Be Balanced

Hey, y', all, it's Justin here. So I don't do a lot of ads, but I'm a slide this ad in on the side. Here's why your boy finished his first book. Isn't that awesome? It's a book called Necessary Endings, titled some things need to die in order for you to live. It tells my entire story, a story that started a long time ago, a journey I've been on, from suicide attempts to life from. And really what happened is I took a moment to go away, to pause and. And to really engage in changing my mindset as I change my future. And maybe that's where you are and you want to grab ahold of even some of the principles you hear on here. All you have to do is go to Amazon, search Necessary Endings by Justin Lester, and you can download your copy on ebooks. You can order your copy as well. Let me know you got it. Let me know. It's a blessing to you. Let me know what you would like to see in our next book as we engage in whatever God calls us to do next. All right, let's get back into this podcast and see what else we're talking about as we're Made for Mondays. Hey, everyone, Justin here. Welcome to Made for Mondays. I'm glad to have all of you a part of our time today. I wanted to take a moment and engage today about balance. About balance. Going into every single week, one of the things that I realize is there's a necessity to pause and ensure that you don't have too much weight in one particular day or one particular area of your life. One of the areas of my life that was a failure, but success was able to come when I took time to conquer. It was my balance. I was spending so much time on particular days of the week doing so much. I had so many meetings, so much writing and so much reading, had so many things I needed to do on one day that I didn't take the time to actually own what I needed to do in order to be the person I needed to be that week. And so I had to learn the necessity of balance. One of the. There's a number of different practices we could do, but the first question I want to ask you is, what overwhelms you as you think about this week? What is it? Who is it? Where is it that overwhelms you as you begin your week? And what if you were able to grab a hold of that and spread that out over the course of the week? Now, normally for me, Thursdays were At the absolute worst day of the week for me. That's where I had all my meetings, had all my reading, all my writing. I did all my sermon prep, all my sermon finalization. All the meetings for church were Thursday evening. All of our small groups for Thursday evening school was Thursday during the day. I mean, there were so many things that would always happen on Thursday that I would go into Thursday fearful, worried, overwhelmed, and so down. Because Thursday was going to be the day that just ruins everything. And then I rest and don't engage on Friday. And then I made the decision to do this. I made the decision to then name each day of the week for me as it works for me. Number one, one day has to be relegated to rest. Whether that's your Saturday, whether that's your Sabbath. Throughout the week, another day can be relegated to fully only meetings. Therefore, the day before has to have a moment where you prepare for meetings. Another practice I put employed for meetings is I never had back to back meetings anymore. I make sure there's always a half hour to 45 minutes in between every single one of the meetings I had Then also, along with that, I had to have a day that was completely dedicated to reading and researching for my job, right? Making sure I'm reading, I'm updated, I know what's going on. And when I began to name days, I then was able to spread my week out instead of letting one or two days drive my entire week. Maybe the reasons that Mondays overwhelm us is because maybe Monday isn't overwhelming, but there's a certain day of the week that's overwhelming. I believe it's more powerful, y', all, to drive at a certain speed, a speed at a. Drive at a certain speed and move on your journey instead of accelerating and slamming on your brakes and accelerating and slamming on your brakes. So I challenge you, here are the practical things, practical things of it. Make sure your meetings have 30 to 45 minutes in between. Therefore, you can prepare for the meeting. You can be ready for the meeting. You can decompress from one meeting. You can have meetings with your staff members, meeting with your leaders. After a meeting and before meeting, you can be prepared for it. You can make sure you have travel time so you don't have to meet on the travel, but you can engage with yourself and find yourself as you go into your spaces. Another practice I think is so important is ensure that you have a day, a week that you're resting. Ensure there's a day this week that you're resting, that you're pulling Away from where you are to be present with who you are and whatever your resting looks like. Rest. Those are the overall practical points. So here's some other things I can give you, some points of purpose. Number one, name your triggers and then start being a trigger. Name your triggers and then start being a trigger. When I talk about naming your triggers, what triggers you to anxiety? What triggers you to being overwhelmed? What triggers you to being down? What triggers you to giving up? What triggers you to stop emailing? What triggers? You name your triggers. Because when you name it, then you know what to expect and you know what to conquer and you can see it before it comes. If you don't name your triggers now, your triggers are going to encounter you. So you get triggered by something. Someone upsets you, someone makes you down, someone makes you frustrated, someone makes you anxious, someone makes you feel overwhelmed. But when you name what triggers you. I know this co worker bothers me. I know that this particular situation is going to bug me. When I name my triggers, they don't trigger me. And then what you also can do along with triggers is ensure that every space you're walking into, you are the trigger. Therefore, I'm getting out of my car saying, listen, this is who I am. This is what I'm going to do. I am me. Nobody's going to stop me from being me. And as you walk into a meeting, I am me. No one's willing to stop me from being me. As you walk into a job, as you walk into an interview, as you walk into other people, this is who I am. This is what I'm bringing. I am the trigger for this moment and now the places you go into that trigger, you, you now conquered it because you are the trigger for, for that space. Embrace your triggers and be the trigger going into the spaces number two this week in terms of balance, be present, go into spaces and be there. Practice a healthy perspective that you now can name the things before things begin to name you, that you are present in these spaces. The thing about balance to me is that balance means that I have to be present and not always outside of the space, always gone from the space, always leading with assumptions and bias and worries, worry and fear. But I'm leading with a clear and level head because I'm showed up in the room. I see what's in the room. I'm owning what's in the room and I'm owning the people that are around me. So I want you to name triggers before the triggers get you and be a trigger. I want you to be present in your spaces. And then thirdly, and finally, I want you to applaud you this week. I want you to applaud you this week. You may not get applause from other people because one of the things that challenges us in terms of balance is relationships. I want others to appreciate me. I want others to love what I'm doing. I want others to engage in what I'm doing. And because of that, therefore, I'm not able to live fully into who I am because I'm imbalanced in terms of affirmation and receiving. So I want you to applaud you this week. Applaud when you overcome. Applaud when you win. Applaud. Applaud yourself even when you lose because there's winning and failure. Applaud when something happens. Applaud when something doesn't happen. Find space to applaud this week. I guarantee you a culture of celebration will shift everything around you because then you're looking for reasons to celebrate and not looking for things to overcome. Listen, you can win this week. I'm sure you can. Monday is not going to define you. You will define Monday. Monday won't defeat you. You will defeat Monday. Monday won't overwhelm you. You can overwhelm Monday. Balance your week out. I want you to consider a couple of things even now. What were you planning to do on Wednesday that you can accomplish today? What emails were you worried about reading or receiving or even sending today that you can push to tomorrow? What things can you organize today and bring from Friday to today so you can rest? You can have your lunch, you can have your drive home, you can have the drive in between something. Because now you have balanced your week out by watching your triggers, making sure you're celebrating and creating space to celebrate. Because Mondays don't define you. You define Mondays. Listen, this would be the best week you ever had. Best week you didn't know you could have. The best week that's possible for you. Can you say our affirmations with us? Repeat after me. Say I am me. I can be me. No one will stop me from being me. Go win your Monday. You were made for this.

This has been made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Be sure to follow Justin online at mrjlest and online at www.jluster.com. see you next week. Go win. You were made for this.