I believe that it was Ben Franklin who said; “If you fail to plan, then you are planning to fail!” What a great thought; I have been using this quote in various areas of my life (family, vocation, recreation, housework, and personal growth). This next week I will be putting this quote to the test. My family will be leaving for a full week to visit other extended families out of state. This will leave me home alone with lots of free time. Excess free time has come to be a huge concern for me. Being a recovering sex addict I am fully aware that free time with no plan will lead me to a big life failure. I’ve learned my lesson and I need to create a plan to be successful in all areas of life while the family is away.
Creating A Plan
As I work at creating my plan for the week Jen is away I want to make sure I address several areas of my life that are important to me: Family, Health, Spiritual Life, Vocation. So the plan I am putting into place will include aspects of each (although lite on the family since they will be gone).
Health – I want to go to bed exhausted every day, so to help with that I plan to ride at least 200 miles on my MT bike next week. Northern Michigan has some fantastic trail systems that normally I cannot ride because of the time it would take to get there. With the extra time, I will have next week I am planning on hitting 6 or 7 different single-track trail systems. Some of them are within 30 min. and others will take about 2 hours to get to. The goal, to burn some calories, have fun and go to bed exhausted.
Spiritual Life – The second part of my plan will be the added focus on my spiritual life. Again, with the added time I will be able to spend larger “chunk” hours in my personal Bible reading, prayer, and journal time. I am dedicating at least one hour each day to writing (something I have been neglecting for months).
Vocation – It is late summer and I have a million thoughts swimming around in my head about small group ministry and missions. I plan to sit down next week and start working through some of the long term ideas I have about both ministries and then sit down with the Elders to put together an action plan to the ideas that stick.
Action Step
What plans do you need to start making right now so that you don’t make a plan to fail? Is there specific growth in a key life area you want to see developed? Are there any unmet goals in your life you have been putting off (weight loss, financial, devotions, family, etc.)? If you are not planning in these areas then it is a plan to fail! Send me a direct message ([email protected]) if you would like the direction in setting up some plans. I’d love to help!
