Work-Life Balance

05 Run straight for the pole? Do you have a pole?

Hello, I'm in Elaine Kung, blessings from California in the United States. We're excited to continue learning topic number five in our Work-Life Balance series.

So, remember this cartoon that is really heart wrenching, really look funny and yet sad, right? Are we becoming the slave to time, or are we the boss? Should we be the master of time? So, the clock reminds us, “hey, you can't just run against me, you got to partner with me”. We're gonna remember how not to be blinded or just running crazy busy and be bored. So how are we going to do that? How are we going to avoid like this lady, crazy busy, running? Or this guy being a little confused, not sure exactly if we have free time or just forgetting everything, because he seemed a little bit confused, not clear. Or which way should I go? So, it's very uncertain.

So today we're gonna focus on how to manage the time and be successful. So, what is that key? If you look at this ‘success iceberg’, it’s probably a very popular and famous iceberg to show us that people see success as easy, very glorious, and shiny. And yet, deep down below the water level, there are long list of things that we actually work very hard to make it happen. So, if you look at all these that people don't see, under the water level, the one that I wanna pay attention to is that clock. You see the clock? The clock is defined as healthy habits and good habits. That's very important for managing our time. And one of the good habits we’ll do today is how to set up our purpose, our goal. Understanding that the ‘TIMES’ for work-life balance, the good times is ‘I’, important to do the right thing using the right way. And that is defining a clear purpose is what we're gonna focus on.

Remember, the five ‘P’? The Purpose in our five ‘P’s is the foundation of this pyramid, it's the base of this pyramid. Only when you have a clear purpose and the goal of where you’re going, would you have a meaningful use of your time? So, through the five ‘P’s we discussed before, we discover, develop, and then deliver on your five ‘P’, starting with the vision.

And that's what we're gonna focus on today. The purpose of what you want to accomplish will give you a good foundation, help you to be empowered, encourage, and have a clear direction, knowing to begin with the end in mind, what is that picture? What is the end picture? What is that vision that you want to accomplish? And that becomes the foundation. And that's the ‘V’ in the VIP, the vision. And ‘I’ is the influence in the fourth ‘P’, in a relationship with people. And then the ‘P’ in the VIP. are all these five ‘P’, right? The purpose, principal, passion, people, and performance that we have talked about in the past.

So, let's focus on purpose. And first, what is time management that we need a purpose for? So, the purpose of time management is to have conscientious control. Remember, we should be the boss, we should be the master of our time. So very conscious control and managing of the time spent on particular activities. And purpose of the activities is to help us increase our productivity, produce results. And it's the right results that are effective and also efficient with the right way of doing things in delivering these results.

And also, that way we can achieve our goal and our purpose. So, when we have that purpose, we'll know to find a balance between all the things that are getting our attention to know what is needed, the main thing, the primary things, the important things that we’ll say yes to and prioritize. And then some may be what we want to do, and yet it may not be the main thing, it may not be important, that we need to set boundary and say no to. So good time management doesn't mean that you're gonna work hard all the time and get a lot of things done. It means to get the right things done, to work smart and certain things that you may say no to and set boundaries for. So, good time management, the purpose is to feel very productive and satisfied. Doing things that's aligned to your priorities and your goal and what's needed, doesn't mean to be a busy bee and always working on many things. So, we need to know and decide what to prioritize to work on.

So, I came up with these six ‘S’ for effective time management. And we focus on the first one today, ‘set goals with wisdom’. Then ‘skills for time management’ we’ll cover more in the future, ‘set the right priority’, ‘seek to do the right things in the right way’, ‘shine with healthy habits at work’, and ‘share harmony at work and at home’.

Today will focus on goals, and we'll start with the bible. 1 Corinthians 10:31 tells us “Whatever you eat or drink, or whatever you, do it all for the glory of God.” That's our ultimate goal. Always, whatever we do in our actions, our words, our attitude, whatever we do physically in our eating and drinking and projects and execution is for the glory of God. And of course, for me, at work, my goal has always been, glorified god and bless people. When I bless people, including my boss, to help him to shine as a superstar within the biblical principle, how to help him shine, help my peers and my subordinates to be successful, even so successful that they can take over my job. Do I need to worry that I lose my job? No, because if I'm able to help more people to be successful and a good leader like me, I'm able to multiply leaders, that way they can take over my job and my company say we want more the same Elaine, and then we can put Elaine into a bigger responsibility.

And then Philippians 3:13-14 remind us, that “I can press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” So, we need to forget what's behind us and strive towards what's ahead, to press on towards the goal. So, we need to have clear goal, we’re gonna define. Understand where we're going. What is our vision? What is that big picture? So, to press on towards the goal is to know that target. Because if you don't have a clear goal, you don't have a clear picture of where you want to go. You would definitely get lost and you didn't even know it. As in the famous Alice in Wonderland story, when Alice got lost and asked the rabbit, which way should I go? And the rabbit asked Alice, “where are going?” And Alice said, “I don't know.” Then the rabbit said, “it doesn't matter which way you go then, if you don't have a goal, you don't know where you want to go.” It's very important to understand that we need to have a goal.

So, let's look at Jesus as an example. Jesus only lived on this earth for 33 years, not very long. In fact, most of us are probably older than 33 years. And yet he has a very clear goal and a very clear mission that God, his heavily father sent Jesus to earth, to fulfill, to live a life, to save people, to serve people, to speak to people with the Word to teach, and to strengthen people by healing them physically, emotionally, and spiritually. So, he did all that, and then died across for our sins. And then 3 days, He rose again. So, in 33 years, He fulfills the few thousands of prophecies or few hundreds of prophecies in His life, because He grew the way that Luke 2:52 said, that He “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” So, in wisdom in stature, that's His intelligence quotient and his physical maturity. And in favor with God is his spiritual quotient, SQ. When you’re right with God, all things fall into place. And then favor with men that’s his emotional quotient, his relationship with people.

In the same way, we need to set clear goals for how we live in our life, just like how Jesus did. So that way, as we learn from Dale Carnegie, he said, “the road to success is paved by goal setting.” He actually did a research on lifelong go setting. Among all the people he researched, he found 3% of the people set clear goals and know how to achieve them. And yet, 97 % of the people do not have goals in their life and not sure how to achieve them. 10 years later, he continued to do the research in this group of people. Turns out, the 3% who have set clear goals and know how to achieve them, wow, they became very successful in all different fields that they were working in. And then for the 97 %, they didn't set up any goals. As you can imagine, they may grow older and became somewhat mature, and yet, they didn't really accomplish much in the work life unfortunately.

And then, let's look at Henry Ford. We all know him as the father of automobile. So, he actually, at age 12, set a goal to say, “I want to become an inventor. I want to design an automotive in 10 years.” Guess what? He didn't accomplish that in 10 years, but at age 29, seventeen years later, he did become very successful finally and said, “key to success is to set a goal and aim high.” So not a low goal, but an achievable one whilst aiming high. So, Henry Ford set a good example for us. So, today we start the topic of setting clear goals with wisdom. And next time we're gonna dive deeper. How to set those clear goals, and what does it mean to us. So, I’ll see you next time.

Reflections:

1. What is your goal in life?

2. In order to achieve this goal, what do you need to learn and practice in physical, and spiritual?

3. What is the biggest challenge on the road to achieve the goal? How did you respond?