“A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ And he answered and said, ‘I will, sir’; and he did not go.
“And he came to the second and said the same thing. But he answered and said, ‘I will not’; yet he afterward regretted it and went.
“Which of the two did the will of his father?” - Matt 21:28-31a
We all recognize the answer to this question. The second son met the commitment and did the will of his father.
But there is another facet of this story which bears some discussion. The first son did not meet the commitment – not only to his father, but also to himself. He proved his word could not be trusted. He did not value his word to himself or to his father.
You wonder what came up that was so important that he could not make his commitment. Did he have an appointment he had forgotten about? Or a date with the neighbor girl? Or he just wanted to go for a swim in the local river because it was hot?
Regardless of what the excuse he failed to meet his commitment, to his father … and to himself.
What commitments have you made that you have failed to meet? I am sure you had a good excuse, we all do.
Whatever your lips utter you must be sure to do, because you made your vow freely to the Lord your God with your own mouth. – Deut 23:23
We make too many commitments and then use them against one another as excuses. You have the choice, you make your commitments. Sometimes you are requested to make a commitment, but you still have the choice.
Rather than prioritizing before we make a commitment, we want to please, or to not disappoint so we make the commitment. But we set up the disappointment to follow when someone is really depending on our results to complete their project.
The next step in this spiral is you are no longer trustworthy. You are given fewer and fewer opportunities to try to reestablish the trust. You stay within a box of trust and mistrust, commitment and non-commitment, bouncing off the walls.
Breaking this spiral is always difficult … but doable. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” We use this as an excuse. But we can change. We can start to meet our commitments and reestablish trust. It is never too late in a relationship unless both parties shut the door and walk away.
I am not saying it will be easy. Breaking old habits is not easy. But you can do it. You established the habit you have sometime after birth. You can reestablish a new habit as well.
Be like the unseen third son in the parable above, make the commitment and keep the commitment … and then bring along a gang of friends to help.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Can I Really CHANGE?
Here is a paradox:
One of the most difficult things for people to do is to CHANGE; the one thing God WANTS to assist us to do is CHANGE.
So why don’t we change? It is a painful process. And we will go out of our way to avoid pain.
There was a hound on a porch that would howl every so often.
I asked his master “Why does your hound howl?”
The master replied “He is sittin’ on a nail.”
“Why doesn’t he move?” I asked.
“It doesn’t hurt that bad!”
Our lives, our relationships, many things in life are irritants. We often know how to CHANGE them. But they don’t hurt enough to make the necessary CHANGES to fix the problems.
In the Gospels, we have many examples of people with problems who saw that Jesus was the answer to their difficulty. They generally have to do with serious illness. So we often believe that our difficulties must be serious to merit God’s assistance. We can handle the small stuff.
But like the hound in the story above, it doesn’t hurt bad enough to get us to CHANGE. We don’t bother to handle the small stuff.
We have all heard “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” This statement and many like it shape our lives. We have them as core beliefs.
So what is necessary to begin to CHANGE is to begin to change these core beliefs. “We become what we think about.” so to CHANGE what we do, we have to CHANGE what we think about. If we continue to dwell on the errors of the past, it will continue to rule our future.
We can, however, shape our future. We have all planned vacations. Vacations are a change to our norm. We spend time to review the information available to us about our destination to ensure we get the most out of our trip. We determine what we want to see, the priorities we have for various activities that are available to us. Once we have departed and started to execute the plan, we continue to have a choice of what to do. Each decision will impact future events as we use the available time.
That is how we can CHANGE. Establish a new plan. Then take the simple steps necessary to achieve this CHANGE.
One of the most difficult things for people to do is to CHANGE; the one thing God WANTS to assist us to do is CHANGE.
So why don’t we change? It is a painful process. And we will go out of our way to avoid pain.
There was a hound on a porch that would howl every so often.
I asked his master “Why does your hound howl?”
The master replied “He is sittin’ on a nail.”
“Why doesn’t he move?” I asked.
“It doesn’t hurt that bad!”
Our lives, our relationships, many things in life are irritants. We often know how to CHANGE them. But they don’t hurt enough to make the necessary CHANGES to fix the problems.
In the Gospels, we have many examples of people with problems who saw that Jesus was the answer to their difficulty. They generally have to do with serious illness. So we often believe that our difficulties must be serious to merit God’s assistance. We can handle the small stuff.
But like the hound in the story above, it doesn’t hurt bad enough to get us to CHANGE. We don’t bother to handle the small stuff.
We have all heard “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” This statement and many like it shape our lives. We have them as core beliefs.
So what is necessary to begin to CHANGE is to begin to change these core beliefs. “We become what we think about.” so to CHANGE what we do, we have to CHANGE what we think about. If we continue to dwell on the errors of the past, it will continue to rule our future.
We can, however, shape our future. We have all planned vacations. Vacations are a change to our norm. We spend time to review the information available to us about our destination to ensure we get the most out of our trip. We determine what we want to see, the priorities we have for various activities that are available to us. Once we have departed and started to execute the plan, we continue to have a choice of what to do. Each decision will impact future events as we use the available time.
That is how we can CHANGE. Establish a new plan. Then take the simple steps necessary to achieve this CHANGE.
Monday, October 8, 2007
" 'DO' or 'NO DO' - there is no 'TRY' " - Yoda
This quote of Yoda from the Star Wars series says so much to us. "TRY" is probably one of the most overused and abused words in the English language.
Why do we "TRY" to do anything? We will either do it or we won't. We are just putting off the decision to another time - more "procrastination" - which is as bad as "TRY."
Putting off decisions - what does this give us? What sense of accomplishment do we obtain? Are we waiting for more information? Or are we just taught to be cautious? "Be careful" are words we say all too often to our young ones - when what we should really say is "Go for it!!"
No wonder we have no idea what Freedom really is. We are so bound up in being careful that we cannot express ourselves. On the other hand, we have so much safety equipment, we feel we can be careless. Do you see the paradox here?
The same is true in our business life - we want the security of "benefits" so we give up our freedom to work our own hours as we choose. We are forced to experience life on the 52 weekends, 10 holidays and 2 to 3 weeks vacation our employer so graciously provides for us. Most people earn more than two times what they are paid for their company. The rest goes to this "security" that they give us. Is it worth the price?
And then you throw in the fact that good employees receive the fewest benefits from the government with respect to the tax code.
The sad but true part is there are numerous opportunities out there to find true freedom – to “Live Beyond Freedom” – to be creative and earn what we are truly worth, and then get to choose for ourselves how we want the money earned to be used. Interestingly enough, we are also encouraged by the same government to do this with numerous tax advantages that allow us to use pre-tax dollars for our business activities.
So “DO” and reap the reward or “NOT DO” and continue on the current course that leads to 95% of the American public to be dead or dead broke at age 65. “TRY” will probably get you the same result as “NOT DO.”
Jeff Ferguson
www.thelbfgroup.com
Why do we "TRY" to do anything? We will either do it or we won't. We are just putting off the decision to another time - more "procrastination" - which is as bad as "TRY."
Putting off decisions - what does this give us? What sense of accomplishment do we obtain? Are we waiting for more information? Or are we just taught to be cautious? "Be careful" are words we say all too often to our young ones - when what we should really say is "Go for it!!"
No wonder we have no idea what Freedom really is. We are so bound up in being careful that we cannot express ourselves. On the other hand, we have so much safety equipment, we feel we can be careless. Do you see the paradox here?
The same is true in our business life - we want the security of "benefits" so we give up our freedom to work our own hours as we choose. We are forced to experience life on the 52 weekends, 10 holidays and 2 to 3 weeks vacation our employer so graciously provides for us. Most people earn more than two times what they are paid for their company. The rest goes to this "security" that they give us. Is it worth the price?
And then you throw in the fact that good employees receive the fewest benefits from the government with respect to the tax code.
The sad but true part is there are numerous opportunities out there to find true freedom – to “Live Beyond Freedom” – to be creative and earn what we are truly worth, and then get to choose for ourselves how we want the money earned to be used. Interestingly enough, we are also encouraged by the same government to do this with numerous tax advantages that allow us to use pre-tax dollars for our business activities.
So “DO” and reap the reward or “NOT DO” and continue on the current course that leads to 95% of the American public to be dead or dead broke at age 65. “TRY” will probably get you the same result as “NOT DO.”
Jeff Ferguson
www.thelbfgroup.com
Thursday, September 13, 2007
What Are You Avoiding?
“When you cover a weakness by avoiding it, it is even more stressful when you are forced to deal with it.” - Andre Agassi
Andre may not have realized the full significance of what he was saying while he observed Andy Rodick being taken apart by Roger Federer during the 2007 US Open Quarter Finals. But how often do we do the same?
What is your weakness? What are you doing to combat it? Or are you continuing to avoid it until it becomes painfully obvious that it must be resolved?
Take action to confront the situation.
Jeff Ferguson
www.thelbfgroup.com
www.livenlife.com/lbfgroup
Andre may not have realized the full significance of what he was saying while he observed Andy Rodick being taken apart by Roger Federer during the 2007 US Open Quarter Finals. But how often do we do the same?
What is your weakness? What are you doing to combat it? Or are you continuing to avoid it until it becomes painfully obvious that it must be resolved?
Take action to confront the situation.
Jeff Ferguson
www.thelbfgroup.com
www.livenlife.com/lbfgroup
Monday, April 2, 2007
Hello
Hi and welcome to my blog!!
My goal is to establish a forum to discuss personal development issues that are impacting your life.
To begin with, what is personal development? This is a question I frequently get.
Personal development to me is taking the time to learn about yourself ... and then identifying the changes your must make to achieve the results you are looking for.
I have spent much of my life allowing things to happen to me. As I have become more familiar with personal development, I have come to realize that these things happened because of my actions. So now I have begun to identify what I want, and started taking actions to achieve those things.
CHANGE is not an overnight process. But each day progress is made to reshape the habits that have taken me to my current position.
My goal is to establish a forum to discuss personal development issues that are impacting your life.
To begin with, what is personal development? This is a question I frequently get.
Personal development to me is taking the time to learn about yourself ... and then identifying the changes your must make to achieve the results you are looking for.
I have spent much of my life allowing things to happen to me. As I have become more familiar with personal development, I have come to realize that these things happened because of my actions. So now I have begun to identify what I want, and started taking actions to achieve those things.
CHANGE is not an overnight process. But each day progress is made to reshape the habits that have taken me to my current position.
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