What kind of leaders have had the biggest impact on you?
I’ve had the privilege of serving under numerous outstanding leaders, and I’ve noticed that, though they might be very different in personality, background and style, they tend to share some of the same qualities.
What does it mean to live a deliberate life?
Here on the site, we talk about ways to live deliberately with our:
Hearts – in our relationships and inner lives
Heads – in the thoughts and beliefs that shape our world
Hands – in pursuing our giftings and seeking the good of others
One of the most powerful tools we have to shape our world as an outworking of each of these three areas is, for those of us in democratic countries, our vote.
Remember when seeing your friends all the time was easy?
You didn’t think about ‘being intentional about friendships’ or ‘managing personal relationships’. You just hung out. None of you were being particularly deliberate about anything.
But then, of course… life. Careers. Parenthood. Post-grad studies. Business trips.
At some point, you realise you’re just not seeing your friends that often anymore, and you might be going weeks – maybe even months – at a time without anyone outside of your house knowing what’s really going on in your life. Maybe a casual movie or dinner out every couple of months, but really… somewhere along the line in life, friendship stops just happening, and becomes something we have to decide to prioritise.
So how can we do this?
This year, I’ve been learning a valuable lesson about the power of defining the seasons I am moving through.
At the start of the year, I completed a great digital planner by Alison Hill to map out my year. I’ve already written about choosing my ‘One Word’ for the year through that process. What it also helped me do, though, was map out my own stages, or seasons, for the year. This has been incredibly powerful! Let me tell you why –
Friends had been telling me how great it was for years. They would choose one word at the beginning of each year, which would serve as a kind of guide and focus for their efforts and journey throughout that coming year. It would remind them where they wanted to focus their energies when the rumble and fog of life made it easy to forget. I thought it was a good idea, but I hadn’t quite made it to the point of sitting down and going through the process of discerning a word I would truly take seriously for myself.
Until this year, that is.
Though I was slow to the ‘one word for the year’ concept, having now decided to implement it, I can see why it is so powerful.
