This year I have spent a ton of time reading about and rethinking how and why we work. Why do we do ministry the way we do ministry? One of the things I have discovered is that we can get better and working! I like work. I like progress. I like working with others to accomplish difficult things. Ministry is where I am called to focus my “work” so I want to get better at working and accomplishing significant things. Steven Pressfield is one of my favorite authors so when I saw he had written a book called Do the Work I had to grab it for my Kindle. The entire book is set up to help people understand how to take a project and work systematically to make it happen. Every idea takes work to make it a reality and many ideas die because no one is willing to put the work into making it happen. Here are a few ideas about becoming more effective with the work you do. Check this book out then go read his book called Gates of Fire!
- In other words, fear doesn’t go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.
- Ignorance and arrogance are the artist and entrepreneur’s indispensable allies. She must be clueless enough to have no idea how difficult her enterprise is going to be—and cocky enough to believe she can pull it off anyway.
- Don’t think. Act. We can always revise and revisit once we’ve acted. But we can accomplish nothing until we act.
- Start Before You’re Ready Don’t prepare. Begin.
- Research can become Resistance. We want to work, not prepare to work.
- Get your idea down on paper. You can always tweak it later.
- Figure out where you want to go; then work backwards from there.
- Suspending self-judgment doesn’t just mean blowing off the “You suck” voice in our heads. It also means liberating ourselves from conventional expectations—from what we think our work “ought” to be or “should” look like.
- When we experience panic, it means that we’re about to cross a threshold. We’re poised on the doorstep of a higher plane.
- In the belly of the beast, we remind ourselves of two axioms: The problem is not us. The problem is the problem. Work the problem.