I Can't Take the Pressure!
We begin our story today with what happened at Costco last week. I had been wanting to buy a pressure washer for quite some time and had seen the one at Costco which, by the way, just happened to have a little more than the recommended PSI for cleaning driveways and sidewalks. Anyway, there is was, $80 off. I was not going to see that price again for some time, so the pressure was on. Pun intended. I had the money but was having trouble deciding if I really needed it. My brother has offered to let me borrow his but I really wanted my own. Mostly because I could use it a little bit at a time. Trust me, I have big plans for my new little friend, which I did buy. How could I not buy something I had wanted and was now on sale? Plus, it had a Briggs & Stratton engine. When I was a kid we had a mower that seemed to last forever. You guessed it. It had a Briggs & Stratton engine. These had to be signs!
Fast forward to this morning. I woke up at 3:45 and laid in bed thinking about needing to write today's blog. What pressure! So my mind wandered to yesterday when i was ,using my pressure washer for the first time. It was amazing and it did everything I had dreamed of. What made it work so well? Pressure, of course. I could try to use my garden hose forever and still never get my sidewalk cleaned. But add a little pressure, okay, a lot of pressure and presto, you have a new looking sidewalk.
Most of us don't like pressure but it is often pressure that helps us get things done. Let me give you some examples that I came up with. When I was in high school the best way for me to get my homework done was to get up early in the morning before school and knock it out. I thought that it was mostly because my mind was fresh then but I think it was also the pressure of needing to get it done before school started that made it successful. And I am sure you all can relate to this one. House cleaning is something we need to do but often times it doesn't get done on a timely basis. Maybe you are efficient and organized and get it done every week like clockwork. But not so much with Kathy and I. We are both well aware that the best way to get the house cleaned is to add the pressure of company coming over. The house was never so clean as when we had a small group meeting in our house every week.
And then there is the example of this blog itself. If I had not imposed a deadline of posting every Tuesday, I guarantee you that you would not be reading this today. It is amazing how fast my fingers can fly over the keyboards when I have a deadline to meet. So I know that putting a lot of pressure on yourself is not always good, but a little pressure like having a deadline can help you do what you wanted to do, but just needed a little push to get done. We have been talking about goals lately so I thought today would be good day to introduce adding a deadline to our goals.
Mark Batterson is a Pastor and author of several books. In his book, "The Circle Maker" he says this."Goals are dreams with deadlines. And these deadlines, especially if your personality is anything like mine, are real lifelines. Without a deadline, I would never accomplish anything because I'm both a procrastinator and a perfectionist.......Deadlines bring dreams back to life."
And just this morning I was reading a devotion by Pastor Rick Warren called "40 Days in the Word" and I was amazed at the timeliness of what I read. He talked about making a habit of writing a one-sentence application of what you read in the Bible. The application had four characteristics. It should be personal, practical, possible and provable. This is what he wrote under provable. "You need to set yourself a deadline to check yourself. Until you set a deadline and a goal, you can't check yourself. Then it's just a dream."
I want to keep growing and learning and I know that reading is an important part of that. But until I set a goal like reading a book a month or a chapter a day. It doesn't happen. Right now it's listening to a chapter a day in an audiobook. That's easy to check. I have other dreams I need to set goals and deadlines for. So I am setting a deadline right now. By next week, I will set a goal and a deadline that I can share with you on this blog. I think I can take the pressure. Have a great week.
Fast forward to this morning. I woke up at 3:45 and laid in bed thinking about needing to write today's blog. What pressure! So my mind wandered to yesterday when i was ,using my pressure washer for the first time. It was amazing and it did everything I had dreamed of. What made it work so well? Pressure, of course. I could try to use my garden hose forever and still never get my sidewalk cleaned. But add a little pressure, okay, a lot of pressure and presto, you have a new looking sidewalk.
And then there is the example of this blog itself. If I had not imposed a deadline of posting every Tuesday, I guarantee you that you would not be reading this today. It is amazing how fast my fingers can fly over the keyboards when I have a deadline to meet. So I know that putting a lot of pressure on yourself is not always good, but a little pressure like having a deadline can help you do what you wanted to do, but just needed a little push to get done. We have been talking about goals lately so I thought today would be good day to introduce adding a deadline to our goals.
Mark Batterson is a Pastor and author of several books. In his book, "The Circle Maker" he says this."Goals are dreams with deadlines. And these deadlines, especially if your personality is anything like mine, are real lifelines. Without a deadline, I would never accomplish anything because I'm both a procrastinator and a perfectionist.......Deadlines bring dreams back to life."
And just this morning I was reading a devotion by Pastor Rick Warren called "40 Days in the Word" and I was amazed at the timeliness of what I read. He talked about making a habit of writing a one-sentence application of what you read in the Bible. The application had four characteristics. It should be personal, practical, possible and provable. This is what he wrote under provable. "You need to set yourself a deadline to check yourself. Until you set a deadline and a goal, you can't check yourself. Then it's just a dream."
I want to keep growing and learning and I know that reading is an important part of that. But until I set a goal like reading a book a month or a chapter a day. It doesn't happen. Right now it's listening to a chapter a day in an audiobook. That's easy to check. I have other dreams I need to set goals and deadlines for. So I am setting a deadline right now. By next week, I will set a goal and a deadline that I can share with you on this blog. I think I can take the pressure. Have a great week.
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