096 - A Wise Approach to 2021
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Resources from this episode:
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Show Notes:
It's hard to know exactly how to approach 2021.
2020 is going to be a year we remember and refer to for the rest of our lives. I mean, even our grandkids and history books, they're going to analyze and discuss how we handled 2020, and this pandemic, and the racial tension and the election, and everything crazy that has happened.
And I'm going to be honest, I have been tempted to, on January 1st, 2021 say, "Check, done. 2020 is behind me. It's over, it's time to move on to a newer and brighter year and future." But more recently, I've kind of caught myself because I don't know that that's actually the wisest way to approach looking into the future.
Today, I'm going to talk about how we don't actually know what 2021 is going to hold, but how we can approach it with wisdom.
For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below!
One of my favorite verses in the whole Bible is James 1:5. And it says,
"If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you."
I'm going to share two more translations just because I want you to get this, and I love all the translations of this. That was New Living Translation, this is English Standard Version. It says,
"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him."
In the Passion Translation says,
"If anyone longs to be wise, ask God for wisdom and he will give it. He won't see your lack of wisdom as an opportunity to scold you over your failures, but he will overwhelm your failures with his generous grace."
This is a guarantee, from scripture. If we ask for wisdom, God will give it. He's generous, He loves to give us wisdom. So if you get nothing else from this episode, I just want you to take a minute, and quiet your heart, and just ask God how He can lead you wisely, in 2021. Ask Him for more wisdom and He will give it to you.
I want to talk about four ways that we can look towards 2021, with a good head on our shoulders, in wisdom, and in truth, and in reality.
1 - pause and reflect
The first thing, I think, that's so important to do, before we can look forward, is to pause and look back at 2020. Even if it's painful, even if it's hard, I think it's so important to look back, at the year of 2020, and just kind of unpack it for a second. You need to mourn the losses you had and grieve them. Take that time.
I think reflecting is one of the best gifts of wisdom. Not rushing out of an experience, even if it's painful or hard, without learning from it first. You want to just kind of sit, and look back, and try to process a lot of the hard things that happened in 2020, and make sure that you're stopping to really find the gold.
What experiences were gifts?
What were the things that you didn't know you needed, that you got in 2020?
Was it more time with family?
Was it a slower pace?
Was it less travel, or less extracurricular stuff going on in your life?
What were the things that you learned from 2020?
That's the first thing, you've got to look back before you can look forward.
2 - reset your expectations
Second thing, to enter this year with wisdom is to just kind of reset your expectations for 2021.
Also, consider lowering your expectations for 2021. I know that that doesn't sound super encouraging, and I hope by the end of this episode you're going to be very encouraged. But I just want you to know, as we step into this New Year, not a lot is going to instantly change in our world, and in our lives.
Political tensions are still high, COVID is still affecting our lives and our leaders, our government leaders, their decisions. If you're a small business owner, you're still going to be facing a lot of the same challenges in your industry, coming into this year, that you were facing in 2020, in spring, and summer, and fall. It might be a little bit different, but it might not be that different.
Those challenges are still going to be there. And so, reset your expectations that 2021 is not this completely brand new year, but we're kind of carrying over into it.
It is going to be a different year, praise the Lord. It's going to be different, it's going to be new. We're stepping out of 2020 and into it, but there's still some things that are the same. And that's okay because what I also want you to realize is, even though not a lot has changed in our world, and circumstances that we can't control, guess what has changed? You.
You have learned how to work from home and manage your kids at the same time.
You've had some really good cries, you have had some losses, and some experiences that have hurt you, but that have also changed you.
You've also had some good experiences in 2020.
You've had long conversations with your spouse, working through all of this, and your emotions, you're not the same person now that you were then, when you were working through them all.
You've worked through a lot of those, you've managed them.
You've come out of it, you figured out how to pivot, and work out at home, and cancel your gym membership, and wake up early, and stay up late to get the work done that you need to get done.
And you figured out how to homeschool, and virtual school, and still, somehow manage the mountains of laundry, and master online grocery shopping, and meal planning.
You have done it differently.
You've learned to do it differently in 2020, and guess what? You're better at it.
You're better at it now. You have changed. You're doing it. You're better for it and you are much more prepared for 2021.
So I want to encourage you, even though a lot in our world hasn't really changed drastically, you have. And that's a beautiful gift that you get to take with you into 2021.
3 - embrace the stockdale paradox
The third thing I want you to do to embrace 2021 wisely is, for you to embrace the Stockdale Paradox. And if you haven't heard of the Stockdale Paradox, it's a really powerful illustration that was given in the book From Good to Great. But I mean—it's used as an analogy all over the world.
It's really interesting, so quick synopsis of what that is, and the story of Admiral James Stockdale is that he, Stockdale, was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for seven and a half years. Seven and a half years he was a POW. We think 2020 was hard, and then you compare it to that. And there's a lot to learn from someone who has walked through that kind of an experience in his life. And so someone asked James Stockdale, "How did you survive when you were in there, and you actually did not know whether or not you were going to make it out alive? How did you survive?"
And his answer, which is the Stockdale Paradox, is that “you must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end, which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
But when people asked him, "Okay, well, what about the prisoners who didn't make it out of the camps? Who were they? How did they handle this not as good as you?" A
nd Stockdale replied, "Oh, the prisoners who didn't make it out, those were the optimists," he said, "they were the ones who said, ‘Oh, we're going to be out by Christmas.’ And then Christmas would come and Christmas would go. And then they'd say, ‘We're going to be out by Easter,’ and Easter would come and Easter would go, and then Thanksgiving. And they would always be optimistic, but then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart because they lost hope.”
They literally gave up hope.
And this is the important lesson, like he said, you can't confuse faith that you will prevail without also confronting the brutal facts of your current reality, which is what the optimists didn't do. They held onto hope but they set aside the brutal facts of their current reality.
So you have to do both/and, you have to hold onto hope AND confront the brutal facts of where we are. And so, I thought it was really interesting too, one of the other answers that the Admiral gave is that he lived on a day-to-day basis. And that a lot of his friends who were also POW's with him, thought that it really was better for everyone to be an optimist.
And he said, "I just wasn't naturally that way, I was a little bit more of a realist." He knew too much about the politics of things when he was shot down and taken as a prisoner of war. And he said it was actually not better for them to just be an optimist. You have to hold onto the faith, you have to hold onto the hope that you'll get out, but you also have to confront the brutal facts of your life.
And so, here I am reminding you of this story, or telling you this story for the first time if you've never heard it, to encourage you and say, "You know what? I want to be giving you an optimistic message right now of 2021." I would love to tell you it's all going to be okay. It's going to be beautiful. The coronavirus is going to go way, everything is going to be great, but that is not confronting reality.
And for us to be wise, and to head into 2021 able to win in 2021, we have to have faith and we have to confront reality. We have to embrace the Stockdale Paradox.
Have faith that you will find a rhythm of life, that is full of just that, it's going to be full of life in 2021.
You have learned so much from this last year, and 2020 doesn't change the truth, that God died to give us life abundant, period. In 2020, and 2021, and 2022, and beyond, and any kind of pain and suffering we experience, and the unknown, and the inability to plan or set goals because we don't know what's coming, He has promised abundant life in all of that. Why? Because he's with us, always, He's never going to leave us. He's never going to forsake us, so we have to have faith and hope that we are going to find a life that's full of abundant life with God.
And we need to confront reality. We need to not be only optimists, we need to be optimists, and having faith in the end result, that God's in control and we're going to be okay, while also confronting reality.
COVID isn't going anywhere. Mental health has been declining, secondary health problems are rising because people are quitting the gym and not taking care of what they're eating, or taking care of their bodies like they should be. There is mass unemployment. I mean, industries, especially the ones that bring us joy, and light, and encouragement, and life, like weddings, and restaurants, and entertainment, like concerts, and plays, and performances, they are being devastated right now.
That is sad. We need to take a minute and realize that people who have dreamt of being restaurateurs their entire lives and have poured into this work for years, and years, and years, are being forced to close up shop.
And that people have dreamed of having a wedding day look a certain way. It looks very, very different now. Those are things to stop and realize that this is happening, it's sad, and we need to grieve it, and look at it, head on.
And while that makes me sad to talk about, it makes us sad, we choose to look to God, who's in control. We hold our heads high, we know that those are our current realities and we pray. We give it over to Him, we trust Him.
We use our brains, we use the brains that God has given us.
We analyze what's happening around us.
We ask God for wisdom, to discern what is being told to us through the media, and what is the truth.
We look at 2021 realistically, and we refuse to lose hope that we can have a beautiful, good, full life this coming year.
It is possible. Ask God for wisdom, he promises to give it. He came so that we can have life and life to the full.
4 - Control what you can control
The fourth encouragement that I have for you, as we look to 2021, is simply for you to control what you can control.
I personally have been really discouraged to set goals this year. There's just so many variables, I feel like. It's like, what's the point, right? And I even asked this on Instagram the other day, "How are you feeling about setting goals this year?"
And so many people came back and said, "I don't have the motivation." "I don't know where to start." "I feel like it's pointless because the rug could be pulled out from underneath me again." "Like why, why even do it?"
And a few people were like, "I'm excited to set goals. It's still going to be good." But here's the bottom line is, when we focus on what we can't control, it does feel pointless. But when we focus on what we can control, it makes more sense.
So my fourth encouragement is for you to simply control what you can control, with your goals, with the life that you plan, the plans that you're making, for your family, for your home, for your work, in 2021.
Everything that affects our life that we can't control is what stresses us out and causes us to not want to move forward, or set any goals, or do anything new. And I get that, I mean, I'm with you. I've had a hard time, really wrapping my head around what kind of goals I want to set for next year. But if we can just start a little bit smaller, it seems a little more attainable. So control you can control.
Here are a few things that I'm focusing on next year.
I'm going to focus on my health, my spending. That's why I'm doing the Contentment Challenge again, starting January 10th.
My home, making it joyful and fun.
My attitude, my thoughts.
My reading habits
My sleep habits.
My relationship with Instagram, my relationship with social media, and the media in general.
I'm focusing on adventures and experiences that we can enjoy as a little family, that are available to us in abundance, like hikes picnics, going to the lake, camping, going to the beach, visiting family.
Let's continue to ask God for wisdom, again, and again, and again. Relying on his premise, that every time we ask, He doles out more. He loves to be generous with wisdom. He cannot help but give it.
And I believe He's going to give us 2021-specific wisdom, for this year, that's timely and straight from heaven. And let's not doubt, but believe that He will. He's good on His promise and let's believe that He will lead us.
Now, my hope for this podcast was not to depress you, I really hope it did not depress you.
But to be honest, I just want us to choose to have a steady, realistic outlook on what's coming. I want us to have our heads held high, shoulders back, looking forward, and knowing that God is with us no matter what comes our way.
And I just want to remind you, He never promised it was going to be easy, but He promised He'd give us strength and courage, that He'd fill us with His Holy Spirit, that He would never leave us, or forsake us. So be encouraged, confront reality, and have faith.
The Work & Play Cornerstore
It's time for the Work and Play Corner Store. This is where I share a book I'm loving and a thing I'm loving.
Today, I'm going to be adding the book Who Moved My Cheese?, as well as my new knockoff “Apple” AirPods, earpods, AirPods, however you say it, to the Cornerstore.
Okay, Who Moved My Cheese? is a short 100 page book with giant print that you can read in less than an hour. And I cannot think of a more timely book for 2021, or 2020, really.
It's this allegory, like a story, about four mice. Hang with me, this sounds so weird, I know. But it's so good. And the four mice live in this little maze, and their cheese gets moved. And it's a story about how two of the mice kind of learned to adapt and pivot, and find more cheese. But the other two get really stuck, and afraid to move and go look for other cheese. And they stay mad that someone else moved their cheese, and they can't move forward. But the other two learn ways to kind of handle finding more cheese. Anyway, it is so good. It is literally one of my favorite books of all time. I feel like it's probably already in the Cornerstore. Even though it sounds so weird, I just want you to trust me. I think it's probably like $8, maybe less on Amazon. It's so good. It was a required reading for my team when they worked with me. I feel like it should just be a required reading in life. I promise it's going to be a blessing to you this year.
And a quick note about these knock-off AirPods, earpods, however you say them. I could not make myself spend $150, or however much it is to get the Apple ones. But I found these knockoff ones that had amazing reviews on Amazon and I asked for them for Christmas. And they're awesome. I just wanted you to know about them. Go ahead and grab your own pair, if you don't have them (before we start the Contentment Challenge!), because they look just like the Apple ones. I mean, I've never owned the Apple ones, but I think they feel like them, they're pretty great.
Okay, that's it for today. I'm going to close with words from Who Moved My Cheese?—
“Life moves on, and so should we.”
Happy 2021 friend, thanks for listening and I will see you next time.
