The Leverage You Need to Move

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Archimedes said, “Give me a big enough lever and I could move the world.”  I don’t know about moving the world, but a few well-placed questions often times are all you need to get you moving when you are stuck.  Questions are powerful lever’s for moving your thoughts and emotions. 

Last week I used questions to get me moving in a significant way.  Here’s the story.  I really wanted to get all of my Advent worship planning done.  We are in a new place and the Holidays are so busy, I knew that I would massively benefit from pre-planning.

I got off to a great start a couple of weeks ago and then got stuck.  For a variety of reasons, the task kept rolling over from one day’s to-do list to another.  I knew I would regret not completing it.  About that same time I fired some questions off to a friend to get unstuck and thought, “Hey maybe I should take my own medicine.”  Here are my questions and responses to what I sent him.

What is an essential action that you continue to resist doing?
Completing my advent liturgy
Who can help you move forward?  Who will benefit?
No one in particular, I  just need to get off my butt and but’s and do it.  But I can use a bunch of resources, it’s not like I have to write it myself.  The whole staff including myself will benefit from having it done early because it will dramatically reduce a crunch in the holiday season.  The Congregation will benefit because I can be thoughtful about it now rather than just pulling it off later.
When can you complete the first step necessary to get you moving forward?
Today.  As soon as I get done answering these questions.
Where will you be in 6 months if you were to act today?  Where will you be in 6 months if you fail to act today?
Looking back and saying, “Wow, advent was so much easier because I was brilliantly organized and got all the organizational crud out of the way well in advance.  I am a pastor of heroic proportions.” versus, “Advent, stunk. The liturgy was rushed, I couldn’t sit back and enjoy the season and I was so unnecessarily stressed and beating myself for something completely avoidable.”
Why is this an essential action? 
Being new the stresses are enormous and I know that there will be many surprises.  I need to eliminate and respond to anything within my control now to allow myself the margin necessary to deal with all the other stuff that will arise.  This will also help establish me with the staff and congregation as professional, prepared and making their lives easier.  It is an investment in my relationships with everyone here as a leader.  It allows me to give God my best rather than my left overs of time and concentration. 
How are you going to keep from waking up tomorrow only to find yourself in the same stuck place and feeling guilt for not doing anything?
I won’t go to bed without taking at least 15 minutes of time working on the liturgy.  I know that if I commit to even just 15 minutes, the reality is that I will probably get it done, because getting started is more the problem than having the time.

It took me 12 minutes to do this exercise.  Two of that was monkeying with the font color.
The results–that afternoon, I went through some resources and flag some potential pieces that I liked.  The next day I weeded through those possibilities.  Also, I wrote some of my own material and completed all of the bulletin information I need through Christmas Eve.
I got up this morning, and was considering the work I needed to do.  Reflexively I thought, “Hey I need to jump on next week’s bulletin, and then realized, no I don’t!  Yehaaw!  It’s already done.” The stress of procrastination is gone and I am free visit folks, work on my blog, and prepare studies.  It feels really good.
The key was running myself through the questions and forcing myself to answer them in writing.  It only took about ten minutes.  Those questions where the leverage I needed to move my world.  I would challenge you to answer the questions I answered.
Another question that I would encourage you to consider whenever you are stuck is, “What are my options?”  This is a really powerful question.  We often we feel stuck because we think we have no options.  Usually this is not true.  For example, I had a friend deeply in debt.  I told him he could get out immediately.  He said that it was impossible.  I reminded him that he had a massive CD collection and that if he sold those CD’s he could readily get rid of his debt.  He said he could not do that.  I pointed out that he could, he just chose not to.  
We are usually more stuck by our unwillingness to make tough choices than anything real.  “I can’t” and “I couldn’t” are often just semantics and not reality.  If you really can’t see your options ask someone else what they are. 
Lastly, why am I sharing this as a practical discipleship tool?  I probably resist God more than anything else in my life and I need every tool I can get to get over that.  In order to apply this to your faith right now, I would suggest changing the first questions to, “What is something God has been calling me to do that I keep resisting?”  Frankly, what’s more essential than whatever God is calling you to do.
Blessings from The Practical Disciple

1 thought on “The Leverage You Need to Move”

  1. Laurie

    Really good questions to pose to yourself. I was stuck all weekend. Mine was an emotional stuck. I was home alone as my family had gone on a ski trip with the scouts. I had too much alone time to lay on my bed and stay stuck. Actually, if I’m honest I did try to get unstuck but it was by wallowing in my addictive behaviors that I need to let go of. But they patch the tire. Although, I didn’t get unstuck from them now did I? I just a little relief temporarily and then, nothing. So what should the questions be when it is an emotional stuck?

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