by David Delp | Feb 19, 2016 | Uncategorized
Life has knocked my dreams off track so many times. There’s a lot of stuff, big stuff inside me. Stuff I believe is from God. Dreams that are more than wishes, dreams that are deeply connected to my purpose for being on this earth. When will I start again? Right now!
Before we can change something, do something important, or lift to the next level we must have a sense of urgency to keep us from settling into our comfort zones.
John Kotter, in his book, Leading Change, lists one of the necessary components of leading an organizational change as “creating a sense of urgency.” Before a leader can lead a group forward, the people have to have a sense of urgency; otherwise, they stay in their comfort zone. I believe the same is true for personal transformation.
“Right now!” is a sense of urgency that moves us to action. If we are to accomplish something important, change something, or move out of our comfort zones, we must have a sense of “Right now.”
Most people have sizable dreams they wish to accomplish someday. I love to develop ideas, write useful things, and help leaders develop the people in their lives. I have a hard time staying on track for the long-haul. I have one book complete, but needing a rewrite, one 25% complete, and another in fragments that need organized and gathered. Those things are just one of my big God-dreams. I’ve already written a lot, developed a lot, its in me–now on to the next level! Right now!
“Right now!” is the time.
We will fulfill our big God-dreams when we get a “Right Now!” attitude. Today will turn into tomorrow, tomorrow will turn into next week, next week will turn into three decades. I have some dreams three decades old. If I nurture them for three more decades without action, “game over.”
Right now!
Charles Hummel wrote a booklet entitled, The Tyranny of the Urgent. I’ve never read it, but the red cover with yellow words is fixed in my mind. The title is all I need to convey whatever message is in the book. Urgent things have a tendency to take precedence over important things. Urgent things are “Right now!” things.
A well-known priority matrix encourages us to prioritize thusly:
Priority One: Things urgent and important
Priority Two: Things important but not urgent
Priority Three: Things urgent but not particularly important
Priority Four: Things neither important nor urgent
Priority three items kill me; urgent items on my action list that do not move my purpose forward, yet I must do them.
Priority two items are my greatest challenge. Things vitally and critically important that can always wait until tomorrow, and too often, they do.
I have a card under the glass of my office desk. I gave a duplicate to my girls when they were teenagers. I’ve seen Kelly’s card prominently displayed in a few locations. The card has a Jim Rohn quote that says, “If you don’t have a plan for your life, you will fall into someone else’s plan, and guess what they have planned for you—not much!”
Other people’s “urgent” will kill your “important.”
We must gain a sense of urgency for important things necessary to fulfill God’s plan and purpose for our lives. Right now!
How do we gain a sense of urgency for the critically important things we often push into “tomorrow?”
#1 Keep your perspective.
Maintain a finite perspective. I have an app on my phone that reminds me, Lord willing, how many days I have before celebrating my 80th birthday. Why? I need to grasp my finite amount of time. I cannot spend my life pushing important things until tomorrow. It is urgent that I move things forward every day. Age 80 is not necessarily my finish line, but that is the number that focuses me on the finite. I’ve learned all too well that life can beat you up and stop you in your tracks if you do not keep perspective.
We must also maintain an infinite perspective. Do your actions and investments affect eternity? When you pass from this life, the only thing that will matter are the investments you’ve made in others and in the Kingdom of God. What must you do today to advance infinitely important things?
#2 Embrace the power of incremental movement.
You cannot accomplish your God-given life plan in a day. We do not accomplish a life plan by holing up in a cabin for a month. You must move little bits and pieces forward every single day of your life. Think of one small thing you could do today, or everyday, to move your plan forward; consider that one thing both important and urgent. Right now!
#3 Define your action items and establish deadlines.
What are the little things you must do every day?
Break your big dreams down into chunks. If you want to write books, focus on the first one. Establish milestones, such as chapter topics and outlines. Put deadlines on your calendar for each of those tasks. What must you do daily to meet those goals? Those daily tasks are important and urgent.
If you cannot move the long-term important into a sense of short-term urgency, you will fail.
#4 Fire your passion.
You can only hold on to a dream if you are passionate about it. If the passion wanes and dies, perhaps it wasn’t a God-dream. I believe passion comes from a God-revelation. You have to renew your passion often to keep important things important and your sense of urgency fired up.
Fix your sights on the big stuff, the big dreams God has put inside you.
Life happens. You will have to adjust your calendar every week. Urgent matters will pop up and you will have to deal with things outside of your plan. But, you must have a sense of urgency about your priorities or you will fall into someone else’s plan for your life—and guess what they have planned for you, not much.
Right now!
I would love to hear about some of the ways you keep your dreams and passions alive.
by David Delp | Dec 16, 2015 | Uncategorized
Every difficult life experience affects us, it affects the way we “walk”. Sometimes a loss or a wound is so great that it affects every single step we take for the rest of our lives. I feel that way. But when the Spirit of God breathes upon us, gets under our wings and lifts us off the ground we soar, our wound doesn’t stop us, we equalize, our limp becomes irrelevant.
Our wounds affect the way we walk, but when we fly our limp is not obvious.
The other day I sat in the conference chapel of our office, looking out the window facing the parking lot. A flock of geese worked their way from the adjoining property onto our parking lot. They picked at the ground and they leisurely waddled across the grass and asphalt.
One goose was wounded. It walked with a decided limp. It struggled to keep up, but it stayed with the flock. I’m not sure what happened to the goose. Perhaps a car clipped it, maybe it almost lost its life in a struggle with a dog. Whatever happened, it’s life was forever changed by what was most likely a brief encounter.
The goose went on with life, stayed with the flock, and kept doing what geese do. The other geese seemed oblivious to the limping goose, it was just another goose.
It occurred to me that when this goose walks it is different, it limps, it is wounded. When the goose flies it looks just like the other geese, you can tell no difference.
I live with a limp. Not physically, but I “walk” with a limp. Actually, most everyone who has engaged life “walks” with some kind of a limp. But we can soar when we transcend the confines of the temporal and move into God’s intentions for our lives.
My lessons from a limping goose:
Ok, so you’ve been wounded, just live life and limp.
The fact that their comrade was limping didn’t seem to bother the other geese. Sometimes we live in our pain to such a degree that we let the rest of the world walk away from us. Engage. Really, your limp doesn’t keep you from engaging life.
The limping goose did not flap its wings and try to constantly draw attention to the fact that it was limping.
When the goose was first injured it probably did flap its wings a lot, keeping pressure off the wound. As time and pain passed the goose normalized. Now, the other geese are like, “oh yeah, that’s just George, he limps, whatever, he’s cool.” At some point we merge back into life with our limps and scars and we roll on. God will use our limps and scars to His glory and our transformation forever, but it becomes a vital accessory and not the focus.
There is a difference between walking and flying.
The events that slam us in this temporary realm (2 Corinthians [4:16]-18) do not dictate what God can do in us and through us. We equalize when the wind of the Spirit gets under our wings and we lift off the ground because we all depend upon the same wind when we fly.
We have to engage both the ground and the sky.
We have to navigate the realities of the world in which we live and we must engage the sky. As long as we live as human beings we will engage the ground, but as followers of Christ we need to learn to engage the sky. Limits yield to the power of the Spirit, present realities yield to the Lordship of Christ.
Yes, I have a limp, and you do too, most likely. I have decided that my limp doesn’t limit me, in fact it only helps me realize how normal I am when I fly. My limp makes me want to fly more. Perhaps that is one purpose of wounds, to teach us that flying is what we’re were really created to do. After all, we can fly and when we like the ground a little less we spend more time in the sky, and that is what we were meant to do–fly.
by David Delp | Sep 7, 2015 | Uncategorized
If I want the results I want, I have to do the things that create those results. Sabbath is one of the things that I have to contend for in my life: Our body, soul, and spirit need refreshing regularly or we will fry. I strive to align life and leadership by resting once in a while, but I find it a challenge. Whats up with that?
What are the things in our lives that demand adjustment before we can obtain the prize? The following principles apply broadly:
- Just because my circumstances do not allow something does not give me a free pass.
- If my circumstances do not allow a non-negotiable imperitive, then I have to change my circumstances.
- Decisions always cost us something, we just have to decide what’s most important to us.
- Rarely do we accomplish our goals in a single bound. Make a plan to align your life.
Hard work is important. Rest is important. I sometimes feel life is simply too busy to take a day off. I know the importance, but circumstances just do not permit it. A lot of people, regardless of vocation, have such conflict. God worked six days and rested seven. Our physical body, emotions, mind, and spirit are wired for regular periods of rest.
Our physical body, emotions, mind, and spirit are wired for regular periods of rest.
Here are some thoughts that apply broader than just sabbath. In fact, let’s think of sabbath as an example and feel free to plug in whatever it is that you need to calibrate, but just cannot for some reason.
Challenge the circumstance.
Just because my circumstances do not allow something does not give me a free pass.
It is the dog-ate-my-homework syndrome. We call it “excuses”. Whether the dog ate your homework or you just didn’t do it, you still don’t have it. At School of Ministry we occasionally have a student whose computer glitched and they lost their completed study guide. We have compassion, but we can’t grade something they don’t have. Back up your work. This is self-leadership.
Whether the dog ate your homework or you just didn’t do it, you still don’t have it.
If I rarely take a day off, however noble the reasons, my kids are still going to grow up, my wife is still neglected, my body will still wear out, and my emotions will still fry. No free passes on the requirements of God and life.
Change the circumstance.
If my circumstances do not allow a non-negotiable imperitive, then I have to change my circumstances.
In a coaching situation I had a guy once tell me, “My job takes me away from home four nights a week and it is destroying my marriage, but the job pays too good to quit; good jobs are hard to come by.” Hmmm… Wow…
Quit your job.
Easy for you to say.
These are the tensions of life. When circumstances prevent us from obtaining the prize for which we strive, we need to adjust the circumstances when it is within our power to do so. Therein lies the discernment. Most of the time we really do have the power to decide.
When circumstances prevent us from obtaining the prize for which we strive, we need to adjust the circumstances.
Decide what’s most important.
Decisions always cost us something, we just have to decide what’s most important to us.
I believe a healthy, long-term pace for life is working 5 days, taking care of personal business on the sixth, and resting the seventh day. Sometimes the personal business can be mixed in with the other work, but we work 6 days a week. “Rest” is open to broad interpretation. It may mean inactivity, it may mean doing something you enjoy, but it is disengaging from stress and changing the pace and focus.
Life is constantly weighing decisions in a balance. Sometimes we can have many things if we think strategically, at other times, we can only have one of two things we want. We just have to decide what’s most important to us… not what is more urgent, but what is more important. I usually have to let go of something in my hand to reach for something else.
Progress toward the ideal.
Rarely do we accomplish our goals in a single bound. Make a plan to align your life.
Sometimes we have to build a runway before we can get the plane off the ground. To change the pace of our lives sometimes involves strategic thinking, laying ground work, and working toward the ideal. Don’t give up if your correction requires several steps, just start taking the steps.
Back to the thought of sabbath…
I once had a wife. I regularly took time that belonged to her and gave it to something else. I gave it because I was already doing what I was paid to do, this was above and beyond. People applauded, they told me how great I was. I would make it up to her later. Guess what… there was no later.
I now give to my wife what belongs to her. I am intent on living healthy. Funny thing, when we keep our priorities straight and make hard decisions, we put on wings and fly. Maybe its because we are refreshed, we have energy, we think straight, we are more productive and everything else in our lives works a lot better.
Take the word sabbath out of this article and replace it with other words: pray, sleep, write, work out. We reap what we sow.
Think about your life and leadership alignment. What changes do you need to make? Hey, I am still working on this. I still mess up the sabbath thing sometimes, but I’m getting better and I am going to keep aiming at the prize and making wise decisions as long as God helps me!
by David Delp | Aug 26, 2015 | Leadership, Uncategorized
Perfectionism is my greatest obstacle to accomplishing anything. Excellence challenges me to do things right, perfectionism challenges me to do nothing unless it meets nearly impossible standards.
There is a difference between excellence and perfection.
Excellence challenges me to do things right. It challenges me to grow.
Perfectionism challenges me to not do anything unless it is perfect according to my perceived standards. And often my standards are higher than I can reasonably fulfill.
Excellence is caring enough to put forth an effort to do my best. “Best” is always defined by time, resources, preparation, opportunity, and circumstances.
Perfectionism is unreasonable in its demands.
- It keeps me from launching new things
- It keeps me from making my work public
- It keeps me from sharing the great things in my heart with others
- It keeps me from feeling good about things that are good
- It dishonors the gifts God has given me
Pursuing excellence takes us to the next level. Pursuing perfection holds us back.
Perfectionism keeps me from doing the things I am passionate about. I’ve not made a blog entry for over a month. When I started this blog I committed to myself that I would blog no less than once a week no matter what, within reason. So, why have I missed so many weeks? Perfectionism. I have plenty to say, just not the perfect thing. I’ve written lots of drafts, but they were too… imperfect. I’ve written books that are trapped up in my hard drive because… well, they aren’t perfect.
Newsflash: We are not perfect. But you know what, perfection isn’t the attribute that draws people to us, or makes us effective. Who we are, imperfections and all, and how we live and move forward in spite of those imperfections is what makes us valuable.
I need to get over myself. I’ve been told that more than a few times in my life. I need to get over myself, not because I think I’m all that, but because I’m my own worst critic. I am too hard on myself… See, I did it again!
I am going to use this blog to help me get over my penchant for perfection. I’m going to post once a week, even if it stinks. In fact, I am not going to over-tweak this post, I’m going to just post it. I have a feeling it won’t smell as bad as I think it might because usually the things I create that people connect with are the things I didn’t think were my best work… And those things I thought were my sapphires of crowning achievement were barely noticed by anyone.
So, let’s do this.
Get over yourself, you are not perfect, everyone already knows you aren’t. Do not despise the gifts you have today, who you are, what you have to offer… pursue excellence, but forget about perfection.
by David Delp | Jun 21, 2015 | Relationships, Spiritual Life, Uncategorized
Dad taught me the power of believing in myself. Mom taught me the power of believing in God. Mom taught me to pursue the Presence of God and Dad taught me how to develop processes to implement and execute vision.
I am so weary of those who focus solely on plans and strategies to sucessfully push and shove their own agenda on everyone around them through sheer willpower and transactional leadership skill.
I am also weary of those who criticize those gifted to craft a strategy to fulfill a God-given vision because somehow they think it more spiritual to camp in the euphoria of the Presence, never fulfilling divinely birthed directives.
I am thankful for a Mom who taught me to value and seek the Presence of God in my life. She taught me dependence on God and to always seek God’s agenda. I am thankful for a Dad who taught me how to think and how to believe in what God had put in me.
We need to seek God’s agenda, His purpose and plan, His direction. We need to seek his empowerment to accomplish what He puts in our hearts. We need to understand how God made us and how He wired us.
My calling is to place my ear on the chest of the Father, listen to his heart beat, and then do what I heard. (Quote inspired by Henri Nouwin)
Once we hear and know God’s agenda, then it’s time to act, it’s time to believe in the gifts and abilities God has given us, it’s time to have confidence in what we’ve heard and build out an inspired plan.
Sometimes our purpose or calling is complex, but it finds fulfillment in layers of simple steps.
I need to courageously attempt things big enough that without God’s help I will fail, but also understand He has uniquely developed within me the faith, courage, experience and abilities necessary to do what He is directing.
Thanks Mom, for teaching me to rely on God and not self.
Thanks Dad, for teaching me that God put good abilities and gifts in me.
The mix of these two, Presence and process, have made me who I am. I want to fully follow God’s agenda and I want to build structures and processes that will actually accomplish the vision.
On this Father’s Day I am thankful for strength in the two things I must have, the Presence of God and the process thinking to accomplish God’s agenda.
As a transformational leader, give attention to those two things in the lives of those you love and lead!
