Simplify!!!

April and I had our annual “Goals” meeting last night. This is where we pull out last year’s goals/resolutions, bemoan the fact that we didn’t make as much progress as we’d hoped, and revise our goals for the coming year. We look at areas like Physical Fitness, Parenting, Emotional Needs, Spiritual Issues, Financial Matters, as well as Personal and Professional Goals.

I’m always amazed at how quickly a year can fly by, and how little it seems we have accomplished. Yet, I’m also amazed at how just talking together about it for one evening can refocus our energy towards the things we feel are really important. April says it brings clarity, and I tend to agree. It doesn’t solve our problems, but it makes them easier to identify, and by the end of the night, we had several attainable ideas to address most of the issues. We also have plans to keep those goals in front of us throughout the year, which should help with that.

An additional task we did about a year and a half ago was to write down all of the ROLES in our lives. These are the “Duties/Activities/Involvements” we are a part of, or as Stephen Covey puts it: responsibilities, relationships, and areas of contribution. (For example, my list includes various roles at work and professional organizations as well as roles I have at church, as soccer coach, etc.) We then ranked them on a scale of 1 to 4 of how much we enjoyed doing each one.

As we looked again at those roles last night, it became clear to me that I feel spread too thin. I have too often said, “If I can be involved in something, then I should be involved in it.” This is a poor way to manage my life. I have a mission and purpose in this life, and some things (while not evil or wrong) just don’t fit into that mission.

I would much rather devote more energy and time to the few things that really “make me sing,” so to speak, the things that are central to my life’s purpose. Therefore, my mantra for the coming year is to SIMPLIFY! I’m attempting to shed the things from my life that are not part of my primary mission and goals, and I’ll be spending more time on the things that are.

Sounds simple, right?

Well, I’m under no illusions about the simplicity of trying to simplify my life. However, I’m convinced that it’s necessary. What does it look like for me? Hopefully, I’ll let you know more next January.

Eric

Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails. –Proverbs 19:21