Talk Notes
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Overflow podcast. My name is Craig Booker. The title of this episode is From So to Who. A lot of the material for this week’s episode was inspired by Craig Groeschel’s book The Power to Change: Mastering the Habits That Matter Most. Note: I will talk a lot about mental health but please note this is not a substitute for therapy or mental health care. I am not a counselor or a physician. If you need help with mental health challenges, please find a qualified mental health professional. The title of this episode is From So to Who. Last week we discussed How to Stop Before You Flop. We’re talking about how to stop bad habits and that was a follow-up to starting new habits. So this week, we are the title is from so to who all right so in this section of the book Craig Groeschel’s book is talking about goals. He talked about this realization that he came to. He realized he had been practicing, I believe he called it productivity or something of that nature, for like 20 or 30 years. He realized he had a problem with the way that he was approaching things. He realized that he was making goals that were really not benefiting him initially but far out into the future. His goals were a means to an end. How do you know if your goal is a means goal? He says on the other side of the goal is a “so”. For example, I want to get good grades so I can get… or so I can go to a good college, so I can get a good job, and so I can make lots of money. So his goals were these “so” goals, doing something so he can do something else so he can do something else. The other example is, I want to lose weight so I can look better in my clothes and so I can attract someone decent to date and so I can get married. Craig Groeschel says if there’s a “so” on the other side, we’re training ourselves to defer contentment to the future. Instead, he said we need goals and habits that lead to an end. When becoming more like Jesus is the driving force of your life, success is no longer out there somewhere. As followers of Jesus we want goals that are not about what we are getting or what we are doing, but about who we are becoming. Not getting not doing but becoming. So this goes back to our Who Not Do, If you remember, we’ve discussed our goals need to support who we are trying to become or who we feel called to become, not just something we want to achieve. So this is along those same lines. It says, that’s the thing about our habits, we think of them as actions but they are way more than that because our habits define our identities. He’s taking goals from just something what we want to achieve or doing a goal so that we can do something else, so that we can do something else, to it becoming, it’s a part of our identity. Who we are. The examples here are, I start a new habit of eating right. Why? Because I am becoming more like Jesus and when I eat right I am honoring God by being a temple of the Holy Spirit. The verse referenced here is 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. The second one was, I start a new habit of waking up earlier. Why? Because I want to create time to read my Bible. Why? Because I am becoming more like Jesus and reading the Bible renews my mind so I can take my thoughts captive and make them obedient to Christ. The verse reference here is 2 Corinthians 10:5. Third, I stop an old habit of looking at porn. Why? Because I am becoming more like Jesus when I don’t lust after images and I can live a pure life of integrity. Colossians 3:5-7 quote it from Craig Groeschel, “if you want to change who you’re becoming, change your habits”. Another quote, “the small things no one sees, can lead to the big results every everyone wants”. Success happens not by accident but by habits. If success happens by habits, what habit do you need to start? What habit do you need to stop so you can become more like Jesus? As Christ followers, our goal, our ultimate win, our true mark of success, is becoming more like Him. So you can see this progression, we’re not doing this so we can do something else. We are doing this because it makes us more like Christ. We are doing this more because it makes us into the person we are trying to become, our “who”. This week, we have an exercise and it says to close out this section, consider how you may have made your goals means goals or so goals. Use this pattern to change your current and future goals from means goals to end goals. Okay so in this exercise, we are looking at habits or goals that we’ve started or written down that we want to accomplish and we’re looking at them to make sure that they’re not the so type of goals. We want to make sure they’re in line with who we want to become or if we’re working to become more like Jesus. The outline shows my means or so goal: I want to (blank), so I can (blank), so I can (blank), so I can (blank). My end goal would be, I want to start a new habit of (blank) why because I am becoming more like Jesus and when I (blank) I am or I can (blank). These are just ideas for a format to help you restructure those goals or kind of reflect on the goals that you have or the habits you’re trying to start. Making sure they’re more in line with who you want to become whether that is the person God has called you to be or if that’s becoming more like Jesus. So that is an exercise. As always I encourage you to do that during your week, to look at the habits that you started, look at the goals that you have, and just put them through this process and see if they’re a goal so that you can do something else or if they’re so you can become the person you’re called to be. Alright, so the principle for this section is: success is becoming more like Jesus. The scripture for this section is Philippians 3:8 from the New Living Translation, Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord”. This section is rather short which is fine because it allows us plenty of time to discuss where we are personally in this process. To, you know, apply this section to what we’re already doing and see if it changes anything that we’re doing. If I were to try to apply this to some of the things I’m working on, I have habits or goals that I’m working on related to my sleep and also to my physical health. Like what I’m focusing on right now is what I’m eating. If I were to phrase those goals as the so goals, or like he calls them means goals, I would maybe put it “I’m trying to get better sleep so that I can have lower anxiety” or “I’m trying to eat better so that I can lose weight so that I get better sleep so that I lower my anxiety”. You see how that’s a so or a mean goal? Like a means to an end, and then if I wanted to reword these and make them into an end goal I would maybe say, “I want to start eating better because when I eat better it allows me to live out who God has called me to be”. That’s making a shift from so that goals to an end goal. And so I’m not delaying the gratification to way out in the future, I’m shifting at my focus and I’m becoming a different person. But that’s kind of my interpretation of this section, is changing those goals so they more align with who we’re trying to become. That’s all for this episode, thank you for watching. If you like the video, give us a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on future episodes.
