December is advent, the wonderful celebration of the birth of the Christ child, who was born, so that we would have a pattern to follow. We are to imitate Christ in our own uniquely created way.
How are you doing so far? In September, I shared with you what I learned from yearly meetings with myself and promised I would share more in time. It is time. It’s time for the meeting to consider our situation and make adjustments, as needed; to fulfill our God given purpose and make dreams reality.
The first step is to make sure our purpose shines in all areas of our life. In future articles, we will proceed with: goals, planning and then scheduling. The process I share teaches managing activity rather than managing time. Have you noticed that you cannot manage time, it has a pace of its own, and will leave you behind or jump ahead, and you find yourself saying, “Where has all the time gone?”
You can manage yourself and the activities you choose to do. Focus on your purpose so that when your schedule changes, through no fault of your own, you can adjust and continue in your purpose, not having to wait to reschedule the whole day or project.
Focus is on effectiveness rather than efficiency. Topics to come are goals, planning and scheduling completing your life management. See the diagram, below.
The Purpose (Why)
Begin with your purpose, why are you here? What is your passion and what is God’s purpose for bringing you to this earth at this time? Why did God create you and who helped you along the way?
Your purpose is like the grand design for your life—the result, what your life is all about, your reason for living. A hint would be the meaning of your name. The meaning of Rose is giver of love…duh!
My life journey is to learn how to receive love in order to give it away. Giving it away involves loving God enough to walk with people to bring them the freedom that He would have for them.
There are seven motivational gifts: perceiver, server, teacher, exhorter, giver, ruler and mercy. My two top motivational gifts are ruler/perceiver. Bringing freedom is the birthright of the motivational gift of ruler and seeing God’s design in people is the birthright of a perceiver. Gather all the information you can about yourself and put it together.
Purpose is the “why” of your life the motivation to become not to be confused with goals that identify what you want to do depending on your circumstances. You can’t always control your life style’ but you can choose how you will live.
Let the memories of your life until now, flow through your head to identify certain people or experiences that influenced your life.
- Was there a feeling of destiny along the way that draws you to a life style now?
- Are you doing for others now as you needed someone to do for you as a child?
- Are you living your dreams or have there been convictions or decisions that helped or hindered them?
- If you could choose the desire of your heart, what would it be?
Consider the apostle Paul who did many things but he said, “I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing.” What is it for you?
Once you have your life purpose consider the flow into the different categories of your life: Spiritual, personal, home & family, vocational, financial, mental, physical and social. You are the caretaker of the temple of the Holy Spirit is your life in balance?
You have the same purpose but a different focus in all these areas of your life. Do you spend more or all of your time in one or two areas and ignore the rest or is your life in balance? Do some doodling and explore.
Draw an oval and write your purpose inside. Next draw eight lines out from the oval and label them (mental, physical, spiritual, social, home & family, vocational, financial, and personal.) Are the areas equal? Do you need to bring balance into your life?
