When we picked FOCUS as our word for 2014, we really meant it. We’ve always cared about the whys of what we do, but until this year they were all basically individual whys about specific issues.
We hadn’t ever taken the time to sit down and verbalize the whys of how we do life, but we found that they were there in our subconscious, refined over the past 10 years of doing life together. After several days of reflecting and refining, we now have a clarity that is invaluable for informing all future decisions and goals.
No doubt there will be tweaks to come, but tweaking is a million times easier than rethinking your whole life every so often, no? Here’s how we break it down.
What do you center your life around?
What is your life about? What are the most important aspects, the roots of why you do life? Figuring this out helps put all the little things in perspective.
We have three things that we want our lives to be about.
Truth
Ultimately, we know our life isn’t about what we see on the surface. We view it as a journey of learning and growing in our understanding of who God is and our relationship with him, who he made us to be, and how that affects the way we interact with our community, society, and the world.
Finding and embracing Truth = living in freedom.
Living in freedom = discovering your greatest potential.
Relationships
We believe that maintaining a healthy family is one of the most important things we’ll ever do, and is vital to real success in other areas of life. We were not made to do life alone – richness of relationships is the true measure of wealth. The people on your “team” matter.
Creating
Made in the image of the Creator, and passionate about all things creative, we know we’re here to create things that point people back to him. We’re constantly exploring new ways of doing that.
What is your life philosophy?
How do you do life? How do you approach life?
There are three principles we feel do a good job of covering the bases for doing life well.
Embrace the Journey
It’s OK to not be perfect, to not do things perfectly, to fail. Sometimes crap happens, sometimes you can’t seem to see a light at the end of the tunnel. Each day is a new day, each moment a chance to start over fresh. Choose to see life as an adventure, each situation as a chance to learn and grow. The struggle is where muscles are made. We’re not just trying to get to “someday”, we want to appreciate the journey.
Defy Your Comfort Zone
We prefer to be comfortable as much as the next guy, but our goal is to make choices that force us out of our comfort zone regularly. It happens much faster than you can imagine, that part of you slowly starts to wither away in your comfortable routine, parts of you that could have been never having the chance to blossom. One day you have the sad realization that you’re really stuck in a rut and set in your ways. That is, if you ever wake up to realize it at all.
Choose Simplicity
When we started our lives together we were all about getting the most we could for the least expense. While we’re still frugal, we’ve realized in the last few years how much “stuff” bogs us down. Spending winters away from home with mainly the basic necessities showed us how freeing cutting back is. Every single area of life benefits so much from simplifying and focusing on what’s really important – but there is always “more” trying to get your attention, you have to choose simplicity.
So to review:
