Work-Life Balance

03 Building the 5P Principles of Life from the Foundation

Hello, I’m in Elaine Kung, blessings from California in United States. I'm excited to go on to the third part of our Work-Life balance Series.

So, I have shared with you, having good ‘TIMES’ for work-life balance. So, the T.I.M.E.S., good ‘TIMES’. I’m gonna share with you how these five areas relate to a five ‘P’ model that I’m gonna explain in detail today. So good ‘TIMES’, it’s when we want to have time management for work-life rhythm. That's the ultimate performance that we want to have. And it’s important to do the right thing using the right way, missional life as bi-vocation, purpose driven. It's the passion that we want to do it well and know what is our passion and mission to live toward.

And then ‘E’ is established healthy habits, manage time and stress. That's our principle, the approach, the methodology. And then our goal and our purpose, building good people relationship is spiritual influence, joy at home and at work. I'm gonna explain how this five ‘P’ model work.

So, I use these five ‘P’s to help many people to sort out their overall purpose in life. Their mission. So, start from the very bottom, your purpose is understanding what is it that after, what is your end goal? So, what is that vision? Big picture? Principle. What guides your decision making? What's your value that would help you choose the right versus the wrong? And then Passion, what you love to do, even when you don't get paid. So, these first three ‘P’s are your internal soul searching.

Then external, fourth ‘P’ is your People. How do you interact with people? What kind of influence do you have on people? And finally, Performance, everyone wants to go to the peak of the pyramid. The performance is how you excel in what you do. And ultimately, you can accomplish the mission you set for yourself. With this five ‘P’s it really established your vision, your mission.

And then you have your VIP, because ‘I’ is your influence, and that's very important, in how we manage our time and how we influence and build relationship with people, really at how well you manage yourself and your whole mindset. So, we want to be a VIP with this five ‘P’ model. So, the more detailed definition to help us discover our five ‘P’s the better, so we can develop them and then deliver on these five ‘P’s, the results.

So, the Purpose you would ask, what of those that would give you a foundation, get you grounded, empower you, and encourage you to motivate you in the right direction, to what the end goal and the vision that you have. Principle are the values, belief system that give you the wisdom to make the right choice and the right decision. And then Passion is what you love to do. If you have a free day, if it's not resting or playing game, what would you use that one day for? That you love to do even when you don't get paid? So, for me, it's my teaching, I love to teach, right? And then I am motivated, doing what’s my passion, aligned to my inspiration. And that way, I really enjoy it. It's my personality. It's in my genes, is deep in my DNA, I know it's my strength, so that I can invest time, talent, and treasure to give back.

So, this way, my purpose, for example, I want to enjoy God's love and share God's love with other people. And then my principal, so I’m a Christian, so my biblical value and I’m a Chinese, so my culture can guide me. And my passion is being a teacher. Whether I taught in school or not, I was always teaching at work at the family or in the church, even now in my ‘re-Firement’.

So, then the people, external interaction, it's your communication skill, relationship building, your leadership quotient, and your soft skill – emotional quotient. And finally, the Performance is what you contribute that you're committed to do a good job, to have a good aptitude and good attitude and your heart skill to deliver. That's the definition.

I'll give you some example. I'll start with a young mentee. She was planning for her summer. She applied this five ‘P’ for her summer planning. So, her Purpose, vision, is to discover her mission and really use her skill on artificial intelligence, computer science and machine learning. She also wants to build good family relationship and relationship with Jesus. And then her Principal was very self-motivated, driven, family centric and her Christian faith and being very proactive. And her Passion, she's a stem girl – science, technology, engineer, math. She loved to solve problem, an entrepreneur mindset. She like to tell story, debate and even artistic graphic design. And she's a people person. So that's her passion.

Now People, so she wants to build good influence with good networking, find mentors in these fields. Her communication skill, want to be more proactive to reach out. And then want to give back to the peers and the community. So, she wanted to be a good Christian community, open minded and be humble. So that's a very good set of people qualities.

Finally, her Performance, she wants to find a research internship using her strength and do service project. She wants to have focus at least 10 minutes with her family, and it seems short time, but she's committed to do that, and she can achieve it. Because that's a ‘SMART’ goal, right? It's smart, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. And then for her Christian growth, she wants to do daily devotion and get involved in the church. So that's a good example of her five ‘P’ for the summer and then thought the summer she gave me an update and she really achieved these five ‘P’ and she did get her summer internship. So, it's very encouraging.

Another example, a high school student, in fact, she's only 15 years old. So, I’m not gonna go through the detail for each one, but you can see an example, even for a teenager, how she used the five ‘P’s to discover her Purpose, Principal Passion, and then her People skill and Performance. And then she developed them and then deliver on the result. And do you see that she's very specific on her Performance? She has numbers. And her performance is in aligned to her purpose, the vision. You see it’s about her school, her family, and her Christian life. And then she put numbers to it. So, for school, five honors class with a certain grade. And then for stress, she has 2 coping strategies. And then for her Christian growth, she said “3 times a week I want to read the bible”. This is a good example of a five ‘P’s with numbers in your performance. And then she did one for 10 years from now. What would her five ‘P’s look like? So, when she's 25 as a young adult and a young professional, a lot of these remain the same, except for those in burgundy, because now she's an adult, and now she's a professional.

So, what's very fascinating is that she wasn't sure what she wants to do, but she's very good with these top five strengths. And she likes to read, write, and research. And turns out she really want to do business, psychology and criminal justice. And guess what? These future careers exactly use her strength and align to her interests and passion. This is very helpful to her.

So, this five ‘P’s applies to individuals. It can also work as family as a marriage, or for your job search at particular time. And then using this five ‘P’s you can construct a personal missional statement, answering these four questions based on what I shared on these five ‘P’s, last time I share with you the three ‘C’s, Calling, Career, and Community. So together, when you answer these four questions, you can define your own customized missional statement.

So, first question, what is your message that embody, based on your Passion, your Principle and your Calling? What unique task would you accomplish? And that's your Performance in your career. And to what specific audience? So, that's the People group and the Community that you interact with and then for what ultimate impact, result. So, that should align to your Purpose. So, I suggest as a class action or homework for you to think about, and I have done exactly that and answered those four questions based on my five ‘P’s and the three ‘C’s and that's my personal mission statement.

‘I'm called to work’, and that's our faith and work ministry. So, that's my Passion, Principle, and Calling. Sharing my faith journey as a bi-vocational minister, a wife, and a mother. And I’ll share more next time. And that's my unique task on how experienced Christ in all areas of my missional life. And then what audience to encourage and equip a new generation of bi-vocational servant leaders by teaching from my curriculum and life coaching them. So that's the audience, the community.

And finally, expand the ‘Work As Mission Strategic Alliance’ (WAMSA) that we work with different ministries to help churches to build a thriving workplace discipleship program. And that's what I’m passionate about, to disciple people, how to integrate your faith in the workplace, so that you can do a good work, and that's how I’ve experienced taking Jesus to work. And that way we can grow the church, both in their hardware ABC and software ABC, and I don't have time to explain the definition for those, but basically, that's my ultimate impact. That's my Purpose. So that is my personal mission statement. I encourage you to do similar for yourself.

So that way, you know your five ‘P’s, you know your mission, and that makes your time management so much more purpose driven. Like Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” So, we want our purpose to align to God's purpose. So, we learn to let go and let God, so that I would do my best and commit to God for the rest. He would take care of it and give me the best and “Be on guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possession.” So, think about our principle, our value, isn't about greedy and having more possessions as Like 12 tells us.

So that reminds us of the purpose, and principle, to be aligned. And then with our Principal, Passion and Performance, Matthew 6:33 one of my favorite words, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” So, when we talk about time management, it is about setting priorities. And we'll learn how to know what's important and prioritize them, and not just do what's urgent. So, seek first His kingdom. And then Matthew 7:7, it's ‘A.S.K.’, an acrostic in the bible. “Ask and it will be given to you; Seek and you will find; Knock and the door will be opened to you.”

So, I remember in my college years as busy as I was studying a Cornell, I always prioritized, did not miss a weekend of fellowship or going to church. And yet even with stressful study, I did my best and I was wise in managing my time. I actually got a 4.13 GPA out of a 4.3, so God really bless us with the rest. And Proverbs remind us, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” So whatever your heart desires need to align with God's agenda, our passion along with God's passion. And our principle is based on the biblical value. And that way, everything will flow from it, and that's when we get our performance. Finally, Proverbs 3, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways, submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” And that is the ultimate five ‘P’s, with the Purpose, Principle, Passion, and building good People relationship, and then the Performance. And that's how we would align these five ‘P’s to the ‘TIMES’ in our future talks on work-life balance. See you next time.

Reflections:

1. What are the 5 Ps in your work, life and ministry?

2. Are your values consistent with your life goals?

3. Is your enthusiasm aligned with your life goal?