Simple Guidelines For Making Great Decisions In 2016!

Jeff Walker in his book Launch said that in a workshop that he was hosting, an attendee came up and asked him what was the one thing that made all the difference to him and his business success. The thing this man should be focusing on as his business grew. Jeff ‘s answer was this – Opportunity Cost.

Opportunity cost is a theory in Micro-economics.

www.netmba.com defines it this way – The value of the next best choice, that must be given up when making a decision.

www.wikipedia.com defines it this way – The value of the best alternative foregone, where a choice needs to be made between several mutually exclusive alternatives given limited resources.

Opportunity Cost image card

When I was a teenager, I started learning to play guitar. I used to lay in bed imagining myself playing my favorite songs in front of large audiences. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s ever had rock-star dreams. The thing is, I also liked hanging out with friends and I was getting interested in girls. While I did learn quite a bit about playing guitar, I knew several guys in my school who could play far better than I could. Why? Because they didn’t spend the majority of their time hanging out with their friends. When they had spare time, they were sitting on the edge of their bed practicing scales. Here is where we find the Opportunity Cost. There has to be a trade off.

We all have the same amount of time every week. We all get 168 hours to work with. While we would like to be awesome at everything we pursue, we simply can’t. We humans develop excellence through study & practice, so we can’t realistically expect to be stellar in every area of our lives. We need to make choices as to what we are going to give our time to because for everything we say yes to, we have to say no to something else. You will be saying no to opportunities in order to say yes to (hopefully) better opportunities.

“The chief cause of failure & unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now.”  -Zig Ziglar

One of my favorite Zig Ziglar quotes is: “The chief cause of failure & unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want right now”. Isn’t that sad? We sometimes short circuit our own long-term success because we run off after vain, short-term satisfaction.

Another favorite Zig Ziglar quote is “Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation.” Let’s take that to heart and take the time as we enter the new year to build a plan. Set a goal to make the life we dream of, a reality. As we make our plans, here are some things to consider:

  1. Look through the corners; Another thing I learned from Jeff Walker. If you only focus on what’s immediately in front of you, things will “suddenly” pop up in your field of vision and you will not be able to react in time. Make it a practice to look around the turns & see what’s coming before it gets here. Also, consider how your actions will affect your future. Wisdom sees down the road.
  2. The value of a good reputation is immeasurable.  Therefore, sacrificing a good reputation is not acceptable. When considering Opportunity cost, saying no to a solid, honorable reputation in order to achieve short-term gain is not worth the trade-off. Above money or power, your reputation will work for you, or against you. Protect it constantly.
  3. Money should be a byproduct of making the world a better place. When we focus on enriching the lives of those around us, we stand a better chance of finding happiness and fulfillment in our own lives. There’s a book by Marsha Sinetar called Do what you love and the money will follow. I believe this to be true unless your love is sleep. I haven’t seen anyone making a long term living at that one yet. I will say this though. There are now people making a living playing video games on youtube. No joke. The bottom line is that when money is at the top of the priority list, things are on shaky ground.

“Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation.” – Zig Ziglar

As we stand here staring square in the face of 2016, let’s examine not only our goals for the coming year and beyond, but also the opportunity cost to make them happen. If we carefully choose only the few truly important things we want this coming year, we can use these to guide our decisions about all the other things. The things that while eating up all of our time, don’t really get us where we want to be. Let’s get where we want to be in 2016! Let’s be strategic with our “Yes & No”. Say NO to good opportunities so you can say YES to great ones!

Happy New Year!

Christmas From Heaven’s Perspective.

When I type the word “Zeal” into a Google search, the definition that comes back is as follows: Noun. “Great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective.”

I think it’s important to establish the meaning because God specifically used this word when talking about Himself in Isaiah 9:6-7.

It reads as follows in the New King James Version –

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder.  And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

The angel speaking to the shepherds the night Jesus was born said “I bring you Good tidings of great joy”.  (Luke 2:10-14). Think on this for a minute.  An emissary of Heaven is speaking words into the atmosphere of Earth.  Good tidings of great joy.  We who are under grace may not fully recognize the significance of these words.  God Himself was making it known that if you fully understand this message, it will give you GREAT JOY.  Then something else happened.  Suddenly that angel wasn’t alone.

“There was with the Angel A Multitude of Heavenly Host praising God & saying “Glory to God in the highest, And on Earth Peace, Good will toward Men”.

Think about what they are saying!

An Angel told Joseph “You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matt 1:21).

Think about what he was saying!

This is Heaven’s perspective.

When I read the Old Testament, I can hear God’s heart behind the ordinances. His heart longed for the closeness with His man that He had established in the beginning but had been corrupted by sin.

When Jesus was born, Heaven was saying Finally!

Just like the younger generation loses perspective of the wartime sacrifices of their elders, and do not comprehend the reasons for the fight; so sometimes we who are under grace don’t have a clear understanding of how good we have it or the reasons why we need grace and the cost paid so that we could have it.  Heaven’s perspective of Christmas is the most important perspective of Christmas.

This event heaps upon God, glory in the highest.

On Earth, Peace – Finally! The curse has a cure.
The way has been made for life to flow to man from God again.

The gap has been closed.

Men can now see, experience, know and enjoy the good will from Heaven. It has been there all along but had no sufficient access to be able to flow.

It flowed a little in the Old Testament. Now it flows in it’s Fullness – In Christ!

Christmas represents the long enduring passion of God.  His Love charged heart to have fellowship with us.  His heart’s desire to be able to close the gap that separated us…So that we can have Life…Finally!

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder.  And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

 

The Zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this!  To understand God’s heart for you is to understand Heaven’s perspective concerning Christmas!

Joy to the world!

“Someday” is Never a Safe Bet!

The day Elvis died is an important day for me. It marks a change in my thinking about the meaning of Someday.

When I was in about second grade, I remember asking my dad if we would ever see Elvis live in concert. At the time my dad was an Elvis fan and we often had Elvis playing in our house. My dad answered “Someday”. I didn’t give it another thought. Several years later Elvis died. We never found it. Our someday never happened.

Someday social card

Not seeing Elvis live and in concert didn’t destroy my childhood, but for me it does represent a missed opportunity. A chance to share what could have been a very special time with my dad was lost.

Someday, we will do that important thing. Someday, we will have more time. Someday, we will fix the broken relationships in our lives. Someday!

Author George Saunders wrote: “The scariest thought in the world is that someday I’ll wake up and realize I’ve been sleepwalking through my life: under-appreciating the people I love, making the same hurtful mistakes over and over, a slave to neuroses, fear and the habitual.”

We allow all the trivial, non-essential, unimportant things in our lives to steal our time and attention away from the weightier things that would help us build a better life.

Someday

Nail it down!

Why can’t Someday be today? Why wait? If we can’t act now, can we at least start today to make a plan or set a goal? Zig Ziglar said “A goal well set is half reached”. There are too many things that we want to happen, but we’re not doing anything to make them happen and they will not happen by themselves. How our future turns out depends on what we do.

Let’s make someday more than a wish. Let’s decide to take action today & make our desires a reality.

Are you putting off something you should be acting on? I encourage you – don’t wait. Make a move today.

What It Really Takes To Be Fearless.

Have you ever gotten yourself in over your head? You said yes to something, maybe it was a job or something similar, and the next thing you knew, you were looking up at the surface of the water. Maybe you got your dream job but then realized that you had to work with people you were reasonably sure was related to Satan. You find yourself swimming in a tank full of sharks.

When I left my home, my old job, my family & friends to move to a new city and go to Bible school, it felt a little like starting a new life. I was launching out into the plan of God for my life & I was very excited for what the future held. I was certain that I was on the right path. I knew it was right. I emphasize this because it wasn’t too many days later, that the rear end started going out in my truck. Back in my hometown, I knew where to go for the parts. If I didn’t have the ability, I knew several people close by who could advise and help me fix it. Here, I didn’t know anyone and I didn’t know where the honest mechanic was. I ended up deciding to replace the truck but I didn’t know where the good used cars were sold. I checked the paper but there were not very many listings. I was stuck. I was hundreds of miles away from the community where I knew where everything was. Now, I didn’t know what to do.

The Fearless Path

One Saturday, I went to the store with my family. While they went into the store, I just stayed in the van and laid the seat back. I closed my eyes and I just sank. I was so consumed by this problem that I was beginning to get a little fearful. All the sudden, these words drifted up from my spirit. “Reckon on the faithfulness of God”. I had read that phrase in a book. I thought about it and the more I thought on it, the better things began to look. “Reckon on the faithfulness of God”. Then I began to remember. When God leads, He empowers. Remember Peter getting out of the boat & walking on the water? The main thing he was walking on was the word “Come” that Jesus had spoken to him. If God led me all the way out here to go to Bible school, He also empowered me to be successful. My faith began to surge. I had the realization that the car I needed was already here…somewhere. I just needed to listen, be led & find it. I believe with all of my heart that the provision for my life is found on God’s chosen path for me. I just need to stay on the path. God loves me too much to leave me shipwrecked. He wants me to succeed more than I even know. I immediately changed what I had been saying. I was saying that I didn’t know what to do. Now I declared that “My God shall supply all of my needs according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:19). The provision was there somewhere. We ended up just a few days later finding a really nice car that was way more than we had hoped for and it was a very affordable price. Remembering God’s love pushed fear out of my mind. My faith was strengthened. God is faithful.

There have been days on the job where problems were so abundant that it seemed like all I did was put out fires all day long. You get to the end of the day absolutely exhausted but it doesn’t look like there’s anything to show for it. In times like these, I have gone out to my car during my lunch break and again, I would lean the seat back & just thank God for the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.

I learned a long time ago that the Holy Spirit is the difference maker. When I’m facing a situation and I don’t measure up, He makes up the difference. He strengthens me in every situation if I will follow Him. But its not just being strengthened, it’s being made strong enough. He is enough. He causes me to not only meet but exceed & be victorious in every situation. The King James Bible calls Him the comforter. Comforter = strengthener. He makes us adequate for the task. What task? The one you’re facing. He is faithful.

It’s through absolute dependence on Him that we can be fearless. I know that when I’m following Him and leaving nothing undone that I know I’m supposed to do, If it’s not enough, He makes up the difference. That’s why we can truly say “In all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” Rom 8:37).

I want to encourage you this week to look to Him for strength. He will help you with the smallest of things. He cares about the details of your life.

In what ways have you seen God work in your own life? Please testify by leaving a comment.