Welcome to the November 28th edition of Faith & Life Lessons.
You will see this email full of tidbits from my week. My goal is simple. I hope that from how I live my life, you can find a thing or two that helps you as you try to live a life that matters. I am always trying to do one thing - make Christ-focused decisions in love, work, and life. And this was my week.
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The Story of My Week
I realised that I wasn't living fully in the reality of the current season of life I am in to get the best out of me.
Most nights, I stay up late to try and do some personal stuff.
The problem is that by morning, I am fighting sleep.
I had a conversation with my mentor/coach who first had me run through my typical day.
Because I want to be fully present in my day, I am either fully facing work or family.
And that's why I push personal stuff till late at night.
We decided to play with my day.
His advice was, "shut down earlier so you can wake up early."
It's interesting how I forget what I know and have to be reminded by someone else.
I know research indicates that to be fully rested, we need to get a lot of sleep from 10 pm - 2 am.
And we are sharper to do things in the morning because we are feeling fresh.
In the words of Brendon Burchard, "Common knowledge is not common practice."
Well, now I am trying to practice what I already know.
I decided to go to bed early on Sunday night.
That's why I am writing this update on a Monday morning after waking up by 5:21 am.
I am feeling fresher after a very busy weekend.
This is my new reality.
Things I Learnt
1 - Managing Decisions Better: Late in the week, I had to alter the direction of a particular company decision I had made earlier.
The problem was not that I made a bad decision earlier, it was that I needed to manage the first decision better.
To manage the first decision meant I had to change the decision.
I am not a quick-on-the-feet decision-making kind of guy.
Rather, I am the see-the-possibilities-first decision-making guy.
To do this I need to create distance between me and the decision. I need to see the full view.
To do this, I have to carve out thinking time. Thinking allows me to see how a decision can be improved.
Thinking and creating new perspectives or possibilities is what I see as my superpower.
The problem is that I haven't been doing much of this.
This is probably why I didn't see the need to change the direction of the first decision I made earlier.
I need to put more thinking time in my calendar.
2 - When Plan B is "No Plan": I like to make backup plans for the most important plans I make. Sometimes, my backup plans even have backup plans.
During the week, I had two things I wanted to address and I felt God nudge me not to have a backup plan.
The nudge I felt was "The Backup plan is "TRUST GOD"."
As it turned out, I needed the "Trust God" backup plan.
The first situation was at the bank.
When I was leaving the house, I wanted to take an additional form of identification to the one I had on me. But I felt a nudge not to.
After showing the first identification, they asked for the second one.
I told them I didn't have it.
After a couple of running around by them and me sending them the e-copy of the second one, I got what I wanted from the bank.
The second situation was an event that my wife and I were coordinating on Sunday.
During the set-up on Saturday, I realised that we needed the computer of the staff of the event venue to broadcast on the projector.
I reached out to him and he promised to come with it on Sunday.
It was not a large event and so I thought I could take my big screen monitor as a backup.
But I felt the nudge not to do that.
I copied the files onto a flash drive and left for the event.
As it turned out, his mac did not have the regular USB port - it had the USB-C port.
I smiled and relaxed.
I was going to adjust to this if it is the final frontier.
After a bit of brainstorming with someone else, he was able to get a USB-C to USB Adapter
And it went on without a hitch.
The "TRUST GOD" backup plan delivers when it says it will deliver.
No need for me to overcomplicate things.
Postscript
May you have the peace to trust God to come through for you when you need Him most. May you not be overwhelmed by the urgent and try to do for God what God wants to do for you. Amen
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Tola - The Everyday Disciple
I help Christians like you who want to live intentional lives incorporate their faith into everyday life so they can make Christ focused decisions in all areas of life and truly live to make an impact and make God happy.
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