Look for Opportunities to Grow

Dr. Ron Jenson - Author of "Make a Life, Not just a Living".

Look for Opportunities to Grow, It's just not enough to be open and admit your soft spots. You need to actively look for areas to change and to ask for help. If you're not a part of an accountability group, you ought to be. Find a group of friends in your business, neighborhood, church, or synagogue who will help you to be more effective. Find people who will build you up, yet will be honest, loving, and caring enough to confront you as a friend. That's one way to grow, mature, and develop.

I've learned that if I'm serious about looking at the weak areas of my life for opportunities to grow, I help my friends become aware of my soft spots. For instance, I have said to several special male friends whom I trust and honor, "Here are five questions I hope to God no one would ever ask me." These five questions represent the five weaknest areas in my life. Your weak areas could be things such as how you handle your finances, relational fidelity, struggles with integrity, family difficulties, etc. The fifth question is, "Did you lie about any of the above four?"

I tell my trusted friends, "Whenever you see me ask me these questions."

I know this practice might seem absolutely chilling to think about doing. But accountability to a few trusted friends helps a great deal. It's something I also practice with my son. We have found that it not only binds us together but creates a healthy accountability between us.

My contention is that if I'm serious enough about growing, I will try not only to look for opportunities, but create levers that will help me grow. And practicing accountability is one outstanding lever in my life.

Admit Your Weaknesses

Dr. Ron Jenson - Author of "Make a Life, Not just a Living".

Admit Your Weaknesses, Admit shortcomings to yourself, to others (in the appropriate context), and to God as you know him. Just learn to admit them. Denial exacerbates the problem.

Everyone develops what I call a "box" sense of maturity. We believe that if we live according to a certain socially acceptable "box," then we are accepted and can rise in position or respectability. All of us have certain peer groups that establish the limits of acceptable and unacceptable dres and behavior. Those limits put us in a box. When we measure ourselves against this "box," our focus becomes our external lifestyle, not our internal growth. Consequently, we stop addressing or even being aware of our weaknesses.

I remember once sitting down with a friend who was struggling with worry. I said to him, "What's your greatest problem?" He said, "Money."

I looked at him and laughed. I said, "You're kidding."

"No. Why do you say I'm kidding?"

"In my view, money's not your biggest problem."
"Then what is my biggest problem?"

"It's worry."

He paled. This man worked with a group of people who didn't think worry was acceptable behavior. He said, rather frantically, "Worry? I don't worry. You're wrong. You've got to be wrong!"

"Everybody knows you worry," I said. "Your wife knows you worry. I know you worry. Anyone who meets you for five minutes knows you worry. Your stomach knows you worry. You have an ulcer. Of course you worry! What you need to hear is that it's okay - yes, okay to worry. You're not a bad person because you worry. You just don't realize that you don't need to worry."

It's okay to be impatient sometimes. It's okay if we say things we shouldn't say sometimes. I'm not glad to be full of flaws. But I recognize - and so should you - that everyone is struggling with something, and it's okay to admin it. In fact, the first principle in growth is to say, "I am helpless. I really mean am weak and I need help."

Most of us are great con artists. We pretend to be someone we're really not, and we end up playing a game all our lives. Paul Tournier said, "We can conceal our persons behind a protective barrier. We let it be seen only through the bars. We display certain of its aspects. Others we carefully hide."

Be Disciplined, Not Lazy

Dr. Ron Jenson - Author of "Make a Life, Not just a Living".

Be Disciplined, Not Lazy, We begin to make things happen when we become disciplined. We don't accomplish anything in this life without self-discipline. Richard Shelley Taylor, in his book "The Disciplined Life", defines self-discipline this way: "The ability to regulate conduct by principle and judgment rather than impulse, desire, high pressure, or social custom." You see, discipline is the ability to consciously control your circumstances. It is the ability to control your life - to put first things first.

Now here's a question for you. Are there habits in your life that were acceptable when you were a child but aren't acceptable now? Are you still struggling with giving in to impulse?

Everyone struggles with one or more of three areas: pride, sensualism, and greed. Pride, which has its place, is unhealthy when it is stimulated by self-absorption. Sensualism is being preoccupied with sensual fulfillment - food, sex, sound, thrill-seeking. (Many commercials and advertisements today are geared toward sensualism.) Greed involves people just wanting more for more's sake, or being covetous, that is, wanting what belongs to someone else. This creates a generation of people who live on plastic. They are preoccupied with their credit cards and can't stop spending.

I can relate to pride, sensualism, and greed. Yet my major point of struggle is in the area of the senses. Whether the struggle involves not wanting to exercise or wanting to eat too much or watching too much TV, it all centers on sensual gratification.

Consider your own life: What do you really desire? What makes you salivate the quickest? For me it's donuts. I like donuts. There was a place near my home in Philadelphia called the Donuttery. Whenever I go within a mile of the Donuttery, I visualized a hot cinnamon roll with butter cascading down the sides. I could smell it. I could see it. I could taste it. And like Pavlov's dog, I started to salivate and even froth just thinking about that cinnamon rol. In a very real sense, I was looking for a sensual gratification - and the words of Richard Shelley Taylor burned in my gut: "Self-discipline is basically the ability to subordinate."

If you're going to become a person who makes things happen - if you really want to be a difference-maker - then you need to become disciplined. You need to put a coach, a governor over your thoughts and actions. You need to become patterned in your life.