Wednesday, November 15, 2017

LEARN FROM ME... DON'T BE A MORE-ON!

Don't be a MORE-ON! (MORON)... someone who keeps adding "more on" to their schedule than they can manage!!

I love work! I love Mondays! I love challenges! I love striving! I've always had the discipline to work hard and long hours day after day after day. When you're chasing your dreams and your calling you just don't want to stop striving.

But there is something in the running world called overstriding. It's when you constantly extend your legs to nearly full stride while you're running. It sound like it's a smart way to run... maximizing each stride to its full potential. But the prolonged impact actually destroys your cartridge, joints, sockets, heels, and more. Overstriding, ironically enough, can eventually rob you of the ability to ever ruin again.

Overworking, as I found out 5 months ago, actually has similar results. Over a prolonged time the impact destroys health, withers friendships, depletes strength, overlooks opportunities, crushes potential, and so much more.

So God has been teaching me a new discipline for the past 3 months... the discipline to stop overworking. To stop devaluing rest. To take time off. To stop adding MORE-ON to the open portions of my schedule. To create healthy boundaries. To preserve free time. To prioritise family and friend time. And, in many ways, to return back to the type of schedule I had before I started overstriding about 10 years ago.

God is teaching an old do(u)g new tricks and I'm ecstatic as I watch the nutrients of fullness of life flood back into my body. I can't hold it in.  What the enemy tried to use to break me, God used for my breakthrough!

I've dropped the 24/7/365 mentality.  It looks great on a t-shirt, but God has been showing me that it's not His way... It's not Biblical. 24/6/313 is more accurate, but when you subtract sleep, free time, vacations, another day for a complete weekend, etc, etc then it's actually more like 12/5/233. I'm creating a sustainable lifestyle that includes hard work, but not overstriding. And I'm actually finding that with increased wisdom and increased discipline, LESS IS MORE! I'm actually getting more done in less time.

That's not to say that I in any way agree with the couch potato 0/0/0 approach to life. In many ways, the couch is just a cushioned casket filled with laziness and absent of purpose. Prolonged comfort is actually a thousand times more dangerous than overworking. At least with overworking you have motion that can be steered and have something to show for your life. With ease, comfort, & an over abundance of entertainment you build a much worse type of regret.

So I'm THRILLED with all the course collections, adjustments, and life alterations... and I can't stop talking about it.

Each day I'm becoming less of a MORE-ON and more of THRIVER!

"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death." - Proverbs 14:12

STRiVE to THRiVE!

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