuring leader. Relationships grow in an atmosphere of affirmation. Most people are insecure; because they need encouragement, you need to be an encourager. Margaret and I recently had a talk with our daughter’s gymnastics instructor. He has had trouble grasping the importance of affirming people: he’s quick to tell the kids in the class when they do something wrong, but he doesn’t know how to say, ‘That was good. You’re doing well there.” We encouraged him to use some positive reinforcement with Elizabeth. Affirm your people. That’s how they grow.
Be a resourceful leader. Relationships grow when someone has answers to questions. Become a problem solver. Have something to contribute. We all like to be around people who can stretch us, teach us, and help us grow.
Show them. People do what they see. In cultivating relationships we have to model for others good people skills. People do not care how much you know, but they know how much you care, and they know how much you care by the way you act, not by what you say.
In studies of the leadership of American businesses, it has been shown that executives spend three-fourths of their working days with people. The largest single cost in most businesses is people. The most valuable asset of any company is its people. All executive plans are carried out, or fail to be carried out, by people. Our relationships with people will determine the success of our leadership. We can either work with people or war against them. We can be plows or bulldozers: the plow turns over the earth, stirring it up, cultivating it, making it a good place for seed to grow; the bulldozer scrapes the earth, pushing obstacles aside. Both plows and bulldozers are useful instruments, but one wrecks while the other cultivates. The plow type of leader sees in people riches waiting to be uncovered and cultivated; the bulldozer type of leader sees in people obstacles to be destroyed. Be a cultivator!
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
You Can Get Connected
Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.
--Michael. Jordan
Kevin, a friend of mine (John), is enormously successful in the construction industry. He is at the top of his field, well respected, and earns a great deal of money. At the same time, he is a person of great spiritual depth and commitment who gives generously to many causes.
From time to time, however, Kevin takes heat from people in his industry who don't know him personally. A few people, mainly competitors, sometimes tell others that he is not a team player and does things too much on his own. I asked him about this one day.
“Do you attribute your success to being the loner,” I asked, “picking yourself up by your bootstraps, and all that?”
He thought for a moment. “Most of the time, I find that the perception that I'm a loner comes from people who don't know me well. I can certainly be hardheaded, and I am pretty opinionated about my work, to a fault. Maybe that's where the reputation comes from. But whatever success I have does not come from being a loner; it comes from the opposite.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well. I have constructed my life around being with people in all sorts of ways that help me succeed. I am in a personal spiritual-growth group, where I am accepted, supported, and pushed to be a better person. I have a few professional colleagues from whom I get industry perspective. I have a great administrative and support team that fills in all the gaps in my own abilities. They are behind the scenes, but they make me look good. I have a mentor who guides me in the big picture issues of my direction and path. My wife is my confidante, and she has made more suggestions than I can count, which have helped my professional growth immensely.”
Kevin ended with a rhetorical question: “So I guess that's how lone rangers operate?”
Kevin gives us a key to how every truly successful person functions and thrives. They do not do it in a vacuum. They do not pick themselves up by their bootstraps. Although they are highly independent and do have their own values and opinions, they are still closely connected to the outside world, where one finds the resources for success.
If you choose to be a loner or insist on being independent of others, remaining in isolation and self-sufficiency, your failure to achieve your dreams and goals can be charged to no one but you. It will be your own fault.
The Ecosystem of Success
If you want to get ahead of the pack and achieve relational and career success, you need to understand that success operates much like an ecosystem. Ecosystem is a term from biology that describes a community of interacting organisms and their environment. A simple example of an ecosystem is a jungle. In the jungle, the sun provides energy to sustain plants, which feed herbivorous animals, which in turn feed carnivorous animals, and all the animals help fertilize the plants. Each component interacts with the other components in some way. The jungle is not a single thing; it is a system, and it only works successfully because it is a system.
Successful people understand that we are designed to function in a similar way. We operate at our peak levels when we work and network within our own ecosystem. God has created resources within our environment that we must interact with and receive from, or we will ultimately fail. Those who achieve their hearts' desires rely on their ecosystems and get connected to the resources they need.
The self-made man (or woman) is actually an absurdity. He may think he is self-made, but if you look below the surface you will always find that he owes a great deal of credit to other resources in his life that he may not be aware of.
Some people resist the idea that they are dependent on connections with others. They don't want to appear weak, needy, or incomplete. They equate dependence on others with childishness, and it clashes with their view of what an adult should be. Or they may be concerned that connectedness puts them at the mercy of unscrupulous people who might set them back. Some people are simply too prideful to stoop to dependence. Or some idealize the fictional heroes of our culture such as Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible and Bruce Willis's Die Hard characters.
Our need for connectedness is, at heart, a spiritual issue and a spiritual reality. God designed us to do better in life when we are connected to the right people and the right things. We simply don't get ahead when we are disconnected from those people and those things. When you look at the grand design of Creation, you see that from the start God meant us to interact, reach out, and be connected in all sorts of ways. Here are his first instructions to Adam and Eve in the beginning of time:
God blessed them and told them. “Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters over the fish and birds and all the animals.” And God said. “Look! I have given you the seed--bearing plants in throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. And I have given all the grasses and other green plants to the animals and birds for their food.” And so it was. Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was excellent in every way. (Genesis 1:28--31 NLT)
The first human couple had God, one another, and a world of resources that they were in charge of. That world was given for their benefit and nourishment, and in turn, they were charged to take good care of it. It was never the plan for us to reach deep inside ourselves, find the strength we need, and willpower our way to happiness and success. The sources of life have always been outside us, not inside.
Recently I had a far-reaching business decision to make. It involved my sense of my own mission in life, my focus, my direction, and what it would take to get me where I wanted to go. It was also a highly complex matter, and whichever choice I made would change things for me in a pretty radical way. So I really wanted to take the right path. To go the wrong direction would be costly--professionally, financially; and personally.
I thought long and hard. Actually, in my heart, I really wanted God to make this decision for me. I was looking for a sign, a miracle, a voice in the night, a burning bush--it didn't matter as long as it was clearly a signal from God. The reality was that I didn't want to take ownership of the consequences of my decision. I didn't like the idea of the wrong choice being my fault. I wanted to blame God, not myself, if anything went wrong. I wanted him to do both his job and mine in determining my direction.
One day during this period I was reading my Bible and asking him to show me what to do. “I'll do whatever you say,” I said, “just make it clear to me.” And I was really sincere. The scripture passage in my devotional plan for that day was in the book of wisdom, Proverbs. I thought, A wisdom passage. This is cool. I'll read the wise solution here and get moving. So I read, “Leave your simple ways behind, and begin to live; learn to use good judgment” (Proverbs 9:6 NI.T).
I couldn't believe it. I reread the passage. It said the same thing. I really didn't like what I was seeing. I didn't think God would just kick the decision back to me and hang me out to dry. Still, the passage seemed to he saving some thing like that, and it certainly wasn't what I wanted to hear. But as I thought on it more, I began to realize what I was reading.
I was to leave my simple wars behind: I had been thinking in a very simplistic manner that God would tell me what to do directly. And he does that sometimes. But not all the time. This time, I was not to demand that the answer come to me the easy way--directly from God. I was begin to live: In the Bible life always involves connectedness to relationship. When we are disconnected from God and others, we are separated from life and from what is most important. I was truly connecting to him, but I wasn't connecting to people, which is a big part of the spiritual life. I was to learn to use good judgment: I didn't want to do any evaluation or analysis of the matter. It was too complicated and overwhelming, with too many variables. I just wanted words of fire written on the wall telling me exactly what to do.
As far as I could tell, the message for me was this: I was to quit asking for God to make my decision for me, and instead use the resources he had already put in my environment to discover the answer. So that day I spent an hour or two thinking, analyzing, and calling a couple of my close friends, who spent a lot of time unpacking the complexities of the issue with me. Soon a pattern and a path began emerging from all the chaos in my mind. Using all I had gleaned from praying, getting advice, and using my best judgment, I closed in on what, as far as I could tell, was the right way to go. All the sources seemed to correspond with each other, and they felt consistent to me. So I chose my path, and it ended up being the right decision.
The real breakthroughs happened when I went over the issues with my friends and interacted with their perspectives. Things started moving when I entered the ecosystem.
All this is to say that success comes when we submit to the way God designed things and take advantage of the ecosystem we're in. When we do that, we are moving with the river current of reality; not paddling desperately against it. What I learned is this: you will succeed in your dreams to the extent that you connect to the eternal world. Connection is that critical.
Find the Fuel
Connections are the gasoline providing the drive and energy you need to reach your destination, whether it is solving a relational problem, finding your dream career, building a healthy marriage, or conquering a troublesome habit. You need to know where the fuel is, and how to get it into your tank.
Successful people turn not just to a single source, but to several to find the connectedness they need. Your journey will be filled with many different challenges, and one source of connection will not be adequate to meet all of them. Each connection will supply one of the fuels you need for that particular facet of the journey. In the next several pages we will introduce and discuss some of the primary sources for the fuels you will require.
Fuel Source No. 1: God
Though it seems to go without saying, God is the connection we need most to find success. It's important to not think about this need as some religious abstraction, as when people say, “Religion is a good thing for people; it gives them peace and helps them solve their problems.” The truth is much bigger than that. It is good for us to trust and believe in God, not because it helps decrease our blood pressure or calms us down or improves our mental health. Exercise and journaling could do that!
Connecting to God is making an attachment in a very real, profound, yet also a practical way, with reality itself. He is the Author of reality. As Creator and Designer of the way life should work, he empowers, guides, and supports our efforts to have a better life and better relationships. God is in both the background and the foreground of these matters.
Therefore, it is much more than merely a good and practical move to reach out to God for help with our success journey. It is a necessary and critical move. Success doesn't happen outside of him. We need him and his help, and it is impossible to find our way out of bad situations and into better ones without his leading and his hand.
In ancient times when Israel was a kingdom, its leaders stayed connected and dependent on God for their success and dreams, and for those of the nation. Over time, however, these leaders began to disconnect, to go their own way and lean on themselves. Though God continually invited them to return to dependence on him, they listened to false prophets and, more often than not, walked away from the connection. As a result, over time the kingdom deteriorated and was finally destroyed. Israel's people were dispossessed from their own land for many years. During the kingdoms last days, as the nation was being attacked by invaders, one of its true prophets named Isaiah spoke God's words to the people.
During the twilight of the nation, the leaders in the capital city of Jerusalem were trying to defend and fortify themselves against imminent enemy aggression. They wanted to make sure they had enough water to withstand a siege. Anyone would call this an important task to resolve problems and achieve success! But God's response was not encouraging: “Between the city walls, you build a reservoir for water from the old pool. But all your feverish plans are to no avail because you never ask God for help. He is the one who planned this long ago” (Isaiah 22:11 NLT).
Those words were addressed to Israel, but the truth behind them is timeless and still of great value for us in today's context. Don't let this passage draw you into the question of which matters: God's will or our efforts. The relevant point for your success is that it certainly makes sense to work hard at making your plans, but it makes just as much sense to ask God for help. His nature is to help and guide his people. He is the foundation of any dreams you want to achieve.
Check in with God about all aspects of your efforts to have a better life. Tell him you have a desire, a dream, and a passion to build a Company, or find a relationship, or start a ministry to people who need it, or heal a broken relationship. Submit that desire to him; ask if it is from him and if it fits his plan for you. His affirmation is one aspect of the connection. But there is more. Go further and ask him not only to affirm your dream, but also to give you the strength, the guidance, and the wisdom to make it all happen. Ask him to open doors, to change people's minds, and to give you opportunities and ideas you have never had before. He is invested in our success if it originates from him and advances his kingdom and his values. When you are connected to him in your dream, you can “delight yourself in the LORD: and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4 NASB). The desire you feel within you has its birth within him.
God is the source of all your connection fuel. But, as in my own example above, he connects with us both directly and indirectly. We look not only to him, but also to the connections he places in our environment--our ecosystem. Let's look at some of the indirect types of connection fuel God sends that can propel you toward your goals.
Fuel Source No. 2: Relationships That Guard Your Life
People who are escaping a culture of blame and entering the world of success create a team around themselves. They understand that we all need a few people surrounding us who are in our corner. This team is composed of individuals who are with you and for you. They are willing to be involved in your life, to help guard and protect it. They have the time and commitment to walk with you each step of the way. They are the ones you turn to when you feel crazy, discouraged, or like a total screw-up. In a sense they are family, the relational “home” you go to tot help, support, and encouragement. As the saying goes when friends support one another: “I've got your back.”
These connections serve a particular purpose. They are not people you go to for specific, technical competency or specialized information. They provide a foundation of safety, validation, feedback, confrontation, and cheerleading. Information-based connections are also important, for they primarily guard your dream. We will show you what those are about in the next section.
You don't need many people on your relationship team; in fact a large number doesn't really work. It takes a lot of time to develop a relationship in which the people know each other well and there is deep trust. Quality is much more important than quantity. When choosing your team, don't make easy availability the primary requirement. My experience is that people who have all the time in the world are often not much in demand for a reason. People who have something to offer you are probably offering it to someone else as well, and you may have to carve out time for your relationship with them.
If you want to realize your dreams, you will likely need to put some structure on these relationships. For example, I have been in a personal growth and support group for many years. The relationships in that group began as casual friendships that involved occasional lunches and evenings out. Gradually, however, we all noticed a simpatico of values, directions, and personality styles. We have widely different personality styles, but that keeps it interesting. All this was happening before the small-group phenomenon emerged in the church world, so I wasn't thinking along those lines at all. But I began to notice that I found myself going to these individuals for support and advice more and more. When I had a dream or a problem, I would call them first. When I wanted to do something socially, they were on my mind. And the same was true with them. We all sought each other out for encouragement, support, and social involvement. At some point we all began to realize that it might help to meet on some sort of regular basis. We became aware that we needed continuity and structure in our social relationships, so we decided to form a group and start meeting together for life support, prayer, and personal growth.
Now I cannot imagine going through life without these people. We have been through just about everything together, including parenting stuff, marriage issues, life stresses, career questions, personal failures and struggles, and spiritual quests. We know each other extremely well, and there are few if any secrets among us. When work or travel causes me to miss our meetings, I find myself wishing I had their support and input. Life is better with these folks, and it's not the same without them.
In terms of dreams and success, this group has been crucial for all its members. We know one another's goals and passions, and we keep ourselves up to speed on them. We also make sure that we connect outside of the goals. It's important to connect with the heart and soul beneath the dream, and not just with the dream itself. That is what you need your team to do. They need to know the life you lead, your background, your character, and your weaknesses. Otherwise, they cannot really fuel your progress toward your goals.
This is an important point. You need to bring all of yourself to your team, not just your idea of where you want to go. Focusing on your goals without attending to yourself is like attempting to make your e-mail software work better when your operating system is broken. With computers, the operating system always trumps the application. Everything stops until the OS is working, because it is the architecture under girding everything else. You don't want to handicap your team support for you by neglecting to be vulnerable, open, and honest about who you really are and what you really need.
So build your team, and choose its members well. Find people who care about you. Who have similar values. Who are relational, nonjudgmental, but still direct and honest with you. And who are available on a regular basis. The ideal is to find those who want the same support from you that you want from them. Then everyone on the team receives a mutual benefit. You learn both to receive and give to each other. This fosters a warm, family feel that will take you through many a dark night in your journey to find your goals. The right people are out there. Maybe they are also looking for you, and when you find each other you can achieve your goals together. Be guardians for each other's lives, hearts, and souls.
Fuel Source No. 3: Relationships That Guard Your Dream
I serve on the boards of some nonprofit organizations whose missions I believe in. In a recent meeting of one of these boards, some of the leaders were discussing whether to change the organizations focus from serving its original target population to a group with a different demographic. Neither group was more deserving than the other; it was more a matter of evaluating the board's interest and the structure and fit of the organization to its beneficiaries.
I was surprised when one of the board members spoke up and said, “This organization was created to serve the population it is serving now. All of us signed on as board members because we felt a need to help these types of people. If we change the focus, we no longer serve the group I signed on to serve, and I'm out. I'll find an organization that helps the group I want to help.” My first thought was, It's not about you and what you want. It's about the organization. I got the impression he wasn't truly interested in serving, but rather in pushing his own agenda. But then, the more I listened to him, the more I realized he was right. And I agreed with him. What had drawn all of us to helping out was that we felt something inside and had a personal investment in that particular set of people in need. We felt called to it, and we wanted to help the organization accomplish its mission because it fit with our own calling.
This man's comments helped refocus the original mission of the organization. In short, he served as a guardian of the dream. Things could have gone differently. We all could have agreed that our passions and callings had changed. Or we could have left and found another place to serve. Those options would have been okay. But in this situation, we kept our original focus, and the right thing for all was done.
You are the keeper of your dream. It is yours alone, and you hope it was birthed by God in side you. Its destiny is to grow and bear good and long-lasting fruit. But though it is your own dream, you must not guard it alone. You need people to stand with you who will join you in protecting and developing that dream. The relationships you need to find are people who will focus specifically on helping you achieve your goals. While your support team is guarding your life, this guardian team is about getting you to the success you want. That doesn't mean there can be no overlap between the two. Heart relationships and goal relationships can be the same. But achieving success generally takes people and teams, each of which is intentionally dedicated to only one of your tasks.
In choosing those who will serve as guardians of your dream, here are the two most important types of people you need to look for.
Peers in your area of interest. Find people who have experience and interest in your specific target area. If your desire is to pursue a graphic arts career, then talk to people who are headed in the same direction. Ask friends who they know. Do a World Wide Web search for people. Call businesses that are involved with graphic arts and ask if they have people or groups you can interact with. If your goal is more personal, for example, learning how to deal with emotional struggles, the process is the same. Call churches, counseling centers, and schools where there are people who have experience in these areas. Meet them and start asking questions. Whether it is a career or a problem, individuals in the same area of interest have a lot of knowledge about what you want to do. They can give you information, short cuts, and introduce you to other people who can help.
Coaches and mentors. This area has become its own industry in the last few years, and for good reason. Coaches and mentors have tremendous experience and competency in their areas of expertise. But just as importantly they know how to teach, lead, and train others in those areas. To invest in a coaching relationship is to get a focused experience of growth that is tailored to your personal situation. It is highly intensive, provides a good return on investment, and can be a quantum leap for you.
My friend Jim is a man who certainly doesn't live for his work. He works so he can pay for his biking hobby He is seriously into the sport, owning several hikes for different terrains, training for hours every week, and competing in century races (one hundred miles long) on weekends. This man is insane for his hobby.
Recently Jim wanted to go to the next level of ability, and to do that, he knew he needed a coach. He did some research and found the perfect person. She was a former Olympic cyclist, and her expertise was in working with guys like Jim--bikers who were good but wanted to get better. The only hitch was that this perfect person lived in another state. Jim found, however, that she coaches people all over the world through the Web and phone calls. He signed up with her and, after she got to know his background and goals, she provided him with a training schedule, a fitness regimen, and a diet plan tailored specifically for him. He worked the program. Within a couple of months, Jim was beating his own personal records and still improving at a significant rate. He has never met his coach face-.to-face, nor does he think he ever will.
That is one of the differences between those who guard your life, and those who guard your dream. The “guard-your-life” support team really needs to be face-to-face for the personal contact, unless you are in some remote situation and it just isn't possible. The technical team, or “guard-your-dream” team (peers. coaches, and mentors) should ideally be face-to-face, but it is not as critical. More critical are aspects such as their knowledge base, experience, competency, and ability to convey the information.
Other Fuel Resources You Will Need
Connection isn't always about relationships. It is also about resources that will help you reach your goal, some of which people can provide, and some of which you can get in other ways. You need to plug into the external world of information and resources related to your goal. The idea is the same as in your people resources: those who break out of the pack know they don't have it all inside their skin. They reach outside themselves for what they require. Here are the principal types of external resources to look for:
Information. You need to know a lot of stuff to reach your dream. Be humble enough to admit your lack of knowledge. Only fools pretend to know things they don t, and they end up with less knowledge than anyone. People have been accomplishing great dreams for centuries, and they have amassed incredible amounts of valuable information along the way.
If you want to get a slim, athletic body, dig into the diet and exercise info. Become an expert in the field. If you want to run the company, read books on how others have done it. If you want the greatest marriage in the world, study the best thinkers and authors on the subject. Become an info junkie. Tons of information on every conceivable subject is out there just waiting to be tapped. You can find it in libraries, on the Web, in computer programs, in audio and video tapes, CDs, DVDs, and a host of other sources. The information you need is available. If you don't avail yourself of it, it's no one's fault but your own.
Several years ago, I read a magazine article featuring interviews of two of the best guitarists in the world. One of these virtuosos kept mentioning how much he was still a student of other people's techniques and artistry and how much he learned from them--even from people who claim him as their own role model. The other guitarist spent a lot of time talking about how he was his own person, with his own style, and he didn't really gain a lot from other musicians because he listened exclusively to his own muse. The contrast was amazing. The interesting thing is that now, several years after that interview, you still hear the contributions and songs of the first guitarist, but the other one has fallen off the radar screen.
You don't have to re-invent the wheel. There is a treasure trove of information out there about exactly what you need to learn.
Training and experience. Information and knowledge are a good beginning, but they are not enough. People who reach their goals become skilled and experienced in their dream area. There is only one way for this to happen, and that is through training. Training puts the information to use in your mind and in your life. Don't stop with head knowledge.
People sometimes avoid the process of training and acquiring experience because it takes work, time, and forces them to admit failure. But there is no shortcut and no substitute. There is a saying: Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment. You had to fall off your bike a few times when you were little, but you learned to ride that way.
Training can be formal or informal, depending on your context. Coaches, mentors, and classes are the more structured and formal means. Their advantage is that the structure guarantees you certain experiences in a certain amount of time. Informal training can include volunteering to be a gofer for a coach whose sport you want to learn, or helping out at a service organization that provides assistance to the needy, or asking a friend in the insurance industry if you can shadow him for a day to see what his world is like. Generally, the informal training is more suited to finding whether you are interested in a particular area. When that is determined, you can move to a more structured experience.
Time and space. This resource is often harder to connect with than any other, but connect you must. People don't find their purpose in life on the fly or in off moments. Achieving your success depends heavily on the time and space you allot to it. And the exceptions to this principle are extremely rare, like maybe lottery winners. The reality is that most of the time the people who want to reach for better lives are already quite busy. They have jobs, relationships, families, and obligations, and those are all real and substantive responsibilities. These responsibilities and connections consume a lot of time, and it's hard to find the extra hours you need to advance your dream.
But it is doable. Everyday people with full lives like you are moving step-by-step on an intentional path toward great goals. If others can do it, so can you. Here are some tips to help you.
* Trim the fat.
Put the next thirty days of your life on a calendar, either on a hard copy or on your computer. Write down all the essentials of your life, as well as the nonessentials that keep you balanced, such as social connections and hobbies. Then survey the entire month and evaluate your entries in light of their value to you when compared to your dream. You will often find some significant fat that you can trim off to allot more time to the goal.
* Farm it out.
Is there anything you are doing that you should let others do? Maybe you've been chairing a committee for many years, and it's time to step down. Can you work out a communal arrangement with other parents for taking each other's kids for an afternoon a week? Could a college kid do the tutoring of your child for you a couple of evenings a week? Can your spouse do more of the grocery shopping?
Sometimes we don't let go of tasks we're doing simply because we are control freaks. But more often than not, you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that when you farm unit a task, the world doesn't fall apart, It was your own codependency that kept you locked in.
* Put the dream first.
When you have finished your Calendar, put it aside and start over with a blank calendar. This time, your very first entries should be the blocks of time you need to get moving on your goal. Include such things as time for mentors, reading, training, and so on. Then arrange your life around those blocks of time and see if it works. Often people find that the important things still get done, this is similar to the financial savings principle in which, when you pay bills every month, the first person you pay is yourself (or more specifically, your savings vehicle).
* Find your space.
Moving on your goals requires physical space that is yours alone, at least for adequate periods of time. You need an isolated place of your own in which you can brainstorm, dream, pray, and plan. These activities don't work well around kids, televisions, workplaces, or family activities. If absolutely no isolated space is available, you may need to tell everyone that you're holing up in the bedroom for a couple of hours, and you don't want to be interrupted. Or you may be able to go to the office after hours. Or even go to the library. Wherever it is, get a place where you can focus totally on working your plan.
* Get a friend to help.
Show your calendar to someone you trust--someone who manages time well and understands reality. Ask him or her to help you slash the time budget. A friend is likely to be more objective and able to see possibilities more clearly than you are, and that will help you do the necessary surgery on your time budget.
Feedback systems. Successful individuals generally adopt some sort of way to get information on how they are doing, monitor their progress, and see where they might be getting off track or out of balance. This is called a feedback system. Feedback systems can save you time and effort, keep focused, or even improve your rate of progress. Coaches and friends are certainly part of that monitoring and feedback. But you can also set measurable goals (revenue, competency, weight loss, number of healthy dates per month) and periodically check your progress toward them.
For example, I base a simple Excel spreadsheet on my computer that has columns for the date, my weight, my workouts, my eating, my Sleep hours, and comments about the day. It takes less than a minute each night to put in what I did that day. This little spreadsheet is a feedback system for my own physical health. Not only does it chart my progress, it also provides discipline. Knowing I will open it every day gives me a little more self-control. As the saying goes, that which is observed tends to improve. Feedback systems help you observe yourself in reaching your dream.
As you can see, there are lots of resources out there, and they are designed to propel you to success, People who are into ownership are always on the lookout for more resources, because they understand their value.
As we said at the beginning of this section, you need to find the fuel. And you find it by connecting to the right resources. But that is not enough; finding the fuel is just one part of the story here. The next step is to know how to burn the fuel. Learning to burn the fuel efficiently will propel you that much closer to your dream. If it just sits there in your tank, it's dead weight The next section will help you use the resources you find.
Burn the Fuel
I have known many people who are no different from anyone else wanting a better life. They are bright, talented, and goodhearted. But often they don't reach their goals because they don't know how to use the resources they have. They are connected to the right people and places, but they don't get the results they want. You can avoid this failure and maximize your resources with the following recommendations. They are simple, but they work for people who are on their way to achievement.
Invite the feedback from your life guardians. You can pretty much assume that your goal guardians--those experts you tap for specialized information--know they need to give you helpful feedback. That's automatically built into what you go to them for. But with close friends who are part of your feedback system, things are different. Don't make the mistake of assuming that they also know you need their input. They may think that all you want from them is encouragement, acceptance, and grace. They may also think that if you want feedback on something specific, you'll ask for it. Often your friends just don't want to sound critical or hurt your feelings, and you can't blame them for that.
But you don't want to miss out on the tremendous help and value these people can bring to you. Your life guardians--as opposed to your goal guardians--can give you advice, insight, ideas, corrections, and confrontations that can literally make all the difference in the world to your goal.
When you are creating your support team, be sure to give each person permission to tell you the truth, not only with love and support, but also with directness and clarity. They may not at first believe you are serious. So when they venture out and say something like, “Well, I've noticed that you seem to waste a lot of time blaming others for your lack of progress,” you need to say, “Thank you for that correction. May I please have another?” After they see that you didn't curl up into the fetal position or get defensive or act out a victim role, they will begin to tell you realities that can protect and enhance your growth. That is, if they are the right people for your team.
Keep resources separate from the outcome. You will inevitably get close to your resource people, certainly to the life guardians, and often to the dream guardians as well. A sense of connectedness is a natural result when people open up their lives to each other over time. And that's a good thing. Keep in mind, however, that no matter how valuable these people are to you, the final outcome is your responsibility; not theirs. This is your dream, and you need to stay in ownership of it. There is often a temptation to let the team share the burden. Some sharing is helpful, but their role is really to support and assist you. If you stumble or fail, you must take responsibility for it and repair the situation. It's not their fault when you fail. The outcome is yours.
It's a little like a company that tries to be so democratic that no one at all is in authority; seems ideally equal and cooperative until there is a problem. If no one is in charge, then no one is responsible. “We are all responsible” doesn't lend itself to cleaning up messes. President Harry Truman's “the buck stops here” accurately defines your responsibility for your dream. That slogan is worth adopting as your own.
Be grateful, open, and non defensive. Be thankful every day for the people in your life who have signed up on a volunteer or professional level to walk with you toward your dream. They are a tremendous gift. The more you appreciate their contributions, the better you will utilize the wisdom and help they offer you. Be open to what they tell you, and never get into power struggles with them. Try their suggestions, even if at first they don't seem to make sense. Certainly you should question and challenge, but remember that you probably need to listen to these people more than talk.
When Jesus taught, trained, and resourced people, he said lots of things that either made no sense to them or were highly confrontive:
* When Peter wanted to prevent Jesus' death, Jesus said, “Get behind Me, Satan.”
* He told the disciples that the way to save their lives was to lose them.
* He told Nicodemus he must be born twice, which totally confuses him.
* When people wanted to know when the kingdom of God was coming, he told them it was within them.
* When people wanted a miracle, he told them that he would rebuild the temple in three days, but he wasn't referring to a literal temple.
* He said that being sad could be a good thing for people.
Yet today the words of Jesus still bring illumination, insight, and help to all areas of people's lives, if they truly have ears to hear. Successful people don't mind being confused by their mentors, It is just another step in the path of learning and growing. Be open to what you hear from guardians, even if at first it doesn't go down very well.
Normalize complexity and different viewpoints. One of the greatest ways to burn your fuel efficiently is to normalize, or become comfortable with, complex situations, answers, and varying viewpoints you encounter from your resources. You need the ability not to feel derailed or overwhelmed by gray areas and ambiguity, for that is the way life really is.
Most meaningful goals and dreams, and most of our most challenging problems, have several levels of complexity and more than one approach to addressing them. It is tempting to simplify and look for the one right way or the three steps to get you there. But that is a child's way of organizing the world. Grownups don't want to have reality digested into an easily swallowed capsule, for the reduction process may dump needed information. They want the feedback or perspective even it the subject is so complex that various people advising them disagree with each other. Sorting through competing options can be one of the most helpful experiences you will have. Having to make the choice yourself will assist you in taking responsibility for your path, your progress, and your outcome.
A friend of mine assessed his financial situation in relation to his current job, and he was dismayed to find that if things did not change. he would not be able to retire at his targeted age. He went into a research mode to determine the yearly income he needed from that point on. It was more than his current position would generate, but he liked his job and didn't want to leave it. So he searched for ways to supplement his income.
Eventually he found a part-time business that wouldn't take too much of his time because it generated passive income. (An example of passive income would be interest on a savings account.) Before he plunged, however, he resourced financial experts, successful people in that industry, insurance people, accounting people, and other pertinent sources of information. The resulting data was quite complex. The experts' recommendations were not all consistent with each other, and they addressed several different levels of his situation, in addition, all these people represented different industries and used different terms and almost different languages. It was highly confusing for a while, but he stayed on the learning curve and committed himself to making sense of all the opinions. In a short time, he became more conversant with what all the experts were saying, and he was able to pick and choose what he needed from their input. He is now well on the way to meeting his financial goals. He still consults with his experts, because now he knows how to use them in the way that furthers his own dream.
Don't be afraid of complexity and conflicting advice. Listen, learn, and you will soon be able to equip yourself with the information and experiences you need.
Connecting Will Bear Good Fruit for You
It is not good to be a1one, especially when you are stretching your life and working hard to achieve a cherished goal. You need to connect. It is far better to reach out and find the people, the information, and the experiences that will empower you to take the next step, and to make sure it is the right step.
--Michael. Jordan
Kevin, a friend of mine (John), is enormously successful in the construction industry. He is at the top of his field, well respected, and earns a great deal of money. At the same time, he is a person of great spiritual depth and commitment who gives generously to many causes.
From time to time, however, Kevin takes heat from people in his industry who don't know him personally. A few people, mainly competitors, sometimes tell others that he is not a team player and does things too much on his own. I asked him about this one day.
“Do you attribute your success to being the loner,” I asked, “picking yourself up by your bootstraps, and all that?”
He thought for a moment. “Most of the time, I find that the perception that I'm a loner comes from people who don't know me well. I can certainly be hardheaded, and I am pretty opinionated about my work, to a fault. Maybe that's where the reputation comes from. But whatever success I have does not come from being a loner; it comes from the opposite.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well. I have constructed my life around being with people in all sorts of ways that help me succeed. I am in a personal spiritual-growth group, where I am accepted, supported, and pushed to be a better person. I have a few professional colleagues from whom I get industry perspective. I have a great administrative and support team that fills in all the gaps in my own abilities. They are behind the scenes, but they make me look good. I have a mentor who guides me in the big picture issues of my direction and path. My wife is my confidante, and she has made more suggestions than I can count, which have helped my professional growth immensely.”
Kevin ended with a rhetorical question: “So I guess that's how lone rangers operate?”
Kevin gives us a key to how every truly successful person functions and thrives. They do not do it in a vacuum. They do not pick themselves up by their bootstraps. Although they are highly independent and do have their own values and opinions, they are still closely connected to the outside world, where one finds the resources for success.
If you choose to be a loner or insist on being independent of others, remaining in isolation and self-sufficiency, your failure to achieve your dreams and goals can be charged to no one but you. It will be your own fault.
The Ecosystem of Success
If you want to get ahead of the pack and achieve relational and career success, you need to understand that success operates much like an ecosystem. Ecosystem is a term from biology that describes a community of interacting organisms and their environment. A simple example of an ecosystem is a jungle. In the jungle, the sun provides energy to sustain plants, which feed herbivorous animals, which in turn feed carnivorous animals, and all the animals help fertilize the plants. Each component interacts with the other components in some way. The jungle is not a single thing; it is a system, and it only works successfully because it is a system.
Successful people understand that we are designed to function in a similar way. We operate at our peak levels when we work and network within our own ecosystem. God has created resources within our environment that we must interact with and receive from, or we will ultimately fail. Those who achieve their hearts' desires rely on their ecosystems and get connected to the resources they need.
The self-made man (or woman) is actually an absurdity. He may think he is self-made, but if you look below the surface you will always find that he owes a great deal of credit to other resources in his life that he may not be aware of.
Some people resist the idea that they are dependent on connections with others. They don't want to appear weak, needy, or incomplete. They equate dependence on others with childishness, and it clashes with their view of what an adult should be. Or they may be concerned that connectedness puts them at the mercy of unscrupulous people who might set them back. Some people are simply too prideful to stoop to dependence. Or some idealize the fictional heroes of our culture such as Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible and Bruce Willis's Die Hard characters.
Our need for connectedness is, at heart, a spiritual issue and a spiritual reality. God designed us to do better in life when we are connected to the right people and the right things. We simply don't get ahead when we are disconnected from those people and those things. When you look at the grand design of Creation, you see that from the start God meant us to interact, reach out, and be connected in all sorts of ways. Here are his first instructions to Adam and Eve in the beginning of time:
God blessed them and told them. “Multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Be masters over the fish and birds and all the animals.” And God said. “Look! I have given you the seed--bearing plants in throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. And I have given all the grasses and other green plants to the animals and birds for their food.” And so it was. Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was excellent in every way. (Genesis 1:28--31 NLT)
The first human couple had God, one another, and a world of resources that they were in charge of. That world was given for their benefit and nourishment, and in turn, they were charged to take good care of it. It was never the plan for us to reach deep inside ourselves, find the strength we need, and willpower our way to happiness and success. The sources of life have always been outside us, not inside.
Recently I had a far-reaching business decision to make. It involved my sense of my own mission in life, my focus, my direction, and what it would take to get me where I wanted to go. It was also a highly complex matter, and whichever choice I made would change things for me in a pretty radical way. So I really wanted to take the right path. To go the wrong direction would be costly--professionally, financially; and personally.
I thought long and hard. Actually, in my heart, I really wanted God to make this decision for me. I was looking for a sign, a miracle, a voice in the night, a burning bush--it didn't matter as long as it was clearly a signal from God. The reality was that I didn't want to take ownership of the consequences of my decision. I didn't like the idea of the wrong choice being my fault. I wanted to blame God, not myself, if anything went wrong. I wanted him to do both his job and mine in determining my direction.
One day during this period I was reading my Bible and asking him to show me what to do. “I'll do whatever you say,” I said, “just make it clear to me.” And I was really sincere. The scripture passage in my devotional plan for that day was in the book of wisdom, Proverbs. I thought, A wisdom passage. This is cool. I'll read the wise solution here and get moving. So I read, “Leave your simple ways behind, and begin to live; learn to use good judgment” (Proverbs 9:6 NI.T).
I couldn't believe it. I reread the passage. It said the same thing. I really didn't like what I was seeing. I didn't think God would just kick the decision back to me and hang me out to dry. Still, the passage seemed to he saving some thing like that, and it certainly wasn't what I wanted to hear. But as I thought on it more, I began to realize what I was reading.
I was to leave my simple wars behind: I had been thinking in a very simplistic manner that God would tell me what to do directly. And he does that sometimes. But not all the time. This time, I was not to demand that the answer come to me the easy way--directly from God. I was begin to live: In the Bible life always involves connectedness to relationship. When we are disconnected from God and others, we are separated from life and from what is most important. I was truly connecting to him, but I wasn't connecting to people, which is a big part of the spiritual life. I was to learn to use good judgment: I didn't want to do any evaluation or analysis of the matter. It was too complicated and overwhelming, with too many variables. I just wanted words of fire written on the wall telling me exactly what to do.
As far as I could tell, the message for me was this: I was to quit asking for God to make my decision for me, and instead use the resources he had already put in my environment to discover the answer. So that day I spent an hour or two thinking, analyzing, and calling a couple of my close friends, who spent a lot of time unpacking the complexities of the issue with me. Soon a pattern and a path began emerging from all the chaos in my mind. Using all I had gleaned from praying, getting advice, and using my best judgment, I closed in on what, as far as I could tell, was the right way to go. All the sources seemed to correspond with each other, and they felt consistent to me. So I chose my path, and it ended up being the right decision.
The real breakthroughs happened when I went over the issues with my friends and interacted with their perspectives. Things started moving when I entered the ecosystem.
All this is to say that success comes when we submit to the way God designed things and take advantage of the ecosystem we're in. When we do that, we are moving with the river current of reality; not paddling desperately against it. What I learned is this: you will succeed in your dreams to the extent that you connect to the eternal world. Connection is that critical.
Find the Fuel
Connections are the gasoline providing the drive and energy you need to reach your destination, whether it is solving a relational problem, finding your dream career, building a healthy marriage, or conquering a troublesome habit. You need to know where the fuel is, and how to get it into your tank.
Successful people turn not just to a single source, but to several to find the connectedness they need. Your journey will be filled with many different challenges, and one source of connection will not be adequate to meet all of them. Each connection will supply one of the fuels you need for that particular facet of the journey. In the next several pages we will introduce and discuss some of the primary sources for the fuels you will require.
Fuel Source No. 1: God
Though it seems to go without saying, God is the connection we need most to find success. It's important to not think about this need as some religious abstraction, as when people say, “Religion is a good thing for people; it gives them peace and helps them solve their problems.” The truth is much bigger than that. It is good for us to trust and believe in God, not because it helps decrease our blood pressure or calms us down or improves our mental health. Exercise and journaling could do that!
Connecting to God is making an attachment in a very real, profound, yet also a practical way, with reality itself. He is the Author of reality. As Creator and Designer of the way life should work, he empowers, guides, and supports our efforts to have a better life and better relationships. God is in both the background and the foreground of these matters.
Therefore, it is much more than merely a good and practical move to reach out to God for help with our success journey. It is a necessary and critical move. Success doesn't happen outside of him. We need him and his help, and it is impossible to find our way out of bad situations and into better ones without his leading and his hand.
In ancient times when Israel was a kingdom, its leaders stayed connected and dependent on God for their success and dreams, and for those of the nation. Over time, however, these leaders began to disconnect, to go their own way and lean on themselves. Though God continually invited them to return to dependence on him, they listened to false prophets and, more often than not, walked away from the connection. As a result, over time the kingdom deteriorated and was finally destroyed. Israel's people were dispossessed from their own land for many years. During the kingdoms last days, as the nation was being attacked by invaders, one of its true prophets named Isaiah spoke God's words to the people.
During the twilight of the nation, the leaders in the capital city of Jerusalem were trying to defend and fortify themselves against imminent enemy aggression. They wanted to make sure they had enough water to withstand a siege. Anyone would call this an important task to resolve problems and achieve success! But God's response was not encouraging: “Between the city walls, you build a reservoir for water from the old pool. But all your feverish plans are to no avail because you never ask God for help. He is the one who planned this long ago” (Isaiah 22:11 NLT).
Those words were addressed to Israel, but the truth behind them is timeless and still of great value for us in today's context. Don't let this passage draw you into the question of which matters: God's will or our efforts. The relevant point for your success is that it certainly makes sense to work hard at making your plans, but it makes just as much sense to ask God for help. His nature is to help and guide his people. He is the foundation of any dreams you want to achieve.
Check in with God about all aspects of your efforts to have a better life. Tell him you have a desire, a dream, and a passion to build a Company, or find a relationship, or start a ministry to people who need it, or heal a broken relationship. Submit that desire to him; ask if it is from him and if it fits his plan for you. His affirmation is one aspect of the connection. But there is more. Go further and ask him not only to affirm your dream, but also to give you the strength, the guidance, and the wisdom to make it all happen. Ask him to open doors, to change people's minds, and to give you opportunities and ideas you have never had before. He is invested in our success if it originates from him and advances his kingdom and his values. When you are connected to him in your dream, you can “delight yourself in the LORD: and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4 NASB). The desire you feel within you has its birth within him.
God is the source of all your connection fuel. But, as in my own example above, he connects with us both directly and indirectly. We look not only to him, but also to the connections he places in our environment--our ecosystem. Let's look at some of the indirect types of connection fuel God sends that can propel you toward your goals.
Fuel Source No. 2: Relationships That Guard Your Life
People who are escaping a culture of blame and entering the world of success create a team around themselves. They understand that we all need a few people surrounding us who are in our corner. This team is composed of individuals who are with you and for you. They are willing to be involved in your life, to help guard and protect it. They have the time and commitment to walk with you each step of the way. They are the ones you turn to when you feel crazy, discouraged, or like a total screw-up. In a sense they are family, the relational “home” you go to tot help, support, and encouragement. As the saying goes when friends support one another: “I've got your back.”
These connections serve a particular purpose. They are not people you go to for specific, technical competency or specialized information. They provide a foundation of safety, validation, feedback, confrontation, and cheerleading. Information-based connections are also important, for they primarily guard your dream. We will show you what those are about in the next section.
You don't need many people on your relationship team; in fact a large number doesn't really work. It takes a lot of time to develop a relationship in which the people know each other well and there is deep trust. Quality is much more important than quantity. When choosing your team, don't make easy availability the primary requirement. My experience is that people who have all the time in the world are often not much in demand for a reason. People who have something to offer you are probably offering it to someone else as well, and you may have to carve out time for your relationship with them.
If you want to realize your dreams, you will likely need to put some structure on these relationships. For example, I have been in a personal growth and support group for many years. The relationships in that group began as casual friendships that involved occasional lunches and evenings out. Gradually, however, we all noticed a simpatico of values, directions, and personality styles. We have widely different personality styles, but that keeps it interesting. All this was happening before the small-group phenomenon emerged in the church world, so I wasn't thinking along those lines at all. But I began to notice that I found myself going to these individuals for support and advice more and more. When I had a dream or a problem, I would call them first. When I wanted to do something socially, they were on my mind. And the same was true with them. We all sought each other out for encouragement, support, and social involvement. At some point we all began to realize that it might help to meet on some sort of regular basis. We became aware that we needed continuity and structure in our social relationships, so we decided to form a group and start meeting together for life support, prayer, and personal growth.
Now I cannot imagine going through life without these people. We have been through just about everything together, including parenting stuff, marriage issues, life stresses, career questions, personal failures and struggles, and spiritual quests. We know each other extremely well, and there are few if any secrets among us. When work or travel causes me to miss our meetings, I find myself wishing I had their support and input. Life is better with these folks, and it's not the same without them.
In terms of dreams and success, this group has been crucial for all its members. We know one another's goals and passions, and we keep ourselves up to speed on them. We also make sure that we connect outside of the goals. It's important to connect with the heart and soul beneath the dream, and not just with the dream itself. That is what you need your team to do. They need to know the life you lead, your background, your character, and your weaknesses. Otherwise, they cannot really fuel your progress toward your goals.
This is an important point. You need to bring all of yourself to your team, not just your idea of where you want to go. Focusing on your goals without attending to yourself is like attempting to make your e-mail software work better when your operating system is broken. With computers, the operating system always trumps the application. Everything stops until the OS is working, because it is the architecture under girding everything else. You don't want to handicap your team support for you by neglecting to be vulnerable, open, and honest about who you really are and what you really need.
So build your team, and choose its members well. Find people who care about you. Who have similar values. Who are relational, nonjudgmental, but still direct and honest with you. And who are available on a regular basis. The ideal is to find those who want the same support from you that you want from them. Then everyone on the team receives a mutual benefit. You learn both to receive and give to each other. This fosters a warm, family feel that will take you through many a dark night in your journey to find your goals. The right people are out there. Maybe they are also looking for you, and when you find each other you can achieve your goals together. Be guardians for each other's lives, hearts, and souls.
Fuel Source No. 3: Relationships That Guard Your Dream
I serve on the boards of some nonprofit organizations whose missions I believe in. In a recent meeting of one of these boards, some of the leaders were discussing whether to change the organizations focus from serving its original target population to a group with a different demographic. Neither group was more deserving than the other; it was more a matter of evaluating the board's interest and the structure and fit of the organization to its beneficiaries.
I was surprised when one of the board members spoke up and said, “This organization was created to serve the population it is serving now. All of us signed on as board members because we felt a need to help these types of people. If we change the focus, we no longer serve the group I signed on to serve, and I'm out. I'll find an organization that helps the group I want to help.” My first thought was, It's not about you and what you want. It's about the organization. I got the impression he wasn't truly interested in serving, but rather in pushing his own agenda. But then, the more I listened to him, the more I realized he was right. And I agreed with him. What had drawn all of us to helping out was that we felt something inside and had a personal investment in that particular set of people in need. We felt called to it, and we wanted to help the organization accomplish its mission because it fit with our own calling.
This man's comments helped refocus the original mission of the organization. In short, he served as a guardian of the dream. Things could have gone differently. We all could have agreed that our passions and callings had changed. Or we could have left and found another place to serve. Those options would have been okay. But in this situation, we kept our original focus, and the right thing for all was done.
You are the keeper of your dream. It is yours alone, and you hope it was birthed by God in side you. Its destiny is to grow and bear good and long-lasting fruit. But though it is your own dream, you must not guard it alone. You need people to stand with you who will join you in protecting and developing that dream. The relationships you need to find are people who will focus specifically on helping you achieve your goals. While your support team is guarding your life, this guardian team is about getting you to the success you want. That doesn't mean there can be no overlap between the two. Heart relationships and goal relationships can be the same. But achieving success generally takes people and teams, each of which is intentionally dedicated to only one of your tasks.
In choosing those who will serve as guardians of your dream, here are the two most important types of people you need to look for.
Peers in your area of interest. Find people who have experience and interest in your specific target area. If your desire is to pursue a graphic arts career, then talk to people who are headed in the same direction. Ask friends who they know. Do a World Wide Web search for people. Call businesses that are involved with graphic arts and ask if they have people or groups you can interact with. If your goal is more personal, for example, learning how to deal with emotional struggles, the process is the same. Call churches, counseling centers, and schools where there are people who have experience in these areas. Meet them and start asking questions. Whether it is a career or a problem, individuals in the same area of interest have a lot of knowledge about what you want to do. They can give you information, short cuts, and introduce you to other people who can help.
Coaches and mentors. This area has become its own industry in the last few years, and for good reason. Coaches and mentors have tremendous experience and competency in their areas of expertise. But just as importantly they know how to teach, lead, and train others in those areas. To invest in a coaching relationship is to get a focused experience of growth that is tailored to your personal situation. It is highly intensive, provides a good return on investment, and can be a quantum leap for you.
My friend Jim is a man who certainly doesn't live for his work. He works so he can pay for his biking hobby He is seriously into the sport, owning several hikes for different terrains, training for hours every week, and competing in century races (one hundred miles long) on weekends. This man is insane for his hobby.
Recently Jim wanted to go to the next level of ability, and to do that, he knew he needed a coach. He did some research and found the perfect person. She was a former Olympic cyclist, and her expertise was in working with guys like Jim--bikers who were good but wanted to get better. The only hitch was that this perfect person lived in another state. Jim found, however, that she coaches people all over the world through the Web and phone calls. He signed up with her and, after she got to know his background and goals, she provided him with a training schedule, a fitness regimen, and a diet plan tailored specifically for him. He worked the program. Within a couple of months, Jim was beating his own personal records and still improving at a significant rate. He has never met his coach face-.to-face, nor does he think he ever will.
That is one of the differences between those who guard your life, and those who guard your dream. The “guard-your-life” support team really needs to be face-to-face for the personal contact, unless you are in some remote situation and it just isn't possible. The technical team, or “guard-your-dream” team (peers. coaches, and mentors) should ideally be face-to-face, but it is not as critical. More critical are aspects such as their knowledge base, experience, competency, and ability to convey the information.
Other Fuel Resources You Will Need
Connection isn't always about relationships. It is also about resources that will help you reach your goal, some of which people can provide, and some of which you can get in other ways. You need to plug into the external world of information and resources related to your goal. The idea is the same as in your people resources: those who break out of the pack know they don't have it all inside their skin. They reach outside themselves for what they require. Here are the principal types of external resources to look for:
Information. You need to know a lot of stuff to reach your dream. Be humble enough to admit your lack of knowledge. Only fools pretend to know things they don t, and they end up with less knowledge than anyone. People have been accomplishing great dreams for centuries, and they have amassed incredible amounts of valuable information along the way.
If you want to get a slim, athletic body, dig into the diet and exercise info. Become an expert in the field. If you want to run the company, read books on how others have done it. If you want the greatest marriage in the world, study the best thinkers and authors on the subject. Become an info junkie. Tons of information on every conceivable subject is out there just waiting to be tapped. You can find it in libraries, on the Web, in computer programs, in audio and video tapes, CDs, DVDs, and a host of other sources. The information you need is available. If you don't avail yourself of it, it's no one's fault but your own.
Several years ago, I read a magazine article featuring interviews of two of the best guitarists in the world. One of these virtuosos kept mentioning how much he was still a student of other people's techniques and artistry and how much he learned from them--even from people who claim him as their own role model. The other guitarist spent a lot of time talking about how he was his own person, with his own style, and he didn't really gain a lot from other musicians because he listened exclusively to his own muse. The contrast was amazing. The interesting thing is that now, several years after that interview, you still hear the contributions and songs of the first guitarist, but the other one has fallen off the radar screen.
You don't have to re-invent the wheel. There is a treasure trove of information out there about exactly what you need to learn.
Training and experience. Information and knowledge are a good beginning, but they are not enough. People who reach their goals become skilled and experienced in their dream area. There is only one way for this to happen, and that is through training. Training puts the information to use in your mind and in your life. Don't stop with head knowledge.
People sometimes avoid the process of training and acquiring experience because it takes work, time, and forces them to admit failure. But there is no shortcut and no substitute. There is a saying: Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment. You had to fall off your bike a few times when you were little, but you learned to ride that way.
Training can be formal or informal, depending on your context. Coaches, mentors, and classes are the more structured and formal means. Their advantage is that the structure guarantees you certain experiences in a certain amount of time. Informal training can include volunteering to be a gofer for a coach whose sport you want to learn, or helping out at a service organization that provides assistance to the needy, or asking a friend in the insurance industry if you can shadow him for a day to see what his world is like. Generally, the informal training is more suited to finding whether you are interested in a particular area. When that is determined, you can move to a more structured experience.
Time and space. This resource is often harder to connect with than any other, but connect you must. People don't find their purpose in life on the fly or in off moments. Achieving your success depends heavily on the time and space you allot to it. And the exceptions to this principle are extremely rare, like maybe lottery winners. The reality is that most of the time the people who want to reach for better lives are already quite busy. They have jobs, relationships, families, and obligations, and those are all real and substantive responsibilities. These responsibilities and connections consume a lot of time, and it's hard to find the extra hours you need to advance your dream.
But it is doable. Everyday people with full lives like you are moving step-by-step on an intentional path toward great goals. If others can do it, so can you. Here are some tips to help you.
* Trim the fat.
Put the next thirty days of your life on a calendar, either on a hard copy or on your computer. Write down all the essentials of your life, as well as the nonessentials that keep you balanced, such as social connections and hobbies. Then survey the entire month and evaluate your entries in light of their value to you when compared to your dream. You will often find some significant fat that you can trim off to allot more time to the goal.
* Farm it out.
Is there anything you are doing that you should let others do? Maybe you've been chairing a committee for many years, and it's time to step down. Can you work out a communal arrangement with other parents for taking each other's kids for an afternoon a week? Could a college kid do the tutoring of your child for you a couple of evenings a week? Can your spouse do more of the grocery shopping?
Sometimes we don't let go of tasks we're doing simply because we are control freaks. But more often than not, you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that when you farm unit a task, the world doesn't fall apart, It was your own codependency that kept you locked in.
* Put the dream first.
When you have finished your Calendar, put it aside and start over with a blank calendar. This time, your very first entries should be the blocks of time you need to get moving on your goal. Include such things as time for mentors, reading, training, and so on. Then arrange your life around those blocks of time and see if it works. Often people find that the important things still get done, this is similar to the financial savings principle in which, when you pay bills every month, the first person you pay is yourself (or more specifically, your savings vehicle).
* Find your space.
Moving on your goals requires physical space that is yours alone, at least for adequate periods of time. You need an isolated place of your own in which you can brainstorm, dream, pray, and plan. These activities don't work well around kids, televisions, workplaces, or family activities. If absolutely no isolated space is available, you may need to tell everyone that you're holing up in the bedroom for a couple of hours, and you don't want to be interrupted. Or you may be able to go to the office after hours. Or even go to the library. Wherever it is, get a place where you can focus totally on working your plan.
* Get a friend to help.
Show your calendar to someone you trust--someone who manages time well and understands reality. Ask him or her to help you slash the time budget. A friend is likely to be more objective and able to see possibilities more clearly than you are, and that will help you do the necessary surgery on your time budget.
Feedback systems. Successful individuals generally adopt some sort of way to get information on how they are doing, monitor their progress, and see where they might be getting off track or out of balance. This is called a feedback system. Feedback systems can save you time and effort, keep focused, or even improve your rate of progress. Coaches and friends are certainly part of that monitoring and feedback. But you can also set measurable goals (revenue, competency, weight loss, number of healthy dates per month) and periodically check your progress toward them.
For example, I base a simple Excel spreadsheet on my computer that has columns for the date, my weight, my workouts, my eating, my Sleep hours, and comments about the day. It takes less than a minute each night to put in what I did that day. This little spreadsheet is a feedback system for my own physical health. Not only does it chart my progress, it also provides discipline. Knowing I will open it every day gives me a little more self-control. As the saying goes, that which is observed tends to improve. Feedback systems help you observe yourself in reaching your dream.
As you can see, there are lots of resources out there, and they are designed to propel you to success, People who are into ownership are always on the lookout for more resources, because they understand their value.
As we said at the beginning of this section, you need to find the fuel. And you find it by connecting to the right resources. But that is not enough; finding the fuel is just one part of the story here. The next step is to know how to burn the fuel. Learning to burn the fuel efficiently will propel you that much closer to your dream. If it just sits there in your tank, it's dead weight The next section will help you use the resources you find.
Burn the Fuel
I have known many people who are no different from anyone else wanting a better life. They are bright, talented, and goodhearted. But often they don't reach their goals because they don't know how to use the resources they have. They are connected to the right people and places, but they don't get the results they want. You can avoid this failure and maximize your resources with the following recommendations. They are simple, but they work for people who are on their way to achievement.
Invite the feedback from your life guardians. You can pretty much assume that your goal guardians--those experts you tap for specialized information--know they need to give you helpful feedback. That's automatically built into what you go to them for. But with close friends who are part of your feedback system, things are different. Don't make the mistake of assuming that they also know you need their input. They may think that all you want from them is encouragement, acceptance, and grace. They may also think that if you want feedback on something specific, you'll ask for it. Often your friends just don't want to sound critical or hurt your feelings, and you can't blame them for that.
But you don't want to miss out on the tremendous help and value these people can bring to you. Your life guardians--as opposed to your goal guardians--can give you advice, insight, ideas, corrections, and confrontations that can literally make all the difference in the world to your goal.
When you are creating your support team, be sure to give each person permission to tell you the truth, not only with love and support, but also with directness and clarity. They may not at first believe you are serious. So when they venture out and say something like, “Well, I've noticed that you seem to waste a lot of time blaming others for your lack of progress,” you need to say, “Thank you for that correction. May I please have another?” After they see that you didn't curl up into the fetal position or get defensive or act out a victim role, they will begin to tell you realities that can protect and enhance your growth. That is, if they are the right people for your team.
Keep resources separate from the outcome. You will inevitably get close to your resource people, certainly to the life guardians, and often to the dream guardians as well. A sense of connectedness is a natural result when people open up their lives to each other over time. And that's a good thing. Keep in mind, however, that no matter how valuable these people are to you, the final outcome is your responsibility; not theirs. This is your dream, and you need to stay in ownership of it. There is often a temptation to let the team share the burden. Some sharing is helpful, but their role is really to support and assist you. If you stumble or fail, you must take responsibility for it and repair the situation. It's not their fault when you fail. The outcome is yours.
It's a little like a company that tries to be so democratic that no one at all is in authority; seems ideally equal and cooperative until there is a problem. If no one is in charge, then no one is responsible. “We are all responsible” doesn't lend itself to cleaning up messes. President Harry Truman's “the buck stops here” accurately defines your responsibility for your dream. That slogan is worth adopting as your own.
Be grateful, open, and non defensive. Be thankful every day for the people in your life who have signed up on a volunteer or professional level to walk with you toward your dream. They are a tremendous gift. The more you appreciate their contributions, the better you will utilize the wisdom and help they offer you. Be open to what they tell you, and never get into power struggles with them. Try their suggestions, even if at first they don't seem to make sense. Certainly you should question and challenge, but remember that you probably need to listen to these people more than talk.
When Jesus taught, trained, and resourced people, he said lots of things that either made no sense to them or were highly confrontive:
* When Peter wanted to prevent Jesus' death, Jesus said, “Get behind Me, Satan.”
* He told the disciples that the way to save their lives was to lose them.
* He told Nicodemus he must be born twice, which totally confuses him.
* When people wanted to know when the kingdom of God was coming, he told them it was within them.
* When people wanted a miracle, he told them that he would rebuild the temple in three days, but he wasn't referring to a literal temple.
* He said that being sad could be a good thing for people.
Yet today the words of Jesus still bring illumination, insight, and help to all areas of people's lives, if they truly have ears to hear. Successful people don't mind being confused by their mentors, It is just another step in the path of learning and growing. Be open to what you hear from guardians, even if at first it doesn't go down very well.
Normalize complexity and different viewpoints. One of the greatest ways to burn your fuel efficiently is to normalize, or become comfortable with, complex situations, answers, and varying viewpoints you encounter from your resources. You need the ability not to feel derailed or overwhelmed by gray areas and ambiguity, for that is the way life really is.
Most meaningful goals and dreams, and most of our most challenging problems, have several levels of complexity and more than one approach to addressing them. It is tempting to simplify and look for the one right way or the three steps to get you there. But that is a child's way of organizing the world. Grownups don't want to have reality digested into an easily swallowed capsule, for the reduction process may dump needed information. They want the feedback or perspective even it the subject is so complex that various people advising them disagree with each other. Sorting through competing options can be one of the most helpful experiences you will have. Having to make the choice yourself will assist you in taking responsibility for your path, your progress, and your outcome.
A friend of mine assessed his financial situation in relation to his current job, and he was dismayed to find that if things did not change. he would not be able to retire at his targeted age. He went into a research mode to determine the yearly income he needed from that point on. It was more than his current position would generate, but he liked his job and didn't want to leave it. So he searched for ways to supplement his income.
Eventually he found a part-time business that wouldn't take too much of his time because it generated passive income. (An example of passive income would be interest on a savings account.) Before he plunged, however, he resourced financial experts, successful people in that industry, insurance people, accounting people, and other pertinent sources of information. The resulting data was quite complex. The experts' recommendations were not all consistent with each other, and they addressed several different levels of his situation, in addition, all these people represented different industries and used different terms and almost different languages. It was highly confusing for a while, but he stayed on the learning curve and committed himself to making sense of all the opinions. In a short time, he became more conversant with what all the experts were saying, and he was able to pick and choose what he needed from their input. He is now well on the way to meeting his financial goals. He still consults with his experts, because now he knows how to use them in the way that furthers his own dream.
Don't be afraid of complexity and conflicting advice. Listen, learn, and you will soon be able to equip yourself with the information and experiences you need.
Connecting Will Bear Good Fruit for You
It is not good to be a1one, especially when you are stretching your life and working hard to achieve a cherished goal. You need to connect. It is far better to reach out and find the people, the information, and the experiences that will empower you to take the next step, and to make sure it is the right step.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
You Can Always Find a Choice
I remember the meeting as if it were yesterday, probably because the dynamic that almost derailed the discussion is one of my pet peeves.
I was serving as a consultant in a planning retreat with a business group that was constructing a strategic plan. The company was rich with open opportunities, and it was poised to accomplish a lot of exciting things. Several of us saw the possibilities as endless, and we were really excited about the potential.
“Let's do this.” I said, and then I explained an idea sure to bring about expansion and profit. “The result could be incredible!”
“Well, that would be nice,” said one of the chief team members. But we don't have the resources for that.”
“So?” I said. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well,' she retorted. “It's a wonderful plan, but we really can't entertain that option. To pull a thing like that off will take a lot of people and a lot of money--resources that we don't have.”
“Yes,” I said. “I understand that you don't have them. I still don't get what that has to do with anything.”
“What do you meant she said. “If you don't have the resources, you simply can't do it. I don't understand what you don't get.
“Not having the resources does not mean you can't do it,” I said. “You still have choices.”
“I know,” she said. “But this option is not one of them.”
“I must disagree,” I replied. “You are forgetting something. You have lots of choices other than just saving no to this opportunity. You have the choice, for example, to go out and find the resources--the money and the people that you don't have.”
“How would we do that?” she asked.
“I don't know yet.” I said. “We'll have to look into it. You could find partners, investors, or strategic alliances that would benefit from the outcome and have them put money and people into it. You could sell the idea to someone bigger and then have a piece of it. You could build the plan out slowly from the place where we are, and then when it's up and running, find the investment. You could find another group who needs this piece in their puzzle and piggy-back with them. Who knows until we get into it? But, you certainly have choices.”
But clearly the dream-killer was still not on board, and I began to get a little frustrated. “Or, you could dye your hair orange, move to Colorado, and sell popsicles while you spin around in circles and sing 'Three Blind Mice,'” I said.
“What?” she asked. She looked befuddled and irritated at me.
“My point is this,” I said. “You have tons of choices available to you, including the last one and a million others. Unlimited choices. if you open your eyes to those choices, you can make this thing work and get where you want to go. But if the first roadblock you hit makes you think it's all over--as if you have no choices--you will never get anywhere.”
We then got into a valuable discussion that changed the mindset of the entire company. The group began to look at possibilities in different ways. They began to see options, opportunities, and solutions that they never would have seen before. And it led to positive results, both in that particular situation and others as well.
Those results came from a particular shift in the way they saw the world and themselves. The shift was this:
From I don't have a choice, to I may not have the choice I want; but I can find other choices instead.
Almost every day Dr. Townsend and I see people who hit a situation and feel helpless to correct it because they think they have no choice. Here are a few common examples:
* I have talked to my husband, but he just won't listen.
* I have tried to get dates, but there are just no good ones out there.
* I tried counseling, but it did not help me.
* I tried a weight--loss program, but it didn't work.
* I confronted my friend, but she would not listen.
* I tried talking to my mother, but she just got angry.
* I want a new career, but they aren't hiring new positions at my company.
The common denominator in all these complaints points back to our theme of ownership. Each of these statements is saving. “It's not my fault; it's someone else or the circumstance. So there's nothing I can do.” Okay you do not have the circumstance you want. You did not get the answer you wanted. The critical question is, who owns that result? In this list, the owners of the result are:
* The husband
* The dating environment
* The last counselor who was not helpful
* The weight-loss group
* The friend
* The mother
* The company
But, none of those people is out there worrying, suffering, or fretting about the result. Only the people passing the buck are feeling the results. That's where the result lives--in the complainers' lives and souls. For them to take ownership would mean that they must recognize that the problem always ends up at the doorstep of the one who is responsible for correcting it. The problem may not be their fault, but they are the ones bearing the results--who really own the results--for they have to live with them. It is their problem, not the problem of those other people. This means they are the ones responsible for doing something about it. It's up to them to find what choices are available to them that they are not yet seeing.
If you are the wife of the husband who won't listen, and you want him to “get it,” what are your choices? You have more than you can imagine. And many of them, if you take ownership and responsibility, have a good chance of getting him to change. Others will result in your being happy even if he does not change. Either way, you have choices. You are not relegated to a miserable life because your husband (or wife) is not listening to you about some problem. What are some of your choices? You can:
* Ask someone to evaluate the effectiveness of the way you're communicating the problem to him. Something in your approach may be contributing to the problem.
* Tell him that in spite of your efforts to communicate, he is not hearing you, and you want to discuss why he is not responding and determine how the two of you can find a solution.
* Tell him that if he does not get it, there are going to be some consequences.
* Tell him that you want him to go with you to counseling.
* Tell him that if he doesn't join you in counseling, there are going to be consequences.
* Tell him that if he doesn't join you in counseling, you will go alone to see what your options are.
* Figure out who has leverage with him--someone he will listen to--and get that person to talk to him with you.
* Do an intervention.
* Unplug from your need for him to get it, thus cutting off his power over your emotion wellbeing.
* Join an outside support system to get what you need in terms of connectedness, support, validation, and so on.
* Work through your issues from the past that his patterns tap into to fuel your pain.
* Become so strong that he has no more ability to make you react, Then shower him with love, leaving him speechless with no one to light and blame for his life.
These are only a few of the scads of options available. You are never without options. That is the nature of God's creation. Yes, we are dealt a certain hand of cards, but we choose how to play them. A good player can win even with a bad hand. God has given you a creative will, and be gives you open doors to find a way out of any situation. Listen to the words of Solomon (Proverbs 11:9 NIV): With his mouth the godless destroys his neighbor, but through knowledge the righteous escape.
Or the words of Paul:
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV, emphasis added)
God promises that there is no such thing as “no way out.” When we seek God, he will provide some way to escape whatever it is that ensnares us. We often see that reality in people whose lives are working. No matter what happens to them, they find a way out. In other words:
Their circumstances do not control them. They always find choices.
As they look for God and his answers and search for the options, one always appears. A choice is there. It may not be the one they wanted, but there is always a viable option available.
So, why don't we always see it?
First, it may be that we are not open to it. We want the option we want, and if that option is not available, then we often get stuck in blame and protest loudly that. “It's not my fault.” I think this is the main reason a lot of people remain stuck. They know what they want, and when that's not an option, they think there are no options. It may be due to stubbornness, or it may just be an overinvestment in their preferred option.
This scenario often occurs in relationships. Some people never get over a relationship not working. I have a friend whose parents divorced thirty years ago when she was in high school. I ran into her recently and asked about them.
“Dad is doing well,” she replied. “He is remarried and really happy. He found a very nice woman and seems to have grown a lot since you knew him. I am really happy for him.”
“How about your mom?” I asked.
“Not so good,” she said. 'She just stayed stuck after the divorce. She's still hung up on my dad and wants him back. She is seventy now and quite bitter. It is not any fun to be around her. The family avoids her.”
Her story saddened me. I remember her mother. Vibrant and full of personality outgoing and beautiful, she would have been quite the catch for someone. But apparently she would not open her eyes to other options available if she could not have the one she wanted. If not her former husband, she would consider no one else.
Why? Who knows? I don't know the woman well enough to speculate, because I don't know what all is going through her head. But whatever the reason driving her refusal to consider options, the result is the same: she is stuck in her miserable condition. And the hard truth is that it's her own fault. She simply did not open herself to the options available to her when the one she desired was closed off.
Adaptability
One of the most important qualities that a person can have is the ability to adapt. It is one of the measuring sticks that psychologists use to determine a persons maturity and mental health. Adaptability is one of the strengths that vaults a person unto adulthood. Think about it. When children cannot get a particular need met--such as hunger--they look to Mommy or Daddy to find the solution. Maybe it's a nice dinner of hot dogs. But when the children are grown, there is no Mommy or Daddy to come up with another option for dinner if all the hot dogs are gone. The mature person is on his own to find a way to adapt to that reality.
But what if you are not adaptable? You look in the fridge and find that there are no wieners. Being unwilling to adapt and look at options, you say, “Well, no dinner for me tonight.” So you go to bed hungry. And bitter at the world.
But if you ate adaptable, you will adjust your expectations and say. “I have choices.” You will begin to ask yourself questions: “What if I call my neighbor and ask if he has a few spare frankfurters?” “What if I look up a good take-out service?” “How about going out and finding an open food store or a late-night restaurant?” You realize that you have choices other than just sitting there and going hungry.
Of course, most people would easily see their options when dealing with the minor inconvenience of hot dog deprivation. But people do fail every day in the same simple process of adaptation when dealing with relationship struggles, emotional difficulties, career stumbling blocks, and the like. They hit the obstacle and think they have no choice but to live with the problem. But if they are open to other choices, a viable option always shows up.
Learned Helplessness
Another obstacle to finding one's options is what psychologists call “learned helplessness.” The term comes from some original experiments in which animals were put in situations where no choice available to them would lead to a good outcome. Soon the animals learned to think that no matter what they did, nothing good would come of it. There was nothing they could do to improve their lot. They were truly helpless to change their fate, so they simply gave up and quit trying. When these animals determined that they were helpless, or better put, powerless, they would just endure their hopeless condition even when a visible escape was provided them. They would not take the escape route because their belief system told them that they had no good choice, even when they were staring it right in the face.
People do the same thing. They develop “learned helplessness,” and it is actually a formula for depression. They learn early in life that no matter what they do, it will not affect the outcome whatsoever. No matter what they do, Dad or Mom can't be pleased. No matter what they do, someone still gets angry. No matter what they do, they do not get the approval that they need. No matter what they do, they cannot escape the bad outcome, It's just the way it is. So they quit trying.
Then something even worse happens. In addition to giving up on trying, they develop a way of seeing themselves as powerless in relation to the world. They no longer see the world as operating on a cause-and-effect model in which ones actions produce a corresponding result. Instead, they come to see it operating on a random model in which things just happen and there is little you can do about them. The law of sowing and reaping goes out the window. So they quit sowing into their lives, and as a result, they also quit reaping. Why? Because they believe that there are no choices. Nothing they do can make things better, so when nothing happens to make things better, it is never their fault.
Apply that way of thinking to the situations we listed above and you can see how some people stay stuck in their bad situations for many years. Let's look at their list of excuses again:
* The husband who wouldn't listen
* The poor dating environment
* The counselor who didn't help
* The weight-loss program that didn't work
* The friend who wouldn't listen
* The mother who got angry
* The company that wasn't hiring
But the reality is--and I can tell you this with all certainty--that every single day, other people in those same situations do not just accept them as they are and resign themselves to misery. Instead, they believe that there are always choices, and they join the hand of God to find a way out of the captivity of their situation. They look past the choice they wish they could have and search for the one that works. And they find it.
What It Looks Like
Sometimes seeing a way of thinking in action helps you to adopt it as your own. Many people grow up in situations where looking for choices was not modeled to them, and they don't even know what the process looks like. (They are not the ones you want on your scavenger hunt team, by the way.) But if they could see “choice discovering” modeled for them, they could learn it. So let's look at choice discovering modeled in a few specific situations in order to learn the choices always available to us. These examples involving dating, emotional issues, and weight loss will help you picture how expanding your options means you never really hit a dead-end.
Choice-Discovering Model: Dating
I was speaking to singles in the Los Angeles area about dating when a woman raised her hand and said, “I hear all of this stuff about dating, but it's very difficult to find anyone good to date in a place like L.A. The people are so transient… no one seems to have any roots here, so they just come and go. As a result, there are no real stable communities where everyone knows each other and can help connect you with someone compatible.”
I could not believe my ears. Southern California has about twenty million people. And she thinks there are no dating options in that pool? It was the classic externalization of the problem we've been discussing. Her inability to find good dating material was not her fault; it was the environment. Southern California offers no good choice of men. So I'm stuck; there is nothing I can do.”
The real kicker was in the next thing she said: “It would be a lot easier to find good dates in the Midwest, where people and communities are much more stable.”
Why was that such a significant statement? Because earlier that very week, I had been in the Midwest talking to singles and a woman had said. “It is so difficult to find anyone to date here in the Midwest. People have been here so long and the communities are so established that everyone knows each other already and you can't break into the circle. So there are 110 new prospects.” And then she said, of all things, “It would be so much easier to find people to date in a place like L.A. or New York.
Suffice it to say that I was well equipped to refute California Girl's excuse. What was keeping these women from finding the dates they desired? One thing: not seeing the fact that they had choices. Their geography was their excuse. It prevented them from finding the relationships they wanted. Their thought process went like this: “I am not getting what I want. Guess that is the way it is around here.” Translated into our earlier metaphor, “There are no hot dogs in this fridge, so I guess there's no dinner tonight.”
But, the true reality is quite different than their perceived reality. I met and talked with singles in both locales who were finding very fulfilling dating lives right where those two women said it was impossible. Just like out two complainers, these dating women had also experienced “datelessness.” But instead of burying their dreams in a tear-soaked handkerchief, they asked themselves, “What are the choices I could make to change this situation?” There were only about a million, but here are a few that these women saw and activated:
Some looked at themselves and figured out the fact that they were not getting dates because of something out of kilter about themselves. So they asked their friends for feedback about themselves, and when they got it, they went to work on the problem. When they corrected it, their dating lives changed. The things they corrected ranged all the way from “you are not open to different kinds of men other than your own dream ideal,” to “you don't come across as open to men in social situations.” Some of these women got in better shape; others had to address certain internal attitudes that were keeping them stuck.
Some of these women figured out that they were not getting dates because they were not meeting enough people. So they joined a dating service. I just got a phone call from a woman who had told me a little over a year ago that “there were no good men to date,” and that “she never got asked out.” At that time I challenged her to work my program of dating that urges participants to stop blaming outside circumstances and start seeing their choices. I urged her to join a dating service, but she was resistant; she did not at first see that as a viable choice. But in time her attitude changed and she became open to her choices. Well, I'll cut to the chase and tell you why she called me. She had just said yes to a marriage proposal from a great guy who came from one of those dating services. And, as she would tell you, he was not the first man she met. She had to choose to continue her search after the first ones did not work out.
These women figured out that their “traffic pattern was not exposing them to people then had never met before. They realized that there was no one magic bullet--no single place where everyone found dates. So then expanded their range and started going to new places.
The women also got active when there were no good activities available where then could meet other singles. They began to organize activities on their own. One group of women from my church started a club called S.W.A.R.M., which stands for “Single Women Actively Recruiting Men.” They organized monthly gathering and outings to which members invited men they were not attached to but had met through work or some other venue. In essence, they were all recruiting for each other.
The list could go on, but the point is, whatever problem they found in themselves, they corrected it and their date life turned around.
The point here is not in the specific suggestions, although many of them are highly creative and effective. The point is the way of thinking that led to those suggestions. These women realized that when something is not working stop blaming. Stop passively complaining, “It's not our fault” and get busy figuring out what your choices are. When you don't see any choices, keep looking or create them on your own.
Choice-Discovering Model: Emotional Issues
The caller on our radio show asked what she could do about her eating disorder. She had suffered from bulimia for quite a while. She told us that she was in a 12-step program that had helped her in some ways, but it had left her bulimia largely in touched. Her counselors had convinced her that her bulimia was an addiction and that she would always be in recovery for it. But her recovery program was not helping, and she felt stuck.
“First,” I said. “I have a big problem with calling bulimia an addiction. In my way of thinking, an addiction is something that involves a substance that you can't let go of, and it involves such factors as acquired tolerance, withdrawal effects, and a whole list of other things not associated with your problem. While the term addiction may be a helpful metaphor for some out-of-control behaviors, I do not think that the addiction model of treatment is the answer for bulimia.
“But it does involve a substance,” she said. “Food.”
“I understand,” I told her, “but the difference in food and alcohol. for example, is that you will always eat food, even after you are no longer bulimic. Alcoholics should never touch alcohol again. Their body has acquired an addiction reaction that will always trigger a downslide to non-functional status, There is no safe way for them ever to drink again. There is a good way for you to eat. So, don't limit yourself to a treatment that is successful for addicts but does not address the issues that are driving your bulimia.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Bulimia is usually driven by some predictable developmental issue, I replied, “like need--fear dilemmas, autonomy struggles involving boundaries and freedom, perfectionism and ideal demands, and a failure to achieve adulthood in relation to symbol in parent figures. If you would find a good therapist who understood those things, you could work through what is driving your bulimia, and then you would not have to live forever in 'recovery' for it. It would be gone. I have seen it happen a zillion times.
“But I tried counseling, and it didn't work,” she said. That comment made me suspect the real issue behind the problems, but I probed further.
She went on to tell me all the issues that her counselor had addressed, and they were not the kinds of things that resolve bulimia. I told her she needed to find a new counselor, one who understands the kinds of issues that cause and maintain bulimia.
I could tell that she was struggling to believe that anything would really work. I could hear in her voice that she really had tried, and that the very thought of trying again was overwhelming her.
And here was the reason, as I suspected: She was not afraid of the effort of trying; she was afraid of trying and having it not work again. She was afraid of the hopelessness that would weigh down her heart if another attempt yielded no results. She knew well the danger of Proverbs 13:12, which says, “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (NIV).
But here is the point: her hopelessness did not come from a course of action being tried and not working. It came from her way of thinking about trying.
Think of it this way. This caller's philosophy was that you try something, hoping it will work, and if it doesn't you have no other options and everything is hopeless. No wonder this woman was holding back. Of course it would he a very scary thing to try anything. If I thought I had just one bullet, I wouldn't fire it until I had to. One shot is all you get, and after that it is Hopeless City. But--
What if your hope is not in any particular option; your hope is in the belief that if you keep looking for options, one will appear?
This approach makes a huge difference. Huge! If your hope is based in the fact that you always have choices instead of being vested solely in any one choice, then you always have hope. Hope need never end, because no matter how many disappointments or failures, you always look for the next available choice. When something does not work out, you immediately ask yourself “What are my choices?” By considering your choices, you find that you always have somewhere to go other than into hopelessness. You have options, freedom, possibilities, and hope.
This caller had hit a wall because she saw no choices. Her 12-step program, though helpful in many ways, was not making her bulimia go away. (By the ways we are big supporters of 12-step programs. The point we are making here is that there are things that bulimics need to do in addition to 12-step work.) But as I pointed out to this woman, she had a lot of choices that she was not seeing. Here are just a few that we gave her in that short phone call:
* She could go back to counseling, but find a counselor who knows the developmental issues underlying bulimia. If the first one she talked to doesn't know them, then she should look for another.
* She could choose to bring other people into her struggle when it was actually happening. A 12-step program usually teaches people to call their sponsors or someone else who can help in the moment when the temptation is occurring. This woman could find help in calling someone when she was tempted to binge.
* If one meeting a week was not doing the job, she could choose to up the number of meetings until she got more control. I shared with her that sometimes when people are hinging as often as she was, they choose to attend a meeting every day. The co-host of our radio show, Steve Arterburn, shared with her that many alcoholics go to as many as ninety meetings in thirty days to get in control of their drinking.
* She could choose to admit to her sponsor and the people in her group the reality of where she really was in her struggle. She admitted that it was extremely hard for her to admit her need of other people. She had a choice about whether to admit that need and let others in on her failure when she was not exercising. Making that one choice to depend on others would go a long way in overcoming her bulimia, because bulimia usually involves dependency fears and conflicts.
* She could choose to get a good book that addresses the issues behind bulimia. She could also choose to get into a small group of friends or find an accountability partner to help her work on her issues.
* She could find a specific support group on bulimia in her town and join it to learn what others are doing to overcome the problem.
* She could choose to go into a more structured treatment, like many bulimics do. Once-a-week counseling or a 12-step group is often not enough. She could check into a treatment center and stay awhile. This kind of treatment can be very successful.
Note that all this information was packed into a very short phone call. If someone were to sit down and spend time with this woman, I am sure that they would discover many other choices available to her as well. The point is this: you always have choices. If you do not have a terminal illness that is going to take your life in the next hour, you usually have options available to you. (As a matter of fact, the research shows that even in terminal illnesses people have many options which will drastically affect their quality and quantity of life.) Choices, choices, choices. We never run out of them.
However, we get stuck in our problems because of two things we don't like.
First, we don't like it when the choice we desire is not available to us. Consider the woman who was stuck at age seventy after getting divorced at forty because she still wanted her ex-husband. That option was not available and she would not entertain the other choices open to her. Meanwhile, her husband did make other choices and put together a good life for himself
The second thing we often don't like is this: if the option we have chosen is not working, as in the case of the bulimic woman, we often don't want to look past it even though it is not yielding results. She was choosing her once-a-week l2-step program, and it was not working. But she wanted that option to work; she did not want to go through the hassle, the risk, and the dread of starting over. The axiom, If you keep doing the same thing, you'll keep getting the same results, applies to her way of thinking.
We have a tendency either to want our first choice that we can't have, or to cling to the failing one we have chosen. Neither option is viable, but that does not mean it is all over.
In dealing with emotional issues, there are always choices available that we might not be exercising. When your relationships are not working, you are not limited to patterns you have relied on in the past. You can stop doing what you have been doing and try something different. When it comes to emotional issues, people tend to limit themselves to their long-standing patterns of behaving.
I have a friend who has dealt with depression. When she is depressed her natural inclination is to stay in bed or withdraw. But she has the kind of character that understands choices and options. So when she is depressed she makes the choice to get up and go work out, no matter how she feels. And she makes the choice to call a friend, or go to a group, or get out with someone she is close to, no matter how she feels. She would tell you that these choices have made a huge difference at some very difficult times. While they are not the total cure, and she still has to make other hard choices in order to get well, exercising choices to be proactive about her condition has played a big part in improving it.
Look at your patterns of dealing with your emotional issues and then explore all the other choices available to you.
Another example: If you are plagued by feelings of loneliness, and yet you just go home and watch TV, its time to make some choices to improve your condition. What other things could you do when you feel lonely? You could:
* Call a friend.
* Go to a church gathering.
* Join a small group of Bible study.
* Attend a generic recovery meeting and talk about loneliness.
* Do volunteer work.
* Take a class that meets at the times when you are most prone to loneliness.
* Mentor a child.
* Go exercise with a friend, or a class.
* One million other options not listed here.
The same principle applies to other emotional issues. Often people do not see options available to them other than the patterns they have always lived out. People with anger issues, for example, do not see that their first choice, which might be to never lose their temper, is not an option yet. Their anger does not just go away because they want it to. But they still have choices. They could choose to remove themselves from a situation when they feel their anger beginning to rise. They could learn to recognize the anger triggers and avoid them. Or when they first feel anger rising, they could tell the person affected that it is happening, and they need to back away from the situation.
As the Bible says, God will provide a way of escape.
Choice-Discovering Model: Weight Loss
“I tried the weight-loss group, and it didn't work.” We hear this comment often on the radio show or in seminars. Or sometimes, “It worked for a while, but then I gained it all back.” The despair that often accompanies this issue is heartbreaking, especially when people have “tried.” But, when you begin to get below the surface, you often find that the problem was not the program that did not work, but the person who did not work the program. And that issue is related to not seeing available choices.
When looking at weight loss, people usually see two choices: eat less, and exercise more. And they are right. All the many research studies say the same thing: to lose weight, one needs to move about more and eat less. But there is a problem with that solution: people are unable to do it, or at least to sustain it. What they will do is join a program and sometimes get initial results. Then they gradually begin to wane in their commitment to the program. They begin to try just sticking to the diet, for example, instead of continuing in the groups as well. And soon they find what they have always found--that their willpower fails them. Their conclusion: “That didn't work for me.”
In reality, what has not worked is often their openness to explore other choices. A number of key choices are available to anyone who is serious about getting control of an out-of-control behavior--choices that actually work. As it relates to our current discussion of weight loss, the lesson is this: when your willpower is failing, relying on the ineffective “don't eat that” is not your only choice. You could:
* Add structure to your program. If you are not able to stick to some program requirement, then you need more discipline from the outside. Example: A group of women that I know were having difficulty making the tough choices necessary to carry out their goal. So they made another choice. They chose something they could do. They chose to have a thirty-minute conference call every morning at 7:00 to go over what they had to do that day to make it work and support each other. That one choice made it all come together for them.
* Choose to eliminate temptation. If choosing to not eat the potato chips in the pantry is not a viable option because you lack the power to resist them, you can choose to not buy them in the first place. If they are not in the house, you are not going to eat them. People find this technique extremely helpful. They choose to not have any of the no-no foods in the house.
* Choose external self-control support. If you cannot follow the above suggestion because you can't pass by potato chips in the grocery store, then don't go shopping alone. Shop with a friend who is in the program with you, or with someone committed to your goal. If you are alone and feeling tempted, have a few friends whom you have agreed to call at such moments to talk you through it. Tell them that you are about to get into trouble and you want help. Make the choice to promise them that you will never cheat without calling them first.
* Choose to bring external discipline and structure to the specific tasks. If you are supposed to exercise several times a week, and you cannot do it because of your lack of self-control, borrow someone else's structure. Choose to join a class, or choose to assemble a group of friends who will meet every morning, or at lunchtime, and walk or work out together. You may not have the willpower to do it on your own, but you can join others and tap into their willpower. College students utilize this option all the time by joining study groups to help them get done what they lack the discipline to do on their own. Hiring a trainer accomplishes the same thing.
* Choose to deal with the emotions and stresses that are driving you to eat. While willpower is not one of your choices, talking to someone about the problems that may cause your over eating is one possible option. Join a group, see a counselor, meet with a friend, and begin to get at what's eating you. Journaling is helpful for some people. You always have a choice to let your emotions either be yours alone, or to share them with someone else. When you share them, they will become less powerful, and they will lose the ability to drive you to the behavior over which you have lost control.
* choose to not drop out of your program. Over and over again we hear of people who have joined a particular program, achieved success, but then dropped out. Not only did they gain back the weight they lost, which, as the research shows, usually happens, more often than not they gained even more. Then they say, tried that and it did not work for me.” But in most cases, it was the dropping out that caused it to not work.
If you are truly interested in success, you must make two choices here. First, you must choose not to drop out of the program, even if you are not happy with the initial results. The ones who continue are the ones who end up getting good results. Second, choose to do something that will help you to stay in the program. Usually that means getting the kind of outside support and accountability mentioned above. Staying in the program is the most powerful choice. Forget the choice of relying on your willpower to keep from overeating. Don't cling to a choice doomed to failure.
* Choose to see weight loss as a long-term lifestyle change. Getting into this kind of continuing-the-program mindset is the most important choice you can make. Weight loss is not something you simply “do.” It is a matter of changing your lifestyle to where it's the same as the people who do not have weight problems. Those slim and trim people do the same things as the people who are
trying to lose weight. They explore their emotions, seek support, avail themselves of the same kinds of structured exercise routines, and so on. Ever think about that? It's the skinny people you see at the gym, they go routinely; it's their way of life. And that is the way you must choose to see your weight--control routine. It is not a choice just to lose weight. It is a much more far-reaching choice: the choice to change your lifestyle. When you do that, the weight-control choices will begin to take care of themselves.
This brief discussion is certainly not meant to be a weight--loss guide or a comprehensive program. We have counseled too many people with weight issues to think we can offer a cure-all in a few pages. If weight is your problem, our hearts go out to you, and we encourage you to find good help with a reputable program that shows proven results. But remember, the good programs work only if you work the program. Choose to find one that you can continue to work, or choose to get the support structures that you will need to keep working it. That will be the key to your success.
Circles of Choice
Remember the section on adaptability? We noted that a child who has no dinner has no choice in the matter, as he or she is dependent on a caretaker for everything. But an adult with an empty refrigerator has choices. Then we said something else very important for you to remember.
We pointed out that most of you do not lose sight of your choices in a simple situation like no food in the fridge. You easily see that you have other options, like heading for the supermarket, going to a restaurant, or moseying over to your neighbor's house to make a sandwich. No problem. But when you hit a relational roadblock or a work roadblock, the “I have no choice thinking often sets in. Most of us exercise choice effectively in some areas but not in others. Therefore, to avoid getting stuck in any area of your life, you need to:
Find your spots where you lose our freedom of choice.
These spots are different for everyone. Is it when someone refuses to give you what you need from them? Is it when someone gets angry? Is it when you hit an obstacle in the pursuit of a goal? Is it when your emotions are strong, or when you are depressed? When does it happen? How does it happen? Who is able to make it happen? When you learn the answers to those questions, you are on your way to freedom.
One woman who called into our radio program said that she was going to visit her family for Christmas, and she was getting depressed because she knew her grandfather would make things miserable, just as he always did. She dreaded hearing his criticism of her. We asked her why she had to listen to that, and she responded, “I just have to, that's all. I have no choice. That is what he does.”
This woman lost her freedom the minute she walked in the door of that family gathering. She did not realize that no one can take away your freedom; she chose to give it up. As Paul tells us, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1 NIV). She was letting her grandfather “burden her with a yoke of slaver? He did not have the power to do that without her permission. But the family pressure to take it was so strong, that this was the place where she lost her choices.
As we talked, we quickly thought of several choices she could make:
* She could choose to not attend.
* She could choose to accept that he would be who he is, but she could give up the desire for his approval. That would empower her to ignore his remarks.
* She could empathize with him. “Gee, Grandfather, it seems like its frustrating to you to have me be like I am. That sounds hard.” She did not need to get hooked into convincing him of anything.
* She could steer clear of the grandfather at the gathering.
* She could call a friend throughout the gathering and give reports on how crazy he was, and they could laugh it off together.
* She could call him beforehand and ask if he planned to put her down this year as he had before. If he said yes, she could inform him that she might just go in another room when he started his put-downs. She wanted him to understand this beforehand, so he would not be surprised at her action.
The caller actually began to get lighthearted. Just the reminder that she did always have choices was a huge relief to her, as it is to all of us.
WE DON'T DO WELL IN PRISON BECAUSE WE WERE NOT DESIGNED FOR IT. We were designed to be free. And in some ways, life is a continual struggle to gain, regain, and live out Our God-given freedom from the forces, both internal and external, that would take our freedom away.
Find out where your circle of freedom ends and take steps to enlarge it until you can feel free, no matter where you are, by remembering one thing you always have choices! Ultimately, no person, or no circumstance has control of you--that control belongs to you and you only. So grasp God's hand and return to the freedom that he died to give you.
I was serving as a consultant in a planning retreat with a business group that was constructing a strategic plan. The company was rich with open opportunities, and it was poised to accomplish a lot of exciting things. Several of us saw the possibilities as endless, and we were really excited about the potential.
“Let's do this.” I said, and then I explained an idea sure to bring about expansion and profit. “The result could be incredible!”
“Well, that would be nice,” said one of the chief team members. But we don't have the resources for that.”
“So?” I said. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well,' she retorted. “It's a wonderful plan, but we really can't entertain that option. To pull a thing like that off will take a lot of people and a lot of money--resources that we don't have.”
“Yes,” I said. “I understand that you don't have them. I still don't get what that has to do with anything.”
“What do you meant she said. “If you don't have the resources, you simply can't do it. I don't understand what you don't get.
“Not having the resources does not mean you can't do it,” I said. “You still have choices.”
“I know,” she said. “But this option is not one of them.”
“I must disagree,” I replied. “You are forgetting something. You have lots of choices other than just saving no to this opportunity. You have the choice, for example, to go out and find the resources--the money and the people that you don't have.”
“How would we do that?” she asked.
“I don't know yet.” I said. “We'll have to look into it. You could find partners, investors, or strategic alliances that would benefit from the outcome and have them put money and people into it. You could sell the idea to someone bigger and then have a piece of it. You could build the plan out slowly from the place where we are, and then when it's up and running, find the investment. You could find another group who needs this piece in their puzzle and piggy-back with them. Who knows until we get into it? But, you certainly have choices.”
But clearly the dream-killer was still not on board, and I began to get a little frustrated. “Or, you could dye your hair orange, move to Colorado, and sell popsicles while you spin around in circles and sing 'Three Blind Mice,'” I said.
“What?” she asked. She looked befuddled and irritated at me.
“My point is this,” I said. “You have tons of choices available to you, including the last one and a million others. Unlimited choices. if you open your eyes to those choices, you can make this thing work and get where you want to go. But if the first roadblock you hit makes you think it's all over--as if you have no choices--you will never get anywhere.”
We then got into a valuable discussion that changed the mindset of the entire company. The group began to look at possibilities in different ways. They began to see options, opportunities, and solutions that they never would have seen before. And it led to positive results, both in that particular situation and others as well.
Those results came from a particular shift in the way they saw the world and themselves. The shift was this:
From I don't have a choice, to I may not have the choice I want; but I can find other choices instead.
Almost every day Dr. Townsend and I see people who hit a situation and feel helpless to correct it because they think they have no choice. Here are a few common examples:
* I have talked to my husband, but he just won't listen.
* I have tried to get dates, but there are just no good ones out there.
* I tried counseling, but it did not help me.
* I tried a weight--loss program, but it didn't work.
* I confronted my friend, but she would not listen.
* I tried talking to my mother, but she just got angry.
* I want a new career, but they aren't hiring new positions at my company.
The common denominator in all these complaints points back to our theme of ownership. Each of these statements is saving. “It's not my fault; it's someone else or the circumstance. So there's nothing I can do.” Okay you do not have the circumstance you want. You did not get the answer you wanted. The critical question is, who owns that result? In this list, the owners of the result are:
* The husband
* The dating environment
* The last counselor who was not helpful
* The weight-loss group
* The friend
* The mother
* The company
But, none of those people is out there worrying, suffering, or fretting about the result. Only the people passing the buck are feeling the results. That's where the result lives--in the complainers' lives and souls. For them to take ownership would mean that they must recognize that the problem always ends up at the doorstep of the one who is responsible for correcting it. The problem may not be their fault, but they are the ones bearing the results--who really own the results--for they have to live with them. It is their problem, not the problem of those other people. This means they are the ones responsible for doing something about it. It's up to them to find what choices are available to them that they are not yet seeing.
If you are the wife of the husband who won't listen, and you want him to “get it,” what are your choices? You have more than you can imagine. And many of them, if you take ownership and responsibility, have a good chance of getting him to change. Others will result in your being happy even if he does not change. Either way, you have choices. You are not relegated to a miserable life because your husband (or wife) is not listening to you about some problem. What are some of your choices? You can:
* Ask someone to evaluate the effectiveness of the way you're communicating the problem to him. Something in your approach may be contributing to the problem.
* Tell him that in spite of your efforts to communicate, he is not hearing you, and you want to discuss why he is not responding and determine how the two of you can find a solution.
* Tell him that if he does not get it, there are going to be some consequences.
* Tell him that you want him to go with you to counseling.
* Tell him that if he doesn't join you in counseling, there are going to be consequences.
* Tell him that if he doesn't join you in counseling, you will go alone to see what your options are.
* Figure out who has leverage with him--someone he will listen to--and get that person to talk to him with you.
* Do an intervention.
* Unplug from your need for him to get it, thus cutting off his power over your emotion wellbeing.
* Join an outside support system to get what you need in terms of connectedness, support, validation, and so on.
* Work through your issues from the past that his patterns tap into to fuel your pain.
* Become so strong that he has no more ability to make you react, Then shower him with love, leaving him speechless with no one to light and blame for his life.
These are only a few of the scads of options available. You are never without options. That is the nature of God's creation. Yes, we are dealt a certain hand of cards, but we choose how to play them. A good player can win even with a bad hand. God has given you a creative will, and be gives you open doors to find a way out of any situation. Listen to the words of Solomon (Proverbs 11:9 NIV): With his mouth the godless destroys his neighbor, but through knowledge the righteous escape.
Or the words of Paul:
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. (1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV, emphasis added)
God promises that there is no such thing as “no way out.” When we seek God, he will provide some way to escape whatever it is that ensnares us. We often see that reality in people whose lives are working. No matter what happens to them, they find a way out. In other words:
Their circumstances do not control them. They always find choices.
As they look for God and his answers and search for the options, one always appears. A choice is there. It may not be the one they wanted, but there is always a viable option available.
So, why don't we always see it?
First, it may be that we are not open to it. We want the option we want, and if that option is not available, then we often get stuck in blame and protest loudly that. “It's not my fault.” I think this is the main reason a lot of people remain stuck. They know what they want, and when that's not an option, they think there are no options. It may be due to stubbornness, or it may just be an overinvestment in their preferred option.
This scenario often occurs in relationships. Some people never get over a relationship not working. I have a friend whose parents divorced thirty years ago when she was in high school. I ran into her recently and asked about them.
“Dad is doing well,” she replied. “He is remarried and really happy. He found a very nice woman and seems to have grown a lot since you knew him. I am really happy for him.”
“How about your mom?” I asked.
“Not so good,” she said. 'She just stayed stuck after the divorce. She's still hung up on my dad and wants him back. She is seventy now and quite bitter. It is not any fun to be around her. The family avoids her.”
Her story saddened me. I remember her mother. Vibrant and full of personality outgoing and beautiful, she would have been quite the catch for someone. But apparently she would not open her eyes to other options available if she could not have the one she wanted. If not her former husband, she would consider no one else.
Why? Who knows? I don't know the woman well enough to speculate, because I don't know what all is going through her head. But whatever the reason driving her refusal to consider options, the result is the same: she is stuck in her miserable condition. And the hard truth is that it's her own fault. She simply did not open herself to the options available to her when the one she desired was closed off.
Adaptability
One of the most important qualities that a person can have is the ability to adapt. It is one of the measuring sticks that psychologists use to determine a persons maturity and mental health. Adaptability is one of the strengths that vaults a person unto adulthood. Think about it. When children cannot get a particular need met--such as hunger--they look to Mommy or Daddy to find the solution. Maybe it's a nice dinner of hot dogs. But when the children are grown, there is no Mommy or Daddy to come up with another option for dinner if all the hot dogs are gone. The mature person is on his own to find a way to adapt to that reality.
But what if you are not adaptable? You look in the fridge and find that there are no wieners. Being unwilling to adapt and look at options, you say, “Well, no dinner for me tonight.” So you go to bed hungry. And bitter at the world.
But if you ate adaptable, you will adjust your expectations and say. “I have choices.” You will begin to ask yourself questions: “What if I call my neighbor and ask if he has a few spare frankfurters?” “What if I look up a good take-out service?” “How about going out and finding an open food store or a late-night restaurant?” You realize that you have choices other than just sitting there and going hungry.
Of course, most people would easily see their options when dealing with the minor inconvenience of hot dog deprivation. But people do fail every day in the same simple process of adaptation when dealing with relationship struggles, emotional difficulties, career stumbling blocks, and the like. They hit the obstacle and think they have no choice but to live with the problem. But if they are open to other choices, a viable option always shows up.
Learned Helplessness
Another obstacle to finding one's options is what psychologists call “learned helplessness.” The term comes from some original experiments in which animals were put in situations where no choice available to them would lead to a good outcome. Soon the animals learned to think that no matter what they did, nothing good would come of it. There was nothing they could do to improve their lot. They were truly helpless to change their fate, so they simply gave up and quit trying. When these animals determined that they were helpless, or better put, powerless, they would just endure their hopeless condition even when a visible escape was provided them. They would not take the escape route because their belief system told them that they had no good choice, even when they were staring it right in the face.
People do the same thing. They develop “learned helplessness,” and it is actually a formula for depression. They learn early in life that no matter what they do, it will not affect the outcome whatsoever. No matter what they do, Dad or Mom can't be pleased. No matter what they do, someone still gets angry. No matter what they do, they do not get the approval that they need. No matter what they do, they cannot escape the bad outcome, It's just the way it is. So they quit trying.
Then something even worse happens. In addition to giving up on trying, they develop a way of seeing themselves as powerless in relation to the world. They no longer see the world as operating on a cause-and-effect model in which ones actions produce a corresponding result. Instead, they come to see it operating on a random model in which things just happen and there is little you can do about them. The law of sowing and reaping goes out the window. So they quit sowing into their lives, and as a result, they also quit reaping. Why? Because they believe that there are no choices. Nothing they do can make things better, so when nothing happens to make things better, it is never their fault.
Apply that way of thinking to the situations we listed above and you can see how some people stay stuck in their bad situations for many years. Let's look at their list of excuses again:
* The husband who wouldn't listen
* The poor dating environment
* The counselor who didn't help
* The weight-loss program that didn't work
* The friend who wouldn't listen
* The mother who got angry
* The company that wasn't hiring
But the reality is--and I can tell you this with all certainty--that every single day, other people in those same situations do not just accept them as they are and resign themselves to misery. Instead, they believe that there are always choices, and they join the hand of God to find a way out of the captivity of their situation. They look past the choice they wish they could have and search for the one that works. And they find it.
What It Looks Like
Sometimes seeing a way of thinking in action helps you to adopt it as your own. Many people grow up in situations where looking for choices was not modeled to them, and they don't even know what the process looks like. (They are not the ones you want on your scavenger hunt team, by the way.) But if they could see “choice discovering” modeled for them, they could learn it. So let's look at choice discovering modeled in a few specific situations in order to learn the choices always available to us. These examples involving dating, emotional issues, and weight loss will help you picture how expanding your options means you never really hit a dead-end.
Choice-Discovering Model: Dating
I was speaking to singles in the Los Angeles area about dating when a woman raised her hand and said, “I hear all of this stuff about dating, but it's very difficult to find anyone good to date in a place like L.A. The people are so transient… no one seems to have any roots here, so they just come and go. As a result, there are no real stable communities where everyone knows each other and can help connect you with someone compatible.”
I could not believe my ears. Southern California has about twenty million people. And she thinks there are no dating options in that pool? It was the classic externalization of the problem we've been discussing. Her inability to find good dating material was not her fault; it was the environment. Southern California offers no good choice of men. So I'm stuck; there is nothing I can do.”
The real kicker was in the next thing she said: “It would be a lot easier to find good dates in the Midwest, where people and communities are much more stable.”
Why was that such a significant statement? Because earlier that very week, I had been in the Midwest talking to singles and a woman had said. “It is so difficult to find anyone to date here in the Midwest. People have been here so long and the communities are so established that everyone knows each other already and you can't break into the circle. So there are 110 new prospects.” And then she said, of all things, “It would be so much easier to find people to date in a place like L.A. or New York.
Suffice it to say that I was well equipped to refute California Girl's excuse. What was keeping these women from finding the dates they desired? One thing: not seeing the fact that they had choices. Their geography was their excuse. It prevented them from finding the relationships they wanted. Their thought process went like this: “I am not getting what I want. Guess that is the way it is around here.” Translated into our earlier metaphor, “There are no hot dogs in this fridge, so I guess there's no dinner tonight.”
But, the true reality is quite different than their perceived reality. I met and talked with singles in both locales who were finding very fulfilling dating lives right where those two women said it was impossible. Just like out two complainers, these dating women had also experienced “datelessness.” But instead of burying their dreams in a tear-soaked handkerchief, they asked themselves, “What are the choices I could make to change this situation?” There were only about a million, but here are a few that these women saw and activated:
Some looked at themselves and figured out the fact that they were not getting dates because of something out of kilter about themselves. So they asked their friends for feedback about themselves, and when they got it, they went to work on the problem. When they corrected it, their dating lives changed. The things they corrected ranged all the way from “you are not open to different kinds of men other than your own dream ideal,” to “you don't come across as open to men in social situations.” Some of these women got in better shape; others had to address certain internal attitudes that were keeping them stuck.
Some of these women figured out that they were not getting dates because they were not meeting enough people. So they joined a dating service. I just got a phone call from a woman who had told me a little over a year ago that “there were no good men to date,” and that “she never got asked out.” At that time I challenged her to work my program of dating that urges participants to stop blaming outside circumstances and start seeing their choices. I urged her to join a dating service, but she was resistant; she did not at first see that as a viable choice. But in time her attitude changed and she became open to her choices. Well, I'll cut to the chase and tell you why she called me. She had just said yes to a marriage proposal from a great guy who came from one of those dating services. And, as she would tell you, he was not the first man she met. She had to choose to continue her search after the first ones did not work out.
These women figured out that their “traffic pattern was not exposing them to people then had never met before. They realized that there was no one magic bullet--no single place where everyone found dates. So then expanded their range and started going to new places.
The women also got active when there were no good activities available where then could meet other singles. They began to organize activities on their own. One group of women from my church started a club called S.W.A.R.M., which stands for “Single Women Actively Recruiting Men.” They organized monthly gathering and outings to which members invited men they were not attached to but had met through work or some other venue. In essence, they were all recruiting for each other.
The list could go on, but the point is, whatever problem they found in themselves, they corrected it and their date life turned around.
The point here is not in the specific suggestions, although many of them are highly creative and effective. The point is the way of thinking that led to those suggestions. These women realized that when something is not working stop blaming. Stop passively complaining, “It's not our fault” and get busy figuring out what your choices are. When you don't see any choices, keep looking or create them on your own.
Choice-Discovering Model: Emotional Issues
The caller on our radio show asked what she could do about her eating disorder. She had suffered from bulimia for quite a while. She told us that she was in a 12-step program that had helped her in some ways, but it had left her bulimia largely in touched. Her counselors had convinced her that her bulimia was an addiction and that she would always be in recovery for it. But her recovery program was not helping, and she felt stuck.
“First,” I said. “I have a big problem with calling bulimia an addiction. In my way of thinking, an addiction is something that involves a substance that you can't let go of, and it involves such factors as acquired tolerance, withdrawal effects, and a whole list of other things not associated with your problem. While the term addiction may be a helpful metaphor for some out-of-control behaviors, I do not think that the addiction model of treatment is the answer for bulimia.
“But it does involve a substance,” she said. “Food.”
“I understand,” I told her, “but the difference in food and alcohol. for example, is that you will always eat food, even after you are no longer bulimic. Alcoholics should never touch alcohol again. Their body has acquired an addiction reaction that will always trigger a downslide to non-functional status, There is no safe way for them ever to drink again. There is a good way for you to eat. So, don't limit yourself to a treatment that is successful for addicts but does not address the issues that are driving your bulimia.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Bulimia is usually driven by some predictable developmental issue, I replied, “like need--fear dilemmas, autonomy struggles involving boundaries and freedom, perfectionism and ideal demands, and a failure to achieve adulthood in relation to symbol in parent figures. If you would find a good therapist who understood those things, you could work through what is driving your bulimia, and then you would not have to live forever in 'recovery' for it. It would be gone. I have seen it happen a zillion times.
“But I tried counseling, and it didn't work,” she said. That comment made me suspect the real issue behind the problems, but I probed further.
She went on to tell me all the issues that her counselor had addressed, and they were not the kinds of things that resolve bulimia. I told her she needed to find a new counselor, one who understands the kinds of issues that cause and maintain bulimia.
I could tell that she was struggling to believe that anything would really work. I could hear in her voice that she really had tried, and that the very thought of trying again was overwhelming her.
And here was the reason, as I suspected: She was not afraid of the effort of trying; she was afraid of trying and having it not work again. She was afraid of the hopelessness that would weigh down her heart if another attempt yielded no results. She knew well the danger of Proverbs 13:12, which says, “hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (NIV).
But here is the point: her hopelessness did not come from a course of action being tried and not working. It came from her way of thinking about trying.
Think of it this way. This caller's philosophy was that you try something, hoping it will work, and if it doesn't you have no other options and everything is hopeless. No wonder this woman was holding back. Of course it would he a very scary thing to try anything. If I thought I had just one bullet, I wouldn't fire it until I had to. One shot is all you get, and after that it is Hopeless City. But--
What if your hope is not in any particular option; your hope is in the belief that if you keep looking for options, one will appear?
This approach makes a huge difference. Huge! If your hope is based in the fact that you always have choices instead of being vested solely in any one choice, then you always have hope. Hope need never end, because no matter how many disappointments or failures, you always look for the next available choice. When something does not work out, you immediately ask yourself “What are my choices?” By considering your choices, you find that you always have somewhere to go other than into hopelessness. You have options, freedom, possibilities, and hope.
This caller had hit a wall because she saw no choices. Her 12-step program, though helpful in many ways, was not making her bulimia go away. (By the ways we are big supporters of 12-step programs. The point we are making here is that there are things that bulimics need to do in addition to 12-step work.) But as I pointed out to this woman, she had a lot of choices that she was not seeing. Here are just a few that we gave her in that short phone call:
* She could go back to counseling, but find a counselor who knows the developmental issues underlying bulimia. If the first one she talked to doesn't know them, then she should look for another.
* She could choose to bring other people into her struggle when it was actually happening. A 12-step program usually teaches people to call their sponsors or someone else who can help in the moment when the temptation is occurring. This woman could find help in calling someone when she was tempted to binge.
* If one meeting a week was not doing the job, she could choose to up the number of meetings until she got more control. I shared with her that sometimes when people are hinging as often as she was, they choose to attend a meeting every day. The co-host of our radio show, Steve Arterburn, shared with her that many alcoholics go to as many as ninety meetings in thirty days to get in control of their drinking.
* She could choose to admit to her sponsor and the people in her group the reality of where she really was in her struggle. She admitted that it was extremely hard for her to admit her need of other people. She had a choice about whether to admit that need and let others in on her failure when she was not exercising. Making that one choice to depend on others would go a long way in overcoming her bulimia, because bulimia usually involves dependency fears and conflicts.
* She could choose to get a good book that addresses the issues behind bulimia. She could also choose to get into a small group of friends or find an accountability partner to help her work on her issues.
* She could find a specific support group on bulimia in her town and join it to learn what others are doing to overcome the problem.
* She could choose to go into a more structured treatment, like many bulimics do. Once-a-week counseling or a 12-step group is often not enough. She could check into a treatment center and stay awhile. This kind of treatment can be very successful.
Note that all this information was packed into a very short phone call. If someone were to sit down and spend time with this woman, I am sure that they would discover many other choices available to her as well. The point is this: you always have choices. If you do not have a terminal illness that is going to take your life in the next hour, you usually have options available to you. (As a matter of fact, the research shows that even in terminal illnesses people have many options which will drastically affect their quality and quantity of life.) Choices, choices, choices. We never run out of them.
However, we get stuck in our problems because of two things we don't like.
First, we don't like it when the choice we desire is not available to us. Consider the woman who was stuck at age seventy after getting divorced at forty because she still wanted her ex-husband. That option was not available and she would not entertain the other choices open to her. Meanwhile, her husband did make other choices and put together a good life for himself
The second thing we often don't like is this: if the option we have chosen is not working, as in the case of the bulimic woman, we often don't want to look past it even though it is not yielding results. She was choosing her once-a-week l2-step program, and it was not working. But she wanted that option to work; she did not want to go through the hassle, the risk, and the dread of starting over. The axiom, If you keep doing the same thing, you'll keep getting the same results, applies to her way of thinking.
We have a tendency either to want our first choice that we can't have, or to cling to the failing one we have chosen. Neither option is viable, but that does not mean it is all over.
In dealing with emotional issues, there are always choices available that we might not be exercising. When your relationships are not working, you are not limited to patterns you have relied on in the past. You can stop doing what you have been doing and try something different. When it comes to emotional issues, people tend to limit themselves to their long-standing patterns of behaving.
I have a friend who has dealt with depression. When she is depressed her natural inclination is to stay in bed or withdraw. But she has the kind of character that understands choices and options. So when she is depressed she makes the choice to get up and go work out, no matter how she feels. And she makes the choice to call a friend, or go to a group, or get out with someone she is close to, no matter how she feels. She would tell you that these choices have made a huge difference at some very difficult times. While they are not the total cure, and she still has to make other hard choices in order to get well, exercising choices to be proactive about her condition has played a big part in improving it.
Look at your patterns of dealing with your emotional issues and then explore all the other choices available to you.
Another example: If you are plagued by feelings of loneliness, and yet you just go home and watch TV, its time to make some choices to improve your condition. What other things could you do when you feel lonely? You could:
* Call a friend.
* Go to a church gathering.
* Join a small group of Bible study.
* Attend a generic recovery meeting and talk about loneliness.
* Do volunteer work.
* Take a class that meets at the times when you are most prone to loneliness.
* Mentor a child.
* Go exercise with a friend, or a class.
* One million other options not listed here.
The same principle applies to other emotional issues. Often people do not see options available to them other than the patterns they have always lived out. People with anger issues, for example, do not see that their first choice, which might be to never lose their temper, is not an option yet. Their anger does not just go away because they want it to. But they still have choices. They could choose to remove themselves from a situation when they feel their anger beginning to rise. They could learn to recognize the anger triggers and avoid them. Or when they first feel anger rising, they could tell the person affected that it is happening, and they need to back away from the situation.
As the Bible says, God will provide a way of escape.
Choice-Discovering Model: Weight Loss
“I tried the weight-loss group, and it didn't work.” We hear this comment often on the radio show or in seminars. Or sometimes, “It worked for a while, but then I gained it all back.” The despair that often accompanies this issue is heartbreaking, especially when people have “tried.” But, when you begin to get below the surface, you often find that the problem was not the program that did not work, but the person who did not work the program. And that issue is related to not seeing available choices.
When looking at weight loss, people usually see two choices: eat less, and exercise more. And they are right. All the many research studies say the same thing: to lose weight, one needs to move about more and eat less. But there is a problem with that solution: people are unable to do it, or at least to sustain it. What they will do is join a program and sometimes get initial results. Then they gradually begin to wane in their commitment to the program. They begin to try just sticking to the diet, for example, instead of continuing in the groups as well. And soon they find what they have always found--that their willpower fails them. Their conclusion: “That didn't work for me.”
In reality, what has not worked is often their openness to explore other choices. A number of key choices are available to anyone who is serious about getting control of an out-of-control behavior--choices that actually work. As it relates to our current discussion of weight loss, the lesson is this: when your willpower is failing, relying on the ineffective “don't eat that” is not your only choice. You could:
* Add structure to your program. If you are not able to stick to some program requirement, then you need more discipline from the outside. Example: A group of women that I know were having difficulty making the tough choices necessary to carry out their goal. So they made another choice. They chose something they could do. They chose to have a thirty-minute conference call every morning at 7:00 to go over what they had to do that day to make it work and support each other. That one choice made it all come together for them.
* Choose to eliminate temptation. If choosing to not eat the potato chips in the pantry is not a viable option because you lack the power to resist them, you can choose to not buy them in the first place. If they are not in the house, you are not going to eat them. People find this technique extremely helpful. They choose to not have any of the no-no foods in the house.
* Choose external self-control support. If you cannot follow the above suggestion because you can't pass by potato chips in the grocery store, then don't go shopping alone. Shop with a friend who is in the program with you, or with someone committed to your goal. If you are alone and feeling tempted, have a few friends whom you have agreed to call at such moments to talk you through it. Tell them that you are about to get into trouble and you want help. Make the choice to promise them that you will never cheat without calling them first.
* Choose to bring external discipline and structure to the specific tasks. If you are supposed to exercise several times a week, and you cannot do it because of your lack of self-control, borrow someone else's structure. Choose to join a class, or choose to assemble a group of friends who will meet every morning, or at lunchtime, and walk or work out together. You may not have the willpower to do it on your own, but you can join others and tap into their willpower. College students utilize this option all the time by joining study groups to help them get done what they lack the discipline to do on their own. Hiring a trainer accomplishes the same thing.
* Choose to deal with the emotions and stresses that are driving you to eat. While willpower is not one of your choices, talking to someone about the problems that may cause your over eating is one possible option. Join a group, see a counselor, meet with a friend, and begin to get at what's eating you. Journaling is helpful for some people. You always have a choice to let your emotions either be yours alone, or to share them with someone else. When you share them, they will become less powerful, and they will lose the ability to drive you to the behavior over which you have lost control.
* choose to not drop out of your program. Over and over again we hear of people who have joined a particular program, achieved success, but then dropped out. Not only did they gain back the weight they lost, which, as the research shows, usually happens, more often than not they gained even more. Then they say, tried that and it did not work for me.” But in most cases, it was the dropping out that caused it to not work.
If you are truly interested in success, you must make two choices here. First, you must choose not to drop out of the program, even if you are not happy with the initial results. The ones who continue are the ones who end up getting good results. Second, choose to do something that will help you to stay in the program. Usually that means getting the kind of outside support and accountability mentioned above. Staying in the program is the most powerful choice. Forget the choice of relying on your willpower to keep from overeating. Don't cling to a choice doomed to failure.
* Choose to see weight loss as a long-term lifestyle change. Getting into this kind of continuing-the-program mindset is the most important choice you can make. Weight loss is not something you simply “do.” It is a matter of changing your lifestyle to where it's the same as the people who do not have weight problems. Those slim and trim people do the same things as the people who are
trying to lose weight. They explore their emotions, seek support, avail themselves of the same kinds of structured exercise routines, and so on. Ever think about that? It's the skinny people you see at the gym, they go routinely; it's their way of life. And that is the way you must choose to see your weight--control routine. It is not a choice just to lose weight. It is a much more far-reaching choice: the choice to change your lifestyle. When you do that, the weight-control choices will begin to take care of themselves.
This brief discussion is certainly not meant to be a weight--loss guide or a comprehensive program. We have counseled too many people with weight issues to think we can offer a cure-all in a few pages. If weight is your problem, our hearts go out to you, and we encourage you to find good help with a reputable program that shows proven results. But remember, the good programs work only if you work the program. Choose to find one that you can continue to work, or choose to get the support structures that you will need to keep working it. That will be the key to your success.
Circles of Choice
Remember the section on adaptability? We noted that a child who has no dinner has no choice in the matter, as he or she is dependent on a caretaker for everything. But an adult with an empty refrigerator has choices. Then we said something else very important for you to remember.
We pointed out that most of you do not lose sight of your choices in a simple situation like no food in the fridge. You easily see that you have other options, like heading for the supermarket, going to a restaurant, or moseying over to your neighbor's house to make a sandwich. No problem. But when you hit a relational roadblock or a work roadblock, the “I have no choice thinking often sets in. Most of us exercise choice effectively in some areas but not in others. Therefore, to avoid getting stuck in any area of your life, you need to:
Find your spots where you lose our freedom of choice.
These spots are different for everyone. Is it when someone refuses to give you what you need from them? Is it when someone gets angry? Is it when you hit an obstacle in the pursuit of a goal? Is it when your emotions are strong, or when you are depressed? When does it happen? How does it happen? Who is able to make it happen? When you learn the answers to those questions, you are on your way to freedom.
One woman who called into our radio program said that she was going to visit her family for Christmas, and she was getting depressed because she knew her grandfather would make things miserable, just as he always did. She dreaded hearing his criticism of her. We asked her why she had to listen to that, and she responded, “I just have to, that's all. I have no choice. That is what he does.”
This woman lost her freedom the minute she walked in the door of that family gathering. She did not realize that no one can take away your freedom; she chose to give it up. As Paul tells us, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1 NIV). She was letting her grandfather “burden her with a yoke of slaver? He did not have the power to do that without her permission. But the family pressure to take it was so strong, that this was the place where she lost her choices.
As we talked, we quickly thought of several choices she could make:
* She could choose to not attend.
* She could choose to accept that he would be who he is, but she could give up the desire for his approval. That would empower her to ignore his remarks.
* She could empathize with him. “Gee, Grandfather, it seems like its frustrating to you to have me be like I am. That sounds hard.” She did not need to get hooked into convincing him of anything.
* She could steer clear of the grandfather at the gathering.
* She could call a friend throughout the gathering and give reports on how crazy he was, and they could laugh it off together.
* She could call him beforehand and ask if he planned to put her down this year as he had before. If he said yes, she could inform him that she might just go in another room when he started his put-downs. She wanted him to understand this beforehand, so he would not be surprised at her action.
The caller actually began to get lighthearted. Just the reminder that she did always have choices was a huge relief to her, as it is to all of us.
WE DON'T DO WELL IN PRISON BECAUSE WE WERE NOT DESIGNED FOR IT. We were designed to be free. And in some ways, life is a continual struggle to gain, regain, and live out Our God-given freedom from the forces, both internal and external, that would take our freedom away.
Find out where your circle of freedom ends and take steps to enlarge it until you can feel free, no matter where you are, by remembering one thing you always have choices! Ultimately, no person, or no circumstance has control of you--that control belongs to you and you only. So grasp God's hand and return to the freedom that he died to give you.
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