5 Steps for a Successful Decade

We have officially entered the greatest time of the year! (Well maybe the second best after football season, but that is neither here nor there.) For as long as I can remember, the time between Thanksgiving and the end of the year has been the best time of the year. When I was younger, it meant light school work and Christmas presents galore. While I was in college, it meant no responsibilities along with a little extra time to get into mischief. As I have gotten older, this season has taken on a completely different meaning. While I still enjoy the Christmas festivities and extra time with family, it’s become a time to rest, reflect, and prepare for the new year.

For most of us, even if we do reflect and prepare for the new year, it’s typically done during the dead week between Christmas and New Year’s. Relegating a year’s worth of goals and planning into seven short days after wrapping up the Christmas season is just not smart. In fact, most of us use that time to rest but we don’t plan. (Side note: Resting is good, if you don’t believe me go read the blog from 11.12.19.) This is typically the reason why we feel so rushed going into the new year, and spend the first couple months just getting acclimated.

The last six years I have worked to utilize the entire season as a time to rest, reflect, and plan. The difference that I have experienced by being more intentional has been significant. There are five typical steps that make up the format, or framework, that I use to feel more prepared going into the New Year.

Step 1: Set Goals.

It goes without saying that you have to establish goals. Read any “self-help” book, regardless of the topic- finance, leadership, management, sales, etc- they all start here. In order to determine if you are heading in the right direction, you have to establish goals.

Step 2: Focus less on others, more on self.

Sometimes, for me, this one becomes the most challenging. In today’s social media world, we easily become distracted by what others are doing. We see they made a big sale, bought a new car, bought a new house, got married, or had a baby, and immediately we forget all about the goals we set and accomplished for ourselves. Not only will this eliminate drama, but it will also make you more content.

Step 3: Read More.

Like your average American, I never truly enjoyed reading. However, after I graduated college I realized that simply having a degree doesn’t give you all the knowledge to excel in your career or to reach higher levels. I began to look around and see that those who are highly successful are reading at least 1-2 books a month. I am not necessarily trying to get Bill Gates level of money, but if he is reading 50+ books a year, there is probably something to it.

Step 4: Invest In yourself.

This should go without saying, but no one is going to invest in you more than you. It’s not the responsibility of your employer, your family, your friends, or anyone else to invest in you. The responsibility falls on you as an individual to look for opportunities to improve; which could mean a whole host of different things. It may be going to a conference, paying for an online seminar, or taking a class at a community college; whatever that looks like make sure that it aligns with your goals.

Step 5: Pursue Christ to develop your calling.

Above all of the other steps, this is the most important. I will admit that Step 5 is the newest addition to my framework, something I’ve only added within the last few years. In the years without this step I made progress, but not nearly as significant of progress as in these last 3 years, when I have been intentional (there’s that word again) about my pursuit of Christ. When you are pursuing Christ and the calling on your life, you begin to walk with more clarity; which causes your goals to realign to where God is leading (thus making it that much easier).

I hope that by taking these five steps you will be able to reach the level you have been striving for in 2020!

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

Relax, we’re all busy

Busy. Busy is what planning a wedding will make you. It will make you so busy that you will probably go over a month without posting a blog… my bad. I promise to try and do better; but let’s be honest, life is just busy. The thing is though, I am not the only one that experiences busyness.

Busy is how we live our lives. In fact, in America we wear our busyness as a badge of honor. The busier we are then somehow the more significant our life is and the greater our impact will be. I can say that I too fell into the trap of the busier the better. If I am being transparent, I am currently in the process of coming out of the busiest season of my life. After looking back over this past season, I can confidently say that most of it was self-inflicted. By nature, I like to say yes. By God’s design, I like to lead. So when asked to oversee this, manage that, run this; I have historically always said yes. I am now intentionally practicing my “no”; because in the end most of it is meaningless.

Of course, there were many great things that happened in this past season of saying yes. My renewed commitment to Christ. My new marriage. The resurrection of old dreams. The new found clarity on my purpose. But, on the whole, I can say that the sleepless nights and non-stop days working were not worth it.

I can admit that over the last few years, I have heard several sermons on taking days to rest- or practicing the Sabbath; but none of them actually connected until recently.

About three weeks ago, Paige and I were preparing to board a plane for Mexico to celebrate our honeymoon. On this trip I took a massive step… I left my work phone at home. In fact, I left everything work related in the US. I decided to leave it as a commitment to my new wife, and as a symbol of the beginning of our marriage focused solely on us.

If I am being honest though, I was pretty anxious leaving work behind. Ever since joining the “real” workforce at the age of 19, I had never been on a vacation where I was not “available” to those back home. Most of my career has been in sales, where you are always available to your customers. When I owned my own insurance agency, I was accessible 24/7 to my staff and clients. So for me, I was going to be truly disconnected for the very first time.

But what was I so anxious about? I mean, do I think I am really that valuable to my company? Of course not. I was anxious because I was afraid of “falling behind” the competition.

“Therefore I tell you, stop being worried or anxious about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, as to what you will wear. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father keeps feeding them. Are you not worth much more than they?” – Matthew 6:25-26

I once heard a Pastor say that we have become more concerned with the pursuit of the American Dream than we are fulfilling the calling of God. Quite simply, that’s the truth for me. At the root of my anxiousness is the lack of trust in God’s provision.

But after a day or two in Mexico, I slowly started to realize that something was happening. I was becoming recharged. Now that we are back in our normal routine, I feel more refreshed and rejuvenated than I ever have.

Rest is a reoccurring theme seen throughout the Bible. God designed us to rest. Isn’t it amazing that when I finally found time to rest, I became more aware of God’s presence.

Paige and I have begun working on our family goals for 2020, and you better believe that at the top of the list is a WEEKLY SABBATH. Or in other words, a day of intentional rest. Time that we can rest and rejuvenate in God’s presence.

My challenge for everyone reading this is to rest. We are all in different seasons and have different circumstances that effect our decisions; but I assure you in the end all of the tireless work will be meaningless. While this concept seems counter-cultural, my goal for 2020 is to do less. I am putting my faith in accomplishing more with God in six days than I can by myself in seven days.

Less is more with God.

Finding Joy in Your Work

Have you ever had a job that you didn’t really like? Maybe the job wasn’t terrible, but the boss that you worked for made you dread every moment of being at work? I‘m sure we’ve all been there at some point. When I was in high school, I worked for a large grocery store chain for a short period of time, and I hated every minute of it. From that moment, I used that experience as my metric for if a job was “bad”. After leaving my job there, I went to work for a family friend at a BBQ restaurant. That experience turned out to be just the opposite—it was hands down my favorite job in the world. (If I’m being honest, still one of the questions I ask today on a new job site is, “is this as enjoyable as my time at Whitt’s?”) As silly as it sounds, that became the metric I used for job satisfaction in my early working career in the political world, and then working in an insurance agency.

As time passed by though, I forgot about that little test I used to use. A year into owning my own business, I thought…“this is worse than working at Kroger.” I thought it was going to be “sunshine and rainbows,” but really I was just as miserable as when I worked for someone else. The years leading up to the point of opening my own agency were three years, that in full transparency, were not focused on the plan of God or the purpose God had for my life. The three years that lead to this point where I am today focused on me and my plan. They were focused on accomplishing what Charlie wanted to do; on achieving the things that I desired– money, power, and fame. I was slowly realizing that the endless pursuit of those things wasn’t going to bring me true joy.

The first year of owning my own agency became a very difficult year, both personally and professionally. It was difficult personally because I felt like I was at rock bottom. From the outside though, it looked great. In the political world, I learned how to master the art of making a fake façade, which is exactly what I did for everyone around me. It was difficult professionally because the demands of the business caused me to be crippled by overbearing business expenses and unrealistic expectations to maintain the success of our Agency. On top of that, I was finding no joy in what I was doing. In fact, I became resentful to the company I represented, the agency I created, and the industry I was in.

If I were to say that I have completely found true joy in running my business, I would be lying. The reason for that though is not because I don’t enjoy it, but rather I know that is not where true joy is found. Joy is not found in material things, or in things that we accomplish; but in living out our purpose.

Over the last 15 months, God has put me on a journey that I never thought I would be on. As I have leaned into God, I’ve begun to see there is a direct calling on my life and there is a purpose that God has for me. The things I desired have changed too; it’s no longer about money, power, or fame, but instead about wealth, influence, and making Jesus known. (I’ll share more about this in another post.)

If you’re reading this, I hope that you see that no matter where you are on your journey, God has a calling for your life as well. He has called each of us to a specific purpose. I simply ask you to take the next step. For me, it all changed when I adopted Proverbs 16:3 as my verse of the year in 2018, and I released control to God. I encourage each of you to go on that journey for your own life.

“Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” -Proverbs 16:3