Simple Life Habits

What if you treated each book of the Bible like a love letter? Wouldn’t you want to read the letter from start to finish in one setting? I recently started reading a new book by Larry Crabb entitled “66 Love Letters.” The book is about an insightful conversation between God and a weary Christian. The Christian is dealing with a lot of the struggles that goes on in life and wonders how the stories of the Bible can be relevant for him. What if you could have a fireside chat with God asking Him to explain the reasoning behind the different books of the Bible? The entire book has this dialogue between God and man. Some might think that this book is not Biblical because “God’s ways are above our ways.” However, I believe that the book is rooted in Biblical principles and references and not just opinion.

Everyone needs a personal life coach. We all need that mentor, guidance counselor, outside advisor to help us with how to see the world around us. Many times we have our blinders on and can only see one small piece of the pie. Coaches have the ability to see things from 30,000 feet while the best you can do is live on the runway of life. Personal life coaching can add many benefits to your life. Even the best in the world use coaches. Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Brett Favre and many others all have benefited from having a coach. Many people do not even understand what it is. Coaching is much different then counseling. Counseling focuses on the past and tries to analyze all the things that have happened to you. Coaching is much more forward momentum focused.  The philosophy is much more about helping you get unstuck out of your rut and focus on the steps you can take to get your life moving forward.

I get frustrated at times when life gets in the way. Does that ever happen to you? Sometimes it feels like there is no time to do the most important thing. I read a recent article that stated that January 24th every year is known for being the most depressing days of the year. The reason for this is due to people feeling depressed over credit card debt from Christmas, the gloomy days of January, and not holding up to their New Year’s Resolutions.

I recently finished a new men’s devotional published by Thomas Nelson. The book is entitled: Living Life in the Zone: a 40-Day Spiritual Game Plan for Men. I found the book to be very inspirational and practical. The goal of the book is to lead you into 5 key areas of growth. The book challenges you to grow with your wife, kids, friends, work, and your future.

This devotional is ideal for those men who hold a high value to sports in general. Each day offers a real life sports hero as an example of the topic discussed. It will reveal to you the spiritual lives of some of sports most celebrated athletes. It will also display warnings by discussing those in the limelight who choose the wrong paths.

Do you find yourself checking your email several times a day? If you have a mobile phone are you constantly looking for new messages? It is easy to get addicted to email, I know I have.

The problem is that it can be a complete time waster. All it takes is to see a message from a newsletter you subscribe to and then you click a link, and another, and another, and….you get the idea. You become lost in cyber space and several minutes have gone by. Here are 4 tips to help you get over your email addiction:

Time management is really a misnomer. You cannot control time. It just keeps on ticking. What you can control is yourself. Self-management is an important component if you are ever going to get on top of “your stuff” in life.

We all have different ways of managing our stuff and much of it is personality driven. However, there is one area that is critical regardless of what time management system that you use:

The Collection Habit

Are you a control freak? I know i have those tendencies from time to time. Well, today I decided to resign from General Commander of the Universe again. Yes, I said, again. Seems somewhere along the way I decided to pick up the crown and cape and try to manage everything in my life. The funny thing is you can go days before you even realize that you are doing it. We really do make life so much harder then we realize. We lose the mental game every day and the downward spiral happens before we know it.

At the beginning of every new year, most of us make new goals and resolutions. We have a desire to be better and do bigger things. In reality we want to add hope to our lives that things can get better. John Maxwell once said, "Hope in the future gives you power in the present." I want to share with you a little exercise that has meant much more to me than any New Year’s Resolutions that I have ever made.

My Personal Year-end Review

I must admit a weakness: I love new technology. Since the first time I played pong on the Atari as a boy, I was hooked on games, computers and technology. While those things can be great to enjoy it still begs the question:  is our life really getting much simpler ? They said back in the seventies that computers were going to simplify our lives so much that by the turn of the century the average hours a person would spend on the job would go down considerably. The opposite has been true.

Have you ever felt that hopeless before in your career? Can I be honest….I have. It is a sinking feeling and you begin to doubt everything. Loss of a job or changing career directions can be an emotional time. The first thing you lose is self confidence. You begin to wonder if you were just on a  “good run” and had a few years where “things just clicked.”

Now, life feels much different. Maybe you are not exactly certain what your unique skills are or what strengths you possess that can truly add value to an organization. You grow envious of others because they just seem to know what they are all about while the rest of us are on a quest and a journey.