This week every year, I review my personal progress for the year. Would you like to play along?

Here are some examples of questions I ask myself:

• What did I do that worked well?
• What did I attempt that didn’t work?
• Did I meet my goals?
• What could I do better with a little tweaking?
• What should I stop doing so I can do other things?
• Where is my time most being wasted?
• What discipline do I most need to implement into my day?
• What was my most memorable moment?
• What drains my energy just to think about doing again?
• What changes do I need to make?

Are you playing?

Here’s to a great 2012!

The Lord said to Abram:

Go out from your land,

your relatives,

and your father’s house

to the land that I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation,

I will bless you,

I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,

I will curse those who treat you with contempt,

and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.

Genesis 12:1-3 (Emphasis mine)

The secret, for lack of a better word, for Abraham’s success, was moving from his will to God’s will. When the “you” comes after the “I” rather than before, we’ll guarantee our success.

If you and I want the new year to be a success, let’s:

• Drop our agenda…join His agenda
• Get off our path…get on His path
• Release our ambitions…embrace His ambitions
• Ignore my will…live His will

Are you ready for a great new year?

When there are competing answers…

When you can’t decide between good choices…

When differences of opinion exist…

Go for the greater good test….

Of the possible scenarios, which has the potential for creating the greater good?

Often when I step back and get a bigger picture…when I force myself to think longer term…the answer becomes clearer.

Have you ever used the greater good test?

You’ve failed. It was huge…at least to the people impacted by the mistake. Perhaps you did it on purpose. Maybe it was an accident. You may have stumbled into gradually over time. Bottom line: It was wrong. You did it. No denying it now.

What next?

Here are 5 steps to recover from a failure:

Admit – Be honest…with yourself and others who need to know. Quit hiding from the truth. Stop making excuses. Own up to what you did and take responsibility for your actions. It’s a sign of maturity and few make it past this point. You my have consequences to deal with. don’t run from them.

Repent – Ask God for forgiveness. If you are a believer, He’s already paid your penalty on the cross, but you need to acknowledge your sin to keep the relationship pure. Ask any injured parties for forgiveness. You’re not responsible for their granting of grace, only for your attempt to live at peace with them.

Plan – Create a new path. Consider the right way to do things next time…so you won’t make the same mistake again. Do you need new friends? A new environment? Should you step away from a position for a time? How can you ensure those around you, whose trust

Commit – Commit to your plan. Commit to new accountability. Commit to the people you love. Commit to yourself. Commit to walking a new path and writing a new story.

Grow – Learn from every failure. You do not have to be defined by this season of your life. Move forward, looking back not to feel bad about yourself, but only enough to remind you to never go there again.

You can do it!

Have you ever recovered from a failure? What would you add to my list?

Have you ever had a dream, but you couldn’t decide if it’s something you should pursue or just a passing fantasy? I love dreaming, so I once wrote A 5 Step Process to Take a Dream to Reality and a similar post 7 Steps to Achieve Your Dreams, but how do you ensure you’ve got the right dream?

Here are 5 steps to processing a dream:

Pray specifically – Ask God to confirm if this is His dream or your dream. He loves to confirm if it’s His. If it’s not, thank Him for a creative mind, make sure it’s not against His written word, and that you sense no inner conviction that it’s against God’s will for your life. Ask God’s Spirit to steer you away from any dream beyond His plan for your life.

Write it down – You’d be amazed how different something can look like once it’s on paper. Write out your dream. Create a plan to accomplish your dream. Be as realistic and as detailed as you care to be, but look at your dream on paper.

Share it with a few people – God will use others to help discern and confirm. Make sure you trust the people and don’t let them kill the dream, but let them be an outside perspective to help check your heart and shape the dream.

Compare your experience – Have you been in preparation for this dream? I’ve noticed that many of the dreams I have come out of past experiences I’ve gained. It doesn’t mean you can’t do pursue a dream for which you have no experience, but it’s easier to process when it lines with how God’s path has directed me.

Take the advice test – In my observation, the more active dreamers tend to also be risk-takers. Ask yourself, if a good friend came to you with a similar dream, with similar circumstances in their life, would you advice them to take the risk? You may need to follow your own advice.

Have you got a current dream? I’d love to hear it.

If you’ve survived this process, let me voice saying:

GO FOR IT!

This is a guest post by Tor Contantino. I had the pleasure of meeting Tor at Catalyst this year. Tor Constantino is an ex-journalist, current public relations professional who has worked for CBS Radio and ABC, CBS television stations. He contributes to RELEVANT magazine, ChristianPost.com, SCL and his blog, www.torconbooks.com.

Here are 5 Productivity Pitfalls Learned From Marathon Training:

Prior to my 40th birthday I decided I wanted to run a full marathon. I found a training regimen, stuck to it and successfully completed my first 26.2 mile distance within the top half of finishers for my age group – with energy to spare!

That experience for me was akin to successfully finishing a large project at my job – on time, under budget with the desired positive result. I then decided that “marathoning” would be my hobby. I followed the same plan for five months and had a similar outcome with my second full marathon.

Then things changed.

Six months later I ran my third marathon. It took me nearly seven hours to finish – that was more than three hours longer than my fastest race – a productivity loss of more than 40 percent. I was one of the last people to cross the finish line. Every joint and muscle in my body ached. Plus, I was 20 pounds heavier running the third race than the previous ones.

What happened? I allowed my past successes to undermine my future objectives. Specifically, I fell into five productivity pitfalls that led to my diminished performance.

I assumed my performance would improve with each race. I mistakenly believed that simply committing to running the third race, coupled with my “proven” past success, would be enough. Unfortunately I didn’t take the necessary training steps to amp up my pace such as strength training and speed work. To avoid this productivity pitfall in other areas of life, ensure you conduct the necessary due diligence, preparation and secure proper training for the desired improvement.

I thought that I had cracked the marathon code. I had become too comfortable with the idea that 26.2 miles was the same everywhere – but the hills of Baltimore shattered that myth for me. Every marathon is different – from the elevation, terrain surface, weather and number of participants. Beyond racing, it’s critically important to remember that each project is distinct as well, offering unique productivity opportunities packed with its own challenges.

Overconfidence allowed past bad habits to resurface. I’ve been 10-20 pounds overweight most of my adult compared to standard body mass index charts for my height. During the training for my first two races I ate more and healthier fuel than normal to sustain my higher energy output. But for race three, I started eating more empty calories and processed foods which hindered my training. So much so that during the six month “training” window I had gained almost 20 pounds. I didn’t even notice, because I told myself I was training for a marathon and I deserved it. The takeaway here, make sure your project has the absolute best inputs whether it’s data, information or resources – give it the best chance to succeed.

I rationalized training less. As previously stated my diet changed dramatically which negatively impacted my ability to finish my long training runs. Most marathon training programs have 3-4 shorter maintenance sessions during the week that are less than six miles. These are intended to keep your body primed for the long runs that build a mile or two on the weekends, usually maxing out at 20 miles. Training for the third marathon, I was not able to finish a single long run of the program. I shrugged it off since I’d already run 26.2 miles – twice. This showcases the need to be honest with yourself and your team the moment problems start arising on a project or job, work to identify corrective measures and implement them as soon as possible so as not to jeopardize the final output.

I allowed modest success to leech my passion. Successfully running a full marathon not only requires a lot of physical discipline but a lot of mental discipline as well. For the first two races, I was more mentally prepared than I was physically. That’s the only way you can get your body to continue to keep moving through the fatigue and aches. I was passionate and committed to finishing the earlier races at a predetermined pace. But that passion ebbed in preparation for the third because I adopted a lazy “been there, done that” mentality, which hurt my performance. Avoiding this pitfall requires a conscious effort to find or create your passion about each project, because productivity will suffer absent passionate commitment.

The epilogue to this story is that my botched third marathon served as a painful wake call. I’ve gotten back on track and have since completed three more full marathons, plus a handful of half marathons as well as lost the extra 20 pounds of excess race weight. I’m living proof that avoiding productivity pitfalls can help you run the good race – literally.

Thanks Tor. Have you ever trained for something as intensely as you do for a marathon? What did you learn in the process?

I have a theory I practice often. I’ve been using it for many years…as a leader, father, a friend, and a pastor. It’s not always what people come looking to me for, but I think it’s the best practice.

I don’t always give people answers…

• As a pastor, people come to me for answers…
• As a dad, my boys come to me for answers…
• As a friend, people come to me for answers…
• As a leader of a team, people come to me for answers…

In either case, I don’t always give people answers…

I don’t try to solve their problems for them.

Now, please understand, if there is a clear Biblical answer for their problem or issue, I give it to them, but these are the issues more difficult to discern. These are the career choice decisions, the calling in life decisions, the unwritten answer type decisions.

For those type issues, I probably have an opinion, but I never “have” the answer.

Instead…

I help people discover a paradigm through which to make the decision…

• I become an objective listener…
• I help them see all sides of the issue…
• I share Scriptures that may speak to both sides of the decision…
• I serve as an outside voice…
• I may diagram the problem, as I hear it, so they can see the issue on paper…
• I help them learn to pray and listen to God..

And then I release them to make a decision….

Here is my reasoning…

If I solve the problem:

• I’m just another opinion…and I may be wrong…
• They’ll resent me if it proves to be a wrong decision…
• They’ll never take ownership of the issue…
• They’ll likely do what they want anyway…
• They won’t learn the valuable skills of listening to the voice of God…
• They won’t learn from experience…

My advice:

Don’t always have an answer…

Help people form a paradigm through which to to solve their problems or make decisions…

Are you too quick to have an answer sometimes?

I’m reading Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success by Kerry Patterson, Al Switzler, Ron McMillan and Joseph Grenny. So far it’s an encouraging book. Much of it appears to me as common sense, but it’s always good to reinforce concepts you think you know. I’m hoping to test these theories with some change in my own life.

Here’s an excerpt from Change Anything:

Consider the following rather startling discovery. A team of researchers from New York University worked with students whose grades suffered because they procrastinated studying. They gave half of the procrastinators information on how to improve their study habits. The other half were given the same information—plus pencil and paper. They were told, “Decide now where and at what times you will study in the next week, and write it down.” Those who recorded their plan studied more than twice as many hours as those who didn’t.”

Did you catch that? How do you double your chance of being productive? Apparently you write it down. Schedule it. Make a plan.

I love it when the experts agree with me.

I suggest to people all the time that they should schedule everything. For years people have asked how I accomplish as much as I do. One “secret” is that I schedule my week. If you want more specifics, I wrote about it HERE.

Start the week off right. Calendar the things you want to accomplish.

Working the plan is much easier when you have one.

What tips do you have for being more productive?