Empowerment and Motivation

How you are motivated can determine how you are empowered.

 

Three Ways to Simplify Your Life



People often get overwhelmed in life. Have you tried to cut back to make life manageable? We get more and more things, then we need more money to maintain everything in our lives. We have become dependent upon electronics and smart phones.  We are in constant communication with everyone and life seems to get more complicated and confusing.

 

Isn't it time that we simplify our lives?

 

I think so...you can empower yourself by reexamining your life, strengthening the essentials, and eliminating the waste in your lives.

 

I am in a season of life where there are simply too many things that I would like to do, but don't have the time. So I have been thinking a lot lately about how I could simplify my life and be happier and feel better about my life.

 

There are three things that will make a person's life simpler and more fulfilling. Actually, I came up with a lot more than three, but realized that I could easily make things more complicated in an effort to simplify life. (Life is full of ironies like that.) I examined all of the things that I had listed and took the three things that I feel will make our lives more fulfilling and they all begin with a realistic examination of our lives.

 

We must honestly evaluate everything that we do and be willing to make the adjustments necessary to make our lives better. I recently saw a definition of discipline and have used this definition many times.

 

DISCIPLINE 

is

choosing between

what I want most

 &

what I want now.

 

I love this definition because it sums up our lives well. We may want washboard abs, but are we willing to diet and exercise to get them. I believe that we all have ability to be healthy and fit if we are willing to do what is necessary.

 

Three things that will help us to simplify our lives and become more satisfied:

 

1. Determine what thing or two is most essential for personal growth and do them every day.

 

If you are not developing personally or professionally, you are declining. Ask yourself what are the most important things that I should do everyday that will help me become the person that I want to be? Things like exercise, Bible reading, praying, mediation, listening to sermons or development experts, or blogging. Make these things a priority and do them daily.

 

"If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority."

 

2. List all of your daily activities, then label them as:

1. Essential
2. Useful
3. Enjoyable
4. Wasteful

Then focus on the essential and eliminate the wasteful.

 

Obviously, the things that essential and useful should be prioritized and strengthened. We should examine those things that are enjoyable--like watching TV for two hours every evening--and determine if we should exchange that activity for a more useful one.

 

But the thing here is to identify and eliminate those things that are wasteful in our lives.

 

3. Eliminate dead weight (i.e. things that hinder us).

 

We have all seen the movies where items were thrown out of a plane or over the side of a ship to lighten the load to prevent a horrible tragedy. Americans want to live outside of our means. I saw a movie years ago where a couple crash landed on a island. They had to walk to the other side of the island so that they could be saved. When the couple started out, the woman insisted that they carry her bags. By the time they reached the other side of the island, they had discarded all unnecessary weight. Her priorities had changed. Things that seemed important actually were hindrances.

 

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Upgrading Your "Life Vehicle"

 

 

You may be satisfied with your life as it is right now, but I have suspicions that there are things that you still want out of life. We should always be looking for ways to advance our situation in life, and to help others advance in their lives. Our life "vehicle" has brought us to where we are, and will take us further.

 

Your vehicle should be equipped to take you to the next level in life!

 

"Vehicle" comes from the Latin vehiculum (a means of transport) which is derived from vehere (to carry). The dictionary meaning is 1) a thing used for transporting people or goods, or 2) a thing used to express, embody, or fulfill something. We each have a "vehicle" that takes us to where we want to be in life, but everybody's vehicle is different.

 

The "vehicle" that takes us to where we want to be in life is our knowledge, skills, and abilities. Some of us have great and reliable vehicles that takes us to places we want to go, however we should always be upgrading. Because life is a journey, it is as much about the vehicle as it is about the road or the destination. Even if your vehicle is adequate for now, we should not be satisfied.

 

You should always be upgrading your knowledge. It is often said that knowledge is power. Every job, career, organization, or discipline has information that is unique. A person that goes to work for Alltel may be a RF engineer and know everything about wireless communication, but still has to learn information that is unique to Alltel. A young man was hired as a leasing coordinator for a company. He worked in a pool of other leasing coordinators, but while the other coordinators did their jobs and earned a paycheck. This young man began to learn how the company as a whole worked and soon became a project manager because he gained the knowledge about the company the other lease coordinators did not.

 

My daughter works for a restaurant chain. Not being satisfied with just earning a check and because she has an inquisitive mind, she determine that she wanted to know everything about the restaurant chain. As a result of her gaining more knowledge and showing her dependability, she has become a manager and goes to other restaurant grand openings to assist. She is on her way to having her own restaurant--and she is only twenty years old.

 

Upgrade your knowledge and become an expert in an area that is vital for the company success or can become a marketable asset. Become the "go to" person in that area.

 

As you upgrade your knowledge, upgrade your skills also. A skill is a combination of abilities, techniques, and knowledge that makes a person do tasks at a higher degree or standard. Skills are primarily learned behavior. We attend college, trade schools, or take on internships to gain the skills needed to advance our careers. Skills come from putting knowledge into action. Knowledge that it not followed up by action is useless.

The third upgrade should be to your ability. Ability is the generic make up of a person that is generally inherited. Abilities are either cognitive or physical and everybody has an inherent level of abilities. Ability is part of a person's overall make up that includes personality, intelligence, and emotions. However, abilities can improve or diminish. 

 

Knowledge, skills, and abilities work together. An athlete may be big and be able to run very fast, but that ability will not make him a football player. The athlete must gain football knowledge. Being big, able to run, and having football knowledge still does not make that person a running back. Skill comes when a person's ability is combined with knowledge and put into action. This continual action produces skill.

 

This combination of knowledge, ability, and skill is the vehicle that will take you toward your destiny.

Coaching Questions:

1. Are you satisfied with your level of knowledge, abilities, and skills and are they able to take you to the next level?

2. Which is your greatest strength?

-Knowledge
-Abilities
-Skills

3. What is your greatest weakness

-Knowledge
-Abilities
-Skills

4. Which of these three need the biggest upgrade?

5. When and how will you start this upgrade?


 

Do you need help in advancing to the next level?

 

Have you considered getting a coach?

 

Coaches can help you identify your next level and work to achieve it.

 

For more coaching information email me at jimbayes4@hotmail.com

 

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