Reading: Video Transcript - Applying the 5 F's In Your Life

Hi. I'm back. We've talked about the need for balance, the need for mentors. We talked also about using the five Fs. It's a great tool to help you achieve balance. Now what we're going to talk about is what are some of the principles and practices that you can use to work on your five Fs? Because you know what? It's not enough to understand the need for balance. At some point, we've got to act. We've got to execute. Good intentions aren't good enough. Just like information without transformation is not useful.

Strategies are many, and they change all the time. But principles are few and remain constant. Principles are the building blocks of your life. We're going to talk a little bit now about three principles that I think are crucial to working with your five Fs for the rest of your life.

The first principle is being intentional, being purposeful. Do you know your purpose? Do you have a plan? Proverbs 29:18 says, "When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the Lord is joyful."

The thing that I find interesting and I've seen this a few times in periodicals is that people spend more time planning their annual vacation than they do planning the rest of their lives. That's ironic, isn't it? But it's true. You have to have a vision. You have to know where you're going. You have to think about it. You have to be purposeful. You have to have intention.

Mountain bikers, they'll tell you they watch the path, they watch where they want to go. They don't look at the rocks. They don't look at the trees. Because they know wherever their vision is that's where the bike's going to go.

The same is true for our lives. You need to focus on what you want in your life, not what you don't. Don't look at the rocks and the trees. Focus on the path, the path that God has you on.

Another good, I think, a metaphor for whether you have purpose or intent in your life is ask yourself, when you wake up every morning, are you a leaf or are you a bird? Do you know what a leaf does? A leaf opens your front door and just floats out the front door wherever the wind blows it. A leaf doesn't have a plan. A leaf just opens the door and goes. A bird opens the same door every morning, and it looks at the wind and assesses the wind, and it uses the wind as a resource to get to its planned destination.

Many people are just letting life blow them around. Which one are you? Be intentional, have a plan, and of course, we always allow God to intervene. But God wants us to have a plan too.

Principle two. This is a really important one I believe. Get out of your comfort zone. Your comfort zone is where you can just hunker down, and just sit, and hover, and stagnate. It's almost like a pond. The water's not moving. So it starts to stagnate. Eventually, it stinks versus running water that stays fresh, and clean, and is growing, and is going somewhere. 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, "For we live by believing and not by seeing." Sometimes we've just got to take that step. We've got to get out of our comfort zone. We can't always see where we're going, but we've got to take the step. So I can't urge you enough to be willing to get out of your comfort zone. I believe it's the key to all growth, whether it's physical, mental, or spiritual.

We don't get stronger unless we break our muscles down. And it hurts a little bit. It's sore. But God's designed our bodies that our muscle fibers come back stronger, and that's how we experience growth. The same is in the spiritual and the mental area too.

A hermit crab is a great example of getting out of your comfort zone. A hermit crab lives in other shells, so for it to grow, it has to leave the comfort of its current shell or home to be able to grow into a new, larger shell. And granted, it's vulnerable in the transition. When it's got to move from the old home to the new home, there's a period there that's very uncomfortable, very anxiety producing. Yet it moves into the new shell which is larger, and that's how it continues to grow. It takes the risk.

If you stay in your shell your whole life, your life will remain small and confined. And it'll be defined by words such as what you can't do, what you don't do, what you won't do. You need to get comfortable with getting out of your comfort zone. And when you do, your shell/life will get larger, and it'll become a bigger, more fulfilling life and the kind of life that God's intended for you to have.

Being comfortable with being uncomfortable is important because you have to remember, being uncomfortable is temporary until your shell gets larger and then you get comfortable in that larger shell. And then you continue and continue to grow. So embrace change. Don't let change scare you. Don't let it produce anxiety. It's a blessing. God has blessed us because we can change. We're not like the other animals and the other creatures. A pig wakes up every day and remains a pig. A snake is a snake. God has blessed humans that we have the ability to change. And that's a blessing. And we need to be a good steward of it and use it. Remember, your future's spotless. Change.

The third principle and unfortunately a lot of people get stuck here. They've got great intentions, they've got all the right information, but they sit around and just go, "Ready, aim, aim, aim." They aim the rest of their life. They never fire, they never execute, they never act. Ecclesiastes 11:4 speaks of this. "Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest." So you can have all the right information and all the right intentions, but until you execute, and act, and put it into practice, nothing happens.

I did some research on the Battle of Gettysburg, which is a very large battle in America in the Civil War - a very bloody battle. And what they found was is that there were 27,000 muskets that were picked up from dead or dying soldiers in this battle. Interesting enough, 90% of them were still fully loaded. Yet it took 95% of the time to load the musket and only 5% to fire. Yet these men had died without firing a shot. The anomaly is that the average man would load his musket, and load his musket, and load his musket until he was shot and killed.

Again, I think this speaks to our natural tendency to not act and to stay in our comfort zone. It's important to act. We can choose to act or be forced to act. As I mentioned earlier in an earlier session, it's much less painful to get on the front end and be proactive. Don't wait for a crisis to force you to act. If you ignore your fitness, it could be an illness. If you ignore your finances, it could be bankruptcy. If you ignore your family, it could be divorce. Don't ignore those Fs. Because you will be forced to act at some point. Get on the front end of it. Be intentional.

I talked earlier about God didn't intend for us to be helicopters. We're not meant to just hover, we're not meant to be stagnant, we're not meant to stay in the same hermit crab shell that we were born in. We were designed as jets. We were designed to move forward. So we're either getting better, or we're getting worse. We don't sit still. Be a jet. Move forward. Act.

Luke 14:28 and 29 talks about "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Wouldn't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you've got enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and aren't able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you." That's someone who doesn't have a plan. They just jump in. That's the leaf that opens the front door and just blows wherever the wind blows them. Be a bird. Have a destination, have a plan, use the resources that God has given you to get there.

Now, we're going to talk a little bit about the power of planning. Because what you need to do is apply the three principles that we just talked about, which is to be purposeful, intentional, number one. The second is to get out of your comfort zone. That's how you grow. And the third is to act, execute. You need to apply those to your five Fs with a written plan, not just in your head. It needs to be in writing.

I read a book recently that really made an impact on me called The Power of Habit. And there were quite a few stories in there about how powerfully written plans are, written goals. And they did one study that I'll relate to you now. It was patients in rehab. It was hip replacements if I remember right. And all the patients got the same information, which is to rehab that hip as soon as you get out of surgery. Because if you don't, it'll seize up and you'll have adhesions and it'll be very difficult then to get full mobility. So everyone got the same information.

But half the patients were required to have a daily, written plan for the next day of how they were going to rehab that hip. What's interesting is though both sets of patients had the same information, those that had a written plan, their rehab was dramatical - I mean dramatically - more effective than those without the written plan even though they had the same information.

That should remind you a little bit of the story that Jesus told about the two men building their house. They both had the same information, but one listened, had a plan, and built it on the rock. Having a written plan is very important.

One of the things I recall from my business career was-- and it became frustrating to me at some point. But we would send our employees to seminars and workshops. These were topnotch events, the best of the best. And they would come back on fire, inspired, really pumped. And a lot of times we'd have them address a staff meeting then and kind of pass on their enthusiasm to our other employees. But invariably, within two to three weeks, almost every one of them was back into the same old habits they were before. I didn't see any permanent changes.

What this led me to believe is until you change your habits, you don't change your life. You can be inspired but unless you put that into effort, and work, and make a change, nothing changes. Experts tell us that it takes 30 or 40 days to create a new habit. And also, they say it's really important to have some accountability. And that's where the mentoring comes in, the coaching.

So inspiration without perspiration doesn't last very long. Maybe we call that a mountaintop experience. It felt great, but it didn't last. So you've got to back it up with perspiration. You've got to put some things in writing, put some effort into it, and make some permanent changes with habits.

But don't be discouraged. Remember, at first, that your old habit, that rut is pretty wide and pretty deep. It's easy to slip back into it. But after 30 to 40 days, the new habit should be wide and deep.

In the early days of course though, the new habit is rather narrow and shallow. It's easy to slip out. So just be aware of that. It does take some time.

Now we're going to talk about how to develop what I call a SMART plan. This isn't my acronym. I got it from someone else. But it's really important. What I mean by that is when you're planning and when you're starting to put some pencil to paper on your five Fs, make sure that the action steps that you put down are a smart plan. And by smart, I mean it has to be specific. For instance, in our fitness, a good action step is not "get in better shape". That's too general. That might be your ultimate goal, but how are you going to get there. Being specific would be, "spend two hours a week, twice a week, one hour aerobic, one anaerobic". That's a specific plan. Because you say how often you're going to do it and it's measurable.

The A is for achievable. Don't pick something that's not realistic. Pick something that you can accomplish. It's a stretch. It's going to get you out of your comfort zone, but it's achievable. It's something you can do. Obviously, it's got to be relevant. It's got to be relevant to your life and to the five Fs. And last, it's got to have some time sensitivity to it or time urgency. You can't just say, "I'm going to do X." You've got to say when I'm going to do it. That way you can hold yourself accountable to do that.

So the plan has to be a SMART plan: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-sensitive.

Now we're going to talk a little bit about your legacy. And I know for many young people, it's hard to think about legacy at this point. I probably didn't think about it a lot when I was younger either. But it's important. And you know what really hits home with legacy? Go to a funeral sometime. Unfortunately, we all probably have to do that whether it's family, or grandparents, or whatever. But when you see someone that has lived a life, a well-lived life, and the impact that they have on others, and the legacy that they leave, that makes a real impression on you.

And unfortunately, you may go to a funeral where that isn't the case, and you'll see the difference. And that'll make an impact on you. You can learn a lot at funerals. But think about your legacy. Think about your impact. Visualize it and then work backwards. What do you get to do to make that your legacy? What do you have to do to make that happen?

There's a poem by Linda Ellis called "The Dash". And it really speaks to the date that someone was born, the date that someone dies, and their life is the dash in between. And I think this poem speaks very clearly to the issue of legacy. I'm going to read it to you.

“I read of a man who stood to speak at the funeral of a friend. He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning to the end. He noted that first came the date of birth and spoke the following date with tears, but he said what mattered most of all was the dash between those years. For that dash represents all the time that they spent alive on earth. And now only those who love them know what that little line is worth. For it matters not, how much we own, the cars, the house, the cash. What matters is how we live, and love, and how we spend our dash. So think about this long and hard. Are there things you'd like to change? For you never know how much time's left that can still be rearranged. If we could just slow down enough to consider what's true, and real, and always try to understand the way other people feel. And be less quick to anger and show appreciation more and love the people in our lives like we've never loved before. If we treat each other with respect and more often wear a smile, remembering that this special dash might only last a little while. So when your eulogy is being read, with your life's actions to rehash, would you be proud of the things they say, about how you spent YOUR dash?”

I'm going to ask you now to do one final exercise, and it has to do with your dash, your legacy, the impact that you want to have. I'm going to ask you to go to a quiet place, whether it's now or later. But just be still for an hour at least minimum. Two hours preferably. And bring a journal with you, and pray, and spend time alone with God, and do some journaling. And if you would get a 5 x 7 index card. Along the top of that card, go ahead and write each of the five Fs: faith, family, friends, fitness, and finances. Just list them on the top. What I'm asking you to do is just feel God's presence and God leading you, the Holy Spirit nudging you on some of the changes and steps out of your comfort zone that God is asking you to do in each one of these five Fs.

Earlier, I asked you to self-assess each one of the five Fs. The ones that got low numbers, really spend extra time on those. You probably know what you've got to do to move forward. We spent some time looking back, we spent some time talking about how you got here. Now we're spending time on where do you want to go? How are you going to be a bird when you open that door every day? Where are you headed? What're your intentions? What's your purpose? Start putting this in writing - the power of planning.

And I would like you to consider two to four specific action steps under each of the Fs that you need to make some changes in. And really think hard and pray about it. And sure, get a little out of your comfort zone in that. And then, importantly is, share that with others that you trust: peers, your pastor. They can hold each other accountable. Ask them to do the same.

For many of you leaders out there that are with CLI that are looking to be involved the mentor centers or mentoring young people, this is a great exercise to have them do. As you recall, the first exercise, we kind of did a look back. But this exercise is to look forward. I think it's particularly appropriate after just reading the poem "The Dash".

I think I'm going to summarize today's session with three things. A commitment needs to be made. A plan has to be laid. And yes, a price will need to be paid. None of this comes cheaply. You're going to have to make an effort. It's going to take some initiative. You've got to stay the course. If habits were easy to change, everybody would do it. But the beauty is you can do it. We don't wake up every day a snake. God designed us so that we can make changes and we can make changes to our life, and our future is spotless. I really appreciate this time with you. I wish you much success on your journey. God bless you.