Session 16 – Get Away

Action Steps

1. Schedule a day or two to get away.

2. Post your schedule in the GU Leader Community.

Post your response to this question in the GU Leader Community by clicking here. Share one of your new Actions and ask for feedback.

Session Transcript

Welcome to this session of Guidestone University.

Over the next few sessions we’re going to give you our best tips for being most successful with Simple Personal Plan. In this session we’re going to look at Get Away. So, here’s – and I really don’t have to explain this to you, you guys have done this enough, to where you get out of the office maybe you just go to a library or you go to a restaurant or cafe or a park, you know the advantage to getting away from the house or getting away from the office in order to make progress.

But I want to share a couple stories with you about how getting away really helped me to make significant progress and it cemented memories, memorable experiences for me as I work through Simple Personal Plan, and made a significant difference.

So, our first tip is, schedule a day or two to get away. I always encourage people if it’s at all possible schedule two days to get away. That will give you enough margin that as you worked through Personal Plan you can complete it and then have some time to review it and make progress on it. So, schedule a day to get away.

Several years ago, I had written a Simple Personal Plan years before and it was one of my quarterly reviews that will talk to you about in another session, and explain to you exactly how to do it and will show you what I do when I get away every 90 days. But it was time for one of my quarterly reviews, and so I actually went to a Bed and Breakfast up in the edge of Oklahoma, we were living in Dallas at that time, then for two days I sat in this Bed and Breakfast by myself working through my quarterly review. And part of my quarterly review is to work through Personal Plan. And during these two days, I spent time relaxing, reflecting, thinking, praying, I even picked up the phone and I called several people as I working through things, people who speak into my life, and speak into my work. I ran things by them, reviewed things with them. I made significant progress in a couple of areas that I had struggled to make progress in over the previous few months and few years.

So, these two days were huge for me. In fact, it’s one of the most memorable quarterly reviews that I have ever had, because I made it a point to get away a little bit different than what I normally do, I made it in a point to get away, and to get some margin, to get some space in order to think through how I’m doing and evaluate how I’m doing.

And the same is true for you, I don’t have to tell you that you’ll find greater focus and clarity when you can leave behind the demands of the office, the chaos at home and all the responsibility out there – and you know that’s true.

So, we just need to do it, plan time away, budget for it, protect it, plan for it. So, as you’ve been working through this one Simple Personal Plan Account, as you prepare to complete the rest of your Simple Personal Plan, plan a day away or plan two days away – plan to get away.

If you love the outdoors, find a park or a cabin or some place you can go to. If you like an urban environment, plan to go to a city or maybe your local city. Find a place to hangout in a different place. Maybe it’s a cafe or coffee shop or restaurant, some place you like to go where you’d have the freedom to just hangout and work on things and be uninterrupted for most of the day. Find a place to get away. And be sure it’s some place that energizes you. You don’t want to go to some place where you’re anxious or there are distractions. Find a place that you really feel comfortable and you can relax and reflect.

Now here’s what we’re not talking about. What we are not talking about is taking the family on vacation, and sending them down to the beach while you sit in the hotel room. That won’t work because at some point they’re going to want to come back and you’re going to lose traction working on your Personal Plan. So, I really want you to think about, “How can I get away without creating too much disruption, how can I plan and budget to get away and work on Simple Personal Plan?”

Now here’s the million dollar question that most people have, “How in the world can I get my spouse to buy in to this?” I want to tell her that Mike said, that I’ve got to get away for a day or two. And she’s even like, “Yeah right. You’re not taking a vacation if I can’t take one.”

Here’s what worked for me and it may not work for everybody this way. But from the very beginning as I started working on Simple Personal Plan, I shared everything that I was learning with Sarah, with my wife. And because she saw the progress that I was making, and because she saw where I wanted to be with my legacy and the future in these key relationships, and because she saw how significant these improvements would be to my life and to our family and to my work, I didn’t have to do much convincing. She said, “If that causes a few hundred dollars, then here, here’s the few hundred dollars. You go away, you get that straight and you come back a different person. You come back with a different mindset.”

And if you’ll be transparent with your spouse, and you’ll let them know what you’re working through, it won’t be as difficult as if you’re trying to do this kind of a vacuum without them knowing, and work on things in secret. The accountability is not there anyway, and so you’re not going to make as much progress, and you’re not going to see the dramatic improvements as you would if you are being transparent with them and they were engaging it with you.

Now if you’re concerned that your spouse may have trouble buying in, be transparent with them. Take a couple of weeks and share it with them, “Hey, I really feel like me getting away would help me to get some clarity and focus, and would help me to make some really significant progress in this area. And so, this is what I’m thinking about doing, and get their feedback.” So, plan a day or two to get away.

Let me share with you the first time that I rewrote my Simple Personal Plan was in 2011. My dad has a 50 acre piece of property in Central Virginia. At the time he had built a cabin on it, and so I went up there to stay.

Now, my plan would have been to go up there by myself, and a few days before I was planning to go up there, he called me and said, “Hey, I’m thinking about coming down and do in some work and do some things while you’re there.” And I said, “Dad it’s your place. You can do whatever you want. But I’m going to be working every single day, almost in seclusion, to make sure that I get the progress that I need, that I make the progress that I need to make while I’m there.”

And he said, “I understand. I’ll stay out of your way.” And so, I was really concerned as I was going that it wasn’t going to work out the way I planned. Here’s what had ended up doing, I would get up in the morning and he would have breakfast made, or I would be in the middle of working of something. He walked in with a plate full of lunch or at dinner time. He ended up really helping me to stay focused on the work that I was doing on the Simple Personal Plan.

So, if you have somebody you can be super supportive like that, that was super awesome for me. And after about a day and a half, I emerged from the planning that I had done more focused, with more clarity, and it was a super profitable time and I was able to spend some time with him when I needed to take a break. So, worked out pretty good.

Whatever that means to you, schedule a day or two to get away. Is that helpful? All right, here’s our action plan. You’re going to schedule a day or two to get away, okay? So, as you think ahead about what the needs to look like for you, maybe you need sometime to ramp up to that, maybe you need time to get your spouse on board, whatever that is, set a time when you’re going to have a date set.

So, if you can, go ahead and set the date to get away, or set a deadline for you to have it completed. Two weeks out, three weeks out, a month out, set a deadline for you to have the date set on your calendar and agree with your spouse or significant other, whatever that needs to be. Have that date set.

And then share with us when you’re going to do that. So, we can keep that in front of us as well, share it in the Guidestone Leader Community on Facebook. Tell us when you’ve planned your day to get away, and then we’ll help and encourage you as you look forward to that time.

Alright, we’ll see you on the next session.[/text_block]