Even Great Leaders Have Fear

Sure we can say it but I don't think we let it sink in.

Since I'm working through reading the Bible in a year, I got the chance to spend some time reading about Moses. Moses the one we usually picture with his white beard either holding the Ten Commandments entrusted to him by God or with staff in hand arms raised parting the Red Sea. The man who lead the slaves out of Egypt.

This is a man to whom God talked directly, sure through a burning bush, but Moses heard God's voice TALK TO HIM. How many times have I thought, "If God just had my email and told me 'this is what I want you to do' I'd know for sure and I'd do it." Moses had that.  God was very specific in what Moses was to do and even what he was to say.

You know how Moses responded?

God: I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.
Moses: But, but, but.... Who am I?

God: I will be with you.
Moses: But, but, but..... what shall I tell them?

God: Tell the Israelites this.....
Moses: But, but, but..... what if they don't believe me?

God then shares the miracles that will take place to prove that Moses is speaking for God.
Not one, not two, but three miracles! So, Moses changes the subject.
Moses: But I'm not good at public speaking!

God: I'm God! I'm the one who gave you the ability to talk!
Moses: O Lord, please send someone else to do it.

Wow! Even God who is slow to anger, had enough.
"Then the Lord's anger burned against Moses...." Exodus 4:14

It makes me feel better to read this. Even great leaders that God speaks to directly have self-doubt.

What doubt is keeping you from doing great things? What will you do today to face your fear?

I am off to register for that conference I've been putting off!

One Rock at a Time

I shared at the beginning of the year that I'm approaching my New Year's goals differently than some people do.  I have my seven "rocks" and goals in place for each one:

God-get closer to God (daily reading and journaling)
Health-eat for health and energy 
neck exercises to prevent migraines
Family-build a stronger marriage (date nights, read books)
save for family camp
have a clean home
Kids-spend focused time with each child
teach them to be more independent
Financial-save up fully funded emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses
Career-attend Launch conference
take Apple One-on-One classes for new computer
write more
Personal fulfillment- Audition for Unbeatable

Instead of trying to attack all of the goals at once, I chose start with two and then once I got those two things comfortably rolling, I'd add another.  I chose to focus on my Bible reading and writing more.  I have hit a rhythm with those two habits so I felt it was time to add something else. Boy am I glad I went  that route.

Health is a really important concept to me.  When I speak to groups, I share that God is my first rock and health is my second.  That goes against what some of us are taught, especially moms.  "Our kids should be our next rock," or "Our marriage should be our next rock."  Well, it's not like I'm neglecting either of those things in order to have my health. I still take care of my kids and my husband but I know from experience that if I'm not healthy, I cannot perform my other tasks well. 

I suffer from migraines which will keep me in bed way more often than I want.  Even when I power through the pain because I have to in order to take care of my kids, I'm not the mom I want to be. I've been holding most of the headaches at bay with caffeine but it got to the point where I was creating a cycle of getting a headache, drink a latte to make it go away, get another headache, drink another latte. When I realized I was memorizing the play list at Starbucks, I knew something had to change. In less than a two month period, I went from one latte a week to almost one a day.

Before having kids, I got really healthy. I learned that eliminating refined sugars, refined carbohydrates, caffeine, and dairy worked really well for my body.  Not only did I not have a headache during that time, it really helped with my depression. 

Having a migraine this last Saturday, I decided it was time to put the health rock back into the jar.  I had one cup of black coffee hoping it would make the migraine go away, but it didn't.  That was the last coffee I have had. Also, no dairy or sugar.

People, let me tell you, the last couple of days have been hellacious!!!! Horrid pain behind my eye, in my sinuses, my neck, my shoulder, my jaw and I was shaky and thought I might throw-up. While sitting at the park watching my kids play, my husband asked if there was anything he could do and all I could do was cry. I felt like a junkie sitting on that park bench shaking and hoping to not toss my cookies. Today is better. Instead of 9 on a pain scale of 1-10, I'm at a 5 or 6.

I know it's going to get better and I'll continue to add steps to my health rock once the detox is over. My plan to take each goal one step at a time is definitely working out well.  I can't imagine trying to do anything else while going through this withdrawal period.

How are your goals going? Are you ready to take on something new or maybe you need to pick up a rock that you put down a few weeks ago?

Don't Make Rocks Out of Pebbles

We've talked about how our rocks are the highest priorities in our lives, the things we could not live without: Faith, Health, Family, etc.  And most of us understand that the sand is the time-sucking stuff that if we fill our jar with it first, we won't have enough room to fit all of our rocks in. These would be things like T.V., video games, social networking, etc.

But what about the pebbles? They are things that in and of themselves are positive but too much of them can prevent the rocks from fitting in the jar.

Since my rocks are not your rocks and your rocks are not my rocks, remember the following are examples but hopefully this discussion can help you think through the big things vs. little things.

My kids are one of my rocks. My goal this year is to spend more focused time with them. I want to build a trust and bond with them now so that when things get harder as they grow-up, we have a relationship that is strong and I can be there for them. This means playing with them and talking with them. We play board games and make puzzles together allowing for eye-to-eye contact and lots of conversation.  I take each child out, just the two of us, to get a treat and hang out.

So while my kids are one of my rocks, there are a lot of things that don't necessarily support my goal for spending focused time together but might be good for my kids.  Sports, enrichment classes, and volunteering in their classrooms are all good things, but not the most important things. These are pebbles.  I believe our culture has created this illusion that the above things are necessary in order for our children to be "normal" but I don't agree.  I'm even required to volunteer 70 hours a year at the kids'  school, but I still don't see it as a rock.

I talk about having a "self-fulfillment" rock. This is having something that feeds your soul and makes you a better person for having participated in it.  For some it's Yoga.  For someone else it's feeding the homeless.  For me it's performing in theater. This can easily get out of control with a lot of pebbles. "Well I need to take care of myself in order to be a good mom and wife so the manicures, pedicures, Bunco games, shopping, girl's night out...... all fall under one rock." Nope, that's a lot of pebbles and are fine if you keep them as pebbles and they don't get in the way of your big rock.

Faith is another rock.  We attend church, we belong to a small group Bible study, and we each serve in a ministry as a way to help give back to the church. And although God is our biggest rock, there are soooo many pebbles that could add up to too much very quickly.  There are always activities to participate in, women's conferences, men's conferences, marriage conferences, ministries that need extra help, prayer meetings, worship events, soup kitchen nights, etc.  You can't justify doing everything and saying, "Well God is my most important rock." Even God doesn't want you to be so BUSY doing things that you don't have time to sit and BE with Him.

Hopefully that helps you to identify big rocks vs. pebbles.  Remember, your jar only has so much space in it.  The big things must go in first.

My last post showed a picture of my broken jar and I received the coolest comment from a friend:

Keep using glass for your jars. Perhaps the broken glass represents the fragility of a family's framework.

That is so true. Let's be careful about choosing our rocks and our pebbles. Leave some spaces in there to relieve the pressure that could be putting too much stress on your family.

What are some pebbles that you have been calling rocks? Anything you can think of that maybe needs to be taken out of the jar for now?

Life Requires a Sense of Humor

I feel sorry for people who don’t have a sense of humor. They are out there. I’ve met them.

I, on the other hand, have one. You may not get it. It’s warped and wrong most of the time, but I have one. And that is what got me through this morning.

This morning I was heading out to do my first public talk on "My Rocks in a Jar." I rehearsed in front of my husband last night. He gave me good feedback and helped me clarify some things.  I packed up my two jars: one with rocks and the other with rocks and pebbles. I decided against using a jar with rocks, pebbles AND sand as it’s a pain to clean-up. So, everything was ready to go this morning.

As I was getting ready to head out of the house, I realized that I might really want to change my whole talk to “Marshmallows in a Jar” because a gallon-sized glass mason jar filled with fist-sized rocks IS HEAVY! And genius that I am, I decided to have TWO jars.

That got fixed really quickly though as we headed towards the kids’ school.  First time I had to use the brakes to slow down, the jars tipped over in the bag and from that point on I could hear the glass grinding with every turn. The kids were upset for me. “It’s OK guys, they are just the visuals and I can still do my talk without them.  I’m hoping only one jar broke and that I still have the other one.”  I could tell by the tink-tink-tink sound beyond the glass grinding that the jar with the pebbles definitely broke and that there were now pebbles sloshing around in the bag on the floor of my car.

At this point I’m thinking that maybe we can change the talk to “My Rocks OUT of a Jar.”

I could have been really upset. I could have stressed about it. But I chose not to and I’m glad. I still had one jar with rocks in it. The talk went well.  The most common comment I received was “I get that the rocks are the most important things in my life and that the sand is the time wasting stuff in my life but I’m confused by the pebbles.” I had tried to explain that the pebbles represent the things that we do in life that aren’t the most important things but aren’t the time wasters either. Apparently, I need to be more specific.

What I should have said is that what the pebbles really are are things rolling around on the floor of my car.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day!

Fear is Like Botox

Continuing on the New Year’s theme, did you watch the ball drop this year? We were at a friend’s house and the Dick Clark New Year’s Rockin Eve was on. One of the hosts was Jenny McCarthy.  I’ve always liked her.  She’s funny, she’s beautiful, and she is not afraid to be herself. So imagine how disappointed I was to see that she’s “had work done” on her face. (yes, I’m well aware of the non-facial work she’s had done but that’s a whole other topic) 

I felt badly for her. It’s hard to be funny when your face can’t fully express your emotions. I think Botox doesn’t make you look younger, it makes you look like an older person TRYING to look younger but now just weirdly different from your real self. And finally, it kinda goes against “not being afraid to be yourself.” Also, my ego took a blow when I had to face the fact that she’s getting work done AND SHE’S YOUNGER THAN ME!! I swear I’m going to have to write a blogpost solely on the 101 things that are making me feel old.

So what does this have to do with fear? Well, the job of Botox is to paralyze the muscles that cause the wrinkles. They are frozen in place. Fear paralyzes us and keeps us from moving.  We can’t reach our goals if we aren’t moving.  Can moving cause us to show our flaws? Sure. Are we taking the risk of falling flat on our face? Yes. But do we want to stand frozen in time not able to fully express our emotions looking weirdly different from our real selves, not truly being who we were created to be? NO!!!

Having my 2013 goals has brought up a lot of fear in me. I like this definition:

verb [ with obj. ]

1 keep away from or stop oneself from doing (something)

• not go to or through 

• prevent from happening

Fear causes you to doubt yourself. It keeps you from trying new things.  It encourages you to give-up when you are not succeeding at something yet. You may be so good at avoiding fear that you don’t realize that you have it in the first place. It shows up in insecurity, over-thinking things, playing the what-if game, making yourself too busy with other things, blaming your circumstances or other people in your life for not being able to do something.

Once I recognized that fear was creeping up on me and my goals, I tried something I was afraid to do yet it’s what I do best: I SAID IT OUT LOUD. I started to tell people.

You know that big giant boogie man that you thought was under the bed? That is fear. Remember what happens to him when you turn on the light? He disappears.

Saying your goals out loud shines the light on the fear and helps you to see that it’s not as scary as you think.  The light helps you examine it in truth.

One of my goals is to attend a public speakers conference that will be in Georgia. I will have to pay for travel, food, lodging, and the conference itself.  It is A LOT of money especially for someone who normally gets paid for speaking in the form of Starbucks gift cards.  I’m not bringing in the money that justifies that amount of money. But I know that if I want to take my business to the next level, I need to learn the tools it will take to get there. I realized that I had fear because of the “what-if’s.”  What if  I don’t get things going enough to recover the cost? Also, when I do this conference it means I’m going to have to stick  my neck out there and face rejection.  

So, I started to tell people about my goal and my fear. Once I started to say these things out loud. Even without the listener saying anything, I realized how silly I sounded.

Fear keeps us from so much.

• What if I trust this person and he leaves? 
• What if I try this new thing and I make a fool of myself? 
• What if I audition for this show and I don't get in?

Don’t even get me started on the fear of success. 

• What if I DO lose the weight and it makes my husband insecure? 
• What if I DO get the promotion and my boss expects more of me?
• What if I DO quit my job and stay at home and my friends judge me?

Don’t let fear stop you from your goals in 2013. Say them out loud to someone!

I overheard my chiropractor ask someone what their goal for 2013 was and it was the most painful few minutes getting her to say out loud what she wanted.  When she finally was able to say that she wants to lose 30 pounds because she wants to feel good about how she looks, he said, “You know all that hemming and hawing you were doing? That was all those other people’s voices in your head causing you to doubt yourself. Forget about them!”

O.K. friends. Exorcise your fear!!! Get it out!  If you don’t have someone safe in your life to say your fears to, say them here.

Keep On Keeping On

How's your year going so far? It's been a week now and I'm happy to say I'm keeping on with the rocks and my goals. Here are a few things that are helping me find success:

1. Let go of perfection-I'm an all or nothing kind of gal so usually once I miss a day of something, I give up.  Some people check off their calendar with an "X"for each day that they accomplish something and feel proud of "not breaking the chain" of  XXXX. My current way of looking at it is, if there are more checks than there have been in the past, I'm doing better.

2. Only focus on a couple things at a time-I can't be great at all things every day. This goes with my last post about juggling. Get good at a couple of things then add something else.  For example, I want to exercise more but I'm focusing on Bible study and writing more at the moment.  I did walk on Saturday and it was wonderful.  Old Me would be disappointed in myself for not exercising 3-5 times in a week. Instead, New Me is busy working on the current goals and holding on to the memory of how good it felt to get out and walk. That memory will come in handy when it's time to focus on exercising.

3. Include other people in your goals as much as you can-Most people understand that this offers accountability.  If I know a friend will ask me if I got my post done on my blog, I'm more likely to get it done.  If I know a friend will meet me at 8am for a walk, no matter how early that may come or how cold it is, I'll be there.

This is where I've learned that work is much better with friends.  I love good friends. They make me laugh, they question my thinking, they give me fresh perspective. As a kid, friends were the reason I got up and went to school each day.

I didn't know it until the first of this year but a friend of mine also blogs and the main topic is his journey through the Bible in a year. AND his New Year's post was about "writing more".  It's been great to know that someone else is reading the same chapters in the Bible as me.  I look forward to hearing his perspective on the chapters we've read. This keeps me reading each day.  I know that if it weren't for my friend, I would have had plenty of excuses for not doing all of my reading each day.  No one would know. We will message each other to let the other know that we want to have a post on our blog completed by the end of the day.  That way, I know someone is out there keeping an eye on my productivity. It rocks.

You can check out his blog at: A Radical Journey http://adisciplelife.wordpress.com

The rock gods must be in overdrive because even after I had this post ready to be published, I found out a good friend of mine was working on a goal that I have experience with.  The conversation went like this:
Friend-I'm working on myself this year
Me-Good for you!! Anything I can do to help you?
Friend-maybe..... here are somethings I'm working on....... (insert lots of cool things here) and going to Weight Watchers.
Me-Hey!! I go to Weight Watchers. When are you going?
Friend-tomorrow at Main St
Me-HEY!! I go to that one too!

Although I've gone on my own to WW for over 20 years, it is MUCH MORE fun when you know a friend will be there. So we met this morning and I'm hoping we can keep supporting each other on this health journey in 2013.

Hopefully you are keeping on (notice I'm not saying "keeping up" but "keeping on." One is about being perfect while the other is about not quitting) with your goals for 2013.  Give yourself permission to not be perfect but keep getting better at what you are working on.  Find friends that can keep you accountable.

If it will help, post here what your goals are and what you are doing to reach them.  There's power in letting other know.

Keep rocking,
Luna

Juggling Rocks???

This New Year reminds me of trying to learn to juggle as a kid.  For my eleventh birthday my aunt and uncle gave me a Klutz book that had a book of instructions and three square bean bags. I tried for a bit, learned how to start with two squares and when I added the third square, I stopped trying.  It was hard and added a whole new level of frustration. I didn’t take to it naturally and I gave up. That’s about how it goes with most new things I want to learn.  I’m sure I’m not alone in quitting things that don’t come easily.

This New Year is feeling like learning to juggle all over again. I’m excited when I visualize improving in all areas of my “rocks” but then New Year’s Day came and putting the actual process of improving into action didn’t seem like as much fun as just dreaming about it.

As a review, what are rocks? Those are the big important aspects of your life that must come first in order to become the person you are meant to be.  They must be put in the “jar” (which is the 24 hours a day you are given) FIRST or the little trivial things of life “pebbles” and “sand” will quickly fill the jar leaving no room for the important things.  

So for New Year’s I wanted to focus on my rocks and improve in the different areas that are important to me. It’s probably against what experts suggest.  I know all the goal-setting rules of keeping things simple and focusing on only one thing in order to feel successful. But who am I to follow rules?  We’ve got a whole year ahead of us, I want to get better in a lot of areas.  Some things are a one time “to-do” like attending the Launch Conference for public speakers while some things are a daily goal like reading the Bible in a year.

Here are my rocks and my goals:

God-get closer to God (daily reading and journaling)

Health-eat for health and energy 

neck exercises to prevent migraines

Family-build a stronger marriage (date nights, read books)

save for family camp

have a clean home

Kids-spend focused time with each child

teach them to be more independent

Financial-save up fully funded emergency fund of 3-6 months of expenses

Career-attend Launch conference

take Apple One-on-One classes for new computer

write more

Personal fulfillment- Audition for Unbeatable

So the first day of the year comes and I get up and spend time with God, make breakfast for the family, plan the meals for the week, make the grocery list, and set out to update and balance the checkbook.  The dang program I use for the checkbook keeps undoing my work.  After an hour of fighting with it, I’m ready to crawl back into bed and call it quits. I realize that there will be no time to exercise like I wanted and that no matter what, I will always HATE housework. It was like being a kid again and wanting to be good at juggling right away but instead dropping the dang bean bag squares over and over.

This time, I decided I wouldn’t give up. I’d get done what I could and celebrate what I DID accomplish.  Today was the second day and I got more done than I did yesterday.  I’ll keep trying and keep getting better with the daily goals and taking steps towards the long-term goals. If it means only working on two rocks for a while until I get the hang of it, then that's what I'll do.

I don’t plan on being great at all of this right away or even a month from now, but I DO plan on being a heck of a lot better by this time next year. It all starts with the small changes I make on a day-to-day basis.

What about you? What do you want to be better at by this time next year? What will you do tomorrow to get one step closer to your goal?

Don't give up!