Tag Archive - work

How to End Well by Focusing on the Beginning

January 27, 2012 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Leadership with 2 Comments

When things approach the end, a sort of excitement and even dread builds. I laughed at my friend’s reaction to the thought of her husband retiring. She felt anticipation, excitement and gloom. For her, it was like a sentence was given and the time was yet to be served. She started a countdown 20 months before R-Day. Over a year away and she’s still counting, excited, happy and filled with anticipation, as well as some anxious, dread of the inevitable.

The End is Coming

The End is Coming!

People like me feel the urgency to make the most of the last few days, squeezing in the results we desired. Time doesn’t stop for our work. The gong of the clock grades our life and our stewardship. Staying focused on the goals we set at the beginning will help us finish well.

Endings cause goal-oriented people to experience a weird rush of relief, worry and wonder if their efforts made a difference. We evaluate our work against the goals. We question: Did we accomplish what we set out to do? Did we manage resources well? Did we use time wisely? Could we have done things better?

Fresh Start

New Beginnings and Fresh Starts

The cool thing about endings is that they are the hope of new, fresh starts. The new year brings another block of time. A new contract or job comes with a treasure of resources and a multitude of opportunities. A new beginning gives us a second chance to do right and to live wisely.

I seem to regularly need a do-over or a re-start. In the past, I’ve fallen prey to multitasking: doing lots of things at one time and none of them very well (See previous post Why Multitasking Reduces Productivity). My trying to get things done simultaneously produced lots of ho hum results, if any at all. I started projects and finished none. Not at all how I planned to end.

My hope and prayer is to be more productive. I plan to slow down, focus on one thing at a time and do my best work on it. I’m going to stop multitasking. If I’m able to succeed at that goal, I might stop burning dinner, hear my kids, and actually know where I’m going when in the driver’s seat. Hopefully, I’ll finish the projects I started last year.

Now, may focus take over my multitasking ways!

How about you? Did you end your last project as you wanted? Met your goals? Declared failure and did a re-start? Declared bankruptcy and quit? Please share how you focus and finish well?

This post is part of the Insights into Ministry & Leadership Series.

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*pictures from keepingitsassy.wordpress.com & whosright.com

5 Steps to Reach Our Goals and Stop Making Excuses

January 21, 2012 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Leadership with 9 Comments

Since I posted 3 Excuses for Failure to Meet Our Goals earlier and now the excuses are out of the way, I thought it a great time to plan steps to reach our goals. If you want to add excuses or view them in the post and comments, click the link above. There is some comfort in knowing others struggle with our same excuses. But for those who are ready to get on with it. Let’s go for it.

Go For It

Stop Studying and Talking, Start Doing

It’s time to stop studying it, reading about it and talking about it and just go do it! We can overcome our excuses and skip to our goal if we put into practice steps similar to these.

5 Steps to Reach Your Goals

1. Verbalize the goal in specifics.

Where are you going? How are you going to get there? What does it look like when you’ve finished? What has to be done before that can happen? Identify all the aspects of the goal. The paper is blank until we put down our ideas. Get as specific as you can. Just like the assigned paper is blank until the student identifies the ideas that will formulate. Then with hard work it is finished.

2. Visualize yourself taking small steps towards the goal.

What needs to be cut, streamlined and categorized in order to make a step-by-step plan from where you are today to completion? Break the plan down into even smaller steps and identify the first one. Following these baby steps makes the dream goal a reality. Without the discipline to work it, you’ll go nowhere.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison

So I like the motivation I get from Thomas Edison. Maybe he’d be a good one to pall around with to learn to get things done. He sure did a lot.

3. Find a group of people attempting similar tasks.

Surrounding yourself with other motivated people gives you the regular motivation and accountability you need. A mentor can be awesome, and blessed is the one who finds one, but a regular band of fellows can be as effective. As iron sharpens iron, you become better as ideas and best practices of dedicated people rub off on you.

4. Practice the skills needed without fear of failure.

Perfection isn’t automatic. We have to guess. Do trial runs. Practice. Make decisions. Some will be bad ones. Failure comes with any challenge. It is a sure thing. Success is working through each setback, learning each step of the way.

“Many of life’s failures are men who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Thomas Edison

Keep practicing and moving forward with the next step in the plan. Adjust the plan if needed, but keep going.

5. Consider each accomplishment your validation.

Every small step finished is a huge accomplishment. Most people are talkers and not doers. Celebrate. You’ve started doing the hard things that make you successful. Focus and allow your accomplishment to fuel you to do another step towards the goal.

As some have said, “You can’t eat an elephant in one bite.” Let’s start chewing on the bite we have.

 What have you got to chew on? What other steps do you used to get things done? How do you celebrate when you complete a small step?

Our “someday” will arrive before we know it!

This post is part of the Insights into Ministry & Leadership Series. If you enjoyed it you may also like the Living and Working on Mission Blog Series, the Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges Series or the other Blog Series.

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*picture from wealthmouli on mylot

3 Excuses for Failure to Meet the Goal

January 20, 2012 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Leadership with 2 Comments

The New Year began and already our resolutions have waned. When should we actually start doing what we said we wanted to do? When will we stop reading about it, or stop talking about it and just go do it? I faced those questions head on and decided they were partially a scheduling problem, partially a priority problem and partially fear-factor problem.

Stop Making ExcusesWe’re simply making excuses.

Excuse 1: I’m too busy.

We are too busy to add one more activity to our schedule, but if our goal is important enough to be resolved on, spoken of or dreamed about, then we need to be disciplined enough to make the time for the steps to accomplish it. We don’t have to do it all in one day, but spending a little time towards the goal each day will get us there eventually much faster than dreaming, reading or talking about it.

Excuse 2: I don’t know what to focus on.

Some of us get our priorities mixed up and don’t accomplish what we set out to do. I can waste so much time studying what to do and how to do it that I can become an inexperienced expert on the subject and never get any closer to getting it done. Amongst us are both doers and talkers. Who wants to be the one who always talks like a know-it-all and never does anything? I want to be a doer.

Excuse 3: I’ve never done this before. I’m scared.

A huge block to accomplishing goals is fear. What will others think if I try? What if I fail? I can be seen successful if I never try. If I try, I’ll fail for sure. But what’s so bad about failing? Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Failure is the means for us to learn better methods, a step towards sharpening our skills. Success is getting back up after a setback and working at it again. Mr. Edison also said, “I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.” When on the brink of quitting, we should laugh at fear. Fear is what keeps us from success.

What’s on your bucket list? Something you’ve said, “Someday, I’ll…” How much time do you spend studying it, talking about it or dreaming of it? If it’s that important, why not take some steps to lose that weight, start that company, read the Bible through in a year, learn a craft, read a book, run a ½ marathon, or cook your way through a Julia Child’s cookbook?

What do you want to do and what keeps you from doing it?

Tomorrow, I’ll post 5 Steps to Reach Your Goals. Click to get new posts in your email or RSS reader. Be sure to check out the steps and add insights into how to do what we say we want to do.

This post is part of the Insights into Ministry & Leadership Series. If you enjoyed it you may also like the Living and Working on Mission Blog Series, the Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges Series or the other Blog Series.

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*picture from davidwygant.

10 Life and Leadership Principles from Steve Jobs

September 26, 2011 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Leadership, Ministry to Women with 2 Comments

Steve Jobs knew how to keep reaching new heights, how to make the difficult simple, and how to create awesome products as well as a movement, a following. He’s a creative leader. Check out 10 leadership principles in this great slideshow by @coachbay. Good stuff! Pick and choose what would be good to implement in your ministry, work and life.

 

What creative systems or plans do you have in your leadership style? How can you incorporate or mimic some of Steve Jobs leadership points into your life/work/ministry? Please share your insights and tips in the comments that we may glean from you too!

This post is part of the Insights into Ministry & Leadership Series. If you enjoyed it you may also like the Living and Working on Mission Blog Series, the Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges Series or the other Blog Series.

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Obstacles to the Mission

July 29, 2011 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Leadership, Ministry to Women with 3 Comments

Ever notice when you set out to do what God asks, the going gets tougher? Opposition mounts to discourage and cause doubts. Seems like the enemy is working as hard as we are.

That’s where our Uganda team is right now, in the middle of one obstacle after another as we prepare for our trip. We are set to leave Saturday, July 30th and the setbacks and difficulties have been numerous. But through it all we remained steadfast in our intentions and focused on our mission. We packed 23 trunks for the orphans full of supplies, food, tools, clothes, bedding, books and toys, etc.

Here are a few pics from one of our after-work, late-night packings:

Socks and toys for Uganda orphans

Trunks for Uganda orphans

Trunks for Uganda orphans

The trunks get a second life as a “dresser” in which an orphan will keep their belongings (Not much. One of my kids could nearly fill those trunks by themselves).

We got word that the water and electricity is off then on again at the orphanage. You may also have noticed the news that a horrible famine is ravaging Africa right now. People are starving and desperate for food. As the famine increases, more orphans will be dropped off because the families can’t afford to feed them. Please pray for the people the orphanage will touch as well as our team going to minister.

Packing for Uganda and orphans
Jacque Packing for orphans in Uganda

James is on the right (pray for his right shoulder to heal), Chuck is next to him (he’s not feeling well, pray for healing), I’m standing next to Chuck (I’ll take all the prayer I can get), And Jacque is standing next to me (pray also for her). Jacque’s husband worked late that night and didn’t make this pic (pray for Mike), and Cameron (pray for him too) will join us Saturday at the airport. We have a total of six on our team going to Uganda to work in the orphanage.

Uganda Mission Team Minus Two

Uganda Mission Team Minus Two

Please pray for the mission. You can sign up to be a partner in prayer. And for updates while on location you can subscribe to feed here.

Please contribute your comment below. I’d love to hear how you deal with obstacles that make you mission difficult.

This post is part of the Living and Working on Mission Blog Series and you can read more about our trip in the previous Uganda posts. If you enjoyed it you may also like the Insights into Ministry & Leadership Series, the Spiritual Journey’s Gentle Nudges Series or the other Blog Series.

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How to Keep Your Work in Focus: Celebrate with a Party

April 5, 2011 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife with 6 Comments

I don’t celebrate like I should. Maybe I should put partying on my to do list.

Party cake

“For seven days you must celebrate this festival to honor the Lord your God at the place he chooses, for it is he who blesses you with bountiful harvests and gives you success in all your work. This festival will be a time of great joy for all” (Dt 16:15).

The Israelis are supposed to celebrate the harvest with a feast for seven days. The celebration recognizes God’s part in providing success in their work. God provided the food: vegetables, vines and herds, but they had to plant, groom and tend. The celebration honored God, because without God their work would not have been fruitful.

My work also produces a harvest, a product. I’m no gardener or rancher. My work produces grown children, stacks of clean laundry and a few scribblings I call writing. I may influence spiritual growth through speaking and ministering. But the real produce from my life is what God makes of my feeble attempts to work with what I’ve got.

Any work of mine that is of real worth comes from God working through me. Not me alone. Therefore, I should celebrate. Celebrate the work of God in helping me to complete my tasks, to bring in the harvest.

But in my busy lifestyle, with all the tasks I have, I don’t stop and celebrate finishing one before I turn to the next. I work on too many tasks at once and the completion of one is given a quick wink as I look to the next. I run to the next job and make no space for celebration.

How would my life be different if I stopped after finishing a task long enough to thank God for helping me get things done? How much less stressed would life be if we had an afterglow party for a few days to celebrate God’s work through us?

In what ways do you celebrate and thank God after your harvests? How do you recognize God’s part of your work?


How to be Part of the Inner Circle: Partners in Prayer

March 25, 2011 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife, Leadership with 2 Comments

I tend to be more productive in my work when I include other people. I’m a team player. The engagement and interaction with people sharpens me and my work. But that isn’t the only reason I need people.

Working on my own, under my own strength, leads to devastation.

  • One fault is I begin to think “I did it.” Pride gets me when I can take credit.
  • And second, I don’t offer much value on my own.

Will you join me in the effort to love, serve and change? I’m looking for partners.  My help comes from God and those committed to pray for the ministry.

Praying for you

“For you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now (Phillipians 1:5, NLT).

The Newspiration newsletter is filled with opportunities for prayer. Yet, I’m looking for a few select prayer warriors to share more pressing and intimate prayer requests. I may be under a pressing deadline, dealing with a health issue complicating a speaking engagement or sensing a spiritual struggle related to an audience, event or writing project. This inner circle prayer-partners will be contacted about both ministry related and personal walk with Jesus related requests.

The requirements to participate are as follows:

  1. Faithful to pray
  2. Follow God’s leadership
  3. Willing to partner in prayer to give God glory
  4. Take part in a ministry effort with a big picture vision

Sign up using the form below for the inner-circle partnership and the emailed prayer requests. And if you will, please send a short sentence about yourself and why you joined the Partnerships in Prayer to Robin @ RobinBryce (dot) com.

Sign up now to become a partner in ministry through prayer and get the regular
Newspiration news and inspiration to boot.

Make sure the checkbox remains checked to activate the proper list.

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Partnership in Prayer
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May God be honored and glorified in our partnership in the gospel!

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(Images courtesy of sxc.hu)

Mismanaging Self Is Wicked

February 15, 2011 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife with 5 Comments

Those of us who manage have a grave responsibility. Whether it’s managing the kids while they clean their room, or the money in the family banking account or associates while at work, it’s a privilege of great responsibility to do the work of a manager.

The manager’s effectiveness is reflected in that which they manage. A problem exists when the managers can’t manage themselves. Mis-managers can be terrible organizers, communicators or just plain lazy. When managers mismanage, they create issues for who or what they manage. As an example, check out this biblical story.

“A faithful, sensible servant is one to whom the master can give the responsibility of managing his other household servants and feeding them. If the master returns and finds that the servant has done a good job, there will be a reward. I tell you the truth, the master will put that servant in charge of all he owns. But what if the servant is evil and thinks, ‘My master won’t be back for a while,’ and he begins beating the other servants, partying, and getting drunk? The master will return unannounced and unexpected, and he will cut the servant to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 24:45-51).

Managers must learn to manage themselves. In the Bible story, the good manager is the one who manages himself with sensibility and commitment. The other couldn’t manage his passions and therefore had no ability to manage his tasks. He was given to chasing after his own whims and all sense was lost to him. He’d loose his temper, play instead of do his work and ignore moderation in his eating and drinking (See Titus 1:6-9). He had no control over any aspect of ruling his own life and therefore he couldn’t manage anything else.

Hearing this story causes me to question my abilities. Do I mismanage my own life? Am I managing well my passions, my tasks, my time and the people in my life? What kind of manager, wife, mother and witness am I? Am I doing what I should be: sharing God’s love, making disciples, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick and imprisoned, clothing the poor, etc.?

Maybe we all need to work on some areas. I know I do. The master will come at any moment and even though we can’t see Jesus, he sees everything we do. We must set our hearts on being sensible and faithful to task. Don’t we want to hear, “Well done, my good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21)?

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(Images courtesy of sxc.hu)

Thankful Thoughts Make Happy Hearts

November 22, 2010 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife with 2 Comments

On a 45-minute bus ride full of conference attendees, people stared. I filled the time with big belly-laughter and a Texas-style, heel-kicking good time. The passengers pretended not to stare, but I saw their glances. Then a woman across the bus turned and peered Ziggy-like above the chair. From her seat she stretched her neck then over the riders and noise pronounced, “You ladies are sure having a good time. What’s so funny?”

laughing girlTruth was, nothing. Not one thing was that funny. We were just having a grand time. Renae, my fast-forming BFF, and I snickered, giggled and laughed until my face hurt and my sides ached. It was like being a teenager again. Our fun seemed to make many the bus riders take interest.

I wondered what caused the attraction. The only thing I can think of was my overwhelming sense of gratefulness. I was thankful for the opportunity to attend the conference and spend time with Renae. My husband encouraged me to attend and my family tightened where my absence created slack. I felt blessed and filled with gratitude. It was those thankful thoughts that made me happy.

Giving thanks pours a huge measure of contentedness into our lives. It’s not content in the circumstances, but content above them. Let’s face it, a 45-minute over-stuffed bus ride with twice as many smelly feet as people on board isn’t the most welcome circumstance. But I was so thankful that even if it was a trailer ride pulled by a tractor in the freezing weather, I’d have been happy. Cold…but happy.

If only thankful thoughts dominated my everyday thinking, I’d be the most obnoxiously happy person. But food preparations, dirty laundry and tight schedules don’t exactly generate feelings of gratefulness. The daily grind traps me. To keep from being stressed, I’ve got to be thankful for the dailyness: food to prepare, clothes to wear, and chores to bear.

Bread

If placing my attitude on thankfulness doesn’t change my circumstances, it sure changes me. My gratitude turns into happiness, because thankful thoughts makes a happy heart. I want a joy-filled-bus-ride experience everyday, not just on Thanksgiving Day.
Let’s laugh and sing our thanksgiving. Others may stare or want to join.

“Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name” (Psalm 100:4).

Thought: There are lots of Christmas songs. Please share some Thanksgiving songs that we might sing our thanks?

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(*Image courtesy of sxc.hu)

Spring Worm Wins Teeth

March 16, 2010 in Confessions of a Preacher's Wife with 0 Comments

Spring has come…along with a few other uprisings. The skies are blue with scattered puffiness. The air is crisp with fragrant smells. And the temperature is pleasant, inviting outdoor activity. I can’t bear to be under a roof when lying in the sun beckons. It’s like my skin begs, “More vitamin D, please.” Vitamin D and sun on skin are related somehow. Spring is healthy and makes me feel good, until it happens.

Along with spring, come the menaces—the bugs, bees and weeds. Then from out of nowhere pops my bulging disc. Somewhere between L4 and L5 (lumbar vertebrae) I hear a scream, “Stop pulling weeds!” I admit it. I’m kind of soft, very much like a worm. It looks like the weeds win.

But God has a promise for us worms. “Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you. Though you are a lowly worm, . . . You will be a new threshing instrument with many sharp teeth” (Isa. 41:13-15).

Whew. I needed help, but I got more than that. I got TEETH. Ever seen a worm growl? “Grrrr.” God is making me new and powerful. Move on over weed, the whole hillside too, if I choose.
God tells us to, “Forget all . . .for I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun!” (Isa. 43:18-19). He goes on to say he is making pathways clear, deserts full of water and wild things thankful. Why is God doing this?

He’s doing it for me, the lowly worm, “so my chosen people can be refreshed” (v. 20). God promises to pour out his Spirit and his blessing (Isa. 44:3), so we can proudly claim, “I belong to the Lord.” And we “will write on [our] hand, ‘The Lord’s’ (v. 5).
That’s right, God’s making me new and powerful like a new plow. Picture a shiny, new John Deere on a field of weeds. I might smell like a worm but I’ve got new teeth, a refreshed growl and “The Lord’s” painted in yellow and green on my hand. Menaces beware.

(I hope my spine reads this blog.)

So how’s your spring? Send a comment, share your spring experience.
May you find time to be in the sun, to growl at the menaces and to brand “The Lord’s” on your hand. Be blessed.

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