The unexamined life...

I think it was Plato who receives credit for the saying, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” It’s easy to examine and critique the lives of others, but often somewhat painful when we turn the lens of inspection onto ourselves. Most of us don’t like seeing our flaws or weaknesses exposed; personal examination is, after all, personal. Over the past several years, September has been my personal reset month. As a youth pastor for almost 17 years, and now working at a camp primarily with students, there is a rhythm to the start of the school year that makes this month a natural fit for evaluating goals, laying out new projections and regaining personal realignment. While January is a great time to roll out those new goals, September has proved to be the best time to evaluate them, and to make sure I’m still on course with the projects God has put on my heart.

Since today is the start of the month, I thought I’d lay out my thirty day action plan for you to see and evaluate. Maybe you, too, feel compelled to make September a month for personal realignment and I’d love for you to share that with me so we can encourage each other over the next 4.5 weeks. Please feel free to ask me how I’m doing and to check-in on my progress.

For the next thirty days, I’ll be working on five areas of my life. I’ve laid out 3-4 targets for each area in order to reset my personal discipline (the summer routine is vastly different than the school year routine) and to realign myself with my January goals. So here we go!

Physical Health

As I continue to work on my health, my primary focus will continue to be taking steps (literally hundreds of thousands of them!) toward being ready to run 13.1 miles in my first half-marathon on October 5th. The byproducts of this kind of training have included much higher energy levels, loss of weight and my wife regularly telling me that I’m looking good (she’s always been generous with her compliments; they just seem to be coming more frequently and that is absolutely inspiring!).

Take supplements twice a day, every day! My wife, Traci, has worked for Usana Health Sciences for over ten years, and as a result, I believe we have access to the best vitamins around. However, lately I haven’t been making sure those vitamins are making it out of their daily packs and into my body. For September, I plan to go 60/60 on my vitamin pack in-take. (Usana makes it easy to order your daily vitamins in customizable morning and even packages, so that I don’t have to sort or count vitamins; I just have to open the stinkin' pack and take them. So I’m going to open and take 60 packs this month!)

Drink my water and take my steps! Another big one for me is making sure I’m drinking enough water, especially during this season of life where I am running a lot. Hydration is another huge aspect of overall health, and it’s really not that hard to drink my water each day, since I have easy access to good filtered water all over the camp property. So here’s to 60oz a day, every day, during September. And since I’ll be nice and hydrated, I should have fewer issues getting out there and running, so I plan to run 3-4 times a week over the next four weeks as Traci and I prepare for our big race day.

Spiritual Health

No area of my life affects all the others, quite like my spiritual health. When I am staying closely connected to God, I find my marriage is stronger, my parenting is better, I’m more motivated to work on projects and engage people, and regardless of my immediate circumstances, I have a clearer perspective on God’s work. And while there are good (and bad!) seasons of life in my spiritual growth (or lack thereof), there is always room for growth.

Start my mornings with God, first thing. Last school year I had a great morning routine that started each day with God. During the summer, my time with God was often relegated to later in the morning, or squeezed in-between other camp activities. I want to get back to starting my day on better footing, and so He and I will return to our 5:55am meeting time. I am not a morning a person at any level, but that’s the time I can snag with God before I have to wake up kids and get the day going. Many of you are morning people, and 5:55am is almost your lunch hour, but for me, it’s easier to stay up until 5:55, then it is to get up at 5:55. This is a big realignment for me.

Attend church prayer meeting on saturday morning. Our church hosts a Saturday morning prayer service at 7:30am on Saturday. The problem is that our church is 45-minutes away, but for September, I plan to attend each Saturday morning prayer time in order to pray with church family.

Memorize Colossians 3. Several years ago, I set out to memorize Colossians 3. I got about half way and then trailed off and I’ve never gone back and finished. I will finish memorizing Colossians 3 during September.

Professional Growth

Here, I am breaking up professional goals into two areas: Overboard Ministries and Lake Ann Camp.

Write something, every day! I have really fallen off the wagon when it comes to this habit and I plan to hit it hard this month. I am going to write something, every day, during the month of September. Whether it’s working on my book, writing a blog, sending out some letters or developing a study guide, I am going to write every day for the next 30 days.

Finish my book. I had dreams of finishing my latest book, Overboard, by July 1. That didn’t happen, and then camp did happen, and now my book is still sitting on my laptop near completion. My awesome editor Michelle has finished her work and is waiting on me to finish mine so we can get this thing published! So get ready Michelle, I am going to wrap this project up!

Implement a new system for tracking inquiries at camp. One of my jobs at the camp is to respond to guest inquiries for camp rentals. The current system we have in place for tracking those inquiries is lacking in several areas, and after 16 months of doing this job, I have a much better handle on the changes that need to be made. During September, a new system will be put in place.

Fill our Youth Pastor’s retreat in February. Traci and I host the youth pastors and wives retreat the camp puts on in February. Last year there were four couples and we had an amazing weekend. This year, however, we want to grow this retreat, and that means laying the ground work now. My goal is to have at least 12 couples here, and so I will contact two dozens youth pastors during September to challenge/remind/encourage them to be apart of this year’s retreat.

Family Plans

During the summer, our kids have the joy of living on a 320 acre play ground with hundreds of adults who know them, keep an eye on them, and invest in their lives. As a result, our family time looks very different for two full months and our kids love the freedom and fun that comes with living on a camp ground. As the school year hits, our family routine is important for all of us, and getting back on track has a big impact on the kids' success at school.

Intentionally connect with each child, each week. We have our family meals and enjoy time in the car going to school (25 minutes each way), going to church (40-45 minutes each way) or driving in to town (30 minutes each way), but that is vastly different than carving out intentional time with each child. My goal is to spend at least an hour, each week, intentionally investing in each child (on top of our regular connecting points). So that might be a Nerf gun war with AJ, reading a book with CJ or playing a game of cards with BJ. Whatever it is, it needs to be at least an hour and it needs to be intentional on my part.

Restore our weekly date night. Traci and I have always been huge advocates of date night, but during the summer, weekly dates are far more challenging since I speak to campers twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. We managed to carve out time for a snack at the lake or for a drive off camp for a quick meal, but in September I want to restore our weekly outings and reconfirm my commitment to my marriage through our weekly dates.

Confirm our Christmas plans. This will be the first year that Traci and I won’t be around family at Christmas since we were married without kids in Seattle. Our kids have already talked about it and are a little bummed about the notion, so Traci and I have been talking about ways to introduce some new traditions and new ways to celebrate the birth of Jesus in our Michigan home. I know planning is one of those things that makes my wife super happy, and she is, without a doubt, the Christmas party animal in our house. So I want to help her nail down our Christmas plans now and kill two birds with one stone: eliminate possible future planning tensions, and score some points with the little lady!

Personal growth

Traci constantly challenges me with her own journey of growth. She just came back from a conference about business, and so much of what she learned is really personal growth that will impact her future business, too. So here are a few areas I want to grow in (or realign myself with) in September:

Get up at 5:55am. Have I mentioned that mornings are hard for me?

Outline daily goals in the morning, evaluate at night. Each morning I want to lay out my daily/weekly/monthly goal list, and then take a few minutes at night to evaluate my progress. It doesn’t make much sense to set these goals if I’m not going to take time to see where I’m at in the process of meeting them. So after my morning time with God, I will take the next 10-15 minutes to lay out the daily goals and to make sure I’m staying on track with weekly and monthly targets. Each night, I’ll take a few minutes to evaluate the day's progress.

Create at least 25 lifetime goals. I recently re-read Mark Batterson’s book, The Circle Maker. At the end of the book, he spends a lot of time writing about lifetime dreams he has, and it really got me thinking.  A few years back I laid out some long-term dreams, and it’s been fun to see a few of them come to be (take Traci to Hawaii, write a book) and to realize that I am still making progress on others, while a few have totally fallen off my radar. I’ve already started working on this list and I’ll be excited to share it with you after the list is finished at the end of the month.

Read a book on creativity. I love the creative process and I love how God has designed each of us with our own creative concepts. And while you can’t necessarily teach creativity, you can help people release their own creative juices. I’ve felt a little stuck in this area of my life. So this week I picked up a book on the topic, and during September, I’ll read it and take notes (creatively, of course!).

Ok, there you have it. If you endured this entire blog I’m assuming you have: Questions, input and most importantly, some goals and projects of your own. Share those with me via the comments in this blog or more personally in email at: joe@overboardministries.com

How routine is your routine?

When Traci and I vacation, I love to have a very loose schedule with some super relaxed guidelines. I don’t want to fill every inch of my schedule with activity, instead, I want the freedom to do, or not do things, based on how I feel in the moment. Schedules cramp my vacation style.  

Being free with a schedule on vacation is one thing, but people who go through the rest of life without much of a routine usually struggle to accomplish the work God has for them. It’s hard to live remarkably when you’re trying to cram it in “when you feel like it” in the moment!

As a youth pastor for almost 17 years, I have seen a lot of students who illustrate the truth of this point. The students who live by a schedule, who get up at a certain time each morning, run through a routine that doesn’t include a last minute panic to get out the door, come home from school and follow a similar routine with homework, chores and entertainment, always did so much better than the students who just raced around frantically all the time, responding to whims and in-the-moment feelings.

I tended to be one of the latter students when I was growing up. It was easy for me to stay up late, cram for tests and live on relatively little sleep. I’m not saying I functioned at my best, but I could get by, so I allowed myself to be easily distracted by social invitations and last-minute Taco Bell runs. And when I look back at my high school years, I realize that I missed a lot of opportunities with friends, family, work and youth group, because I was so busy not living by a schedule!

Some of you, like us, have little kids in the house, and you know how important schedules can be. There is something profoundly important about living by a fairly steady routine that makes it easier for all of us in the family to function. And I’m convinced it is one of the qualities of those that live most remarkably; those that live the Overboard Life to its fullest.

Jesus was a man of habit. Luke 4:16 says it was his habit, “his custom,” to go up to the synagogue on the sabbath and to read the Scriptures. At least 20 times in the Gospels we’re told that Jesus set out to pray, and in Mark 1:35 we’re told He went out to His “scheduled place” to pray. Jesus established regular habits of filling Himself up with God’s Word and spending time connecting in prayer.

He also served others regularly, He spent time with friends, He had time for strangers, He met with religious leaders, He helped the poor and He confronted the wicked and He did it all with plenty of time to spare. When His life was over He prayed to the Father and said, “I have accomplished everything you set for me to do.” Somehow, Jesus had enough time for all the work God gave Him.

I know from my own experience, as well as the experience and wisdom of others, that a routine is crucial to maximizing success in life. As I approach 40 and think about what the next 40 years will look like, I have some big goals and God-sized dreams that will need a tighter daily routine if they are going to be accomplished in whatever years I have left. For example, one of my goals, inspired by author and speaker John Townsend, is to write a book every year, for the next 20 years. That’s an impossible goal if my daily routines don’t adjust for it.

How routine are your routines? Where could you make an adjustment to your schedule that might help you maximize your effectiveness? Are you intentionally making time to connect each day with God? Today, take a moment to have an honest look at your routine and maybe start by making one small adjustment. Share with us in the comments what change you can make and maybe you’ll inspire others to make the same change!

Go ahead and take the plunge, life is always better on the water!