It was a personal reference to Aesop’s fable about the old man, the boy and donkey. Follow the  link if you’re not familar with it.

I put it there because I was painfully (and daily!) aware that 300 different people had exactly 300 different expectations of me.

The “donkey” for me was the things I was trying to achieve in my ministry. There was my dreams, my hopes, my goals, my values… and then there was those of the “crowd”. Now in a position like a pastor’s, you’d think you’re basically there to do what everyone “needs” you to do in the moment. Well, there’s a place for that – the crisis. But most of the time, most of the people I served weren’t in crisis (even if they thought they were!).

And I began to go nuts trying to please all of the people all of the time. And the stuff I did well, the stuff that bore fruit in people’s lives and in mine, the stuff I was made to do … it all fell by the wayside.

Until one day I reread this fable again and Aesop spoke to me across the centuries. I got clear on what I was meant to do, what my focus was and what my values were. And to the best of my ability, I followed them.

Eventually that lead to me leaving professional ministry and launching my own life coaching practise – where I’ve been far more fruitful. But even before that, I was feeling better defined and more present for the real crises and needs that my talents could serve.

So. What’s your donkey? What are people telling you to do with it?

What do you WANT to do with it?

So do it.

Let’s face it Boss/Manager/Leader, your time is valuable … and so is that of your staff.

Before you go dragging busy people into another team meeting, ask yourself these questions:

• Is there actually a more effective delivery system for the information I want to pass on?
• Is there too much talk and not enough action in my department or office? How’s another meeting going to drive more action?
• Am I imposing an artificial “unity” on them when I could more productively feed their natural abilities and natural relational tendencies?
• What’s more likely to foster my team’s ownership of the business’s goals? A ra-ra motivational meeting? Or consistent demonstration of where the employee’s goals are met by reaching the organisation’s goals?
• Is this the best use of MY time?

I’m like not into the transcendental mediation thing but I am into peace and getting centred. That’s what this is about & it’s a great post -here’s an excerpt followed by the link…

An all-or-nothing attitude is why so many people have so little success; we choose structured programs because they relieve us from making choices for ourselves.

And if you begin to make changes in your life with the assumption that any deviation from your plan will ruin it, you might as well not even begin.

link.

You’re not alone and business commentators have been singing the praises of decentralising and debureaucratising workplaces for a couple of decades now. I love this recent post by Kevan Hall - and the picture at Slow Leadership expresses what most of us are thinking when we sit down to yet another staff meeting!

Ahhh, the pressure even the youngest of us are under to get things done, to deliver the stuff (whatever the stuff is) …

Them ancient civilisations (or Civs as gamers call ‘em) knew a thing or two about livin’ right. The ancient Hebrews for instance had a tradition called Shabbat. You might have heard it called “Sabbath” – its simplest meaning is “taking a day off every week”. But it ran deeper than that in their culture.

It was the day of the week where all agendas, productivity and rushing around got put on hold while people renewed their relationships, got “centred”, lingered over pre-prepared meals and took time for what really matters in life.

Many of them saw “Shabbat” as an obligation – one of the 10 Commandments they had to obey or else get zapped by God. But others had the sense to see it as a gift – a gift of space given to get our lives our thoughts our health our relationships our goals under control and back on track.

No one’s going to legislate these days that you take a day to do this. You and I need to regularly give ourselves the gift of space and revisit the things that matter most…

Ever felt like that? It can be the same feeling about a year, a week, a day or even a morning. Sometimes when you look back at that period of time, does it feel like someone stole the time away? Well maybe they did.

In coaching both professionals and longterm unemployed to remain focussed in their career plans, I developed this simple idea for them: there are people and there are activities in your life whose basic purpose is to steal your time.

They don’t ask, they take. They don’t contribute, they take. They do not help you and – while they may not appear to be hindering you either – time is a non-renewable resource: if they waste that afternoon, it’s gone for ever.

Look back at the week just gone…

• What were the leisure activities that didn’t leave you feeling refreshed or re-energised?
• Which people were a drain on your time – not because they truly needed your attention, but because they saw you as an easy “mark”?
• What do you find yourself habitually turning to so that you can put off the hard-things, the responsbilities, the challengeing behaviours that will actually move you forward?

Get a few answers to these questions and you will begin to indentify the time-thieves that are hanging around your life. The next question is:

• Are you just gonna let them rob you from now on? Or is it time to start defending yorself against them?

So HE’S to blame!!!!!

You know that term - ”Killin’ time”? How often do you use it? You got to the coffee shop early, you have time to kill. You’re waiting for a significant event to occur, so you kill time until then. Everyone’s too busy to see you, so you kill time until they’re not. It’s raining today so you’ll just have to kill time until it stops.

Wait a second! Let’s think about this – time is the ultimate non-renewable resource! Life consists of many things but it is measured in time! If life = time, then killling time = killing life!

When this occured to me, that’s when I began to use my time to start laying the foundation for Great Circle, as well as deepening some significant relationships and my own personal foundations.

Riddle me this: What difference would it make to your life, if you thought of killing time as killing life??