Change

In his book The Mentor Leader, Tony Dungy writes, "In order to become an effective mentor leader, in whatever setting it is important to take a look inside yourself. Identify what drives and motivates you, the areas in which you're naturally gifted, and the areas that are more challenging and thus will take more self-application to conquer. The ability to take and honest look at yourself and examine who you are -- what makes you tick, what makes you do the things you do -- is a mark of maturity for a mentor leader."

Taking time to pause and look at my life is one thing I don't do a bunch of and when I do I don't feel very good at it. Yet, it is the one thing that improves my weakest areas the most. If you talk to anyone who is an expert at their craft, such as an athlete, musician, teacher, or doctor the one thing they do is reflect on their skills. So why is this so hard to do? I think it is because change is hard. Maintaining status quo is easy. I honestly can say I like change it's the process that I have a hard time with.

I heard Dr. Del Tackett once say, "You cannot gaze upon the face of God and not be changed." To me, this is the ultimate way of reflection. How does my life compare to the great Cornerstone? You can also see this same line of thinking in Romans 12:2. (I recommend you looking this up even if you aren't one who reads the Bible.) The question I have started asking myself is "In what way can I be better tomorrow than I was today?" My immaturity usually comes out and I think I have it already figured out. Then something comes along and verifies that I don't.

So what areas do I strive to become better at? First a follower of Christ, second a husband and father, and last in my professional career. My first step in doing this is searching out those people who exhibit the characteristics in their life that I want and get to know them and secondly setting aside time everyday to simply reflect and meditate. I guess I can wrap it up with these two questions, 1) What's the one thing you want to get better at? and 2) How do you plan on doing just that?