Category: Calling

Somewhere on Purpose

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The Final Destination

When we left Denver for our California move, it was Valentine’s Day 2017. My wife boarded a plane with our four kids (and my mom) with a one-way ticket to Los Angeles.

Most of our items were onboard a semi-truck moving company and in transit already. After I dropped them off at the airport, I took our minivan loaded with only essential family possessions and my camping gear and headed west. With a full tank of gas and a queue of podcasts and audiobooks, I plugged my ending destination into the GPS system on my phone and took off.

Fourteen hours later I had made it. I was halfway through the trip, and after a quick one night stay at a campground, woke up early the next morning to finish the trip.

At regular intervals, I would stop, fill up the gas tank, grab some food, stretch my legs, and start a new audiobook.

Even when I stopped, got rerouted because of road work, or got stuck in traffic, my end destination stayed the same.

I had a clear goal and objective in mind: reuniting with my family.

Everybody ends up somewhere. A few people end up somewhere on purpose. Those are the ones with vision. – Andy Stanley

Somewhere on Purpose

Life works the same way. So does business. Family. Hobbies. Income. Education.

You are going to end up somewhere. The only question is if it is where you wanted to be.

To get where you want to be, you have to have a vision. Practice Intentionality. Cultivate solid habits. Engage in Discipline.

To get where you want to go, you have to be clear in where it is you want to end up. 

If I had simply entered “California” or “West” into my GPS, there is a strong likelihood that I wouldn’t have ended up next to my family.

In life, if your only goal is to end up “not here,” then you probably won’t. But that also doesn’t mean the destination is any better.

Like a good GPS system with a final address, our life needs to have a clear end destination in mind. A clear goal to reach. An objective measure that we have arrived.

As a success and mindset coach, that’s much of how I work with my clients on a daily basis. 5 Tips on Intentional Living

But success doesn’t have to mean financial. Maybe it means that it’s having just enough to be able to take trips with the grandkids. Success for some might mean living long enough to see a family member take over the family business. For another, it could be to lose weight and run their first 10k.

Success for one former client was to start her own business and never work for someone else again. 

For another, it was to build a speaking platform and tour the country providing health lectures. 

Ending up somewhere on purpose doesn’t happen by accident.

So, if you’re ready to end up somewhere on purpose, here are five tips to help you get started.

5 Tips for Intentional Living:

1.) Create a list of the non-negotiable elements of your life. Key relationships, experiences, and mindsets are always foundational. Know Your Big Rocks.

2.) Visualize your success. Create a vision board, write it down in your journal, practice intentional meditation. Whatever it is that works for you, spend time actually thinking about and picturing yourself in that future state.

3.) Practice daily habits of success. Exercise, read a book, laugh, drink plenty of water. Create a sustainable rhythm to life that breeds success. (If you want help on this point, sign up for my high-performance newsletter and receive my best tools and tips directly in your inbox every Friday).

4.) Share your vision with someone you love. Life is best traveled with someone you love. A spouse, friend, mentor, or coach can encourage you during the downtime and help you push through the tough moments.

5.) Stay the course. It won’t happen overnight. Real Talk: It may not even happen in a thousand nights. But if you are faithful, day in and day out over the course of a lifetime, it will.

What stood out to you? Leave a comment below!

Begin With The End in Mind

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Next Time

“Hieb, this isn’t going to happen again. We’re going to get him next time. Set the goal. Focus on it. Put your energy into it.”

Those were the words from my high school wrestling coach after a tough loss. A regional match my junior year set me into a favorable matchup for state placing.

I was wrestling Blake, a decent wrestler from a school less than an hour away. My record was better. My skills were better. My coaching was better. I was set. A quick win and I was off to state, ranked in the top ten.

Given all those advantages, I overlooked Blake to prepare for state the next weekend.

Blake beat me. On a late third period comeback, he got a reversal and won 8-7. My failure to prepare for the object right in front of me meant that my end destination was changed. Instead of a favorable seeding in the state tournament, I was on the outside looking in.

That loss took me out of the top ten and into the bottom four. I faced the number two wrestler in the state (and eventual state winner) in the first round and lost. Then in the losers bracket, I lost again.

What had started as a promising season ended in bitter defeat. 0-2 in the state tournament and a long offseason to think about the final thirty seconds of a match that was still eating away at me.

That’s when coach pulled me aside and told me to write my goals down for next season. Even in the pain and through the tears, focus on where I wanted to go. How did I want my senior season to end? How did I want to be remembered?

Begin With The End in Mind

That day, I wrote down three goals to focus on:

1.) Beat Blake

2.) Make it to state

3.) Set the school record in reversals.

For an entire year, those were my goals. Every extra practice. Every meal. Every weight training session.

“Beat Blake” became my mantra.

At the start of the next wrestling season, Coach Z put my goals on the board for everyone to see. Now, I was accountable to the entire team.

Every day at 3:30, the music would start, the reps would begin and my entire focus became to “Beat Blake.”

The final regular-season tournament of the season pitted me against Blake in the championship match, with regional and state seeding positions on the line. As I stepped on to the mat, Coach Z pulled me aside, “You’ve worked a year for this match. It’s time to finish.”

Three minutes later, I stepped off the mat and something along the lines of, “Rabid Wolverine” was hurled at me as they raised my arm in victory. From a close loss to a dominating win, I finished my objective and beat Blake.

Goals Create Clarity

Goals create clarity. Put another way, when we begin with the end in mind, we know what we’re aiming for.

By creating focus, instilling discipline, and getting clear on our life ambition, we know how to put a plan in place to help us reach our ultimate destination.

Or, think of it this way: As you near the end of your life, sit in your favorite rocking chair on the front porch of your house, answer these three questions:

1.) What are you glad you accomplished?

2.) What do you want to be remembered for?

3.) What are some of the things you’re most thankful for?

I’ve never coached someone who has answered those questions, “I think I need to spend more time at work.” Or, “My life would be better if I’d burn the candle at both ends a bit more.” Or, “Everyone wins if I’d ignore my family more for a few more late nights of office paperwork.”

Instead, when we think about where we want to end up, we then know how to create the plan to get us there.

I often tell people that coaching is a lot of “reverse engineering.” We get clear on where we want to go and why that’s important to us. Then we create the “how” piece of the puzzle.

We begin with the end in mind and then create the roadmap to success.

Working With Passion and Purpose

Work is a large part of our everyday lives. Whether your work is as a stay at home parent, a business executive, an entrepreneur, or as a skilled service provider. Whatever it is that you have been called to for “work” at this stage of life is vital. For you. For your family. For your employees. For the economy.

God has created you to not just work but work with meaning.

With purpose.

With passion.

This is accomplished by getting clear on what makes our work significant. We do that by knowing where we want to end up in life, and what makes that important to us. We bring purpose to our work when we begin with the end in mind.

When we know the how and why of our work, the rest becomes clear. When we know where we want to end up, we know how to create a plan that will get us there. When we begin with the end in mind, we will spend our days on tasks that help us “Beat Blake” every time we need to.

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This is part of a week-long look at “Working with Passion.” To receive all the content plus some bonus material, subscribe to my newsletter.

 

Ready, Set, Goal!

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Goalless Drifter

After my college graduation, I had a conversation with my older brother about what was next in life. Everyone, it seemed, had a keen interest in me up to that point. They always wanted to know I wanted to be when I grew up, what college I was going to, and what I was going to major in.

But I never had one conversation about what happened after that. How do I start a successful marriage (I didn’t do that one well)? How do I grow in emotional health (took a lot of trips to the therapist’s office)? How do I pass on key values to my children (still figuring that one out…)?

The problem was that no one had taught me how to set goals for what came after graduation.

I wasted a lot of time (and hurt a lot of people) because I was a goalless drifter.

People without goals are people without a future.

Ready, Set, Goal!

One key to sustainable success is the daily habit of setting, reviewing, and reestablishing goals.

One of my practices is to use Michael Hyatt’sFull Focus Planner . I’ve used it for over a year now and absolutely love both the structure and order it gives me, while also allowing a great deal of freedom in the process.

I’ve also discovered the power of paper and what it means to write goals down. It’s easy to think, “My goal is…” because we often forget it. But by writing goals down, it not only gives us a visual reminder of what we’re trying to accomplish but cements it into our brain better.

 

By getting clear and specific on what we are aiming at, we gain a strategic advantage to sustainable success. The key discipline though is to make our goals S.M.A.R.T.E.R.

S.M.A.R.T.E.R Goals

When you’re ready to say, “Ready, Set, Goal!” you must begin by making sure you have the right format.

S: Specific. Make sure the goals you set are clear on the intended destination. Don’t think, “Lose weight.” Instead write, “I want to lose twenty pounds.”

M: Measurable. Similar to specific, measurable makes sure that what you’re aiming for can actually be hit. Avoid using jargon or filler words in your goal-setting times. Don’t think, “Be more productive.” Instead, write that you want to, “Use my time wisely by spending no more than thirty minutes a day on social media.” Ouch. That one may hurt a bit, but it’s measurable. You can use apps or the integrated Apple Screen Time (if you’re an iPhone user) to track how you’re spending your time on your phone.

A: Actionable. Start your goals with action-oriented verbs (as opposed to “to-be” verbs). This focuses your attention on what needs to be accomplished. Don’t write, “Be better at date nights.” Instead, try, “Take my spouse on one date night every week.” Now you know how to take action to accomplish your goal.

R: Realistic. This one can be challenging, and we’ll talk about short and long term goals in a second. But realism is important in goal setting. Too often, goals fail because they either don’t inspire us or are unattainable. Realistic goals should do both. “Complete my ebook and submit to the publisher by the end of quarter three.” This goal meets the first three points and is entirely realistic (even if you’re not very far into your book). However creating a goal like, “Establish the first hotel chain on the moon by the end of the year” meets the first three steps in the process, but not the last one. To take action that inspires, your goal must be reasonable.

T: Timely. Put some hustle in it. This is where I work hard with my clients to push ourselves on our goals. Strive for greatness and see what you can do. If your goal is to gain three new speaking opportunities for your business, fantastic! But put yourself under a time constraint to reach that goal. “Acquire three new speaking opportunities by the end of August.” It’s clear, concise, and gives you a visible target to know if you’ve hit your goal. It also pushes you to keep working and avoid drifting from your goal. The end of August is coming up quick after all.

E: Exciting. Your goals should scare you a little bit. If not, you’ll never grow. This is honestly one of my big descriptors for the clients that I work with. We always work a little scared. If you’re making $50,000 a year and want to work with me, and your goal is to make $50,000 next year as well, we probably won’t be a good fit. You still might have some great goals, but I want my clients to push themselves. My clients are making $50,000 but want to make $125,000. They know they need to get serious about pursuing their dreams.

And it works in all areas of life too. Want a better marriage? Don’t take your spouse on four dates a year, take them on two a week. That shows me you’re serious about reprioritizing your schedule to thrive in your relationship.

R: Relevant. This one matters, but more in the daily habits of life. I regularly review my goals to make sure they are still what I want. Every year, I sit down and try to project out a year to set goals throughout. A number of times I’ve set a goal in January, gotten to May, and then realized it was no longer relevant. That’s not a bad thing! Those goals pushed me and stretched me in new ways that have forever changed me. But in that growth process, I realized that I needed to rechart my course and set a new destination.

Don’t be afraid to reevaluate your goals and start a new direction. That’s the fun part of goal setting.

Clear goals

+

Daily Habits

=

Lasting Success!

 

If you’re wanting to know where to start, I’m launching a Habit and Performance Mastermind Group. To find out more, set some goals in a supportive community, and take your life to the next level, click this link.

Morning Rituals

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Eye-Opening

The jarring blare of the alarm pries your eye-lids open and rips you into the land of the living.

What’s your first instinct?

The snooze button or the bounding first leap of a new baby gazelle?

Is your first thought, “Why me?” or “Why wait any longer?”

The way we set our mind first thing determines the much of the rest of the day.

Richard Whatley once said, “Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.”

Our mindset at the outset of the day determines our outcome. Whether we choose to attack the day or begrudgingly back into it determines how much we will get done.

And this has nothing to do with being a morning person or a night owl (but shout out to all my fellow morning people!).

Instead, it has everything to do with what we purpose in our hearts as valuable and worth investing in.

Our morning rituals have the chance to shape our souls, our character, our potential, and our enjoyment in life.

Habits on Purpose

Anyone who has worked with me knows we spend a lot of time talking about “habits on purpose.” Our morning rituals are no exception. Many of us waste large sections of our mornings instead of intentionally crafting them to serve us and help us reach our goals.

Two scenarios, which sounds more like you (be honest!):

“Lose an hour in the morning, and you will spend all day looking for it.” – Richard Whatley

Option 1:

The alarm goes off. After snoozing the alarm a time or two, you begrudgingly get out of bed. Saunter down to the kitchen and make a cup of coffee. After waiting for it to brew, you put on the television, drink the cup of coffee, and pray for “a few moments of quiet.” The (real) problem is not that these moments aren’t quiet. Instead, it’s that they aren’t productive or stimulating. After an hour of television and another cup of coffee (or two), you manage to scrounge up a quick (and mostly unhealthy) breakfast, rush out the door, only to wait in traffic on the way to work. You spend the rest of the morning wondering how you’re going to fit in everything you have to do.

After work, you might rush off to the gym, if you’re feeling up to it, stagger in the door, and eat a quick bite of dinner with your family. Some more television, and on the good days a few pages of light reading before a late-night Netflix series as you pass out into bed.

The weekends, only somewhat different. Instead of filling your days with work, it’s full of a week’s worth of overlooked errands and obligations. By the time Sunday ends, you dread the thought of going back to work, still tired, still behind, and still wondering where all your time went.

Option 2:

The alarm goes off, but you were already stirring. Gently awakening from a good nights sleep, you quietly make your way to the kitchen. After drinking twenty ounces of water to rehydrate your body, you then make a small cup of coffee and tip-toe into the den. Here, you engage in thirty minutes of intentionally designed habits that give you life and direction. Scripture reading and prayer, meditation, yoga, and a good personal development book are frequent habits. After that, you sneak off to the gym for a good thirty-minute sweat session. You return home just as the rest of the family is waking up. You’re fully awake, charged up, and ready to attack the day. You enjoy a good, nutritious breakfast with your family before heading off to work with purpose and conviction.

After work, you are still awake enough to get a few critical errands done, work on your side hustle, and enjoy another meal with your family. After dinner, you enjoy a myriad of activities together: movies, books, chess, or sports. Whatever it is, you’re excited by the purpose and direction you’ve given your life.

The weekends are similar. They are intentionally designed, purpose-driven, and leave you excited for another week to grow, learn, and serve new people.

Morning Rituals

I’m guessing you identify with one of these stories.

I identify with both.

For years, I would have firmly placed myself in option one. My life was chaotic, disorganized, and I was “average” (at best).

After intentionally taking steps to counter this drift, seeking out some great coaches, and getting a grip on my life and my purpose, I now find myself firmly in option two.

The difference along the way for me has been a lot of intentional habits and disciplines, specifically and most importantly, my morning rituals.

Now, they’re far from perfect. Right now, my morning habits are really broken up into to separate blocks. That’s the status of my work life right now. Eventually, it will happen in one chunk as I sense that will work the best for me.

So while I may not have my “ideal” calendar of morning rituals in place, I do have a target. I know what I’m aiming for. Otherwise, I’m like the boy learning archery who shot an arrow and then ran over to pain the bullseye around it. Instead, I want to know what the target is and then put all of my effort and talent into hitting it every time.

Below are the habits of my morning ritual and roughly how much time I spend on each one.

  • 20oz of water within ten minutes of waking up
  • 1 cup of coffee
  • Bible Reading and Prayer (10-15 Minutes)
  • Personal Development Book (15-20 Minutes)
  • Exercise (45 minutes)

Within the first 90 minutes of my day, I have exercised my body, brain, and spiritual muscles. I have found that this gives me focus, intensity, and purpose to my days. I’m still tweaking exactly how to flow from one activity to the next more smoothly but would love to hear from you.

What are your morning rituals?
What are your daily habits and routines?
How are you using your time to intentionally invest in bettering yourself at the start of the day?

Comment below!

C.A.L.L.

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The Call

History is full of call stories. Ever since Abraham was called by God to form a nation that sought after God, histories, peoples, and cultures have created a series of call stories to help us understand how we seek after our creator.

Moses had his burning bush.

David had his giant.

Jonah had his whale.

Jesus had the wilderness.

Those are a few ancient examples.

But the tradition continues.

Gandhi fought peacefully for a free India.

Martin Luther King waged war on the unjust Jim Crow laws.

Nelson Mandela overthrew the apartheid government of South Africa.

In each case, deep within these leaders, was a blossoming call story, a realization that they were called to accomplish something in their life.

C.A.L.L.

Often, we can overcomplicate the idea of a call story. We think they need to be grandiose and spectacular.

Maybe they are.

Or they might just feel that way to the person being called.

If you feel like you’re having trouble figuring out why you’re here, think through the C.A.L.L. acronym. Once you’re clear on these four points, you’re well on your way to living your call.

C – Cause

The first part of your C.A.L.L. is always about a cause.

It’s the why of your mission. The aspect of you as a unique creation that is urging you to make a difference in the world.

Michael Hyatt has said, “People lose their way when they lose their why.”

Your unique call story is no different. Find the cause of justice in the world that is burning so deep inside of you that it cannot be stopped.

One ancient prophet once said that his message was, “a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.”

“People lose their way when they lose their why.”

To find your C.A.L.L. you must first find that message of fire shut up in your bones.

A – Attitude

The second part of your C.A.L.L. is your attitude.

Far too many of us derail here. We may know our why but we then allow our circumstances to dictate how we feel about it.

Our goal was to make a difference in three years but it’s taken five (or more).

We thought we would have experienced freedom or transformation long before this moment in our life.

You will never get where you want to go if you always allow outside circumstances to dictate internal characteristics.

When your attitude is fixed on your destination, not on the circumstance, you’ll transform your life and increase your sphere of influence.

Instead of success, you’ll end up like the negative farmer. When it rains, the negative farmer complains that too much rain will wash away the soil and deplete the crops of necessary nutrients. When it stops raining, the negative farmer complains that too much sun will dry out the crop and kill off the harvest.

Don’t look at what is going wrong, but find ways to look at what is going right and create momentum in that direction.

When your attitude is fixed on your destination, not on the circumstance, you’ll transform your life and increase your sphere of influence.

L- Location

The third part of your C.A.L.L. is about a location. It is always at a particular time and place, for particular people.

Think the “longitude and latitude” metric. For Moses, it was Egypt. For Mandela, South Africa.

What is it for you?

Once you know the cause and have committed your attitude, identify the place where your message will reside.

For the homeless in your city?

Abandoned orphans from a country you visited on vacation?

Neglected retirees who have been forgotten by their family?

Whatever it is, the more specific you can be, the more action you can take.

Get clear on your cause.

Fix your attitude.

Reside in a location.

L – Legacy

Ultimately, a life well-lived and a call fully embraced outlives the person.

There’s a reason we resonate with the aforementioned heroes. We are inspired not only by their commitment to change the world, but their belief that we could do it too. Martin Luther King once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” His firm conviction was that each of us has a part to play in bettering the world.

He’s right.

Throughout history, men and women have listened to that voice inside of them urging them to be and do more for humanity. 

You also have that call.

And the capability.

Discover your cause.

Fix your attitude.

Reside in a location.

Leave a legacy.

Answer your C.A.L.L.

 

This part three on a series on calling.

Read Part 1

Read Part 2

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