beBetter 

So I’m running late to make it to the office for a cherished face-to-face meeting (I’m a little zoomed out, how about you?).

Entering the garage, our third garage door is open. Hmmm, I know I came out last night and hit the buttons to put all three doors down. Yet, there it is, wide open. Something must be too close to the sensor at the bottom of the door.

Jumping into the car with CeCe, we are running a quick errand to pick up some plants for her gardening. Like her late father Poppy, CeCe is a master gardener and we have the yard to prove it. Beautiful!

I’m on my four-wheeler today as I head towards my favorite oxbow lake to see if I can catch my favorite fish, crappie! It has been raining for days so the four-wheeler trail is a muddy mess, but I’m smiling all the way back to the lake. It is so much fun to get on this lake all alone and enjoy the sights and sounds of God’s beautiful creation. Catching a few crappie will be the icing on the cake.  

Bang, clang and a loud hum...the garbage truck is here! Panic set in as I realized that I had not put out our overflowing garbage cans. I jumped up from my office in the front of the house, ran to the back and opened the carport doors. I could hear the garbage truck was close, so I grabbed both cans and began quickly racing down the driveway with our garbage. There went the truck, right past our house.

One small thing, if repeated daily, is not a small thing. It leads to big things and big impact. One good daily habit can be the difference in great and average. The difference in outstanding and typical. Small things are always easy to do or easy not to do. 

Focus is powerful and it starts with thinking about the most important things. Am I doing what I simply want to do or am I working on my priorities? Am I letting little things cloud my focus on the important ones?

Recently, after hosting our partner retreat, I was exhausted after our six hour drive back home. We also had my grandson, Davis, and a friend of his with us all week so when I wasn’t leading our retreat, I was trying to keep up with two 10-year-olds who could exhaust the energizer bunny. 

Recently, I was checking into the DoubleTree Downtown in Austin, TX around 9 p.m. after a long day of travel.  Now, my self-discipline is always weak between 9 and 10 p.m. when I love to start snacking. This urge to snack is tripled when I am traveling. I start rationalizing that “I deserve this” and I must say it works 99% of the time. I am really good at convincing myself how much I deserve what I don’t need.