My One Word for 2021

Since 2014, I’ve picked a One Word theme for the year. (Last year was 2 words, but you get the idea.)

This year’s word relates to a question I’m obsessed with:

Where does sustained success come from?

To put it another way:

Where does creativity come from? How can creativity be sustained? What does it take to make something of value? What does it take to get things done?

---

Jerry Seinfeld on Work

Tim Ferriss’s podcast is hit or miss for me, with more misses than hits. His best interviews are when he doesn’t know his guest personally and is somewhat intimidated by him or her. In those cases he postures and shows off a lot less than at other times, and tends to ask genuinely curious, perceptive questions. This brings to mind what one of Jim Collins’s mentors had to say to him one time: “you need to spend less time trying to be interesting and more time trying to be interested.” (I think one of the best interviews Mr. Ferriss has ever done was with Frank Blake of Home Depot—a good example of being interested, especially in his probing and curious questions about prayer.)

The recent Tim Ferriss interview with Jerry Seinfeld was one of his better ones, probably because they spent a lot of time talking about a subject that both men are interested in: what it takes to get work done.

Jerry Seinfeld is a disciplined writer, which is the only reason he’s been able to thrive as a stand-up comic decade after decade. Here’s Jerry talking about the process:

“But my writing sessions used to be very arduous, very painful, like pushing against the wind in soft, muddy ground with a wheelbarrow full of bricks. And I did it. I had to do it because there’s just, as I mentioned in the book, you either learn to do that or you will die in the ecosystem. I learned that really fast and really young, and that saved my life and made my career, that I grasped the essential principle of survival in comedy really young. That principle is: you learn to be a writer. It’s really the profession of writing, that’s what standup comedy is. However you do it, anybody, you can do it any way you want, but if you don’t learn to do it in some form, you will not survive.”

“If you don’t learn to do it in some form, you will not survive.”

—Jerry Seinfeld, talking about the discipline of hard work

---

Putting Your Work In

You see this same principle in the lives of all professional athletes who make it. Sure, there are some people with talent who light up the highlight reels for a season or two, but there are no examples of athletes who stay on top for a career who don’t put in the work every day. There will always be Johnny Manziel types whose natural talent bring them fleeting success, but unless they learn to work, they will never be anything other than fleeting successes.

Recently I came across an interview with NFL quarterback Russell Wilson in which he said this:

“I gotta earn my career, you know, and how you earn it is by the approach that you take every day. There’s no such thing as days off.

“Someone asked me the other day….“How many days a year do you [work]”? The question is, How many days I don’t. That’s the real question. To me, it’s a 365 day lifestyle—it’s a lifestyle choice. I may take 2 days off a year…. That lifestyle allows you to play for a long time….

“Pretty much every day I wake up around 5….I always pray first and then I’m going to the facility or the gym and putting my work in.”

I don’t know of any professional athletes who have made it a career who wouldn’t say the same thing. Natural talent is what gets you in the door, but it’s hard work that allows you to stay.

---

My Life As an Artist

Several years ago now, I came to a conclusion about my work, and that is that my work is primarily creative. What I mean by that is that my primary task is to create something out of nothing every single week. I am—in my own peculiar way—an artist.

I know it sounds pretentious, but conceiving my job as a creative endeavor has been helpful to me. Every single week I stand up in front of a group of people—during the pandemic it’s been a much smaller group than before!—and preach. Preaching, to me, is about creating. Where there was nothing, now there is something.

I have the natural gifts to be a preacher—I have a good memory and I’m poised in front of groups of people. But those gifts can only help you to preach a good sermon once. But preaching once isn’t the job—preaching week after week after week, year after year after year—that’s the job. It is not possible to overstate just how hard it is to do this well.

And there is no way to do it well without putting in the work.

But let me confess something to you—that kind of work does not come easy to me.

---

My Two Best Sermon Series Yet

In 2020 I think I preached two excellent sermon series, in my opinion the best I’ve yet preached: Genesis (in two parts) to begin the year and Revelation to end it. I feel as if I actually understand those books now, and I felt like I was able to share that understanding with others in a clear and compelling way.

When I ask myself why and where that insight came from, there is one clear answer:

I put in the work, and God blessed it.

---

“Just Read for One Hour, You Idiot”

The kind of books I read to support these two particular sermon series are not quick reads—they require lots of concentration. I’m normally a quick reader, but with these books 20 pages might take me well over an hour. And so I committed to getting in one hour of reading per day, no matter what.

One hour of concentrated reading may not sound like much, but for me it was about keeping a sustainable pace, and allowing the hours to accumulate. “Just sit down and focus for one hour, you idiot” was the kind of self-talk I’d use, and it worked.

---

Consistency Is More Important Than Intensity

One of the things I really believe is that consistency is more important than intensity. Anyone can throw himself into a problem with frenzied determination for one day, but one day’s determined work is not what most problems need. Rather, most problems are solved with sustained, relentless focus, day after day after day.

To put it another way, the tortoise always beats the hare.

---

When You’re More Hare Than Tortoise

The problem is that I’m not naturally a tortoise—I’m naturally a hare. And in the age of the internet, I have to fight hard to keep my rabbit-like attention from flitting from one shiny carrot to another.

---

Deep Work

I know that Cal Newport is right, and that in a world of distraction the ability to give focused attention to the problem in front of you will make you that much more valuable.

I know he’s right, and I know that the only way I can survive in the game is if I put in the work.

At this stage in my life, this is more true than ever, because, by the way:

I have a book manuscript due to the publisher by April 1.

---

Jerry Seinfeld, Russell Wilson, Robert Caro

I think it’s because I’m not naturally a tortoise that I admire tortoise-like work so much. I find people like Jerry Seinfeld and Russell Wilson to be inspiring—I want to be like that. I want to be a tortoise.

For that reason, one of the books I read over the last several years and most enjoyed was a brief autobiography from the great biographer Robert Caro entitled, appropriately enough, Working. I loved reading about his patient, relentless process of coming to really understand his subject.

I also want to stand before God one day and give an account of what I’ve done with what he’s given me. I’d much rather be someone with one talent who made ten out of it than someone with ten talents who ended up with twenty.

But, that will only happen through work.

---

There Are No Shortcuts

The kind of work I’m talking about is the kind of deliberate practice, putting in the hours, doing the reps, private, unglamorous work without which it is not possible to be a sustained success. I’m not talking about meetings and appointments and phone calls and emails. I’m talking about sitting alone in a room by yourself and just, through force of will, making yourself focus on a problem, and working at it until you’ve wrestled it to the floor.

That’s the kind of work that honors God, because it shows we take his gifts seriously enough to actually develop and hone them.

In fact, I often feel the greatest sense of godly satisfaction when I can look back at something I’ve made and say, “I worked hard on that.”

There is a lot that I want to accomplish in the year ahead and in the years ahead. Like Peter Drucker, I’d like to accomplish more in the second half of my life than in the first. But nothing I want to accomplish will happen if I’m not willing to put in the work, day after day after day.

---

---

My One Word for 2021

And so, my one word for 2021?

Work.

P.S.

It’s 10:00 PM on New Year’s Day, and after I post this I’m going to bed a happy man. You know why?

Because I already put in my work for the day.

First day of the new year, done.

My One Word for 2019

Permit me to say it again.

A few summers ago now, at about 4 o'clock in the morning, I heard someone call my name in a strong stage whisper:

"Andrew!  ANDREW!"

I sat straight up.  "Yes?!  Hello?  What is it?"

But my wife was still asleep.  So were my children.

And then I knew.

This past summer, it happened again, in just the same way, at about the same time in the morning.

A couple of weeks later I was spending time with a someone in San Antonio who was doing some coaching with me.  We were working toward an answer to this crucial question: "What exactly is my thing?  What is it that God wants me to do?"  And in that conference room with Greg, I had this piercing thought:

"But I already know what God wants me to do!  He told me specifically."

This may sound crazy to you, but I knew the moment I heard someone calling my name that it was the Lord, and that he was calling me to meet him in early morning prayer.  I know that as certainly as I know anything in my life.  In the months after I heard my name called that first time, I was somewhat committed to early mornings, but often I woke and shambled down our creaky steps in a half-hearted, hurried way; my prayers were desultory and perfunctory.

This past summer, after that second early morning call and after the insight I had meeting with Greg, it all became just so clear to me:

The one thing I am certain of is that God wants me to pray early in the morning.  If I don't do it, I am being directly disobedient.  All the time people say, "If I could hear God speak to me, then I would do this or that."  And here I am having heard the voice of the Lord Almighty HIMSELF telling me to do something, and often as not I wasn't really doing it.

I decided to recommit myself.

And amazing things that I thought were impossible have already happened.  Immovable situations that I have been praying about have started to move.

But I actually don't think the amazing things are the point.

This past summer, some friends invited my family to use their house in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado.  In late summer in that part of Colorado, the weather is perfect: upper 40’s at dawn, lower 90’s at noon. I’d get up every morning early to sit wrapped in a blanket on the back deck in the dark, waiting for the sun to rise. The deer and the wild turkeys and the hummingbirds paid me no attention, if I kept still enough.  I'd read my Bible and pray, and I would sit.  It was golden.

But you know what my favorite time of the morning was?

After I'd been outside for hours and after the sun had risen, my 8 year-old son would tip-toe outside and join me.  He'd climb into my rocking chair and snuggle into my blankets (I was wrapped like an eskimo baby), and we'd sit and quietly talk together.  And I realized, after a few days of this, how much I was looking forward to our quiet meeting each morning.

It was my favorite part of the day.

What if, though?  What if that's exactly what the Lord has been trying to get me to understand?  What if early-morning prayer is not a chore to complete like milking the cows or walking the dog, or not even an important but sometimes bitter habit, like the deadlift or the pull-up?  What if God Almighty Himself just wants to sit with...me...in the quiet of the early morning, before the day begins?

Therefore, I want to say it again.

All things seem possible in the early morning.

Nature's first green is gold

I love early morning, that time that seems like night until you look up and see that the sky is no longer black but has become that deep, rich blue color that only occurs there, then.

I expect that was the color of Eden's firmament, early Adam's first morning.

In the early morning, waking up and, for a brief moment, forgetting everything that you know except that it's a new day, that's the best time.

After that, of course, remembering rushes in like water through a sluice-gate, and the day tumbles over itself. That moment doesn't return.

But for that brief time, it's golden.

Early mornings are like a drop hanging on the end of a dropper, before it drips: all about potential, unrealized. And that's why I love them.

I wonder if Jesus loved early mornings for that reason, too. Before the Pharisees poked their fingers in his chest and asked him to justify himself, before he heard about the tragedy of the Tower of Siloam or how Pilate had profaned the sacrifice with the blood of those Galileans he'd killed, before John's disciples breathlessly told him about Herod's homocidal boasting before the dancing girl, I wonder: did Jesus savor those first few sinless minutes, before each day fell?

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. (Mark 1:35)

Nothing gold can stay, though, can it?

I memorized Robert Frost's little poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" twenty years ago or so, and I've always thought he says it well:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature‘s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf‘s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Dawn, which began pregnant with potential, always goes down to day, and day always comes with disappointment at best and disaster at worst.

Hopkins knew this: that in time, everything becomes ruined:

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

I love early mornings, but early mornings are like light itself: you can't hold on to them. Mornings turn into days.

And I don't need to tell you that days are difficult.

Days are difficult because that's how we make them--our dirty fingerprints are everywhere.

Every morning is like Eden's first morning: pristine. But no day remains like that. Days come with difficulty.

Yet days don't last either, do they? Days would have us believe that they are interminable, but we know by now that days irreversibly become evenings, and evenings inevitably become nights.

And every night is followed by a new morning.

I think that's what I love most about mornings, how there is always another one coming. Regardless of how heavy and ugly was the day, at least we know that a new morning is on its way.

Whoever it was who wrote Lamentations knew this about mornings:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning.

 --Lamentations 3:22-23

C. S. Lewis says in his little book on the Psalms that Psalm 19 contains some of the finest poetry, not just in the entire Bible, but in all the world's literature. Here's how the Psalm opens:

The heavens declare the glory of God;

And the firmament shows His handiwork.

Day unto day utters speech,

And night unto night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech nor language

Where their voice is not heard.

Their line has gone out through all the earth,

And their words to the end of the world.

In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun,

Which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,

And rejoices like a strong man to run its race.

Its rising is from one end of heaven,

And its circuit to the other end;

And there is nothing hidden from its heat.

--Psalm 19:1-6

It's a perfect image: the sun like a groom emerging from his tent on the morning of his wedding day, or like a runner who delights in the very act of running itself. (One thinks of Usain Bolt, effortlessly striding down the Olympic track.)

And it happens every morning.

So maybe God delights in mornings, too. Maybe the reason there's always another morning is because God himself can't wait to see another one. At least, that's what Chesterton thought:

The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.

It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.

 --G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

The ultimate morning, I guess, has to be Easter. It can't be a coincidence that the Resurrection happened "very early in the morning, while it was still dark." Of course the Spirit could have raised Jesus any time of the day or night, but here's what I think:

Easter morning was deliberate.

So, mornings to me are about the hope that God has a plan for me and for the world. Yes, days are difficult, but every morning is another promise that the Lord has something up his sleeve each new day. Yes, things are a mess, but God's not through with us yet.

Hopkins, whom I quoted earlier, has perhaps my favorite description of mornings ever (it's at the end):

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

 It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

 It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

 And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

 And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

 There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

 Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

 World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

"The dearest freshness deep down things." Yes, and each morning brings out that latent possibility. Here's that last part again:

And though the last lights off the black West went

 Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

 World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Yes. EXACTLY.

And God has been saying to me, "Yes.  EXACTLY."

What I learned last year is that the Lord loves his mornings even more than I do, and has graciously invited me to share them, too.

So, let me say it again (and probably next year, too):

My one word for 2019 is morning.

I'd love to have you sign up to receive my newsletter. If you don't like it, you can always unsubscribe, right?

My One Word for 2018

All things seem possible in the early morning.

Nature's first green is gold

I love early morning, that time that seems like night until you look up and see that the sky is no longer black but has become that deep, rich blue color that only occurs there, then.I expect that was the color of Eden's firmament, early Adam's first morning.In the early morning, waking up and, for a brief moment, forgetting everything that you know except that it's a new day, that's the best time.After that, of course, remembering rushes in like water through a sluice-gate, and the day tumbles over itself. That moment doesn't return.But for that brief time, it's golden. 

---

 Early mornings are like a drop hanging on the end of a dropper, before it drips: all about potential, unrealized. And that's why I love them. 

---

 I wonder if Jesus loved early mornings for that reason, too. Before the Pharisees poked their fingers in his chest and asked him to justify himself, before he heard about the tragedy of the Tower of Siloam or how Pilate had profaned the sacrifice with the blood of those Galileans he'd killed, before John's disciples breathlessly told him about Herod's homocidal boasting before the dancing girl, I wonder: did Jesus savor those first few sinless minutes, before each day fell?

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. (Mark 1:35)

---

 Nothing gold can stay, though, can it?I memorized Robert Frost's little poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay" twenty years ago or so, and I've always thought he says it well:

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature‘s first green is gold,Her hardest hue to hold.Her early leaf‘s a flower;But only so an hour.Then leaf subsides to leaf.So Eden sank to grief,So dawn goes down to day.Nothing gold can stay.

Dawn, which began pregnant with potential, always goes down to day, and day always comes with disappointment at best and disaster at worst. 

---

 Hopkins knew this: that in time, everything becomes ruined:

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

??? And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

I love early mornings, but early mornings are like light itself: you can't hold on to them. Mornings turn into days.And I don't need to tell you that days are difficult. 

---

 Days are difficult because that's how we make them--our dirty fingerprints are everywhere.Every morning is like Eden's first morning: pristine. But no day remains like that. Days comes with difficulty. 

---

 Yet days don't last either, do they? Days would have us believe that they are interminable, but we know by now that days irreversibly become evenings, and evenings inevitably become nights.And every night is followed by a new morning. 

---

 I think that's what I love most about mornings, how there is always another one coming. Regardless of how heavy and ugly was the day, at least we know that a new morning is on its way.Whoever it was who wrote Lamentations knew this about mornings:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;his mercies never come to an end;they are new every morning.

? --Lamentations 3:22-23

---

 C. S. Lewis says in his little book on the Psalms that Psalm 19 contains some of the finest poetry, not just in the entire Bible, but in all the world's literature. Here's how the Psalm opens:

The heavens declare the glory of God;And the firmament shows His handiwork.Day unto day utters speech,And night unto night reveals knowledge.There is no speech nor languageWhere their voice is not heard.Their line has gone out through all the earth,And their words to the end of the world.In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun,Which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,And rejoices like a strong man to run its race.Its rising is from one end of heaven,And its circuit to the other end;And there is nothing hidden from its heat.--Psalm 19:1-6

It's a perfect image: the sun like a groom emerging from his tent on the morning of his wedding day, or like a runner who delights?in the very act of running itself. (One thinks of Usain Bolt, effortlessly striding down the Olympic track.)And it happens every morning. 

---

 So maybe God delights in mornings, too. Maybe the reason there's always another morning is because God himself can't wait to see another one. At least, that's what Chesterton thought:

The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.

It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore.

? --G.K. Chesterton,?Orthodoxy

---

 The ultimate morning, I guess, has to be Easter. It can't be a coincidence that the Resurrection happened "very early in the morning, while it was still dark." Of course the Spirit could have raised Jesus any time of the day or night, but here's what I think:Easter morning was?deliberate. 

---

 So, mornings to me are about the hope that God has a plan for me and for the world. Yes, days are difficult, but every morning is another promise that the Lord has something up his sleeve each new day. Yes, things are a mess, but God's not through with us yet.Hopkins, whom I quoted earlier, has perhaps my favorite description of mornings ever (it's at the end):

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

??? It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

??? It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

??? And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

??? And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

??? There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

??? Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

??? World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

"The dearest freshness deep down things." Yes, and each morning brings out that latent possibility. Here's that last part again:

And though the last lights off the black West went

??? Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

??? World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Yes. EXACTLY. 

---

 My one word for 2018 is?morning. 

---

   

I'd love to have you sign up to receive my newsletter. If you don't like it, you can always unsubscribe, right?

92 Days....

Tomorrow is October 1, the first day of the last quarter of the year. God willing, I have 92 mornings left in 2017, 92 days between now and the end of the year. I like clean beginnings, and the fact that October 1 falls on a Sunday has got me motivated to nail down some goals for the rest of 2017. Call them End Year Resolutions.Like you, I began the new year with hope, and wrote down some goals for 2017. Now, however, some of those goals seem unattainable, and some just don't interest me any more. So, I'm spending some time today to gain clarity and focus on what I really want to accomplish in the last three months of 2017. I'd like to share one of my year-end goals with you, in hopes that some of you will join me.

"Consistency is More Important Than Intensity"

I believe that consistency is more important than intensity. In other words, sustaining a behavior over time is more valuable than an intense but brief change of behavior. So, I've staked out a few habit goals between now and the end of the year, one of which has to do with daily scripture reading. I've written before about the power in spending the first few minutes of every day in prayer and scripture: it's?a keystone habit that will affect every area of your life. So, I'm re-committing myself to spending the first 30 minutes of every day in silence,?prayer, and scripture. ?(For me, my scripture reading is that day's portion from The One Year Bible.)What about you? I'd love to hear some of your year-end resolutions in the comments below. P.S. It really has to be your first minutes every morning. If you think, Let me first check my texts or see the previous evening‘s news or briefly scroll through Instagram, and then I’ll read and pray? it just won‘t work. If you crack open the door of your mind to the Cloud? even just the tiniest bit, it will force the door wide open and invite in all its distracting (but oh-so-beguiling) friends.First things first. Then and only then let the iPhone turn you into a zombie.

My One Word for 2017

As I've done for the past three New Year's Days, today I'm choosing a one word theme to live into for the coming year.  I've made goals for 2017, too, but there's something I like about the simplicity of choosing just one word to knit all my goals together. 

My One Word for 2017

For 2017 I'm again choosing the same word I've chosen for the past three years.My one word for 2017 is early.I will:

• wake early
• pray early
• workout early
• arrive early
• get things done early
• finish my sermon early
• get to bed early

What about you?  What‘s your one word for 2017?  Why? 

P.S.  Fox and Hedgehog

The Philosopher Isaiah Berlin, drawing on a line from the Ancient Greek poet Achilocus, wrote a famous essay in 1953 entitled The Hedgehog and the Fox.  The basic idea is that the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.  Foxes have a variety of interests; hedgehogs have one stubborn idea.In this space, I follow my interest wherever it takes me (like a fox) while always writing in the service of The One Big Thing (like a hedgehog).What‘s that One Big Thing?  You?ll have to read to find out.Click here to subscribe and get my posts delivered straight to your inbox.

How to Use the Time Change to Get Up Early

If you win the morning, you win the day. This weekend offers you the perfect opportunity to revise your morning routine. With the time change back to standard time, the extra hour you'll gain could be exactly what you need to start a new morning routine. Here are 4 steps to take so you can start getting that early worm.

1. Go to Bed Early This Saturday Evening.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that the extra hour means you can stay up later. Head to bed at your normal time (or even better, a bit earlier) on Saturday.

2. Don't Sleep In on Sunday Morning

Set your alarm for the new early time you'd like to get up on Monday morning.

3. Begin An Evening Routine

The key to getting up early is preparing the night before. Set out your clothes for the next morning. Shut down your email. Lay out your workout gear. Put out your coffee cup. I find that I need to begin shutting down around an hour before I want to be in bed.

4. When the Alarm Goes Off, Get Your Feet on the Floor ASAP

Once you get your feet on the floor, you've already won. Resist the urge to hit snooze and say "I'll get up in a few minutes." If you roll back over, you're toast; get up immediately on your alarm.

Make "Early" Your Watchword

Greatness starts early in the morning. Anyone can learn to get up early, and this weekend offers you the perfect opportunity. Don't miss it.  

Make your inbox more interesting: click?here‘to subscribe to regular updates from this blog.

My One Word for 2016

Resolutions don't work. Rather than focusing on a list of specific ways we want to live differently each year, I've written the last two years?about a better alternative: focusing and living into a one word theme for the new year.

My One Word for 2016

If it ain't broke.... For 2016 I'm keeping the same word I've had the previous two years.My one word for 2016 is?early.I want to:

• wake up early
• pray early
• workout early
• finish tasks early
• get to appointments early
• finish my sermon early
• get to bed early

What about you? What's your one word for 2016? Why? 

P.S. Have You Subscribed?

Yes, Dear Reader, I know I've been absent from the Internets for the past 2 months, but it's a new year, and I'm going to be posting to my site 3 times a week in 2016. Click?here‘to subscribe and get my posts delivered straight to your inbox. 

My Daily Media Diet

What are the books, podcasts, websites, blogs, and newsletters that make up your media diet? You are what you eat, and that includes the information you consume. Today's post is about what I read daily as part of my media diet (part 1 of a 3 part series).

What Is a "Media Diet?"

"Media diet" is a phrase I came across several years ago in a web series by?The Atlantic. A reporter would interview public figures about how they stayed informed and what they regularly read and watched and make a simple post out of it. (I still remember Malcolm Gladwell's comment about his daily reading habits:?"Since my brain really only works in the morning, I try to keep that time free for writing and thinking and don't read any media at all until lunchtime." I totally identify....)In part 1 of this series (parts 2 and 3 coming on the next two Mondays) about my media diet, I'll focus on what I read daily (or at least regularly).

What I Do First Thing in the Morning

I've written before about the importance of the First 15, i,e., spending?at least the first 15 minutes of your day in prayer, scripture, and silence. So, I've been getting up really early recently in order to have an unhurried time of prayer first thing, before I workout.Currently this is what I use in my prayer time:

• the NRSV Thinline Bible I was given by the bishop at my ordination;
• the scripture reading calendar my church gives out through our?Eat This Book program;
• Seedbed's Field Guide to Daily?Prayer (I really like the 30 day- reading plan for the Psalms);
• and a small journal that I write in about once a week or so.

 

Breakfast:?The Dallas Morning News and NPR

After working out and while eating breakfast and getting ready:

• I get the print version of?The Dallas?Morning News delivered at home, and read it every morning (except Sundays, when I don't get to it until late afternoon, if at all). I have come to really like?The DMN and get more locally-focused and sports news from it than anywhere else.
• I listen to NPR's?Morning Edition radio program most mornings.

Blogs: Rod Dreher (and Not Much Else)

I used to read Andrew Sullivan's blog almost every day. Now that he has stopped blogging, almost the only blogger I read regularly is Rod Dreher. Rod Dreher is a fascinating and unique writer: a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy living in his native rural South Louisiana who writes about culture from a social conservative point of view.One of the topics Rod Dreher writes about that I find most intriguing and persuasive is the so-called "Benedict Option": the idea that Christians in the West today may need to follow the 5th century example of St. Benedict and spend less time participating in politics and the culture wars and more time deliberately cultivating the practices that will "thicken" our faith and deepen our witness. Here is a post from Rod's blog in July that summarizes his thoughts on the Benedict Option.

Websites I Read Almost Daily

• I read?The New Yorker almost every day. I like the short form pieces from folks like John Cassidy and Amy Davidson, but I really prefer The New Yorker for its?long-form essays like this one about Northern Ireland that I wrote about in April.
• I also browse?The Atlantic's website regularly, though I believe that?The Atlantic?is a much worse magazine since it expanded its online footprint. Many of the online articles seem to be merely a slightly (sometimes?very slightly) more serious version of the kind of thing that I suppose you find on Buzzfeed or The Huffington Post, and I do not mean that as a compliment. The Atlantic these days seems to feature quick-reaction pieces on hot-button topics that lack nuance and wisdom. (I'll say more about my complaints with?The Atlantic in part 3 of this series.)
• I browse the?Yahoo! main site and scroll through the headlines, particularly about sports and politics.
• I check out the?BBC Sport's soccer page almost daily.

Online Newsletters and Other Sites

• I read movie reviews on?Plugged In every few weeks or so. I'm interested in movies, but I like reading reviews from a conservative Christian perspective (a perspective you don't get from mainstream reviewers). I rarely have time to see movies in the theater anymore, so I find myself reading many more reviews of movies than actually seeing movies.
• I've recently discovered?Book Notes,?a free newsletter from Byron Borger, owner of Hearts and Minds bookstore in central Pennsylvania. Through Book Notes, I've stumbled across books that I would never have heard of elsewhere--it's a great resources.
• I read articles and watch videos the videos on the CrossFit main site several times a week.

Coming in Parts 2 and 3....

Parts 2 and 3 will be about what I regularly listen to and watch and read in print. The above is what I read online on a regular basis. What about you? What makes up your daily media diet?  

P.S. Subscribe!

If you've read this far, why don't you go ahead and subscribe to my blog? I post 3 times a week (Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays). Click here to subscribe.

My One Word for 2015

Resolutions don't work. Rather than focusing on a list of specific ways we want to live differently each year, I wrote last year about a better alternative: focusing and living into a one word theme for the new year.

The Most Important Thing I Did in 2014

The single most important thing I did in 2014 was make a habit of getting up early for prayer and exercise. As I've written?previously, that habit was a keystone habit that affected every area of my life last year.Overall, I did better in the first seven months of the year than I did in the final five months, when I found myself busier than I'd ever been in my life. Rather than redoubling my efforts towards my early habit when I needed it most, I let it slide, and therefore so did my prayer life, physical fitness, and sermon quality. (No kidding--I think my early habit helps me be a much more effective preacher.)So, I'm keeping the same word for 2015 as I had for 2014.

My One Word for 2015

My one word for 2015 is?early.I want to:

• wake up early
• pray early
• workout early
• finish tasks early
• get to appointments early
• finish my sermon early (this would be life-changing!)
• get to bed early

What about you? Why? Leave comments below. 

P.S. A Note to My Dear Readers

Dear reader, today is our one year anniversary. I've enjoyed writing for this blog, and though I've been doing it infrequently, I'm interested in writing more regularly in 2015.If?you haven't yet done so, why not sign up to receive updates from me? I promise to only rarely share your info with Russian spammers. (Just kidding--I'll sell it to the highest bidder, regardless of nationality.)You can sign up at the top right of this page.

One Word That Will Change Your Life

What if there were one word that had the power to change every aspect?of your life? What if one word could affect your health, your finances, your marriage, your career? What if applying one word to your everyday life could really have that much of an effect?

The Power of Habit (which isn't our "one word")

Charles Duhigg wrote about habits in his 2012 book?The Power of Habit, which I briefly reviewed here. As Mr. Duhigg explains, your brain develops habits so you don't have to spend energy thinking through decisions--you just act without thinking. An important part of that process is the "habit loop," which works like this:First, there is the?cue‘that triggers the habit;Second, there is the routine?itself;Third, there is the?reward from the routine.

This Is Why You Are Addicted to Your Phone

In practice, the habit loop might work like this:1. Your phone buzzes. That's the?cue.2. You take your phone out and look at it. That's the?routine.3. You get a dopamine hit from the new email. That's the?reward. Note that sometimes the email or notification you get isn't meaningful to you. But, because?sometimes the notification might mean something, your brain still perceives it as a potential reward.The power of the habit loop is evident in the way many of us will interrupt virtually anything else going on in our lives to look at our phones when they buzz. And it's all because of the simple habit loop of?cue, routine, and reward. 

Change Your Habits, Change Your Life

Knowing this about habits, we are able to manipulate them to get the results we want. In some ways, for example, Alcoholics Anonymous is all about replacing destructive habits with healthy ones. (This is why coffee is an important part of so many AA meetings. Coffee becomes part of a replacement habit loop.)Here's the truth: if you are intentional about your habits, you can change your life. 

The Power of a?Keystone Habit

The really interesting part of?The Power of Habit?is the discussion about so-called "Keystone Habits." A keystone habit is a simple habit that has effects that cascade into other aspects of an individual's or a group's life.So, a keystone habits might be:

• Exercising every morning;
• Making your bed every morning
• Having all?players on the team put on their socks in a certain way;
• Putting safety concerns on the top of your corporate agenda.

To think of it another way, a keystone habit is the first domino that falls and knocks down all the others with it.So, a keystone habit in healthy families is having dinner together at home every evening. That simple practice affects the relationship between the mom and the dad and the kids' behavior in school and even their reading level. It's one domino that falls, knocking over a bunch of others.

A One Word Keystone Habit Guaranteed to Change Your Life

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." (Mark 1:35). [My emphasis.]

"Early"?is a word that can change your life.Early?is about intentionally spending?the first 15 minutes of your day--before doing anything else--in silent prayer and scripture reading.Early?is shorthand for a keystone habit that will affect every other part of your life. Guaranteed. 

Don't Start Your Day Being Reactive

Most of us start our day in this way:1. The alarm goes off. (The?cue.)2. We pick up our phone and check our email, or our Facebook or Twitter accounts, or turn on our preferred news channel, or check on an overnight sports score. (The routine.)3. We get a hit of dopamine as we feel more connected and assure ourselves we haven't missed out on anything. (The?reward.)What's so problematic about this habit is that?it means‘that we are spending the first minutes of our day in a reactive rather than an active pose.

No Wonder We Are Such Anxious People

Do you really want to spend the first minutes you have every day seeing what someone else had for dinner or hearing another depressing headline about the world or worrying about your boss's latest request? Rather than being in control of your day, starting your day by checking headlines or email or social media accounts means you are immediately ceding control to someone or something else.

The Power of the First 15

Now, imagine the alternative.1. The alarm goes off.2. You get up and settle into your favorite chair or sit at the kitchen table or go on your front porch. You deliberately cultivate a sense of gratitude at another day of life. You think over the coming day's appointments and pray for each of them. You read a psalm or a portion of a scripture reading plan. You pray for your family, your colleagues, your city.3. You shut your Bible, close your journal, take a deep breath, and start your day.Can you imagine what could happen if you intentionally started every day like this?Can you imagine how much more control and how much less anxiety you'd have throughout the day?

Don't Worry If You're Not a Morning Person

Everyone has to get up sometime. Even if you aren't a morning person, you can still wake up 15 minutes earlier than you would normally. "Early" means to be deliberate about your first 15 minutes. It doesn't really matter when that 15 is. If you work the night shift, your first 15 could be 4:00 PM. What matters is that you spend your first 15 minutes in silence and scripture.

Don't Worry If You're Not a Religious Person

Even if you don't believe in prayer or scripture, you can still do this. Spend the first 15 minutes of your day thinking of all you have to be grateful for.

5 Steps to Life Change

1. Create a morning routine. Think deliberately through your cue, your routine, and your reward. Maybe you need to set the coffee machine to be a part of your First 15. For me, marking a big fat "X" on a paper calendar is surprisingly satisfying.
2. Create an evening routine. You need to prepare the night before for how you'll spend your First 15 every day. Lay out your Bible; set out your cereal bowl. Whatever it is, your morning routine begins with an evening routine.
3. Plan your time. Don't just get up and see what you want to do. Rather, make a plan to follow a certain reading plan or to pray over a certain list of names or read an online devotional or to deliberately list all the gifts?for which you are grateful that day, etc.
4. Commit for 21 days. Anyone can commit to the First 15 one day, but that's not enough for the habit loop to affect your behavior. Commit for three week?no matter what and see what happens.
5. Evaluate. What's working? What's not working? If you are struggling to make the First 15 a habit, then you should reexamine your habit loop. Is the cue not clear enough? Is the routine not smooth enough? Do you need a better reward?

Pushups Over Time

Following a habit once doesn't make any difference; following a habit for weeks and months and years will change your life. Doing 20 pushups today is irrelevant; doing 10 pushups a day for 100 days will radically alter your health.Being deliberate with your First 15 once might not make a big difference, but even 3 weeks of practicing the "early" habit will make you into a different person.

What do you have to lose?

P.S. Folks in my church are currently following a scripture reading plan called "Eat This Book." Today is the first day of a new book--we're beginning Luke's Gospel today. Why not make a chapter of Luke's Gospel part of your First 15 for the next 3 weeks?

What's Your One Word for 2014?

Resolutions don't work. So, rather than focusing on all the ways we want to live differently in 2014, a little book?I read recently suggests we'd be better off focusing on a one word theme for the year and live into it.What's your one word?For 2014, mine is "early."I want to:

• wake up early
• pray early
• workout early
• finish tasks early
• get to appointments early
• finish my sermon early (this would be life-changing!)
• get to bed early

What about you? Leave comments below.