What Is It Going To Take To Change My Life?

I can’t take it anymore!  I don’t want to live this way! 

What is it going to take to change my life?  

These are statements I hear all the time from people.  Life can be frustrating.  Life in these times can be particularly frustrating.  There is a phrase that has been true for as long as time.  In recent times, it has become a “buzz phrase” if there is such a thing.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  If you want your life to change, you have to evaluate each aspect of it and determine what are the anchors that are preventing true change from occurring.  Some things need to be reprioritized.  Others need to be cut off completely.  Too often, our passions and desires cloud the issues and make it difficult to know which is which.

In my own life, I was anchored between two conflicts.  One the one hand, I am compassionate to a fault. 

       I am the typical “Take in the stray three-legged dog” guy.  

I have a heart for people and want to see them succeed – at any cost.   Unfortunately, that cost has often proven to be one that I am willing to pay more than being the price that the one I am helping is willing to pay.  That is a dangerous and expensive problem.  As a minister raised in a minister’s home, I can attest that a curse of ministry is the tendency to pay that price at the expense of one’s own family.

Or, family itself can be the problem.  This weekend a friend of mine jokingly (but pointedly) made the statement, “If you can effectively overcome the demands and judgment of family, you can easily handle any demon in hell.”  For some, I would have to admit there is probably a truth in that.  After all, I have helped a lot of people wade through family situations, and when selfishness is involved, 

the rules that will keep family close are the 

same ones that allow for the greatest damage.  

In any case, my compassion for people has often lead me to sacrifice beyond what is reasonable or even righteous.  I become an enabler rather than an agent of empowerment.  This conflicts with the forward momentum in my own life and success.

The second conflict occurs when in helping such a person I get to the place where enough is enough.  

For me, the flip side of compassion is cynicism.

It is the by-product of helping those who insist on being enabled rather than empowered.  I have a sanguine personality.  If you have studied personality traits, you know this means that I am fun loving, energetic, engaging, trusting and optimistic…and an extremist.  These are traits that, tied to compassion, make it possible for me to keep paying the aforementioned price that too often proves costly and ineffective.  For me to stop paying that price is always an extreme decision. 

My protection device seems to be the embracing of cynicism.  Because I believe that there HAS to be a way for it to work, when I come to the reality that for whatever reason it cannot or will not, I tend to go from being extremely positive to extremely negative.  The willingness of others to live in failure somehow becomes MY failure.  What did I do or NOT do that prevented a win here?  Making this break fuels cynicism and turns me into someone that I have no desire to be.  I go from being extremely positive to EXTREMELY NEGATIVE, which is dangerous for a sanguine. Because we are extreme, when we get negative, we get REALLY negative!  Because we are outspoken and usually the loudest voice in the room, we can really

My greatest conflict was found halt between these two extremes.  

How long do I fight for the win for someone who needs change but is unwilling to change, and how do I let go of the fight to bring that change without taking on the responsibility of what can amount to certain failure if I do?

Then I realized that the anchor holding me back was not the decision of who to prioritize and what fight to fight, but that

the true anchor that was preventing me from success was my inability to see what responsibility is mine and what

responsibility belongs to someone else.  

It is my job to influence.  It is my desire to bring change.  It is not my responsibility to make the decision for them.  Discovering this helped me cut loose the real anchor that was stopping my progress, for me and for my family.  

The professionals call this co-dependency. As long as I was willing to “hang in” until others made the right decision, their wrong decisions prevented me from moving forward.  I could blame their unwillingness to change, but in the end, the inability for me to move was not their fault, but my own.  I was the one responsible for balance in my life.  In short, cutting the anchor was not simply about cutting someone off, but determining what price I was willing to pay (and ask my family to pay) for his or her success.

What is it going to take to change your life?  You must look through the circumstances and situations you are facing and find the TRUE anchors.  Be honest with yourself and deal with them.  Then you can move forward! 

YOU ARE POWERFUL!

You are a powerful person! You have great gifts which have been woven into your DNA from the moment you were created. Those gifts are ignited by action - by study, practice, and performance.
You are a powerful person. This means that you should consider the use of that power. Every person has an effect on others who are around them...EVERY person.

That is easy to believe when we see "High Producers" who affect people, such as a famous singer who's music affects you, or a mentor who's word inspires direction for your daily life routine.

It is not as easy to believe that others (every day, normal people) have the power to affect us, but it is true.  

The guy on the curb, who holds up a sign 

asking for money affects you. 

You are moved to help, or moved to roll up your car window and pretend to be on the phone, in order to avoid his gaze. Also, there are thoughts that go through your mind about what he should do to change his condition. That guy has the power to affect your compassion or to make you uncomfortable.

My point is that every one has power to affect someone else. 


The key is recognizing three things:
What is your gift and your power?

                How does your power affect others?

How can you best use your gifts and power

to make a positive difference on others?

David Foster posted an article on his website:

http://davidfoster.tv

In the article, David offers insight on the use of power of a leader.  As believers,

                                                           we are called to be leaders -

...in our families, in our churches, on our jobs, in every area of our lives.  His approach is written to those in specific positions of leadership, but I think if you read carefully, you can apply much of with he communicates to many areas of your life.

Take a look at it.

Five Legitimate Uses of Power - David Foster

If you’re a leader, you have to ask yourself this question almost every day, “What do I do that others can’t do? What do I do today with the position and the power that has been handed to me?”

A lot of leaders answer this question without thinking.  But it’s incumbent upon every leader to ask themselves, “What are the legitimate uses of my power?”  Here are five I can think of:

1. Use your power to empower, which simply means you give everyone in the organization the permission to do their job, to carry out their task, and not be held up with endless bureaucracy and procedures.  Empower the people in your organization, group, or company, and they will pay you back tenfold.
2. Use your power to free-up. Don’t allow good people to be bogged down by endless levels of communication, procedure, or in-fighting.  Where there are bottlenecks, step in and free-up the free-flow of meaningful action and creativity.
3. Use your power to enrich. As a leader, you make the decision that your group will have a learning environment.  Are the people you’re working with and leading feeling better for having worked with you and around you, and achieving a common goal?  Enrich people that you have been given the responsibility to lead and they will enrich you.
4. Use your power to take initiative. The leader is the one who has to do the first next right thing. You have to take action.  People in your group and company will react, even overreact, and fail to act.  And many times they’ll blame it on you because you’re the leader after all, and you have to initiate.  You have to be a self-starter.  You have to make sure that the momentum of the group is maintained.
5. Use your power to protect. What are you supposed to protect?  The people?  Yes.  The product? Certainly.  The service? Of course.  More importantly you protect the mission, vision, and goals of the organization.  No one in your group is more important than the mission for which the group exists.  All of you serve the mission, you promote the vision, and you take action that leads to the achievement of your stated goals. Protect the mission against apathy, and most importantly protect it against success.

Consider these words today.  Apply them to your life - to your relationship with your marriage, your kids, your job, and with people you relate with in life who are affected by how they observe you in your walk with God 

Lead with excellence.

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