Archive for inspiration
Cultivating Discipline, Part 4: Habit-forming…
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I am a creature-of-habit… There are restaurants where everybody knows my name and that I drink Dr. Pepper… But I’ve found a pattern:
It takes more time and purposefulness to develop a good habit (like going to the gym) than to develop a bad habit (like eating a whole bag of chips in front of the TV)…
Maybe you experience the same struggle: the inertia of the status quo makes forming new, better habits hard… it’s work… and when I’m honest with myself, I don’t really want to do the work…
And here’s the circular logic that I get tangled up in:
Cultivating discipline relies on forming better habits and forming better habits is an exercise in cultivating discipline…
A few tips that I’ve gleaned from the www:
1. The 21-Day Rule… Everybody is different and some research in the UK has indicated that there may even be people who are “habit-resistant,” but the average person will form a new habit by repeating the desired behavior for 21 days.
2. It’s OK to Get Help… There is a reason that Alcoholics Anonymous is successful… It relies heavily on the esprit de corps (“spirit of the group”) to help group members form new habits, relationships and coping skills. Having a workout partner or Bible study group can make forming a new habit more challenging and more fun.
3. Attitude is Everything… Optimistic people are 4 times more likely to achieve their goals. If you are a generally pessimistic person (you will know this is you because you like to describe yourself as “a realist”) then your first goal should be to discipline yourself toward positive thinking. It won’t make your rich, beautiful or thin overnight, but it will open your heart to the possibility of substantial changes.
4. Remind Yourself… If I decide today that I’m going to drink 8 glasses of water everyday, I have got to remember to do it TOMORROW… Forgetting my goals is a real problem… Write it down, tape it to your bathroom mirror, or the fridge, or that bag of Oreos… Re-commit every time you see it… Decide everyday to do it again.
5. Suck it up… Sometimes, you need to just get to work… because nobody pays you to believe in the power of your dreams. Sorry to sound harsh, but some of the most pivotal times in my life have been those moments when someone cared enough to kick me in the butt…
You might find this website helpful: Habit Watcher helps you track your progress toward multiple goals…
What habits are you trying to make? or break? What tools have helped you?
Psst... Pass it on...NEXT in this series: Suck It Up…
Creativity Killers, Part 1: The Block…
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The view from here...
For a Christ-follower, using your gifts in worship is an act of heart… Something most creatives can easily wrap their right-brains around…
Heart… Feeling… Inspiration… Soul…
Virtually required elements for creativity.
Lately, Inspiration has been eluding me. I generally feel that I have a fairly deep well to go to when I need to draw out an idea… a image… a solution…
But not recently.
It’s like there’s a gate inside my mind that all of the good ideas are hiding behind… All I seem to be capable of is approaching the gate and knocking… But the gatekeeper is nowhere to be found and I seem to have misplaced my keys.
I haven’t even been able to write for a couple of weeks… In truth, I think my best writing is actually months behind. So, I dug deep and consulted a reliable source…
I prayed about it.
I wonder, often, about non-believers… How they access their creativity… Because I really identify with Jesus’ assertion:
I am the vine, you are my branches… Apart from Me, you can do nothing…
I’m not courting false-humility here… This is literally true. I’ve tried to use my creativity outside of the realm of worship and “Christian service” and it’s always a dismal failure.
I understand that this isn’t true for every christian… I know a number of artists that are able to move in their creativity in “secular” situations. I’ve always found this interesting and have recently just accounted it to differences in individual calling…
But true worship flows from the heart. On another occasion, Jesus said:
The time is coming, and is already here, that the true worshippers will worship in spirit and in truth…
Worship through artistic expression, therefore, must naturally flow from a true reflection of my innermost being… from a heart empowered by God’s Spirit. Whether I write or lead the band or doodle graphics or any of the other outlets for creativity that I offer up, it’s just not “worship” without integrity and connection with God.
When I suffer from “blocked” creativity, I start looking for a breakdown in either Spirit or truth or both…
I found an interesting combination of breakdowns when I prayed about this…
And I want to share these… If not for the sake of anybody but myself…
And, what are blogs for if not narcissistic navel-gazing…
Psst... Pass it on...Tomorrow… Part 2, All Stressed Up and No One to Punch…
A New Way to Think About Creativity from TED…
Posted by: | CommentsI ran across this today… Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the runaway bestseller, Eat, Pray, Love, talks about the creative process.
It’s well worth the 19 minutes that it will take you to watch it…
Psst... Pass it on...re:purposed from Missional Living…
Posted by: | CommentsCheck out this insightful post from Tom Cottar over at Missional Living…
One of the new buzzwords of our ‘green’ society has caught me by surprise and slowed me down. Insiders no longer use the term ‘recycled’, as in ‘recycled glass’, but ‘repurposed’.
Which I completely love, but not in a green way…. (read more)
Psst... Pass it on...The Gnawing Discontent…
Posted by: | CommentsGod has created us and our gifts for a place of his choosing and we will only be ourselves when we are finally there. – Oz Guiness
photo credit: Daniel Owen (Daniel & Sonja on Flickr.com)
I’ve been seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for some time now…
It doesn’t seem to be getting any brighter.
Do you know what I’m talking about?
God plants a seed of himself in us, Paul called is a “deposit” of the glory to come… His Holy Spirit. And this Spirit speaks to our innermost thoughts and desires, He enlightens our passions, He restores our hope…
Sometimes, when I’m feeling cynical, I think He teases us…
I know a couple of ministry-types that kinda flounder from position to position, church to church, looking for the right fit… To me, they constantly seem to be trying to shove the proverbial square peg into a round hole…
They don’t see their own shape…
If you know many ministers, you know at lease one of these guys:
The Evangelist who continually tries (and fails) as a Pastor…
The Missionary who settled for a job administrating other missionaries…
The Youth Pastor who thought it was time to “move up” to Senior Pastor…
Their work doesn’t bring energy and life to them… Instead of living “abundantly,” they have settled for a place of service that provides some counterfeit for life: monetary stability, worldly prestige…
You get the idea?
I find artists to be especially vulnerable to this kind of thing… After all, there are only 32 new positions for “rock stars” that come available every year and 85% wash out by year-two… For the guy that has great musical talent, a job selling widgets seems more stable, reasonable and safe…
But Jesus didn’t say, I have come to give you a stable life…
Knowing this truth, however, is very different from walking it out… I struggle a lot to walk in my gifts and calling… I get discouraged easily when things appear to be trending away from the goal that I’ve set my heart on…
That’s when I eat Oreos…
Discouragement is the enemy of abundance, but I’m not convinced this is true of Discontent…
Discontent can be a catalyst… It can drive us to work harder, work smarter and really sell-out to our vision and calling…
Are you sold-out to your vision and calling?
Or shall I pass the Oreos?
Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. -The Bible, Psalm 37:4
Psst... Pass it on...
