Session 15 – Actions

Action Steps

1. Write down 2-3 Actions for one of your life plan accounts.

2. Post your Actions 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 back and this session we are going to look at Actions.

So, we’ve been working through the Simple Personal Plan Account Form, and you’ve already worked through Future, and then Purpose, and then Basis and Reality, and now we’re going to look at Actions. So, there’s two things we really wanted you to do through this, throughout this course. We wanted you to get some think space in order to think through where you are and where you want to be, number one. And then number two, we want you to take action in order to make progress, and this session is going to help you do that.

What we’re going to do is we’re going to write down specific actions that will help us move forward. Some of them are going to help me create habits, and some of them are strictly for accountability, because I know I’m always going to struggle in some of these areas that are most important to me. Do you understand the difference?

So, some of them are to help me create habits, and some of them are to help me with accountability. The actions that I’m going to write down that help me with creating habits are actions that I aspire to do. Some of them I know have a problem with this area, and so I’m going to make it so specific that I can put it on my calendar that it will help me remember to do it.

Let me give you a couple of examples. We’ve been sharing with you my account for my wife, Sarah. We looked at our future and we looked at our purpose and we looked at the basis and the current reality for that. And now I’m going to share with you some of my specific actions with Sarah.

Here’s one. I want to spend time with her at the end of each day communicating with her with no interruptions. And in my Personal Plan I’ve written 9:00  to 10:00 p.m. so on my calendar, I’ll show you a screenshot here, on my calendar you can see from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. every night I have carved out, spend time with Sarah. And that time I look different each night.

Sometimes we might read something together, sometimes she might have shared something with me and in fact we did it this week. She texted something to me, and I said, “Hey, I’d liked to think about this and talk about a little more so let’s do it.” And last night, we sat down for few minutes and just talked through how she’s thinking and how she’s feeling about a specific thing that is important to her in her life.

And so, we have this time that we’ve blocked out so if everything else keeps us from talking during the day, we have at least this time that we can focus together, and we can work on this together in the evening. Makes sense?

Here’s another one. We’re going to go on a lunch date with her every Friday at noon and leave our phones in the car, and that’s important. See how specific that is? We’ve actually got a day and a time and we’re going to leave our phones in the car. Now this has worked really good for us. Our kids are both in school, and so lunch dates on Friday work out really good. We don’t have to find a sitter, we’ve got extended time. Sometimes we’ll just eat lunch together, sometimes we go shopping together, sometimes we go watch a movie, I mean, it just really depends on what we’re feeling like that day, but we have an extended period of time where you don’t have to be anywhere, and we don’t have to do things. Both of us, generally try to take off on Fridays. So I don’t schedule significant meetings or significant work on Fridays because I’ve made this a priority and it’s already blocked out on my calendar.

And third one is, I’m going to take her on two-weekend getaways each year. One before, May 30^th, and the other before November 30^th. We’re going to unplug from technology, and this don’t have to be really expensive. I mean we’ve done trips where we’ve flown somewhere, we’ve got a way, one of our parents to watch our kids – someone who’ll hang out with our kids, or we’ve done things where we go to the same city. Maybe we drive across the city – we lived in South Atlanta, maybe we could go to North Atlanta and we’ll spend a day, day and a half two days, where we get a way just us no children. And so, this doesn’t have to be super expensive.

Often when we travel we just use points. We us points to fly, we use points to stay in a hotel, and if that’s something that you have the ability to do through your work, where you have accrued point and you have that, that’s even a bonus. So, it doesn’t have to be expensive. You can get creative and still spend significant time together.

Now here’s our action steps. We’re going to give you a little bit of information so make sure you listen to this; don’t just read the actions steps and move on.  I want you to understand what we’re going to do here.

Number one, we’re going to write two to three actions for this account. This one account that we’ve been working on. We’re going to write two to three actions in this account. Now, here’s what I want you to do, if you are concerned that it is going to be too many, and you’ve got eight, nine, ten accounts and you’ll going to have two to three action for each account, I would encourage you to just write one. Okay? So, don’t feel like you have to write two to three right now, if you want just to have one, get you some progress, get you some momentum – which we’ll talk about more later, just get you some progress write one, get some progress, and then I want you to share it in the Guidestone University Leader Community on Facebook. Okay?

Again, accountability is key for us. If we’re going to  make progress, we need to get good feedback and we need to have the accountability to put these things in place in our life, in our work to make progress. So, number one we’re going to write one to three actions, whatever make most sense to you, and then we’re going to post them in the Guidestone University Leader Community inside Facebook.

Now, before you right your actions I would encourage you to watch the next four sessions. They are all really short so you can watch real quick. The next four sessions are Getaway, Keep It Simple, Be Specific and then Our Most Important Tips, okay?

And so again, they are really short. You’ll be able to work through them really quickly, and it will help you as you create your actions, it will help you get the most progress as quickly as possible. We are for you and we want you to make as much progress as you can.

We’re looking forward to seeing you in the next session.[/text_block]