Daily Work Goal #2 For 2012

Have you ever had those mornings that you are not motivated to go to work? Those are awful. Especially if you have a couple of them in a row. We do funny things when we are having a non motivated morning. We drive slower to work. Maybe, even take a longer route, pull in slowly to the coffee drive through hoping the line is long, make a couple phone calls, and then try to hide in our office for a while.
Tuesday is "precision focus" Tuesday. Every Tuesday think to yourself "I need to have precision focus." On your way to work, visualize the things you want to accomplish at work. If you are giving a presentation, spend time thinking about how you want to look and speak during the strong points of that presentation. Get focused, get excited, and take the ability that you have been given to do your job to the next level. Whatever it takes, have precision focus when you show up to do your job. There are things you can do to start your "Precision Focus" for the day. For example, there is a song that I play on my way to work that gets me totally jacked and focused. It takes my mind from sleep mode, to "let's do this!" mode. By the time I open the door and step inside my workplace, I am energized and focused. Hit your workday hard on Tuesday! You have what it takes to do amazing things. In fact, I would go as far to say you have what it takes to do things you don't think you can do. Stay energized, stay excited, and hit your day with Precision Focus.

Daily Work Goal #1 For 2012

Most of us are employed somewhere in the World. We wake up, go through our morning routine, jump in our car and head toward that workplace where we spend 8 hours of our day. Calculate this for a minute. Lets say you start your full time, 40 hour work week career at the age of 21, and retire at the age of 65. If you do the math, you will have worked 91,520 hours, or about 23 percent of your life will be spent at work. That is an astonishing amount of time! With that in mind, I want to help you have the best days at work that you can have, so every Monday Keep this in Mind:

No Body Likes To Be Around "Whining Whitney" or "Complaining Clarance". Think about the person at work who always complains or whines about everything? They are just a ball of fun aren't they? If you can feel the negative energy oozing from their life, I would be willing to bet that your boss can also sense the same thing. When you go to work every Monday of this year, don't be this person! You will drag down those around you, and cause drama that is not needed. When the Monday work day ends, don't bring the negativity of the day home with you. Your Husband/Wife, Kids, Mom/Dad need you to be positive and uplifting. Spare your home from the stress of the workday, and the negative things you have encountered.

Key Verse: Philippians 2:14 "In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing."

A Few Things I Learned In 2011

Here are a few things I learned from 2011.

1. I hit a wall about half way through the year. I started to compare myself to other pastors in the country. I know that I have blogged about not doing this, but I found myself watching so many different people online preach, and thought "wow, if I could just preach like that.." This is something I will absolutly not do in 2012

2. I gained insight into how urgent it is to keep a good name. I am reminded that a good name is important, so doing whatever is necessary to make the right decisions is what must be done.

3. Words are strong. Speaking positive even when I don't want to is the only option I have. Even when people royally tick me off, I am obligated to speak positively to them and about them.

4. Praying daily is essential for spiritual momentum. Staying connected with God on a daily basis needs to be a top priority.

5. Don't let your family go too long without you. Your kids need you, your brother and sister need you, your wife need you, your husband need you, and your parents need you.

There is so much more that I could write on what I have learned this year, but it would take hours to read, so I hope this little burst encourages someone out there in internet land.

My Almost Minor Addiction

This is no secret to my friends who live around me, but to the rest of you that I am not able see at least once a year, I want to let you in on a minor addiction of mine. That's funny, I can tell that you are hooked now! I happen to have a bit of a passion for xbox live. It all started with Call Of Duty Black Ops. I vowed I would never play first person shooter games, but Black Ops was extremely theraputic. Ok, that's a little over exagerated, but I spent a ton of time honing my trigger pulling, and grenade tossing skillz. I thought I would never spend that much time with a TV and Controller ever again! I thought I was freed from stayihg up late and talking with people all over the world. I thought I was actually going to be able to sleep without seeing crosshairs in my dreams. How could I have overlooked the fact that we live in a world that is constantly competing for a better online gaming experience? When I started to see the advertisments and trailers for Modern Warfare 3I knew I was doomed! I knew The late nights and crosshair dreams were going to strike with a vicious force all over again. And trust me, they have! Once again I find myself spending time in front of my TV holding a Wireless Controller, and strapping on my Headset so I can communicate with the voices on xbox live. With 2012 only 6 weeks away I have a new goal that these theraputic, (ha ha), games have taught me. My goal is to spend more time with my bible, alone in a room, strapping on a headset to hear the voice of God. 2012 starts NOW for me. I strongly desire to hone my faith so I can toss strong words that will impact people for the greater good. When I fall asleep I want to dream of how blessed we can be when we spend time intentionally getting to know God. Let's gear up for a year where our focus is on HIM!

Who Fails Who

Tuesday morning I take a little time to check into the NFL stats and highlights. We all know that our favorite teams and players fail the fans from time to time. Trust me I know this really well in the fact that I am a Vikings fan. Here's kind of a humbling thought. Our friends will fail us, our employers will fail us, and sometimes we even fail ourselves. With that comes great dissapointment, and feelings that are somehow tough to manage. But here is a great promise: Hebrews 13:5 "I will never fail you, I will never abandon you." It is a promise that can bring comfort when we experience all different kinds of failures. God will never fail you, He will never fail me, let's take that promise and intentionally apply it to our daily living.

Live With An Intentional Mindset

As we were together as a family my mother would always say "we better enjoy this time we have together, because we might not get too many more opportunities to enjoy each other." It never failed, we knew it was coming before we would all part and go our seperate ways. The idea that time flys is so real! Think about it for a second. We are in the middle of October! Crazy! In just a few short weeks we are going to be driving slowly through our neighborhoods dodging goblins, spongebobs, superheros and other masked characters looking to fill their bags with candy. After that we only have 2 months before the new year arrives. How do we navigate through these fast paced years and make the biggest impact we can make? It all begins with becoming Intentional. If we are intentional our expectations become real, and we are able to turn our thoughts and desires into reality. If we are intentional we can bring focus to our day, and capitalize on what we have identified as important. If we are intentional about becoming a better parent, we will become a better parent. If we are intentional about helping others, we will help others. If we are intentional about growing spiritually, we will grow spiritually. Go ahead and add your own sentence, and you will do whatever that is, if you are intentional. I am excited to see what happens as we live with an intentional mindset.

10 More Pounds

Anybody else out there having a tough time losing 10 pounds? That's all I want, lose 10 more pounds and I will be at my goal that I set for the end of the summer! So I decided for some motivation, I will watch the new season of The Biggest Loser on Hulu, up my cardio workout in the gym, and see if the weight watchers points plan might work. I was really excited when I found out that it is possible to calculate how many points I am allowed per day. I was even more excited when I found out that a Mcdouble Bacon Cheeseburger from Mcdonalds is worth 7 points. I love that burger! (lol, I saw your face when you said "eww.") But here's the other thing I took note of. Even though that burger is allowed in the weight watchers point system, it's not neccesarily good for me. All of the fat grams, sodium, calories, and carbs, still affect my body. This reminded me of a principle that comes righ out of the Bible -

1 Corinthians 10:23 - "Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible, but not everything is constructive."

So, I guess I'll have to change to eating those Olive Garden Breadsticks! (O come on... I'm JOKING!)