Monthly Archives: August 2012

Less is More

While perusing lifehacker the other day I came across this great piece by Greg McKeown on how our unrelenting desire for success is often the very thing that fuels our failure. For McKeown the process looks something like this.

Clarity of Purpose—>Success–>Options & Opportunities–>Diffused Efforts–>Undermining of Clarity.

We are a society and a people addicted to activity; to the pursuit and acquisition of more. While this is easily seen in the accumulation of material goods,it has now filtered into our energy and efforts as well. Instead of focusing in on what we are most passionate about, well equipped, gifted and enabled for and making a dogged commitment to those few things; we have instead become a culture and people obsessed with diversification, becoming jacks of all trades and masters of none.

Think of this as it relates to areas of personal growth and church life?  How easily do we allow competing vision, value and activity to undermine or sidetrack our original direction?

How often do we agree to take on a new project or opportunity without considering the potential cost to other areas of focus?

With a little focused effort we can begin to recover the clarity of purpose that led to our initial success. McKeown offers some questions to help guide our thinking.

…ask three questions: “What am I deeply passionate about?” and “What taps my talent?” and “What meets a significant need in the world?”…We aren’t looking for a plethora of good things to do. We are looking for our absolute highest point of contribution.

 

Read the whole thing here.

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