Life Plan | Coaching Churches

Category Archive: Life Plan

Four Steps To Leaving The Legacy You Have Always Wanted

Posted by on February 4, 2019

We of all leaders should know the difference between people making mistakes in their lives compared to lifetime regrets. We are there many times in the end of life and hear the painful stories of opportunities missed, especially in meaningful relationships. This Forbes post is a good reminder:

“As a multi-certified career discovery coach, I often give clients exercises designed to uncover their passions, values and priorities in life. One well-known exercise is called “The 80th Birthday Party,” in which my clients are asked to imagine themselves at their 80th birthday party and envision what they want people to say about them. Usually, people will want to be remembered for being a great spouse, parent or friend. Therefore, this exercise will help to clarify values and priorities.”

Categories: Church Scattered Core Values Life Plan | Comments Off on Four Steps To Leaving The Legacy You Have Always Wanted

7 Reasons To Own Less

Posted by on September 5, 2018

I encounter a lot of stress not only in my own life but especially with the executives I coach through my company. One of the self inflicted wounds in this overload world we live in is caused by the demands our stuff places on us just to maintain what we already have. I did not have the wisdom or courage to do anything about this on my own but with down sizing our home, I am now a true believer. This Forbes post is worth the read:

“Ten years ago, I decided to embrace minimalist living. I was spending too much of my life caring for possessions and I was wasting too much money managing and accumulating things I didn’t need. Those possessions were not bringing me joy or lasting happiness. They were keeping me from the very things that did.”

Categories: Life Plan Margin Work Life Integration | Comments Off on 7 Reasons To Own Less

Five Questions To Uncover Your Purpose

Posted by on July 2, 2018

I wasted years trying to do the right things without clearly defining what those things actually are. The volume of inputs is increasing daily and how can we possibly know what to do and what not to do? The only way to consistently say No to the good things, to be able to say Yes to the best, is to know and live according to your purpose. This Forbes Coaches Council is excellent:

“In the quiet moments, when you’re truly honest with yourself, you aren’t even sure why you are doing what you’re doing today (beyond just paying the bills). You have no idea how you ended up here. But above all else, you crave more and you know there is more out there — more meaning, connection, consciousness and growth.”

Categories: Core Values Life Plan Work Life Integration | Comments Off on Five Questions To Uncover Your Purpose

How To Get A Life Worth Living

Posted by on June 22, 2018

All of us have things in our lives we would like to do differently. We tell ourselves that someday we will make the changes that will produce the kind of life we really want. Then outside demands increase and we buy into the this is only temporary lie again. If you don’t have the courage to write your own script, someone else will for you. This post by Jeremy Lott was great:

“For my first job in Washington, DC, I worked very long hours. One night, a rare dinner date was lined up. “What time do you get off?” my date asked to coordinate. A long, awkward pause followed. “It’s kind of a philosophical question,” I finally admitted.”

Categories: Core Values Life Plan Work Life Integration | Comments Off on How To Get A Life Worth Living

How To Know What's Important: Calendars and Checkbooks

Posted by on June 18, 2017

We all want to accomplish the things that are really important in life and learn the discipline to walk away from everything else. Most of us have not taken the time to write down specific goals in a life plan that involves everything personal, family, faith, friends and our professional lives. Best practice Living Forward by Michael Hyatt.

So how do we know if we are just filling our schedules with things to do without any serious evaluation or if those are the things that should even be done at all? We don’t want to get to the end of our lives and look back realizing that a lot of our time was totally wasted on things that don’t really matter.

A great place to start is to evaluate how we are spending our time and our money. Calendars can tell us a lot about our core values and priorities because they reflect the choices we are making. No doubt some of our time is not our own to schedule but how we are spending a large percentage of it reflects what is really a priority and what is not.

Are you making time for the people and relationships that you care about the most or are they getting the leftovers at best? If you really want to know, take the time to track how you are spending your time for at least a month. You will be amazed how much of it is scheduled based on what appears to be urgent at the time but in the end is not really important at all.

The next big indicator of what is a priority in our lives is to look at how we are spending our finances. If we are living beyond our means and accumulating unnecessary debt then we have a major character problem that must be addressed.

More stress is brought into marriage by this one area than almost anything else. The only solution is again to write down a budget that includes all of your expenses and then have the discipline to post all your transactions and make necessary adjustments to live within your income.

You may think this sounds like way too much work to me and I am already busy enough. Trust me you are already using calendars and checkbooks anyway but you may not be gaining any of the benefits of leading your life instead of just letting it happen.

Categories: Core Values Life Plan Marriage Personal Leadership Work Life Integration | Comments Off on How To Know What's Important: Calendars and Checkbooks

How To Make Time For What Matters Most

Posted by on May 15, 2017

The skill sets involved in personal productivity will ensure that you can get more things done faster. However, they can not tell you if those things should be done at all. Everyone really needs to develop a life plan that defines the major priorities in their life. Michael Hyatt’s Living Forward is an excellent tool. This post by Sherry Swift is also helpful:

“So many of us suffer from the unrealistic, anxiety-based feeling that “there is never enough time.” This feeling usually comes from living a distracted life — one that is constantly interrupted by something noisy and new. As a result of this lifestyle, we are often left feeling disjointed, incomplete and unsuccessful.”

Categories: Core Values Life Plan Work Life Integration | Comments Off on How To Make Time For What Matters Most

9 Great Paradoxes Of Our Time

Posted by on March 22, 2017

In a day when our calendars are beyond full and yet our lives seem to be empty something has gone wrong. We in many cases have assumed because we are busy the things we are doing must be important.

We clearly have shifted the focus from being as a person to doing and what we are able to accomplish. Technology has helped us in many cases simply to do the wrong things faster.

The great paradoxes of our time have been summed up well by the Dalai Lama:

“We have more conveniences, but less time.

We have more degrees, but less sense…more knowledge but less judgment.

More experts, but more problems.

More medicines, but less healthiness.

We have been all the way to the moon and back but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.

We build more computers to hold more information that produce more copies than ever before, but have less communication.

We have become long on quantity, but short on quality.

These are the times of fast foods but weak digestion.

It is a time when there is much in the window but nothing in the room.”

For many of us we have been living the script for our lives that were given to us by someone else; parents, peers, friends or the culture we live in. The time has come for us to have the courage to say no and the passion to write our own.

Categories: Life Plan Marriage Work Life Integration | Comments Off on 9 Great Paradoxes Of Our Time

Developing A Life Plan

Posted by on January 13, 2017

All of us at some point in time finally ask ourselves if we are living out the script someone else gave us or is it really the life we want. There are so many outside factors: parents, friends, culture and circumstances that drive us toward an uncertain destination. Developing a Life Plan starts with a healthy self-awareness that helps you discover who you are and what you want out of life. This HBR post tells great story:

“Tina was at a crossroads. Her daughter had recently left for college, and her husband had his own pursuits. And although she’d once enjoyed banking, she now bore little interest in her work. For some time, she had been asking herself whether she should quit. But what would her colleagues and bosses think of her?”

Categories: Church Scattered Life Plan Work Life Integration | Comments Off on Developing A Life Plan

The Priority Of A Life Plan

Posted by on April 25, 2016

All of us have become proficient at doing all the major components of the business plan at work. We know how to define goals, create plans, execute priorities and evaluate success.

However, very few of us use these same disciplines to help lead our personal lives. Research shows that approximately 95% of us have never written out our personal goals in life, but of the 5% who have, 95% have achieved them.

Steven Covey popularized the phrase Personal Mission Statement in his bestselling book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He makes the point that ultimately all professional success flows out of our ability to lead ourselves first.

Every day we must say no to something because there is simply too much to do when you include the personal, family, career and civic responsibilities of our lives. If we do not take the time to define what we want our legacy to be for the people and things we care about the most they will by default usually end up on the no list.

What the annual plan does for your corporate productivity and performance your personal mission statement will do for the rest of your life. It will help define the core values for you personally and your family and set realistic goals with strategies that will help you to write your own script for the totality of your entire life.

It should never be acceptable to succeed in one area of our lives only to fail in all the others. Take the time to write down what is personally and professionally important to you in this life because in the end that is all that will really matter.

Categories: Life Plan | Comments Off on The Priority Of A Life Plan

Without A Plan You're Growing Nowhere

Posted by on March 14, 2014

This subject is a real passion of mine. It never ceases to amaze me that we have very detailed plans at work and then have no real plan at all for the people that matter the most. This must start with leading ourselves and then others. John Maxwell is a great leader and this post will clearly help you:

“Personal growth doesn’t happen by accident. It’s not an automatic process. If you want to guarantee growth, then you need a plan—something strategic, specific, and scheduled. A plan for growth requires you to…

Take the necessary time to make this happen. Michael Hyatt has some excellent resources on his website. Read More…

Categories: Life Plan Work Life Integration | Comments Off on Without A Plan You're Growing Nowhere