“We want to do amazing things for God, but that isn’t our job. God is the one who does amazing things for us. . . . Our job is to consecrate ourselves to God, one day at a time. If we do our job, God will do His.”- Mark Batterson
“Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.”- Exodus 23:30 (NIV)
Mark Batterson prefaces Day 18 (“Do It Small”) of Do It for a Day with Habit 4 – Fly the Kite. First, Pastor Batterson observes, flying the kite is all about consistent consistency. And if our government engaged in flying the kite, that would take place in the department of redundancy department. Therefore, flying the kite involves making marginal progress every day. It’s 1 percent improvement.
Moving on to Day 18, Pastor Batterson notes that the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens use an impressive piece of technology called electromyography. It measures muscle pathology. As a result, the biofeedback enables coaches to identify weaknesses that need to be strengthened. As well as tendencies that need to be counterbalanced. Coaches call the process gait analysis. The goal involves helping athletes move more efficiently and more effectively.
Most significantly, Mark applies this concept to us:
“A key component of self-leadership is self-evaluation. We’ve got to do our own gait analysis. How? By going through the three-step cycle we keep coming back to — identify the prompt, interrupt the pattern, and imagine the prize. We may not be able to hook ourselves up to a machine that provides real-time biofeedback, but we can deconstruct a habit cycle if we know what we’re looking for.”
In conclusion, Mark suggests doing a SWOT analysis. While organizations often employ the SWOT for strategic planning purposes, it also works well for people. SWOT stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Such an analysis may help reverse engineer the habit cycle.
Today’s question: What feeds your desire to do amazing things for God? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “No finish line – play the long game”
