All of us face challenges from time to time, and I’ve grabbed hold of an important principle that we should apply in those kinds of times. It’s the Anti-Deer-in-the-Headlights Principle.

When difficulty comes, sometimes we stop—frozen in our tracks—and the difficulty becomes DANGER!

When I was a kid we had a large field of alfalfa behind our house. The groundhogs loved it. From our back window I could see them crawling through the alfalfa and I’d sneak out into the field with my Dad’s single-shot .22 caliber rifle and crawl on my belly until I was in position. Then I’d whistle loudly and it would startle the groundhog. He’d stop. Then he’d raise on his hind legs to look for where the sound came from. BANG!

Imagine if you started to drive across the railroad tracks and your car stalled on the tracks. Would you just sit there wide-eyed? Or would you get out and get moving? Then why do we so often stop in the swamp when we get bogged down by stuff?

Forward momentum is of utmost importance. There’s a song on the radio that says “If you’re going through Hell, keep on going, don’t slow down, if you’re scared don’t show it, you might get out before the Devil even knows you’re there.” But not if you stop.

It’s a weird quirk of humanity that in times of trouble we stop, frozen in the headlights, dead on the tracks facing the oncoming train.

Next time you find yourself in difficulty, hit the gas! Don’t stop. Accelerate through the problem and let the forward momentum carry you to safely to the other side.

Do you ever “sleep nervous,” awakening in the middle of the night with important things you forgot to do, or need to be sure and remember to do the next day? Do you ever come to the end of the week feeling like you’ve worked hard, but haven’t really accomplished much? If you do, here’s a technique I use, that might be helpful to you.

Every Sunday night I sit down with a legal pad and spend a few minutes thinking about what I must accomplish in the next week for it to be successful. Once I’ve identified the week’s achievements, I figure out which one’s are the most important for Monday and write them under the MONDAY heading. Those are the things I do on Monday. The whole process takes less than 30 minutes.

On Tuesday I’ll take the next most important things and put them under the TUESDAY heading.

I think you see where this is headed.

I always work from the same pads. Some items flow from day to day, or week to week. But that’s OK. Something that got bumped last week because of an unavoidable delay, can get picked back up in the week to come. So these lists become a diary of accomplishments—-completed and remaining to be completed. They help to focus my week, and my day. By writing them down on Sunday night I sleep well because my mind can “let them go” knowing the items are “captured” and I’ll deal with them in the daylight.

Recently I’ve taken to emailing my key team members each morning with the day of the week and the word “priorities” in the subject line. On Monday they’ll get “Monday’s Priorities” and a quick note of what I am working on, what I am concerned about, what I need help with, etc. It helps them to stay on task with me, and helps all of us to be “pulling together in the same direction.”

These tools aren’t magic. They are just tools that increase my effectiveness. I used them daily. If they help you, great!

What kinds of tools do you use to be more effective? Would you be willing to share those with me?

I listen to ALOT of speakers and teachers on podcasts and in person, and have spent a significant amount of time on the platform myself which makes me horribly critical of other speakers when they fail to deliver a coherent message. By my estimate, that happens about half the time. Here is a tip I want to share and that I hope you’ll find helpful.

At the outset of your preparation answer this question: What is it I want my audience to do? Do I want them to take an external action? Do I want them to change a belief? Do I want them to volunteer? Donate? Behave? What is it that I want them to do?

The answer to this question helps to focus what you present. Speakers are constantly tempted to tell good stories that have nothing to do with purpose of their presentation. Time is too precious for that. You have limited minutes with your audience. If you are speaking to 100 people and you speak for 45 minutes, you just used 75 hours of time. If that time is worth $20 per hour you just burned through $1500. If you’re speaking to 1000 people worth $50 per hour you just burned $37,500 worth of time. You’d better say something worth $37,000!

If you are going to take someone’s precious time from them, you’d better make it worth their while. The best way I know to do that is to figure out what you are trying to achieve with your presentation, and then pursue that end with maniacal laser focus.

Have you had a lap dance lately? No, not that kind, but one that can wreak just as much havoc in your family if you aren’t careful with it. I lap-danced in 2010, and I’m reflecting on whether I am better for it. It’s a dance that happens in my easy chair, with my laptop, books and files on my lap.

One of the things that I bought myself in this year was a lap desk. You know, a hardwood surface on one side for writing or for your computer to sit on while you are in your easy chair, and a pillow-like back side so that it “settles” solidly on your lap fitting to the shape of your legs. In fact, I didn’t just buy myself one, I bought two: one to go beside my easy chair in front of the fireplace in the hearth room, and one beside my other easy chair in front of the fireplace in the bedroom.

Is my lap desk a blessing or a curse? I think it’s both. It’s a blessing in that I can sit comfortably in front of the fire, in an easy chair, with the family and dogs all around, and do work. It’s a curse in that at the end of my day when I should be resting, decompressing, and being all about my wife and kids, I can get caught up in work because it’s so easy to access my computer or notebooks “for just a minute” while I’m sitting with the family, and then three hours later I’m still working away.

I keep trying to find balance. I think I’m doing OK, not great, but neither am I failing. It’s no sin to work on your lap desk in the evening, but its no virtue either.

Would I buy a lap desk again? Yes. But its kinda like having narcotics in the medicine cabinet. Both the narcotic and the lap desk need to be used properly and not misused so that they make your life better instead of digging you a deeper hole.

We’ve all got cell phones, laptops, etc., that are simultaneous blessings and curses. What’s the slightly unusual thing you have—like my lapdesk—that is a tiger you have to keep in its cage? Tell me about it at clicking here.

Is there any chance you are trying too hard?

I’ve been feeling really exhausted; sorta the “I’m kinda worried about me” kind of exhausted. But suddenly things have changed:

#1. I cut back on my workouts. I’m doing three days a week, maybe four on a good week, but not trying to hit five days.

#2. I ate some of what I wanted. I actually had a big slab of lasagna on Tuesday evening, and a piece of cake last night. Meanwhile I’ve also focused a bit more on water intake, replacing a little carb with protein and adding some fruit.

#3. I awakened to the truth that the battles I’ve been fighting are not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual enemies (as Ephesians 6:12 says—that’s a series of blog posts in itself) and must be fought with spiritual weaponry, so I/we changed our approach to dealing with our problems.

The result? Well, I am sleeping better. When I got on the scale today I was down three pounds. I horsed a good workout this morning, and feel invigorated. My attitude at work has been superb.

My conclusion: I’d been trying too hard. Trying to push and exercise more. Trying to eat “by the law of the diet” instead of giving myself some grace but continuing to be wise. Trying to muscle-up against my problems. I just think I’ve been trying too hard.

How about you?

In baseball we teach a kid to “loosen his grip on the bat.” When he misses a pitch and hears the ump yell “Strike 1!” it creates tension, and the natural result of tension is for the hitter to tighten his grip on the bad—it’s the physical aspect of his mental resolve to hit the ball. And the result is—all too often—that the hitter becomes just a batter who got to hear “Strike 2!” and “Strike 3, yer out!”

The lessons are: Loose grip, gentle swing, just make contact with the ball, drink your water, eat your fruits and vegetables, reduce but don’t eliminate those starches you crave, and get your butt off the couch but don’t train like you’re going to be in the next Olympics (it’s the little 5K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, silly boy).

Is there any chance you are trying too hard?