“Habits of Successful People”
As I have been doing conferences and pastoring full time for the last 15 years, it has become very obvious to me there is a huge need for greater leadership. We need it in the church and the world. In fact, it is extremely difficult to function properly at any effective level without it.
Let us examine some principles needed to be effective leaders and balance our lives with these tools. May we also review what our habits should look like to exhibit true success.
Response People and Pro-Active People:
Pro-Active People do not let circumstances, environment, or genetics dictate their future. We are what our decisions are. We have the initiative and responsibility to make things happen. Pro-Active people take responsibility; Response-Ability. The ability to choose your response. Their behavior is a product of their own conscience choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feeling. If our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have by conscience decision or by default, chosen to empower those things to control us. So, if the weather is good, we are. If it isn't, everything about them is affected. Pro-Active people are value driven. If their value is to produce good quality work, it doesn't matter about the weather.
Response People are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions. Pro-Active people are driven by values. They still are influenced by external stimuli, physical, social, or psychological but their response to the stimuli is value based, choice or response.
The "Have's" and the "Be's":
One way to determine which circle our concern is in is to distinguish between the Have's and the Be's.
The circle of concern is filled with people who talk like:
"I'll be happy when I have my house paid off."
"If only I had a boss who was not a dictator."
"If only I had a more patient husband."
"If only I had more obedient kids."
"If only I had my degree."
The circle of influence is filled with the Be's:
"I can be more patient."
"I can be more wise."
"I can be more loving."
It's the Character Focus!! The circle of influence is filled with the Be's so it works from the inside out. By becoming different on the inside, we effect change on the outside. All Pro-Active people are people driven by their character. More people don't live in this frame because it is easier to blame other people or conditions.
The Other End of the Stick:
Two other areas of the circle of concern is Consequences and Mistakes. Our behavior is governed by principles. Living in harmony with them brings positive consequences, violating them brings negative consequences. We are free to choose our response in any situation, but in doing so, we choose the attendant consequence. When we pick up one end of the stick, we pick up the other. When mistakes are made, the Pro-Active person acknowledges it immediately and corrects it. This turns a failure into a success. That is Pro-Active. But not to acknowledge a mistake, or to correct it and learn from it, is a mistake of a different order. It puts a person on a self-deceiving, self-justifying path, often rationalizing our actions. It's not the mistake that hurts us the most, it is our response to those things. We don't want to give our mistakes power over the next moment.
Making and Keeping Commitments:
At the heart of our circle of influence is our ability to make and keep commitment and promises. Our integrity of keeping our commitments aids our pro-active growth. If you want a successful business, you clearly define what you are trying to accomplish. Before you go on a trip, you map out the best route to get to the destination. If we understand this principle of two creations and accept responsibility for both, we act within and enlarge the borders of our circle of influence. If we don't take charge of this first creation, we diminish it.
Leadership is Not Management. Leadership declares what I want to see happen. Management is doing the thing right. Leadership is doing the right things. The leader leads, the manager produces what is necessary for the leader to lead. Effectiveness - even survival does not depend solely on how much effort we expend, but whether or not we expend it in the right jungle. We need leadership first, management, second. Effective management without effective leadership is like straightening out deck chairs on the Titanic. The best management in the world could not save the sinking ship of the Titanic.
To gain personal leadership in our lives we use imagination and conscience. Through imagination, we can visualize the uncreated worlds of potential that lie within us. Conscience guides us into the principles, talents and avenues of contribution we can develop.
True success is not in things but in mastery over one's self by the blood of Jesus Christ. If we constantly remember what we want people to know and remember about us, we will live with a value system that will bring us to a complete end. We must Value those around us. We must be careful not to get caught up in the immediate pressures of our problematic life, but to remember what we value. I must approach my life with my values and directions clear. My behavior and attitude flow from my deepest values and in harmony with correct principles. I make my decisions then, based on my values and principles. I don't react to the emotion or the circumstance. People can't live with change if there is not a changeless core inside of them. The key to the ability to change, is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.
When we look at our lives from the perspective of a short time, we will begin to invest in things that are important. Top athletes and performers are very visual. They see it, they feel it, they experience it, before they do it. They begin with the end in mind. So does God. He gives you the ending and helps you walk to it. Before anything visualize your ending!! Your creative right side of the brain is one of your most important assets. It creates your personal mission statement and integrates it into your life. In effective personal leadership, visualization and affirmation techniques emerge out of a foundation of well thought through purposes and principles.
Develop your mission statement, it will keep you on track. We must keep humble, have dignity for life and a wanting to serve others. When we understand the mission statement and it becomes part of us and how we operate, we become unified. A great unity occurs along with tremendous commitment. It creates guidelines, by which we govern ourselves.