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Willpower Is Key To Success

March 26, 2014

There was a child, a marshmallow, a closed room, and a promise.

This was an experiment a couple of decades ago where a researcher curious about willpower brought a child into a room. A marshmallow was placed on a table. The researcher stated he would have to leave the room, but he would return in 15 minutes. The child could eat the marshmallow, but if the child did not eat the marshmallow, then he/she would get two marshmallows upon the return of the researcher.

Some ate the marshmallow. Some didn’t.

A follow up on as many of the children as they could find after some 20+ years revealed that the children with the willpower to delay gratification were generally more successful in life than those lacking that one strength.

Daniel Goleman writes about this research in one chapter of his latest book, Focus. It turns out that willpower is more effective a predictor of a young child’s (ages 4-6) success in life than is social class or IQ.

How did the children who succeeded in resisting the temptation do it? They diverted their minds. Those whose thoughts dwelled on the marshmallow, ate it. Those who started singing a song to themselves, or talking to themselves, or played make-believe–in other words, those who diverted their thoughts from the marshmallow–were able to resist it.

Two takeaways.

If you are a parent or grandparent or otherwise can influence a child. Teach them to divert their thoughts to something else instead of continuing to focus on the errant behavior.

Or, for you…when your thoughts start to focus on something you’d rather not think about–be it that donut that is now staring at me as I write this or some worry or anxiety–start to think about something else. The willpower lies in intentionally (yesterday’s topic) choosing to think about something different from the negative thought. I first noticed that I did this myself over 40 years ago. I testify that it works.

Help a kid. Help yourself. Learn how to develop some willpower.

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What Was Your Intention

March 25, 2014

There is s guy I know who often talks about living with intention—pray with intention, decide with intention, live with intention.

While driving home after a weekend get-a-way Sunday, I rather absent-mindedly set the cruise control on my car. A scenario flashed through my mind in an instant:

Stopped by a Highway Patrol officer, “what was your speed?” “I don’t know. I set the cruise control.” “At what speed did you intend to set it?”

Intention. That was the word.

I shouldn’t just push the button to set the speed when I sort of felt like it was time. I should have given the matter a little thought and then set the speed with intention. OK, so it was 7 over the speed limit…

When you leave home today, is it with intention? Do you intend to meet new people? Help someone? Be kind? Be loving?

My friend suggested praying with intention for things to happen. I once listened to a teacher on a podcast (I think it was Bill Hybels) who said to pray spcifically and with expectation. Pray intentionally that God willl lead the right people into your life.

Sometimes I see people. Look at their demeanor. Look into their eyes. They are lost. Not just in the salvation sense, but just lost. No direction. No motivation. No intention. Just drifting through life. Lost.

Then I see people with living with intention. Living with purpose. Friendly, helpful, doing good.

Choose life with intention, or wind up lost.

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A Little Mindfulness Every Day

February 3, 2014

It is better to master your attention than to have a to-do list.

I try to practice the discipline of Getting Things Done (book by that name by David Allen). The practice is to write down everything on your mind so that it is free to concentrate on the task at hand. You write down ideas about tasks you need to do, projects to be completed, what you’d like to do this day/month/year. Then your mind is empty and you can turn your attention to the immediate task that needs to be done.

Being digital, I use an application called Nozbe (affiliate link) to keep track of and organize my list.

Michael Sliwinski created Nozbe and then started “Productive! Magazine” to write more about practices for Getting Things Done. You can download the magazine to your tablet via the App Store. In a recent issue, Augusto Pinaud discusses the importance of where you place your attention.

Do you focus your attention on the task at hand? Or does your attention drift? In her book “Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes,” Maria Konnikova begins with a discussion of the ability to be mindful–the ability to focus attention. Holmes was observant of the smallest detail because he was mindful–his attention was focused in the present and on what he was seeing.

I believe Jesus exhibited the same characteristic. He took time alone to be with God. When he was with people his attention was focused on people–so much so that he could see right through to their needs and motivations.

There are health benefits to slowing down for 15 minutes or so every day. Just practicing mindfulness, placing attention on the breath or a phrase or a single thought. The spiritual benefits are greater if you place your attention on spiritual things–a story from the Bible, for example.

I thought I’d start off the week suggesting we organize our week around mindfulness, attention, focusing on the right things. I do this to remind myself as much as to teach others.

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Anticipation

January 7, 2014

We just went through the advent season of anticipation. I wonder if it was as intense as the anticipation of the last few days in the American Midwest.

I quit watching The Weather Channel at least a year ago. Way too much over-the-top hype. I quit watching network TV news (and weather) 25 years ago. Still, I knew there was a “winter storm” coming toward western Ohio for several days. It was supposed to hit Sunday.

Saturday I wasted a little time on Facebook. Saw the people posting from grocery stores about how the shelves were bare in certain areas of staple items. People talked about the coming storm with worry and even fear for several days.

It was two things–several inches of snow followed by cold weather. Really not an unusual occurrence in our area in the winter. It’s actually beautiful on the days following snow. The sky is blue, the air is clear, sunlight reflected from the snow and ice on trees is enchanting. Oh, the temperature may be single digits F and sometimes below, but we have modern furnaces and clothes to counter it.

In my area, the storm sort of fizzled out. We were about 40 miles to the east of the line dividing rain from snow. In the end we got a couple of inches. Oh, it’s -9F as I write this, up from -11F when I went to bed. The heavy wool sweater I bought in Norway is a help.

Still I ponder, we get so worked up and agitated with the hype of weather systems (OK, when a tornado is coming, even I get worried). I don’t sense the same level of awareness during the season of anticipating Jesus’ birth. We get snow every year. We get Christmas every year.

What do we need to do individually to recapture the anticipation of Jesus’ arrival. Maybe too many presents and parties, not enough reflection and worship and celebration?

(Personal note: I hope Jon made it home yesterday OK. The roads through Chicago were still treacherous, and I bet US30 through Indiana was slick. And I hope all my Midwest readers had the common sense to not venture too far into the cold and ice. Stay warm today.)

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His Heart Is Bigger Than His Brain

December 4, 2013

“Forgive him. His heart is bigger than his brain.”

That was supposed to be a funny put-down of cousin Eddie by Clark Griswald in Christmas Vacation. It implies that he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the candleabra, so to speak.

The phrase sort of stuck in my brain, so I meditated on it for a while.

It occurred to me that this has practical implications. I am by nature an analytical person. I tend to think about things a lot. My university education reinforced that tendency. But as I got deeper into spiritual practices and I discovered that other people really do exist, my attitude toward the message in the Bible changed.

John Ortberg captured the idea with a sentence in a message he gave a few years ago–“You see, Jesus is most interested in the condition of your heart.”

Paul reinforced that a few times in his writing where he would tell his story about being an intellectual and then having a life-changing transformation.

Jesus and Paul were not anti-intellectual (the “brain” part). Indeed, they were both scholars. I think that there is nothing in the New Testament that does not emphasize the condition of your heart. Perhaps summed up succinctly by James who emphsized that if your heart is right, then your actions will be right. One follows the other as day follows night.

Exercising our brain is good. We need to study in order to have background and depth for faith.

Our hearts need to be bigger than our brains. It is not enough to study and gain knowledge. We need to have our hearts fixed on Jesus and let our actions flow from that. Indeed, our study will also flow from that posture.

We develop our brains through study and thinking. We develop our hearts through trusting Jesus as our guide and saviour, living a life of putting others ahead of ourselves, practicing prayer, meditation, service, worship, celebration.

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Explain Things to a Six-Year-Old

October 15, 2013

I am at another conference. All these conferences feature a keynote speaker–an author, an astronaut, a professional speaker, a motivational person. The person speaking right now is a “futurist.” While researching a book, he ran across a quote from Albert Einstein who said that if you cannot explain your theory in terms a six-year-old can understand, then you are a fraud.

Boy, do I ever run across this problem with people explaining theological concepts. People try to explain the Trinity. OK, just about impossible to make that understandable. People try to explain Jesus, the teachings of Paul, how we should live, and many other concepts. When they are through talking, no one understands anything new.

Karl Barth was a theologian who wrote thousands of pages. His work on the book of Romans was extensive. He wrote thousands of words explaining what Paul wrote in a few hundred.

But…when asked toward the end of his life to sum up his work, he said, (or sang) “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

That is the explanation that a six-year-old can understand.

Do you make things too complex?

I know people who take a simple project and, by the time they finish explaining the project it is so complex that no one can understand.

I have actually built a career trying to explain complex technical ideas into words that any educated person (my audience) can understand. Microsoft people have complemented me on my ability to explain embedded operating systems and programming to a general engineering audience.

The point is to challenge you to think about your beliefs and learning and then explain them in understandable terms. Perhaps the exercise of thinking through your beliefs will cause you to throw out prejudices and half-truths and come to reality–the simple truths.

Hint–study Jesus as an example, not Paul. Jesus could go directly into the heart of the matter. Paul–he was a highly educated man. He used 100 words when 5 would work better.

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