You’re stuck. You’re not making progress on your goal. You’ve tried the things that have worked before, and you’re still stuck.
 
Time to think outside the box. For example, imagine that your goal is to more quickly peel a boiled egg. You’ve tried rolling the egg on a plate to crack the shell and then peeling it—too slow. You’ve tried hitting the shell with a spoon, inserting the spoon between the egg white and the shell, and then using the spoon to peel the egg—still too slow.
 
What can you do? Find an “outside the box” solution. Try watching this video.


 
When you’re stuck (and even when you’re not), try thinking outside the box.

Reflect on your goals daily, weekly, quarterly, and annually.

When you facilitate, make sure your listen, inquire, focus, and encourage.

Facilitate from your heart, from beliefs you have about personal growth.

To help workshop participants learn and apply their learning, meet their needs. Give them support, concrete examples, opportunities to apply their learning, reflection time, and engaging instruction.

Thinking clearly is vital. You know this. When you think clearly, you’re more focused, have a better understanding of your goals and of what it takes to achieve those goals, and can more effectively communicate with those you work with.
 
Lately, you’ve been feeling muddled, feeling less certain of your goals, and your direct reports have commented that they aren’t clear enough on what you want them to do. You find yourself wanting to think more clearly. Good.
 
Question: What helps you think clearly?
 
Answer: What helps me think clearly is taking time to think, writing, and having someone ask me open-ended questions: What’s your goal? What’s happening? What can you do? What will you do?
 
Take steps to think more clearly. Today.

You know it takes energy. You know it takes energy to ride your bike to church. You know it takes energy to buy bananas at the store and to lead a Bible study on Romans 12. And you know it takes energy to write an email to your donors about Sachi’s baptism and to talk with Thomas and Kim about the culture shock they’re experiencing.
 
You’re wishing you had more energy—10% more, 5% more, even 1% more. Just more energy. If you had more energy, you could work on balancing your personal/professional life, developing relationships with 3 neighbors, and translating training materials on house churches.
 
While it’s true that if you had more energy you’d be able to work on these goals, maybe the issue isn’t having more energy. Maybe you have all the energy you need, but some of your energy is being sapped by frustrations.
 
Maybe your energy is getting sapped by frustrations you have with email. You’re frustrated that your thinking keeps getting interrupted by the sound email makes when downloading. You’re frustrated that you don’t have big blocks of time to work because you have to attend to email throughout the day. You’re so frustrated about email that you use energy to talk with others about your frustration and to listen to their frustrations.
 
Instead of using your energy to tolerate your energy-sapping frustrations, use your energy to reduce your frustrations. For example, use your energy to turn the sound off for downloading email and to schedule doing email twice a day.
 
Question: What can you do to reduce one or more energy-sapping frustrations?
 
Remember, reducing your energy-sapping frustrations frees up energy you can use to pursue God’s calling. Reduce one frustration. Today.

Want to empower others to reduce their frustrations? Ask questions that provoke reflection, for example:

1. What are 5 frustrations you have?
2. How do you feel when these frustrations are present/not present?
3. How would you feel if you could reduce 1 or more of these 5 frustrations?
4. How would reducing 1 or more frustrations impact your ministry?
5. If you reduced all 5 frustrations, what might happen?
6. What helps you reduce your frustrations? What hinders you?
7. What’s 1 frustration you want to reduce?
8. What can you do to reduce that frustration?
9. What will you do?

You’ve spent 2 days in reflection. You feel good:

• You have a mission statement.
• You have a list of the 4 goals necessary for carrying out your mission statement.
• You like the wording of your mission statement and your goals.
• You feel like you have what you need—direction.

Question: What’s next?
 
Answer: Determining the action steps you need to take for each of your 4 goals—then taking those action steps. Why? Well, success is not having a mission statement and goals—success is accomplishing your mission and goals.
 
I recommend that each week you take time to determine action steps.
 
Bottom line: Determine your action steps. Then take them.

You want to achieve your mission. So, you get out of the office and take time to identify 5 key goals. Good. When you return to the office, you focus on achieving your goals all week. Good.
 
And then things head downhill:

• In week #2, you notice that you’re not quite as focused on your goals.
• In week #3, you have a crazy week where you can’t work on your goals.
• By week #4, you can’t remember 2 of your goals. Not good.

 
Question: What’s the problem?
 
Answer: You didn’t document your goals.
 
This means…

• You can’t easily review your goals.
• You can’t easily use your goals to schedule your next action steps.
• You can’t easily find out what your goals are when you can’t remember them (something which happens to everyone).

Tip: Document your goals. Today.

We all want to be organized. We all want to be better organized. The problem is that we might not be clear on what it means to be organized. For example, does being organized mean…?

1. Having SMART goals, having goals, or having values?
2. Using spreadsheets to track progress or being able to tell stories about progress?
3. Having a clean desk with everything filed away or having a messy desk with everything in stacks?
4. Planning ahead or seeing what happens?

 My answer?

1. Being organized doesn’t mean having SMART goals, having goals, or having values—being organized means being aware of your priorities.
2. Being organized doesn’t mean using spreadsheets to track progress or being able to tell stories about progress—it means being aware of progress on your priorities.
3. Being organized doesn’t mean having a clean desk with everything filed away or having a messy desk with everything in stacks—it means being able to access the resources you need to address your priorities.
4. Being organized doesn’t mean planning ahead or seeing what happens—it means being intentional about pursuing your priorities.

 So, what can you do? Reflect on the following 6 questions: On a scale of 1-10 (10 being high)…

1. How aware are you of your priorities?
2. How aware are you of your progress on your priorities?
3. How able are you to access the resources you need to address your priorities?
4. How intentional are you about pursuing your priorities?
5. So, how organized are you?
6. How organized do you want to be?

 Remember, being organized helps you pursue God’s calling. Get better organized. Today.

Do you want to reduce your frustrations so you can get on with what God's calling you to do? If so, reflecting on these 5 questions can help.  

If you want to get more done in less time at work, think about how you can manage yourself more effectively at work.

Before getting organized, make sure you're clear on what being organized means and how being organized can help you more effectively carry out your mission. 

You’re working on a vital project. You need help. Which 3 of the following would you most likely do?

• Reflect on what you know.
• Talk with colleagues.
• Read books and magazines.
• Get coaching.
• Check the Internet.
• Get help from a consultant.
• Look at relevant files on your computer.

Have you identified the 3 things you’d most likely do? Good.
 
Question: What key option is missing in the above list?
 
Need some hints? It doesn’t cost money. It’s available 24/7. You can use it anywhere. It gets results.
 
Answer: Asking God for help. God knows everything and wants to help you. So, ask Him for help. Today.

How faithfully and effectively do you use your God-given strengths?

Each day you pursue God’s calling—at home, at work, at church. Each day you focus on being faithful. That’s good. In pursuing God’s calling, being faithful is vital. Because being faithful is vital, I want you to consider a question: How faithful are you in using your God-given strengths? Or to put it another way, How faithful are you in using God’s blessings?
 
God has given you a calling. And He has prepared you for that calling by giving you specific strengths: He has worked in your life to teach you key truths and given you a unique network of relationships, a variety of abilities, distinguishing character traits, and a range of experiences and education.
 
So, how faithful are you in using your God-given strengths? How faithful are you in using God’s blessings? (How faithful are you in using your talents? Remember the Parable of the Talents? Remember how the master responded to the servant who buried his talent? Not using your talents in the name of being faithful is a little like burying them.)
 
Answering these questions is vital. Answering these questions can help you pursue God’s calling. Answering these questions can help you make sure that you are playing your proper role in the Body of Christ and help you avoid being an “eye” that strives to faithfully be a “foot.”
 
So, what can you do? Identify the strengths (blessings) God has given you. Ask yourself, How faithful am I in using my God-given strengths? Help someone else reflect (you can use the questions in the sidebar). If you are a supervisor, ask yourself: How faithful am I in using the strengths God has given to those I supervise? How can I more effectively leverage the blessings God has given those I supervise?
 
Remember, faithfully pursuing God’s calling involves using the strengths God’s given you.

Think of an activity you’re doing. Got one in mind? Good.
 
Question: Why are you doing that activity?
 
Tip: You need to be able to answer that question for each activity you’re involved in.
 
What should your answer include?

• An activity.
• The goal your activity addresses.
• How working on your goal helps you accomplish your mission.
•  

What does an answer look like?

• I’m updating my curriculum maps for Social Studies 8. I'm doing this because I want my students to experience a coherent curriculum. When my students experience a coherent curriculum, they learn more. And when they learn more, they get equipped to impact the world for Christ.
• I’m fixing a sticky door hinge so that students can get to their classes on time. When students get to their classes on time, they can learn more. And when they learn more, they get equipped to impact the world for Christ.

Bottom line: Clarify how your mission, goals, and daily activities are connected. Today.

Good news—God has a plan. He’s already at work. And He’s prepared ways for you to join Him in His work (Eph. 2.10). So, you have the opportunity to be part of God’s plan and work. You don’t have to go figure it all out by yourself or do it all by yourself.
 
Point: Join God in what He’s already doing.
 
3 questions:

1. How clear are you on what God is already doing?
2. How clear are you on how God wants you to join Him in His work?
3. How willing are you to join God in what He’s already doing?

Tip: If you need increased clarity on what God is already doing:

• Pray daily for a minimum of 2 weeks.
• Read God’s Word daily.
• Seek wisdom from 5 of God’s people.

Remember: Join God in what He is already doing. Today.

You want improve in planning. You know this is going to feel like climbing a steep set of steps, so you decide to take it 1 step at a time.
 
Question: How can you climb the next step?
 
To find out:

• Read about the 5 developmental steps (below).
• Then, use the reflection questions to identify what you will do to climb the next step.

 
Here are the 5 steps. Read More...

If you want to get your goals done, pay attention to them.

Reflecting on 4 questions can help you figure out how much time you should invest in each of your goals.

You want to carry out your God-given mission: To empower Christian leaders and organizations to close the rhetoric/reality gap.
 
You have reflected on your mission, prayed and thought about what God would have you do in the next 5 years, and established a 2-part vision:

1. 200 Christian staff from 40 Christian organizations with increased capacity/results
2. 15 Christian organizations with total of 25 new annual capacity-building goals

You have also developed goals that address your vision: To increase capacity/results for…

• 30 Christian staff through coaching
• 75 Christian staff through consulting
• 40 Christian staff through networking
• 40 Christian staff through resourcing
• 150 Christian staff through training

Question: How much time do you want to invest in each of your goals? Read More...

By focusing, working smart, and pursuing excellence. To get an idea of how you can manage yourself more effectively, take the following assessment (download). Write the number in the blank that comes closest to representing how true a given statement is for you right now. Use the following scale:

4: Consistently • 3: Usually • 2: Sort of • 1: Rarely

Focus
___ I focus on joining God in what he is already doing.
___ I focus on doing right things, before I focus on doing things right.
___ I focus on my God-given mission.
___ I have defined my mission in terms of SMART goals.
___ I understand how my mission, goals, and daily activities are connected. Read More...

Make sure you schedule time for your key priorities before you schedule time for other things.

What frustrates you? What has frustrated me includes not having proper travel gear, not having necessary software, and unclear job expectations.
 
Notice, I listed what has frustrated me, not what frustrates me. Read More...